This book is the first complete survey and critical appraisal of the large body of research that has appeared during approximately the last decade concerning the analysis of knowing. Robert K. Shope pays special attention to the social aspects of knowing and proposes a new formulation of the fundamental structure of the Gettier problem. Originally published in 1983. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton (...) University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Is truth ultimately made, not discovered? Is reality something we construct, by thinking about it? In this article, Robert Kirk gets to grips with the popular idea that truth and reality are, in the last analysis, our own invention.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IS EVERY HUMAN BEING A PERSON?* ROBERT SPAEMANN Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munich, Germany I. DEFINING THE QUESTION THE PAPAL encyclical, Evangelium vitae (EV), declares solemnly that "... the direct and voluntary killing of an innocent human being is always gravely immoral" (EV 57). This unconditional ethical obligation to respect every human life is justified by reference to "the incomparable dignity of the human person." Such an unconditioned claim is made (...) upon us by the face of every human being we meet. The encyclical supports this claim of intuitive perception with two arguments. First and foremost, the claim to unconditional respect is based biblically and theologically on the recognition of the human being as the imago Dei. The human is the "image" of God. Humans, however, are not unconditioned simply taken in themselves ; merely as such, theirs is a most conditioned, finite being, which can be transformed from living to dead with hardly the lifting of a finger. And yet, such violence, while always possible for us physically, is absolutely impossible on another level. In the human being something "reveals" itself to us that is more than any finite and conditioned mode of being; thus, the term "image." In contrast to mere pictures, which are images only in an accidental sense, the human is created as image. Human being is being an image. Thus human being participates in the 'Translated by Richard Schenk, O.P. 463 464 ROBERT SPAEMAN incorruptibility of the One of whom the human is an image. Human beings are called to eternal life. The second and secondary argument is based on the consequences of not respecting the unconditioned dignity of the human being. The encyclical points out that an order of law in which the freedom from being at another's free disposition is lacking does not deserve the name of law; it is merely an organization of the power of the stronger over the weaker. In section nineteen the pope mentions a theory held by some who would acknowledge only those humans as subjects of legal rights who already manifest certain signs of personal autonomy. He also speaks of the theory of those who would "identify the dignity of the person with the capacity for explicitly verbal communication." Not included in this category are therefore the unborn, the dying, and severely impaired or senile humans; although not mentioned by the encyclical, it must be added that by this theory infants are excluded as well. In his book, Practical Ethics,1 the most influential proponent of this theory, Peter Singer, has declared outright that the life of a human infant is of less value than that of an adult pig.2 Because the encyclical argues for the most part theologically, it does not deal closely with the arguments proposed by Singer and his followers in their attempt to eliminate human rights and to claim that not all human beings are persons.3 The Holy Scriptures do not speak of "persons" as such, but simply of human beings. For revelation, humanity is one single family: all that are begotten of humans belong to this family. The conviction that even newlyborn children possess human dignity is reflected in the infancy 1 Peter Singer, Practical Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). An expanded second edition appeared in 1993 (Cambridge University Press). 2 "A week-old baby is not a rational and self-conscious being, and there are many nonhuman animals whose rationality, self-consciousness, awareness, capacity to feel, and so on, exceed that of a human baby a week, a month, or even a year old. If the fetus does not have the same claim to life as a person, it appears that the newborn baby does not either, and the life of a newborn baby is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee" (Singer, Practical Ethics, 122-23; in the second edition this statement appears with slight modifications on p. 169). 3 Cf. also Norbert Hoerster, Abtreibung im saekularen Staat: Argumente gegen den Paragraphen 218 (Frankfurt, 1991). IS EVERY HUMAN BEING A PERSON? 465 narratives of the Gospel, where shepherds and kings worship the child at Bethlehem. The conviction that human being begins... (shrink)

Adams presents an in-depth interpretation of three important parts of Leibniz's metaphysics, thoroughly grounded in the texts as well as in philosophical analysis and critique. The three areas discussed are the metaphysical part of Leibniz's philosophy of logic, his essentially theological treatment of the central issues of ontology, and his theory of substance. Adams' work helps make sense of one of the great classic systems of modern philosophy.

Robert John Ackermann deals decisively with the problem of relativism that has plagued post-empiricist philosophy of science. Recognizing that theory and data are mediated by data domains (bordered data sets produced by scientific instruments), he argues that the use of instruments breaks the dependency of observation on theory and thus creates a reasoned basis for scientific objectivity. Originally published in 1985. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished (...) backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Robert Wolfe writes about the nature of the ajata teachings, or the nature of emptiness and absolute reality.

Robert Zafft presents the too-often abstract language of business ethics in straight-forward language, laying out two themes commonly ignored: in the real world, it is often easy to lay out an ethical path but often very difficult to implement and encourage adherence to that path, and reputation is the single most important asset in business.

Studies of knowledge utilization in public policy-making have important practical and theoretical implications. Accordingly, a voluminous work has been done on understanding and explaining the process of knowledge utilization (see Rich and Oh, 1993). However, we can easily find that there is the conspicuous absence of a greatly expanded understanding of the use of knowledge from those studies (Mandell and Sauter, 1984). Taken as a whole, empirical studies in the area of knowledge utilization have suffered from several critical problems (see (...) Rich, 1991; Oh, 1996a). More importantly, there appears to be serious conceptual and methodological gaps which need to be filled. This article focuses on one of the most significant methodological problems: measuring “knowledge utilization” from an evaluation perspective and offers some suggestions for future studies. (shrink)

In this book, Robert Sokolowski argues that being a person means to be involved with truth. He shows that human reason is established by syntactic composition in language, pictures, and actions and that we understand things when they are presented to us through syntax. Sokolowski highlights the role of the spoken word in human reason and examines the bodily and neurological basis for human experience. Drawing on Husserl and Aristotle, as well as Aquinas and Henry James, Sokolowski here employs (...) phenomenology in a highly original way in order to clarify what we are as human agents. (shrink)

In “Conditions and Analyses of Knowledge”, Robert Shope focuses on the conditions that must be satisfied for a person to have knowledge, specifically knowledge that something is so. Traditionally, knowledge has been analyzed in terms of justified true belief. Shope addresses philosophers’ disagreements concerning the truth and belief conditions. After introducing the justification condition, he presents challenges that have provoked several attempts to replace or to supplement the justification condition for knowledge. Shope presents and assesses several of these, including (...) early causal theories, the nonaccidentality requirement, reliable process and conditional analyses, the reliable‐indicator analysis, the conclusive reasons analysis, defeasibility analyses, analyses in terms of cognitive or intellectual virtues, and proper functionalism as well as his own account of knowledge. (shrink)

This is an interview by the Erasmus Journal for Philosophy and Economics with Robert Sugden. The interview covers the intellectual trajectory of Sugden, from his early critique of Amartya Sen’s liberalism, to his interactions with James Buchanan and his contributions to behavioural economics. A major theme in the interview is Sugden’s development of a rival program of normative economics based on modern behavioural economics. The interview also discusses Sugden’s recent book The Community of Advantage which synthesizes many of the (...) themes he worked on. (shrink)

What is compassion? I suggest that it is, as Adam Smith and David Hume once argued, a moral sentiment that is subject to a great many constraints and variations but is nonetheless “natural.” I also consider Nietzsche's rather vehement attack on Mitleid and current social psychological literature on empathy.

There seems to be no end to moralizing about the vices, but there is too little appreciation of them as mere human foibles and an essential part of the “human circus.” There are also serious questions about whether some of the so-called deadly sins are sinful at all.

Too often, since the 19th century, sensitivity is dismissed as mere “sentimentality” in philosophy and in literature. It is charged that sentimentality is distorting, self-indulgent, self-deceptive. I argue that all of these charges are misplaced or themselves distorted and betray a suspicion of emotions and the tender sentiments that is unwarranted.

Do we love for reasons? Most romantics would insist not. In fact, we love despite good reasons not to love. I argue that love necessarily involves reasons. I discuss the problem of loving someone for his or her looks and what I call Plato's Problem, loving only the properties of a person. I end by discussing some dubious and perverse reasons for love.

Spirituality is often dismissed as mere sentimentality. It is also often opposed to science and the scientific worldview, as if the one is anathema to the other. I suggest that spirituality has distinct advantages over religion and is not at all opposed to science or scientific thinking.

In this paper, I argue that, despite Locke’s explicitly subjectivist definition of miracle, he in fact employs an objectivist understanding of the concept. This contrast between his official definition and his employment of an objectivist understanding of what it is for an event to be a miracle is a result of his confusing the epistemological issue of how to recognize a miracle with the ontological issue of what a miracle is.

In one of his precritical works, Kant defends, as “the only possible” way of demonstrating the existence of God, an argument from the nature of possibility. Whereas Leibniz had argued that possibilities must be thought by God in order to obtain the ontological standing that they need, Kant argued that at least the most fundamental possibilities must be exemplified in God. Here Kant’s argument is critically examined in comparison with its Leibnizian predecessor, and it is suggested that an argument combining (...) the strengths of both of them has much to be said for it. (shrink)

How do movies evoke and express ethical ideas? What role does our emotional involvement play in this process? What makes the aesthetic power of cinema ethically significant? Cinematic Ethics: _Exploring Ethical Experience through Film_ addresses these questions by examining the idea of cinema as a medium of ethical experience with the power to provoke emotional understanding and philosophical thinking. In a clear and engaging style, Robert Sinnerbrink examines the key philosophical approaches to ethics in contemporary film theory and philosophy (...) using detailed case studies of cinematic ethics across different genres, styles, and filmic traditions. Written in a lucid and lively style that will engage both specialist and non-specialist readers, this book is ideal for use in the academic study of philosophy and film. Key features include annotated suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter and a filmography of movies useful for teaching and researching cinematic ethics. (shrink)

A bridge between semipopular works for the general reader and technical treatises written for specialists, this excellent work discusses the foundational ideas and background of modern physics. It is not a text on theoretical physics, but a discussion of the methods of physic description and construction of theory. As such, it is especially valuable for the physicist with a background in elementary calculus who is interested in the ideas which give meaning to the data and tools of modern physics.