Imagination plays a rich epistemic role in our cognitive lives. For example, if I want to learn whether my luggage will fit into the overhead compartment on a plane, I might imagine trying to fit it into the overhead compartment and form a justified belief on the basis of this imagining. But what explains the fact that imagination has the power to justify beliefs, and what is the structure of imaginative justification? In this paper, I answer these questions by arguing (...) that imaginings manifest an epistemic status: they are epistemically evaluable as justified or unjustified. This epistemic status grounds their ability to justify beliefs, and they accrue this status in virtue of being based on evidence. Thus, imaginings are best understood as justified justifiers. I argue for this view by way of showing how it offers a satisfying explanation of certain key features of imaginative justification that would otherwise be puzzling. I also argue that imaginings exhibit a number of markers of the basing relation, which further motivates the view that imaginings can be based on evidence. The arguments in this paper have theoretically fruitful implications not only for the epistemology of imagination, but for accounts of reasoning and epistemic normativity more generally. (shrink)

The binary between the figure of the child and the fully human being is invoked with regularity in analyses of race, yet its centrality to the conception of race has never been fully explored. For most commentators, the figure of the child operates as a metaphoric or rhetorical trope, a non-essential strategic tool in the perpetuation of White supremacy. As I show in the following, the child/human binary does not present a contingent or merely rhetorical construction but, rather, a central (...) feature of racialization. Where Black peoples are situated as objects of violence it is often precisely because Blackness has been identified with childhood and childhood is historically identified as the archetypal site of naturalized violence and servitude. I proceed by offering a historical account of how Black peoples came to inherit the subordination and dehumanization of European childhood and how White youth were subsequently spared through their partial categorization as adults. (shrink)

This chapter argues that epistemic uses of the imagination are a sui generis form of reasoning. The argument proceeds in two steps. First, there are imaginings which instantiate the epistemic structure of reasoning. Second, reasoning with imagination is not reducible to reasoning with doxastic states. Thus, the epistemic role of the imagination is that it is a distinctive way of reasoning out what follows from our prior evidence. This view has a number of important implications for the epistemology of the (...) imagination. For one thing, it clarifies the epistemic role of widely invoked “constraints” on the imagination. For another, it highlights important and underappreciated disanalogies between how perceptual experiences and imaginings justify beliefs. Ultimately, the view that we can reason with imagination offers an illuminating and theoretically fruitful framework through which to understand the epistemic structure of the imagination. (shrink)

This collection presents the broadest range of experiences faced during the Schism, center and periphery, clerical and lay, male and female, Christian and Muslim, theology, including exegesis of Scripture, diplomacy, French literature, reform, art, and finance.

The product of a Kickstarter fundraising campaign, "Clear and Present Thinking" is a college-level textbook in logic and critical thinking. Chapters: 1. Questions, Problems, and World Views 2. Good and Bad Thinking Habits 3. Basics of Argumentation 4. Fallacies 5. Reasonable Doubt 6. Moral Reasoning In an effort to reduce the cost of education for students, this textbook was funded by over 700 people through the Kickstarter online crowd-funding platform.

"This book represents the fruition of four years labor--most of it, fortunately, a labor of love. The idea of translating these papers, originating with Ernest Angel, was welcomed by Basic Books because of their enthusiasm for bringing out significant new material in the sciences of man. I was glad to accept their invitation to participate as one of the editors since I, too, had long been convinced of the importance of making these works available in English, particularly at this crucial (...) moment in the development of modern psychiatry and psychology. We asked Dr. Ellenberger to join us as the third editor because of his extensive knowledge of the literature of phenomenological and existential psychiatry and his clinical experience in using these methods in Switzerland. He and Mr. Angel are chiefly responsible for the selection of the particular papers translated. In our introductory chapters, Dr. Ellenberger and I have undertaken the task of making a bridge between these contributions and American psychiatry and psychology, while Mr. Angel has borne the major weight of the translations themselves"--Preface. (shrink)

This paper develops a theory of analog representation. We first argue that the mark of the analog is to be found in the nature of a representational system’s interpretation function, rather than in its vehicles or contents alone. We then develop the rulebound structure theory of analog representation, according to which analog systems are those that use interpretive rules to map syntactic structural features onto semantic structural features. The theory involves three degree-theoretic measures that capture three independent ways in which (...) a system can be more or less analog. We explain how our theory improves upon prior accounts of analog representation, provides plausible diagnoses for novel challenge cases, extends to hybrid systems that are partially analog and partially symbolic, and accounts for some of the advantages and disadvantages of representing analogically versus symbolically. (shrink)

The author attempted to present the development of legal theories through early & medieval philosophical history.

In his prose writings, Milton produces a reinvention of the concept of heresy, and subsequently a theological reinvention of the nature of English society. He envisions a Protestant society united by practices of individual piety and by the “heretical imperative” of autonomous choice. While Milton’s account seeks to eliminate the possibilities of religious violence and state persecution, it leads finally to the same impasse as the Lockean theory: the grounding of a right to toleration on subjective piety necessarily excludes those (...) groups who refuse to practice such piety. Nevertheless, Milton’s unique depiction of a society united by practices of heresy ultimately points toward modernity in a way that is even more remarkably prescient than Locke’s influential theory of toleration. (shrink)

Settler colonialism is structured in part according to the principle of civilizational progress yet the roots of this doctrine are not well understood. Disparate ideas of progress and practices related to colonial dispossession and domination can be traced back to the Enlightenment, and as far back as ancient Greece, but there remain unexplored logics and continuities. I argue that civilizational progress and settler colonialism are structured according to the opposition between politics governed by reason or faith and the figure of (...) the child as sinful or bestial. Thus, it is not contingent, but rather necessary that justificatory frameworks of European empire and colonialism depict Indigenous peoples as children. To illustrate how the theoretical link between Indigenous peoples and children emerges not as a simple analogy, but rather, as the source of the premodern/modern and savage/civilized binaries, I trace the various historical iterations of the political/childhood opposition through the classical, medieval, enlightenment, and modern eras. I show how the model of civilizational progress from a premodern and savage state of childhood continues to serve as the model for settler colonial exclusion and domination of Indigenous peoples. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The primary aim of the paper is to apply the concept of retribution to nuclear defence policy. Nuclear defence policy, as I conceive it, is concerned with addressing the threat Soviet nuclear weapons pose for Western security. I argue that, contrary to popular opinion, MAD is not a retributive doctrine—that in fact it violates two constitutive principles of retribution: culpability and proportionality. After explicating these constitutive principles, I apply them to retaliatory strategy—showing that the culpability criterion restricts retaliation to (...) the agents of aggression while the proportionality criterion requires a just measure of retaliation. The result is a defence policy continuous with the just war tradition—one which rules out deterrence based on threats against the civilian population. I show why a retributive policy requires non‐nuclear forces and discuss the feasiblity of replacing all nuclear forces with conventional weapons. I anticipate and answer major objections to the denuclearization of U.S. and NATO forces. Finally, I conclude that an advocate of a retributive policy—specifically, a policy calling for a proportional or measured response against combatants only—must be willing, in the name of justice, to accept the risk of making war more thinkable by making it less horrible. (shrink)

The deliberative systems approach is a recent innovation within the tradition of deliberative democratic theory. It signals an important shift in focus from the political legitimacy produced within isolated and formal sites of deliberation (e.g., Parliament or deliberative mini-publics), to the legitimacy produced by a number of diverse interconnected sites. In this respect, the deliberative systems (DS) approach is better equipped to identify and address defects arising from the systemic influences of power and coercion. In this article, I examine one (...) of the least explored and least understood defects: the exclusion of non-speaking political actors generated by the uniform privileging of speech in all sites within a system. Using the examples of prefigurative protest, Indigenous refusal to deliberate, and the non-deliberative agency of disabled citizens, I argue that the DS approach allows theorists to better understand forms of domination related to the imposition of speech on those who are either unwilling or unable to speak. (shrink)

Background Despite the growth of biomedical research in South Africa, there are few insights into the operation of Research Ethics Committees (RECs) in this setting. We investigated the composition, operations and training needs of health RECs in South Africa against the backdrop of national and international guidelines. Methods The 12 major health RECs in South Africa were surveyed using semi-structured questionnaires that investigated the composition and functions of each REC as well as the operational issues facing committees. Results Health RECs (...) in SA have an average of 16 members and REC members are predominantly male and white. Overall, there was a large discrepancy in findings between under-resourced RECs and well resourced RECs. The majority of members (56%) are scientists or clinicians who are typically affiliated to the same institution as the health REC. Community representatives account for only 8% of membership. Training needs for health REC members varied widely. Conclusion Most major health RECs in South Africa are well organized given the resource constraints that exist in relation to research ethics in developing countries. However, the gender, racial and occupational diversity of most of these RECs is suboptimal, and most RECs are not constituted in accordance with South African guidelines. Variability in the operations and training needs of RECs is a reflection of apartheid-entrenched influences in tertiary education in SA. While legislation now exists to enforce standardization of research ethics review systems, no provision has been made for resources or capacity development, especially to support historically-disadvantaged institutions. Perpetuation of this legacy of apartheid represents a violation of the principles of justice and equity. (shrink)

This collection of writings on existential psychology outlines the principles of the discipline, its cultural background, and its contributions to therapy.

The emerging field of comparative political theory (CPT) seeks to expand our understanding of politics through intercultural dialogues between diverse systems of political thought. CPT acknowledges diverse modes of political understanding, yet the field is still methodologically focused on textual forms of political practice and learning. I argue that the privileging of political literature in CPT has been inherited from orthodox political theory and the history of political thought and that the prioritizing of text over oral and enactive practices places (...) constraints on intercultural dialogue. First, methodological focus on texts inhibits dialogue with Indigenous traditions that do not prioritize text in the same way or to the same extent in the reproduction of political culture. Second, the incorporation of oral traditions tends to conflate orality with text in ways that obfuscate the contribution of enactive performance. One result of these methodological oversights is that CPT risks recapitulating some of the historical exclusionary logics that it seeks to overcome. (shrink)

Context: Although ethics consultation is commonplace in United States (U.S.) hospitals, descriptive data about this health service are lacking. Objective: To describe the prevalence, practitioners, and processes of ethics consultation in U.S. hospitals. Design: A 56-item phone or questionnaire survey of the "best informant" within each hospital. Participants: Random sample of 600 U.S. general hospitals, stratified by bed size. Results: The response rate was 87.4%. Ethics consultation services (ECSs) were found in 81% of all general hospitals in the U.S., and (...) in 100% of hospitals with more than 400 beds. The median number of consults performed by ECSs in the year prior to survey was 3. Most individuals performing ethics consultation were physicians (34%), nurses (31%), social workers (11%), or chaplains (10%). Only 41% had formal supervised training in ethics consultation. Consultation practices varied widely both within and between ECSs. For example, 65% of ECSs always made recommendations, whereas 6% never did. These findings highlight a need to clarify standards for ethics consultation practices. (shrink)

Robert Myers presents an original moral theory which charts a course between the extremes of consequentialism and contractualism. He puts forward a radically new case for the existence of both agent-neutral and agent-relative values, and gives an innovative answer to the question how such disparate values can be weighed against each other. Practical judgement is shown to be guided in this by two very different ideals: an ideal of cooperation, which is held to shape the content of morality's demands, (...) and one of self-governance, which is held to determine the nature of reason's requirements. Examination of the ideal of cooperation reveals that principles of impartial beneficence and rights protecting individual freedoms are equally fundamental to morality. Examination of the ideal of self-governance reveals that morality's dictates, though not necessarily overriding, are always in an important sense inescapable. The result is a theory of morality which combines a balanced account of its content with a ringing affirmation of its authority. (shrink)