The emergence of private authority has become a feature of the post-Cold War world. The contributors to this volume examine the implications of this erosion of the power of the state for global governance. They analyse actors as diverse as financial institutions, multinational corporations, religious terrorists and organised criminals. The themes of the book relate directly to debates concerning globalization and the role of international law, and will be of interest to scholars and students of international relations, politics, sociology and (...) law. (shrink)

Theodor W. Adorno, one of the leading social thinkers of the twentieth century, long concerned himself with the problems of moral philosophy, or "whether the good life is a genuine possibility in the present." This book consists of a course of seventeen lectures given in May-July 1963. Captured by tape recorder, these lectures present a somewhat different, and more accessible, Adorno from the one who composed the faultlessly articulated and almost forbiddingly perfect prose of the works published in his lifetime. (...) Here we can follow Adorno's thought in the process of formation, endowed with the spontaneity and energy of the spoken word. The lectures focus largely on Kant, "a thinker in whose work the question of morality is most sharply contrasted with other spheres of existence." After discussing a number of the Kantian categories of moral philosophy, Adorno considers other, seemingly more immediate general problems, such as the nature of moral norms, the good life, and the relation of relativism and nihilism. In the course of the lectures, Adorno addresses a wide range of topics, including: theory and practice, ethics as bad conscience, the repressive character, the problem of freedom, dialectics in Kant and Hegel, the nature of reason, the moral law as a given, psychoanalysis, the element of the Absurd, freedom and law, the Protestant tradition of morality, _Hamlet,_ self-determination, phenomenology, the concept of the will, the idea of humanity, _The Wild Duck,_ and Nietzsche's critique of morality. (shrink)

A discussion of the political theory of Walter Rodney and Samir Amin, focusing on Rodney's How Europe Underdeveloped Africa and Amin's Eurocentrism.

The challenge that confronts corporate decision-makers in connection with global labor conditions is often in identifying the standardsby which they should govern themselves. In an effort to provide greater direction in the face of possible global cultural conflicts, ethicistsThomas Donaldson and Thomas Dunfee draw on social contract theory to develop a method for identifying basic human rights: Integrated Social Contract Theory (ISCT). In this paper, we apply ISCT to the challenge of global labor standards, attempting to identify labor rights (...) that could serve as guides for corporations producing or outsourcing outside of their home country. In addition to identifying areas of universal agreement, we also examine whether ISCT is, in fact, a sufficient basis for determining worker rights; we seek to define the parameters of the “sweatshop” problem; we include the application and results of our ISCT analysis as applied to labor standards: the global labor rights hypernorms; and conclude that ISCT is sufficient only for rights that are universal. We also discuss whether market-driven decisions can identify the boundaries of labor rights, or at least assure that market outcomes are compatible with maintaining labor rights, in order to respond to the shortcomings of ISCT. We conclude with some comments on directions of analysis for labor rights determination. (shrink)

One of the central themes of inquiry for Karl Barth, the twentieth-century Protestant theologian, was the notion of revelation. Although he was suspicious of natural theology, recent scientific advances and the flourishing modern dialogue between science and religion offer compelling reasons to revisit Barth’s thinking on the concept. We must again ask whether and how it might be possible to hold together the notion of revelation whilst employing reason and scientific evidence in the justification of belief. In The Heavens Declare, (...) author Rodney Holder re-examines Barth’s natural theology argument and then explores how it has been critiqued and responded to by others, starting with Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Wolfhart Pannenberg. Holder then considers the contributions of two notable British participants in the science-religion dialogue, Thomas Torrance and Alister McGrath, who, despite their repudiation of natural theology in the traditional sense, also provide many positive lessons. The book concludes by defending an overall position which takes into account the ideas of the aforementioned theologians as well as others who are currently engaged positively in natural theology, such as John Polkinghorne and Richard Swinburne. Holder’s new study is sure to be of interest to theologians, philosophers of religion, and all scholars interested in the science-religion dialogue, especially those interested in natural theology as an enterprise in itself. (shrink)

The notion of indivisibles and atoms arose in ancient Greece. The continuum—that is, the collection of points in a straight line segment, appeared to have paradoxical properties, arising from the ‘indivisibles’ that remain after a process of division has been carried out throughout the continuum. In the seventeenth century, Italian mathematicians were using new methods involving the notion of indivisibles, and the paradoxes of the continuum appeared in a new context. This cast doubt on the validity of the methods and (...) the reliability of mathematical knowledge which had been regarded as established by the axiomatic method in geometry expounded by Aristotle’s younger contemporary Euclid. The teaching of indivisibles was banned within the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits. In England, indivisibles were used by the mathematician John Wallis, and there was an acrimonious and extended feud between Wallis and the philosopher Thomas Hobbes over legitimate methods of argument in mathematics. Notions of the infinitesimal were used by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz, and were attacked by Bishop Berkeley for the vagueness of the concept and the illegitimate reasoning applied to it. This article discusses aspects of these events with reference to the book Infinitesimal by Amir Alexander and to other sources. Also discussed are wider issues arising from Alexander’s book including: the changes in cultural sensibility associated with the growth of new mathematical and scientific knowledge in the seventeenth century, the changes in language concomitant with these changes, what constitutes valid methods of enquiry in various contexts, and the question of authoritarianism in knowledge. More general aims of this article are to widen the immediate mathematical and historical contexts in Alexander’s book, to bridge a gap in conversations between mathematics and the humanities, and to relate mathematical ideas to wider human and contemporary issues. (shrink)

This chapter examines Karl Barth's denouncement of natural theology and the reactions of the group of theologians following him. These theologians have all engaged with the natural sciences, but also share similar concerns to Barth in terms of prioritising revelation and of maintaining or defending an orthodox theology. Dietrich Bonhoeffer offered opportunities for intellectual engagement with the world through his notion of the penultimate and in other ways. Wolfhart Pannenberg brought scientific rationality to bear directly on theology. Thomas Torrance (...) and Alister McGrath retreated into making natural theology dependent on prior commitment to a fully orthodox, Trinitarian dogmatic position. However, each offered further opportunities for natural theology as traditionally conceived, by highlighting features of the universe, such as its rational contingency, which point to the grounding of the universe beyond itself. (shrink)

The challenge that confronts corporate decision-makers in connection with global labor conditions is often in identifying the standardsby which they should govern themselves. In an effort to provide greater direction in the face of possible global cultural conflicts, ethicistsThomas Donaldson and Thomas Dunfee draw on social contract theory to develop a method for identifying basic human rights: Integrated Social Contract Theory (ISCT). In this paper, we apply ISCT to the challenge of global labor standards, attempting to identify labor rights (...) that could serve as guides for corporations producing or outsourcing outside of their home country. In addition to identifying areas of universal agreement, we also examine whether ISCT is, in fact, a sufficient basis for determining worker rights; we seek to define the parameters of the “sweatshop” problem; we include the application and results of our ISCT analysis as applied to labor standards: the global labor rights hypernorms; and conclude that ISCT is sufficient only for rights that are universal. We also discuss whether market-driven decisions can identify the boundaries of labor rights, or at least assure that market outcomes are compatible with maintaining labor rights, in order to respond to the shortcomings of ISCT. We conclude with some comments on directions of analysis for labor rights determination. (shrink)

Musing for Puncta special issue on "Critically Sick: New Phenomenologies Of Illness, Madness, And Disability.".

Overview of the definition of art and its relationship to definitions of the individual art forms, with an eye to clarifying the issues separating dominant institutionalist and skeptical positions from non-skeptical, non-institutional ones. Section 2 indicates some of the key philosophical issues which intersect in discussions of the definition of art, and singles out some important areas of broad agreement and disagreement. Section 3 critically reviews some influential standard versions of institutionalism, and some more recent variations on them. Section 4 (...) discusses some recent reductionist approaches to definitional questions, which advocate a shift of philosophical focus from the macro- to the micro-level —from art to the individual art forms. Section 5 outlines an alternative, non-institutionalist and non-reductionist approach to definitional questions. (shrink)

This essay explores the nature and neurological basis of creativity in technical production. After presenting a model of expert technical cognition based in cognitive anthropology and cognitive psychology, the authors propose that craft production has three inherent sources of novelty — procedural drift, serendipitous error and fiddling. However, these are quite limited in their creative potential, which may help explain the virtual absence of innovation over the long millennia of the Palaeolithic. Innovation can be far more rapid and effective via (...) invention, which requires folk theories of causation and adequate working memory capacity, all fairly recent evolutionary developments. The neurological basis of expert technical cognition lies in well-known cortical and sub-cortical structures, but recent research has established a provocative role for the cerebellum in the formulation of novel arrangements. (shrink)

The paper is about the interpretation of opaque verbs like “seek”, “owe”, and “resemble” which allow for unspecific readings of their (indefinite) objects. It is shown that the following two observations create a problem for semantic analysis: (a) The opaque position is upward monotone: “John seeks a unicorn” implies “John seeks an animal”, given that “unicorn” is more specific than “animal”. (b) Indefinite objects of opaque verbs allow for higher-order, or “underspecific”, readings: “Jones is looking for something Smith is looking (...) for” can express that there is something unspecific that both Jones and Smith are looking for. Given (a) and (b), it would seem that the following inference is hard to escape, if the premisses are construed unspecifically and the conclusion is taken on its under- specific reading: Jones is looking for a sweater. Smith is looking for a pen. Smith is looking for something Jones is looking for. (shrink)

This paper applies a hybrid Heideggerian-ethnomethodological approach to physiotherapy practice. Unlike previous studies written by and for practitioners, this paper uses my personal experience receiving physical therapy as its point of departure. By combining Heidegger’s [Being and time (trans: Stambaugh J). State University of New York Press, New York 1996] notion of the ‘ontological difference’ with Garfinkel’s (Studies in ethnomethodology, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs 1967) concept of ‘accountability,’ I argue that in physical therapy practice, both client and practitioner actively shape the (...) body into a coherent object for medical intervention. I begin by introducing three key phenomenological concepts, the life-world, the ontological difference, and Heidegger’s critique of subjectivity. I then empirically substantiate these concepts by reviewing classic and recent studies in ethnomethodology. I conclude with my own experience of physical therapy, and demonstrate how both client and practitioner actively constitute the body as a medical and therapeutic object. This is cause for both disability studies and physiotherapy to reconsider some of their core concepts, ‘medicalization’ and ‘client-specific measurement,’ respectively. (shrink)

The Truth That Never Hurts brings together for the first time more than two decades of literary criticism & political thought about gender, race, sexuality, power & social change. As one of the first writers in the United States to claim Black feminism for Black women in the early seventies, this authors works has been ground breaking in defining a Black women's literary tradition; in examining the sexual politics of the lives of Black & other women of color; in representing (...) the lives of Black lesbians & gay men; & in making connections between race, class, sexuality, & gender. Her essay "Toward a Black Feminist Criticism," is often cited as a major catalyst in opening the field of Black women's literature. This essay also presented the first serious discussion of Black lesbian writing. Essays about racism in the women's movement, Black & Jewish relations, & homophobia in the Black community have ignited dialogue about topics that few other writers address. The collection also brings together topical political commentaries that examine the 1968 Chicago convention demonstrations; attacks on the NEA; the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas Senate hearings; & police brutality against Rodney King & Abner Louima. It also includes a never before published personal essay on racial violence, the day-to-day life of Kitchen Table Press, & the bonds between Black women that make it possible to survive. This authors writing offers a rare combination of intellectual challenge & an accessible personal voice. her commitment to telling the truth about difficult, even volatile issues, makes a unique contribution to American literature & social thought. (shrink)

ABSTRACT“A legal system exists,” Joseph Raz claims, “if and only if it is in force.” By this he means to suggest that the efficacy of law—that is, its capacity to control the population to which it applies—is necessary for its identity as such. Despite widespread recognition that efficacy is a condition of the existence of law, however, little time has been spent analyzing the notion. This article begins an attempt to make up the deficit. I make the case for efficacy (...) as necessary for law and go on to develop and defend an account of the concept that is broadly Kelsenian in spirit. In doing so I address questions concerning the relationship between obedience and enforcement in an account of the existence of a legal system as well as relating the discussion to that concerning the ontological status of international law. (shrink)

This paper is an exposition and evaluation of the Agustín Rayo's views about the epistemology and metaphysics of mathematics, as they are presented in his book The Construction of Logical Space.

The question of how to demarcate science from pseudo-science commands relatively little attention today. In the philosophy of logic, by contrast, the problem of demarcating the logical constants is less skeptically regarded. In aesthetics, where the problem is how to demarcate art from non-art, the question as to whether the problem is a real one or a pseudo-problem also continues to be debated. This paper discusses the hypothesis that the demarcation questions in these three areas are parallel, or at least (...) similar enough to be interesting. Some arguments for the conclusion that the demarcation problem is a pseudo-problem are considered, as are some demarcation proposals of a deflationist or minimalist sort. All are found wanting. (shrink)

Vagueness has gotten some attention in aesthetics, but deserves more. Vagueness is universally acknowledged to be ubiquitous. It has played a substantive role in some recent writing on the definition of art. It has figured importantly in analyses of the concept of literature, and (in connection with a thought experiment of Arthur Danto’s), of the ontology of art. Vagueness was a locus of contention in a debate between Alan Goldman and Eddy Zemach about the reality of aesthetic properties. This paper’s (...) aim is to advance that debate, by focusing on the relevance of vagueness to the familiar argument that moves from premises about aesthetic disagreement to the conclusion that aesthetic properties are not real. In what follows, it is argued that, vis-á-vis aesthetic disagreement, the vagueness of aesthetic properties can do important theoretical work for aesthetic realism. (shrink)

Panentheism and panpsychism do not entail one another. Nevertheless, the structural similarities are striking. While panentheism distinguishes without separating God and cosmos, panpsychism does the same with mind and matter. Both seem to mediate between dualism and monism. With the rise in popularity of panpsychism among analytic philosophers of mind, the time was ripe for a careful and critical interdisciplinary conversation. Panentheism and Panpsychism ably facilitates this meeting and mines the explanatory potential of combining two forms of unity metaphysics.The book (...) opens with an introductory chapter written by the editors. Their stated aim is "to examine the benefits which panpsychism and panentheism offer... (shrink)

This paper discusses contemporary advancements in the affective sciences that can inform the music-emotion literature. Key concepts in these theories are outlined, highlighting their points of agreement and disagreement. This summary shows the importance of appraisal within the emotion process, provides a greater emphasis upon goal-directed accounts of behavior, and a need to move away from discrete emotion “folk” concepts and toward the study of an emotional episode and its components. Consequently, three contemporary music emotion theories are examined through a (...) skeptical lens. This critique highlights the over-reliance upon categorization and a lack of acknowledgment of appraisal processes, specifically goal-directed appraisal, in examining how individual experiences of music emerge in different contexts. Based on this critique of current music-emotion models, we present our skeptically informed CODA model - Constructivistly-Organised Dimensional-Appraisal model. This model addresses skeptical limitations of existing theories, reinstates the role of goal-directed appraisal as central to what makes music relevant and meaningful to an individual in different contexts and brings together different theoretical frameworks into a single model. From the development of the CODA model, several hypotheses are proposed and applied to musical contexts. These hypotheses address theoretical issues such as acknowledging individual and contextual differences in emotional intensity and valence, as well as differentiating between induced and perceived emotions, and utilitarian and aesthetic emotions. We conclude with a sections of recommendations for future research. Altogether, this theoretical critique and proposed model points toward a positive future direction for music-emotion science. One where researchers can take forward testable predictions about what makes music relevant and meaningful to an individual. (shrink)

Semantic theories account for the literal, conventional meanings of linguistic expressions, and they tend to do so by assigning them one or more semantic values: extensions, intensions, and characters. Lest semantics should be a cul-de-sac, at least some of these values must be interpretable from the outside. The semantic values, are supposed to figure in accounts of preconditions of utterances and their communicative effects, contributing aspects of their literal meaning. The semantic values are assigned to expressions, not to surface strings. (...) The disambiguation of surface strings usually shows in the part-whole structure of the underlying expressions. The semantically relevant parts of an expression need not be determined according to its surface structure. Rather, there is a specific level of syntactic analysis—sometimes called Logical Form —that defines the syntactic input to semantic analysis. The compositional treatment of an expression may call for otherwise unmotivated structuring. (shrink)

In this article, I revisit Karl Marx’s claim in his Economic and Phil-osophic Manuscripts of 1844, that the subject in its “individual existence is at the same time a social being.” I redefine what has been translated as “social being” as “common being” in order to extrapolate an understanding of subjectivity that is a socio-ontological and collectively structured collectivity. In doing so, I demonstrate (1) that this common being is a collection of different socio-ontological traits; (2) that in order for (...) this common being to be approximated we must take into account all modes of subjectivity production that intersect in what will appear as the subject; and (3) that the Other is the constitutive parameter of the common being on which the subject depends. Finally, I revisit three exemplary modes of practice - namely critique, solidarity, and utopia - and show that conceiving of the subject as a common being renders critique constellational, solidarity overdetermined, and utopia a koinotopia. (shrink)

Introduction: The Anarchist -- The Minister: 1756-93 -- The Philosopher: 1793 -- The Activist: 1794-95 -- The Husband: 1796-99 -- The Educator: 1800-09 -- The Father:1810-19 -- The Pensioner:1819-36 -- The Legacy.

Basic Cartesian intuitions are directed at simple natures, not truths; but intuitions are also a foundation for propositional knowledge. There are two basic objectives of this chapter: to show how Descartes gets from intuitions to propositional knowledge, and to show how his solution to this problem structures his thinking on the main issues in Cartesian epistemology. I maintain that the solution to is to be found in the principle if we perceive the presence of an attribute A, there must be (...) an actually existing substance to which A is attributed. This principle gets its clearest expression in the Principles of Philosophy but also appears in the Rules for the Direction of the Mind and in the Meditations where, I argue, it appears in the form of the Rule of Truth. I show how this principle is derived from the cogito, understood both as inference and as intuition, how this principle plays a role in Descartes theory of consciousness and self‐knowledge, in the case for substance dualism, and in the theory of clear and distinct ideas. (shrink)

The leading idea of this chapter is that, for Descartes, intellectual ideas make it obvious what metaphysical category the properties they disclose to the mind fall into but not whether they are actually exemplified; sensations make it obvious whether the properties they disclose to the mind are exemplified but not what their metaphysical category is. This idea is worked out through a discussion of three stages in the development of Descartes's doctrine of the material falsity of sensory ideas, the core (...) concept of his error explanation of the senses. Material falsity is a set of three defects that sensations have in comparison with intellectual ideas, ideas that fully discharge the role, which Descartes assigns to ideas in his philosophical system. The first stage, reflected in Meditation III, identifies material falsity with two defects: nonrepresentation and misrepresentation ; the second stage, reflected in the Reply to Arnauld, identifies material falsity with obscure ideas ; the third stage, reflected in the Principles of Philosophy I, sees the terminology of material falsity disappear and the terminology of clear but not distinct ideas appear. Other topics discussed include a special application of the rule of truth and skepticism. (shrink)

How can a Cartesian idea represent ordinary physical objects? One possibility is that Descartes holds a theory of natural signs according to which ideas, including sensations, represent states of the external world that are correlated with them. I deny that Descartes has a theory of natural signs in this sense, arguing, instead, that our perception of ordinary physical objects is achieved not through ideas, properly speaking, but through a special act of the mind which projects its sensations onto objects in (...) the external world, objects truly represented by ideas of primary qualities alone. This ”projection” comprises referral judgments that account for the characteristic phenomenology of experience of the physical world but in a way that misleads us to think that our ideas bear a resemblance to the underlying metaphysical reality of the physical world. Other issues discussed include Descartes's taxonomy of ideas. (shrink)

Cartesian epistemology comprises three main divisions: an a priori theory, discussed in Chs. 1–3, a psychological theory of error explanations in judgment induced by features of our sense experience discussed in Chs. 4, 5 and 7, and a theory of natural reasons, discussed here. The theory of natural reasons, based on Descartes's notion of natural inclinations, is expressed here in terms of a series of warrant principles of which there are two main kinds: those that warrant action and those that (...) warrant claims for what is true. This chapter traces Descartes's epistemically ambivalent attitude to cognitive dispositions from the early treatment in the Rules for the Direction of the Mind through to the final treatment in The Passions of the Soul. The chapter focuses special attention on the appearance of one kind of natural reason, reasons of truth, in the proof of the external world in Meditation VI and the striking absence of same in the proof of the external world in the Principles of Philosophy II. The chapter also considers whether natural reasons apply to particular aspects of corporeal things, concluding with a discussion of the Cartesian Circle. (shrink)