Roslyn Weiss offers a new interpretation of Platonic moral philosophy based on an unconventional reading of the Republic. Her basic argument begins with the point that Plato means for us to react badly to the philosopher-rulers of Book 7. She then makes the case that there are two distinct kinds of philosopher in the Republic--one that is ideal and one that is farcical--and that each represents a separate type of justice. Finally, she argues that Plato recognizes this dualism and (...) points the way toward a resolution"--Publisher's Web site. (shrink)

The Truth of History questions how modern historians, confined by the concepts of their own cultures, can still discover truths about the past. Through an examination of the constraints of history, accounts of causation and causal interpretations, C. Behan McCullagh argues that although historical descriptions do not mirror the past, they can correlate with it in a regular and definable way. Far from debating only in the abstract and philosophical, the author constructs his argument in numerous concrete historical examples (...) and explores a new position between believing that history perfectly represents the past and that history can tell us nothing true of the past. (shrink)

Are 'the people' too ignorant or stupid to rule? Commentators are beginning to seriously argue that the answer might be 'yes.' In this take-no-prisoners book, Roslyn Fuller shows how many thinkers have embraced the idea that there can be 'too much democracy,' and deftly unravels their attempts to end majority rule.

This book reveals the rational basis for historians' descriptions, interpretations and explanations of past events. C. Behan McCullagh defends the practice of history as more reliable than has recently been acknowledged. Historians, he argues, make their accounts of the past as fair as they can and avoid misleading their readers. He explains and discusses postmodern criticisms of history, providing students and teachers of history with a renewed validation of their practice. McCullagh takes the history debate to a new (...) stage with bold replies to the major questions historians face today. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.1 (2001) 137-139 [Access article in PDF] Gareth B. Matthews. Socratic Perplexity and the Nature of Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. 137. Cloth, $29.95 Thomas C. Brickhouse and Nicholas D. Smith. The Philosophy of Socrates. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2000. Pp. x + 290. Paper $22.00. Matthews' little book tracks the course of Socrates' perplexity, which, Matthews contends, starts out (...) as an obstacle to successful inquiry, but becomes, eventually, itself the target of inquiry. Matthews regards as quite genuine the perplexity that Socrates professes in certain of the early dialogues—Laches, Charmides, Euthyphro—largely, however, because Matthews himself finds Socrates' questions so stubbornly persistent. Yet, couldn't Socrates, at least with respect to some of his questions, experience no state of confusion, no perplexity, but, nevertheless, profess perplexity? Perhaps Socrates' confessions of perplexity signal only his awareness that he lacks knowledge of virtue; perhaps they are but rhetorical devices for encouraging Socrates' interlocutors to admit to their own ignorance.As the book continues, Matthews, following a line fairly standard by now, thinks that, in the "transitional" Meno, Socrates discovers two ways out of the perplexity: recollection, and the method of hypothesis; and that, in the "middle" dialogues—the Republic and Phaedo—the Theory of Forms comes to his rescue. In the Parmenides and, perhaps later, Matthews maintains, the Theory of Forms becomes itself the object of inquiry, as Socrates recognizes the perplexities with which it is fraught. Matthews mentions, but takes no stand on, the controversies surrounding the late dialogues, moving on at last to Aristotle and the different kind of perplexity one encounters there.For the briefest moment it looks as if Matthews might resist the standard line, when, in discussing the Meno, he notices not only that the geometrical problem of the Meno's slave-boy passage causes no perplexity comparable to that caused by Socrates' philosophical problems, but that Socrates is fully in charge in the geometrical demonstration, stinging another without simultaneously stinging himself. Yet, not only does Matthews fail to pursue his insight that moral or philosophical questions are, for Socrates, not like mathematical ones; on the contrary, he suggests that, in the Phaedo, philosophical problems are viewed by Socrates as mathematical ones.In The Philosophy of Socrates, Brickhouse and Smith undertake the ambitious task of expounding and defending a coherent and cohesive Socratic philosophy, one that encompasses Socrates' method, his wisdom and ignorance, his understanding of the nature of knowledge, his moral philosophy, psychology, politics, and religion. For a book meant to be a popular introduction, it is remarkably comprehensive—even [End Page 137] exhaustive—and serves to acquaint the reader with the current scholarly controversies surrounding Socratic philosophy as it is debated in the analytic tradition associated most frequently with the late and great Gregory Vlastos.In many respects, The Philosophy of Socrates is but an updated version of Brickhouse and Smith's earlier book, Plato's Socrates (Oxford University Press, 1994)—though without the rich and copious notes. The earlier book is the better one. The new book, although it purports to discuss the philosophy of the historical Socrates, is, from Chapter 2 on, a book about the Socrates of Plato's "early" dialogues. Yet, it is precisely this Socrates who is largely absent from its pages. The Socrates of the early dialogues is a character: both in the sense that he is a protagonist in the dramas that are Plato's dialogues, and in the sense that he is sarcastic, funny, makes bad puns, strikes at his interlocutors where they are most vulnerable, teases, baits, and annoys. But, most importantly, this Socrates is no solitary thinker. He talks to people; and what he says and how he says it is influenced both by his interlocutor and by the context of their conversation. Brickhouse and Smith, however, take such factors into account but rarely—and then only to save their own take on a particular Socratic doctrine.The two interpretive principles that Brickhouse and Smith invoke most often... (shrink)

Amidst increasing concerns about harmful ecological change brought about by human actions upon the earth, environmental thinkers and activists attempt to envision human relations with the earth in new ways. Such thinking, however, frequently comes up against an inability to conceive of the more-than-human world as something towards which we can empathize or sympathize or to which we owe justice. As such, a powerful force in environmental discourse sees this problem as intractable and sees ecological change as a problem to (...) be solved and the future of the earth as something to be managed rather than to explore new forms of relations with. This chapter explores Robert Waters’ art project uncover RECOVER in terms of this problem. His project activates a reflection on human life and social relations that fosters social healing and transformation. Is there a way to activate a similar process, but in terms of a natural healing of the earth and a social transformation of our relations to the earth? In considering this question, I explore Jason W. Moore and Raj Patel’s concept of “reparation ecology” and analyse how the idea of the Anthropocene blocks our capacities to think the reparation of human relations with the more-than-human world. I suggest that that Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari’s concepts of becoming and sympathy offer a way of thinking human relations with earth others that could generate ethical and political responses to ecological change where the more-than-human world is considered as a co-participant and collaborator in human action and a subject to whom justice is owed. Sympathy with the non- human world acknowledges that human capacities are constituted by non-human materials and affects that do not respect the boundaries that tend to frame our thinking. Rather than continuing to allow our traditional assumptions about the separation of humans and nature to shape our relations to non-human world, imagining the human in new ways makes possible new forms of relations with the earth. I argue that attending to the ways that humans co-become with the non-human world affords opportunities for transforming human relations with the more-than-human world by fostering spaces for the emergence of new ecological sensibilities and potentials for social-ecological justice. (shrink)

Wilkins & Wakefield suggest that changes in the hominid brain made it uniquely “preadaptive” for language, yet no precursor functions served as adaptive substrates to the emergence of language. We present contrary evidence that the ability to discriminate and process rapid and complex auditory information is a cross-species function subserving communication processes including, but not limited to, human speech perception. We suggest that auditory temporal processing served as an evolutionary precursor to speech processing and consequent language development in humans.

Historically, studies of the role of endogenous hormones in developmental differentiation of the sexes have suggested that mammalian sexual differentiation is mediated primarily by testicular androgens, and that exposure to androgens in early life leads to a male brain as defined by neuroanatomy and behavior. The female brain has been assumed to develop via a hormonal default mechanism, in the absence of androgen or other hormones. Ovarian hormones have significant effects on the development of a sexually dimorphic cortical structure, the (...) corpus callosum, which is larger in male than in female rats. In the females, removal of the ovaries as late as Day 16 increases the cross-sectional area of the adult corpus callosum. Treatment with low-dose estradiol starting on Day 25 inhibits this effect. Female callosa are also enlarged by a combination of daily postnatal handling and exogenous testosterone administered prior to Day 8. The effects of androgen treatment are expressed early in development, with males and testosterone-treated females having larger callosa than control females as early as Day 30. The effects of ovariectomy do not appear until after Day 55. These findings are more consistent with other evidence of a later sensitive period for ovarian feminization as compared to androgenic masculinization. (shrink)

A number of commentators agree that the evidence reviewed in the target article supports a previously unrecognized role for ovarian hormones in feminization of the brain. Others question this view, suggesting that the traditional model of sexual differentiation already accounts for ovarian influence. This position is supported by various reinterpretations of the data presented (e.g., ovarian effects are secondary to the presence/absence of androgen, ovarian effects are smaller than testicular effects, ovarian effects are not organizational). We discuss these issues, and (...) reiterate our position that evidence of neurobehavioral ovarian effects is incompatible with the currently accepted model of sexual differentiation. Other points regarding species generalizations, the direct versus indirect action of estrogen, and nonhormonal mechanisms of sexual differentiation are also discussed. Finally, we address the controversial issue of using ratio scores in the assessment of the human corpus callosum (where CC scores are divided by an index of brain size). Future applications to human research are also discussed. (shrink)

From a reading of Marx to dialectical phenomenology This work analyzes Marx's method of theorizing. It focuses on the Grundrisse, a work considered by many ...

In this inquiry into Marx’s method of theorising, originally published in 1979, the author analyses theory in the same way that Marx analyses the production of capital, and provides a set of rules for reproducing Marx’s method. The rules are developed through an examination of the _Grundrisse_, the recently translated text by Marx that combines his technical critique of political economy with his humanistic, philosophical concerns and his historical perspective. Dr Bologh concludes that Marx’s method, as dialectical phenomenology, offers a (...) way of analysing language, knowledge and the social relations and practices of everyday life, as well as the more obvious phenomena of capitalism. (shrink)

This work, first published in 1990, reissues the first thorough examination of the essentially masculine nature of Max Weber's social and political thinking. Through a detailed examination of his central texts, the author demonstrates Weber's masculine reading of 'social life' and shows how his work advocates a masculine form of life that poses a challenge to contemporary women and to feminism. In particular, she addresses the patriarchal implications of Weber's belief in the need to relegate the ethic of brotherly love (...) to a private sphere in order to make possible rational action and the achievement of greatness in the public sphere. (shrink)

This article provides a rationale for adopting the critical realism instead of pragmatism paradigm when researching skilled migrants' workplace integration in Australia. While the extant...

This special issue of the Canadian Journal of Philosophy is dedicated to Timothy Williamson's work on modality. It consists of a new paper by Williamson followed by papers on Williamson's work on modality, with each followed by a reply by Williamson. -/- Contributors: Andrew Bacon, Kit Fine, Peter Fritz, Jeremy Goodman, John Hawthorne, Øystein Linnebo, Ted Sider, Robert Stalnaker, Meghan Sullivan, Gabriel Uzquiano, Barbara Vetter, Timothy Williamson, Juhani Yli-Vakkuri.

One of very few monographs devoted to Plato's Meno, this study emphasizes the interplay between its protagonists, Socrates and Meno. It interprets the Meno as Socrates' attempt to persuade his interlocutor, by every device at his disposal, of the value of moral inquiry—even though it fails to yield full-blown knowledge—and to encourage him to engage in such inquiry, insofar as it alone makes human life worth living.

In Socrates Dissatisfied, Weiss argues against the prevailing view that the personified Laws in the latter part of the Crito are Socrates' spokesmen. She reveals and explores many indications that Socrates and the Laws are, both in style and in substance, adversaries. Deft, provocative, and compelling, with new translations providing groundbreaking interpretations of key passages, Socrates Dissatisfied challenges the standard conception of the history of political thought.

In The Socratic Paradox and Its Enemies, Roslyn Weiss argues that the Socratic paradoxes—no one does wrong willingly, virtue is knowledge, and all the virtues are one—are best understood as Socrates’ way of combating sophistic views: ...

Philosophers have wanted to work with conceptions of word-competence, or concept-possession, on which being a competent practitioner with a word amounts to being a competent judge of its uses by others. I argue that our implicit conception of competence with a word does not have this presupposition built into it. One implication of this is what I call "modesty" in interpretation: we allow for others, uses of words that we would not allow for ourselves. I develop this point by looking (...) at Saul Kripke's discussion of some famous examples given by Benson Mates, concerning beliefs about beliefs. I defend Mates's point against Kripke's claim that an interpreter who is modest in my sense must be "conceptually confused." . (shrink)

The world of work is being changed at an unprecedented rate as a result of the rise of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. This rate of change was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, which left organizations and their leadership to deal with myriad of challenges. These changes also impacted leaders’ identities in their work and their roles in their organizations. We examine how leaders responded to the various workplace challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic and what this meant for their work (...) identities as leaders. To do this, we made use of role identity theory, social identity theory, and leader identity. A qualitative study was conducted with a group of eight senior leaders from various South African and global organizations who had between five and 10 years’ work experience, and some had even more. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, conducted virtually and in person. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the data. The main finding that emerged from the research was that leaders employed virtual leadership to ensure that customers’ expectations were met, and to manage team-and organizational performance. These leaders achieved this by fostering a digital culture and building effective teams. They achieved their leadership goals by ensuring social identity continuity amongst their teams. This required them taking on extra roles, such as strategist, technology expert, entrepreneur, coach, mentor, and member of the team. Their leader role identity, as part of their work identity, was amplified by the pandemic. The implication is that organizations should develop leadership development programs to increase and strengthen leader identities to capacitate them for times of crisis. (shrink)

I propose an apparatus for handling intrasentential change in context. The standard approach has problems with sentences with multiple occurrences of the same demonstrative or indexical. My proposal involves the idea that contexts can be complex. Complex contexts are built out of (“simple”) Kaplanian contexts by ordered n-tupling. With these we can revise the clauses of Kaplan’s Logic of Demonstratives so that each part of a sentence is taken in a different component of a complex context. I consider other applications (...) of the framework: to agentially distributed utterances (ones made partly by one speaker and partly by another); to an account of scare-quoting; and to an account of a binding-like phenomenon that avoids what Kit Fine calls “the antinomy of the variable.”. (shrink)

I explain a mechanism I call “incorporation,” that I think is at work in a wide range of cases often put under the heading of “scare-quoting.” Incorporation is flagging some words in one’s own utterance to indicate that they are to be interpreted as if uttered by some other speaker in some other context, while supplying evidence to one’s interpreter enabling them to identify that other speaker and context. This mechanism gives us a way to use others’ vocabularies and contexts, (...) thereby extending our expressive capacities on the fly. -/- Explaining incorporation involves explaining intra-sentential shifts in lexicon and in context. Shifts of the former sort are familiar to linguists under the heading of “code-switching.” Shifts of the latter sort have been less explored; accordingly I explain how to modify Kaplan’s logic of demonstratives to allow for such shifts. -/- I compare the incorporation account of scare-quoting with accounts offered by Brandom, Recanati, Geurts and Maier, Benbaji, Predelli, and Shan. Finally I note a possible implication concerning the speech act of assertion: that you can properly assert a content you do not believe, let alone know, because part of it is expressed with words you do not understand. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson is one of the most influential living philosophers working in the areas of logic and metaphysics. His work in these areas has been particularly influential in shaping debates about metaphysical modality, which is the topic of his recent provocative and closely-argued book *Modal Logic as Metaphysics* (2013). The present book comprises ten essays by metaphysicians and logicians responding to Williamson’s work on metaphysical modality. The authors include some of the most distinguished philosophers of modality in the world, as (...) well as several rising stars. Each essay is followed by a reply by Williamson. In addition, the book contains a major new essay by Williamson, ‘Modal science,’ concerning the role of modal claims in natural science. This book was originally published as a special issue of the *Canadian Journal of Philosophy.*. (shrink)

In common with history, all the social sciences crucially rely on descriptions of the past for their evidence. But when, if ever, is it reasonable to regard such descriptions as true? This book attempts to establish the conditions that warrant belief in historical descriptions. It does so in a non-technical way, analysing numerous illustrations of the different kinds of argument about the past employed by historians and others. The author concludes that no historical description can be finally proved, and that (...) we are only ever justified in believing them for certain practical purposes. This central question has not been addressed in such a thorough and systematic manner before. It draws on recent philosophy of history and will interest philosophers. But the wealth of material and accessibility of the presentation will also make it very valuable for historians and other social scientists concerned with the logic of their disciplines. (shrink)

Brain Computer Interface (BCI) technology offers potential for human augmentation in areas ranging from communication to home automation, leisure and gaming. This paper addresses ethical challenges associated with the wider scale deployment of BCI as an assistive technology by documenting issues associated with the development of non-invasive BCI technology. Laboratory testing is normally carried out with volunteers but further testing with subjects, who may be in vulnerable groups is often needed to improve system operation. BCI development is technically complex, sometimes (...) requiring lengthy recording sessions to achieve the necessary personalisation of the paradigms, and this can present ethical challenges that vary depending on the subject group. The paper contributes to the on-going ethical discussion surrounding the deployment BCI outside the specialist laboratory and suggests some tentative guidelines for BCI research teams, appropriate to those deploying the technology, derived from experience on a multisite project. Any tension between deployment and technical progress must be managed by a formal process within a multidisciplinary consortium. (shrink)

This paper is an attempt so to construe the arguments of the Hippias Minor as to remove the justification for regarding it as unworthy of Plato either because of its alleged fallaciousness and Sophistic mode of argument or because of its alleged immorality. It focuses, therefore, only on the arguments and their conclusions, steering clear of the dialogue's dramatic and literary aspects. Whereas I do not wish to deny the importance of these aspects to a proper understanding of the dialogue (...) – on the contrary, in a dialogue so heavily laden with irony and caricature, these aspects are necessarily more significant than they are in other dialogues – I do think there is something to be gained from concentrating on the arguments themselves. Although there can be little doubt that Socrates is up to something in the Hippias Minor, the task of determining just what he is up to can only be simplified by clarifying the arguments first.The Hippias Minor has traditionally been thought to contain two independent arguments, each having its own paradoxical conclusion. The first argument begins, it is said, when Hippias characterizes the two Homeric heroes Achilles and Odysseus as the true man and the false man respectively. Through its discovery that both the false man and the true man have δύναμις, it results in the paradox that the false man and the true are identical. The second argument, on this view, leaves the subject of ⋯ ⋯ληθ⋯ς and ⋯ ψευδ⋯ς and compares instead all sorts of agents in intentional and unintentional action. Finding that the intentional agent is in every case better than the unintentional, the argument concludes that the intentional evil-doer is also better than the unintentional. Viewing the dialogue as thus containing two distinct topics treated in two self-sufficient arguments is perhaps not the best way to understand it. (shrink)

In response to Stefano Predelli's article finding in David Kaplan's “Demonstratives” a distinction between “context shifting” monsters and “operators on character,” I argue that context shifters are operators on character. That conclusion conflicts with the claim that operators on character must be covertly quotational. But that claim is itself unmotivated.

This paper is an attempt so to construe the arguments of the Hippias Minor as to remove the justification for regarding it as unworthy of Plato either because of its alleged fallaciousness and Sophistic mode of argument or because of its alleged immorality. It focuses, therefore, only on the arguments and their conclusions, steering clear of the dialogue's dramatic and literary aspects. Whereas I do not wish to deny the importance of these aspects to a proper understanding of the dialogue (...) – on the contrary, in a dialogue so heavily laden with irony and caricature, these aspects are necessarily more significant than they are in other dialogues – I do think there is something to be gained from concentrating on the arguments themselves. Although there can be little doubt that Socrates is up to something in the Hippias Minor, the task of determining just what he is up to can only be simplified by clarifying the arguments first. The Hippias Minor has traditionally been thought to contain two independent arguments, each having its own paradoxical conclusion. The first argument begins, it is said, when Hippias characterizes the two Homeric heroes Achilles and Odysseus as the true man and the false man respectively. Through its discovery that both the false man and the true man have δύναμις, it results in the paradox that the false man and the true are identical. The second argument, on this view, leaves the subject of ληθς and ψευδς and compares instead all sorts of agents in intentional and unintentional action. Finding that the intentional agent is in every case better than the unintentional, the argument concludes that the intentional evil-doer is also better than the unintentional. Viewing the dialogue as thus containing two distinct topics treated in two self-sufficient arguments is perhaps not the best way to understand it. (shrink)

Alongside the major narratives of ethics in the tradition of Western philosophy, a reader with an eye to the vague and the peripheral, to the turbulent and shifting, will uncover minor lines of thinking--and with them, new histories and thus new futures. Minor Ethics develops a new approach to reading texts from the history of philosophical ethics. It aims to enliven lines of thought that are latent and suppressed within the major ethical texts regularly studied and taught, and to include (...) texts and ideas that have been excluded from the canon of Western ethics. The editors and contributors have put Gilles Deleuze's concepts--such as affect, assemblage, and multiplicity--into conversation with a range of ethical texts from ancient thought to the present. Rather than aiming for a coherent whole to emerge from these threads, the essays maintain a vigilant alertness to difference, to vibrations and resonances that are activated in the coupling of texts. What emerges are new questions, new problems, and new trajectories for thinking, which have as a goal the liberation of ethical questioning. Minor Ethics takes up a range of canonical ethical questions and thinks through concrete ethical problems relating to drug addiction, environmental responsibility, xenophobia, trauma, refugees, political parties, and cultural difference. The responses to these concerns demonstrate the minoritarian promise of the opening up of ethical thinking. (shrink)