The logical system Hyperproof and the computer implementation of it--both created by Jon Barwise and John Etchemendy--present a radical new approach to modeling and teaching about reasoning. Hyperproof is a heterogeneous proof system that uses both sentences and diagrams as steps in proofs. This dissertation addresses important logical, philosophical, and pedagogical issues that Hyperproof raises. We formalize the syntax and semantics of Hyperproof, show that the major inference rules are valid, and give completeness results for four subsystems of Hyperproof. We (...) address philosophical issues raised by the logical analysis, including the importance of the presence of homomorphism between diagrams and the worlds they represent. We also apply the constructivist educational philosophy to create a detailed explanation of how to teach analytic reasoning with Hyperproof, and we discuss how Hyperproof can be augmented to teach about reasoning with different types of domains. (shrink)

Discussions concerning whether there is a natural right to health care may occur in various forms, resulting in policy recommendations for how to implement any such right in a given society. But health care policies may be judged by international standards including the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The rights enumerated in the UDHR are grounded in traditions of moral theory, a philosophical analysis of which is necessary in order to adjudicate the value of specific policies designed to enshrine (...) rights such as a right to health care. We begin with an overview of the drafting of the UDHR and highlight the primary influence of natural law theory in validating the rights contained therein. We then provide an explication of natural law theory by reference to the writings of Thomas Aquinas, as well as elucidate the complementary “capabilities approach” of Martha Nussbaum. We conclude that a right to health care ought to be guaranteed by the state. (shrink)

The questions of whether there is a shared nature common to all human beings and, if so, what essential qualities define this nature are among the most widely discussed topics in the history of philosophy and remain the subject of perennial interest and controversy. This book offers a metaphysical investigation of the composition of the human essence-that is, with what is a human being identical or what types of parts are necessary for a human being to exist: an immaterial mind, (...) a physical body, a functioning brain, a soul? It also considers the criterion of identity for a human being across time and change-that is, what is required for a human being to continue existing as a person despite undergoing physical and psychological changes over time? Jason Eberl's investigation presents and defends a theoretical perspective from the thirteenth-century philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas. Advancing beyond descriptive historical analysis, this book places Aquinas's account of human nature into direct comparison with several prominent contemporary theories: substance dualism, emergentism, animalism, constitutionalism, four-dimensionalism, and embodied mind theory. There are practical implications of exploring these theories as they inform various conclusions regarding when human beings first come into existence-at conception, during gestation, or after birth-and how we ought to define death for human beings. Finally, each of these viewpoints offers a distinctive rationale as to whether, and if so how, human beings may survive death. This book's central argument is that the Thomistic account of human nature includes several desirable features that other theories lack and offers a cohesive portrait of one's continued existence from conception through life to death and beyond. (shrink)

This essay focuses on cases in which a physician elects to withhold, either temporarily or permanently, certain information from a patient for arguably beneficent reasons. That is, the physician is not being self-serving, to herself or her institution, by not revealing this information. Rather, the goal is purely to promote what the physician believes to be in the patient’s best interest by withholding information that may be harmful to him. This practice of informational guardianship is known as the “therapeutic privilege.” (...) This discussion is thus also limited to clinical interactions and not explicitly discuss withholding information from research subjects, which raises distinct ethical issues and elicits different reasons used to justify or nullify the moral permissibility of nondisclosure. (shrink)

This third brand-new 'Star Wars & Philosophy' title once again takes a fresh look at the franchise with all-new chapters. The focus of this volume is the more recent entries into the franchise, including hit TV shows such as THe Mandalorian. Modern applied philosophy is also used to analyse the Star Wars universe: In addition to thorny metaphysical questions about the nature of time and free will, this volume highlights the staggering cultural impact of George Lucas's universe. The newest Star (...) Wars narratives tackle ethnicity on alien worlds and how love and sex with a droid like L3-37 would work ("It works"). The connections between the Separatist Freedom Movement and the struggle for social justice in the USA in the 21st century are brought to light. And philosophical second looks at Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi prove there is much more to this controversial entry in the Skywalker saga. (shrink)

In addressing bioethical issues at the beginning of human life, such as abortion, human embryonic stem cell research, and therapeutic cloning, a primary concern is to establish when a developing human embryo or fetus can be considered a “person”; for it is typically held that only persons are the subjects of moral rights, such as a “right to life.” The 13th century philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas defines a person as “an individual substance of a rational nature” (ST Ia.29.1); he (...) further asserts that all human beings are persons (ST Ia.16.12 ad 1), but that an embryo or fetus is not a human being until its body is informed by a “rational soul.” Aquinas’s account of human embryogenesis has been generally rejected today due to its dependence upon medieval biological information. A number of scholars, however, have attempted to combine Aquinas’s basic metaphysical account of human nature with current embryological data to develop a contemporary Thomistic account of a human being’s beginning. (shrink)

"Paleontologists like to say that to a first approximation, all species are extinct (ninety- nine percent is the usual estimate). The organisms we see around us are distant cousins, not great grandparents; they are a few scattered twig-tips of an enormous tree whose branches and trunk are no longer with us." (p. 343-44). The historical life bush consists mainly in dead ends.

Verfassungsgerichtliche Institutionen- und Kompetenzprofile finden sich gegenwärtig in vielen politischen Gemeinwesen. Dort, wo nicht nur die Prozeduren, sondern sogar die Inhalte des politischen Prozesses dem letztverbindlichen Richterspruch unterliegen, entfaltet die Verfassungsrechtsprechung eine besonders nachhaltige und weitreichende Wirkung. Höchstrichterliche Entscheidungen prägen politisches System und Rechtskultur in diesem Fall derart, dass der Jurisdiktion der Status einer souveränen Instanz zukommt. Mit der Legitimität dieser Version von Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit befasst sich das vorliegende Werk. Es behandelt das Thema Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit als Abstraktum, bringt die Mannigfaltigkeit der Erscheinungsformen (...) von (Verfassungs-)Gerichtsbarkeit in eine gedankliche Ordnung, konzipiert Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit als die institutionell verankerte gerichtliche Überprüfbarkeit sämtlicher staatlicher Akte und erörtert das "Ob und Überhaupt" von Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit im demokratischen Verfassungsstaat. Der Studie zufolge sprechen pragmatische Gründe sowohl für die Rechtfertigbarkeit einer solchen gerichtlichen Aufsicht als auch für die Geeignetheit der Gerichtsbarkeit hierzu. Prinzipientheoretische Eindeutigkeit hingegen lasse sich weder für noch gegen die Institution der umfassenden Verfassungsgerichtsbarkeit anführen. Aktuelle Bedeutung besitzt die Problematik des legitimen verfassungsgerichtlichen Wirkens insbesondere im Blick auf die Rechts- und Herrschaftsordnung der Europäischen Union. (shrink)

Semantics is a bridge discipline between linguistics and philosophy; but linguistics student are rarely able to reach that bridge, let alone cross it to inspect and assess the activity on the other side. Professor Kempson's textbook seeks particularly to encourage such exchanges. She deals with the standard linguistic topics like componential analysis, semantic universals and the syntax-semantics controversy. But she also provides for students with no training in philosophy or logic an introduction to such central topics in the philosophy of (...) language as logical form, truth, speech acts, analyticity, entailment and presupposition. The exposition throughout is deliberately argumentative rather than descriptive, introducing the student step by step to the major problems in theoretical semantics. Special emphasis is placed on the need to consider individual arguments within the overall perspective of semantics as an integral part of general linguistic theory. Written primarily as a textbook for undergraduates and graduates in linguistics departments, this book will also be useful to undergraduates in philosophy and in psychology where linguistics is a part of their course. (shrink)

Turner Nevitt’s elucidates and critically engages with what he describes as the “deeper and more problematic disagreements between survivalists and corruptionists about how to understand some of the most basic principles of Aquinas’s metaphysics,” his goal being to “advance some more systematic reasons for thinking that corruptionists are right and survivalists are wrong—both about how to understand the basic principles of Aquinas’s metaphysics, and about how to apply them to the question about the status of human beings or persons between (...) death and resurrection.” In responding to Nevitt’s argument on behalf of survivalism, I have two goals: first, to defend a particular survivalist interpretation and application of Aquinas’s basic metaphysical principles, and second to argue that, even if Aquinas himself was a corruptionist, he (and we) ought to be survivalists. (shrink)

The mythical1 hungry ass, facing two identical bundles of hay equidistant from him, has engendered two related questions. Can he choose one of the bundles, there seemingly being nothing to incline him one way or the other? If he can, the second puzzle — pertaining to rational choice — arises. It seems the ass cannot rationally choose one of the bundles, because there is no sufficient reason for any choice.2In what follows, I will argue that choice is possible even when (...) there is no option which is better than the others (section II), and that it is perfectly reasonable to choose an option even when there is no sufficient reason for it (section III). I will then (section IV) point to another puzzling feature of the .. (shrink)

Galen designed the Death Star's primary weapon with knowledge of how to manipulate kyber crystals to enhance energy output. Utilitarian ethics would likely conclude that Galen did the right thing, ultimately saving many more lives than those lost and helping to free the galaxy from the Empire's tyranny. This chapter examines how a utilitarian – concerned with the best overall outcome – and a deontologist – concerned with our fundamental moral duties – would evaluate Galen's choice to cooperate with the (...) Empire. It also examines a potential justification for his serving both the Empire and the Rebel Alliance that may help us to navigate such complex moral dilemmas. Careful analysis of the conditions of moral complicity justifies Galen's collusion so long as he had a reasonable expectation that the Death Star would've been completed anyway, and that there was a reasonable hope of success in its ultimate destruction. (shrink)

The Greek philosopher Aristotle argues that human beings are not born with inclinations toward either virtue or vice; rather, each person's moral character traits are cultivated through a combination of social influence and individual rational choice. Sons of Anarchy relies on our fascination with “anti‐heroes,” morally ambiguous protagonists for whom we often cheer. Aristotle stresses the importance of the right environment for becoming virtuous, especially when it comes to children. Far from being pure, the SAMCROpolis tends to nurture both virtues (...) and vices in its “citizens.”. Part of the show's appeal stems from recognizing the members of SAMCRO as kindred spirits who exemplify‐albeit to dramatic extremes‐the mixture of virtue and vice found in every human being's moral character. The particular mix of virtue and vice that comprises Jax's moral character may, in the end, be exactly what SAMCRO needs at this moment in its history. (shrink)

There is an urgent need to understand how private and public organisations can play a role in promoting human values such as fairness, dignity, respect and care. Globalisation, technological advance and climate change are changing work, organisations and systems in ways which foster inequality, alienation and collective risk. Against this backdrop, organisations are being urged to make their contribution to the common good, take account of the interests of multiple stakeholders, and respond ethically as well as efficiently to complex challenges (...) which transcend traditional organisational and state boundaries. Ethics, Meaningfulness, and Mutuality poses critical questions related to organisational design by challenging limits to current thinking, such as the neglect by political philosophers of markets, firms and stakeholders, or by organisational theorists of business ethics. In so doing, the book advances our understanding of the theory and practice of ethical organising. Specifically, meaningfulness and mutuality will be used to yield values and principles for a philosophy of ethical organising which includes an account of human values in morally desirable collective action, and examines the relationship of collective action to the contested concept of shared value creation. Within a philosophy of ethical organising, mutuality permits an examination of the unavoidable relational nature of collective action, whereas meaningfulness addresses fundamental human concerns for significance and leading a life we have reason to value. By addressing our status as relational beings with human needs for meaning, a philosophy of ethical organising brings critical thinking to the creation of morally informed organisational practices which are not only instrumentally beneficial for addressing wicked problems, but are normatively desirable for human flourishing. (shrink)

I argue that critical realists think pretty much what Tukka Kaidesoja says that he himself thinks, but also that Kaidesoja’s objections to the views that he attributes to critical realists are not persuasive.

"New Perspectives on Freud's Moses and Monotheism" presents some of the most important current scholarship on 'Moses and Monotheism'. The essays in this volume offer new perspectives on Freud's perception of Judaism, of collective trauma and collective repression, national violence, gender issues, hermeneutic enigmas, religious configurations, questions of representation, and constructions of truth, while exploring the relevance of 'Moses and Monotheism' in diverse fields - from Jewish Studies, Psychoanalysis, History, and Egyptology to Literature, Musicology, and Art.

Das Werk des erst nach seinem Tod wiederentdeckten galizischen Schriftstellers Soma Morgenstern ist geprägt von der Identitätssuche des jüdischen Intellektuellen im 20. Jahrhundert. Nach der Shoah wendet er sich im amerikanischen Exil vom christlichen Europa ab, dem er die religiöse Schuld an diesem Massenmord zuweist. "Die Blutsäule" schreibt er gleichwohl in einem ganz eigenen Deutsch mit vielen Anklängen an die Sprache der Bibel; insofern diese Sprache zugleich die der 'verhassten' Täter bleibt, entsteht eine komplexe Romankonstruktion, deren religiöser wie zeitgeschichtlicher und (...) literarischer Hintergrund rekonstruiert wird. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to explore how a social justice framework can help illuminate the role that consent should play in health and science policy. In the first section, we set the stage for our inquiry with the important case of Henrietta Lacks. Without her knowledge or consent, or that of her family, Mrs. Lacks’s cells gave rise to an enormous advance in biomedical science—the first immortal human cell line, or HeLa cells.

There is currently a great debate about whether the holobiont, i.e. a multicellular host and its residential microorganisms, constitutes a biological individual. We propose that resident microorganisms have a general and important role in the individuality of the host organism, not the holobiont. Drawing upon the Equilibrium Model of Immunity, we argue that microorganisms are scaffolds of immune capacities and processes that determine the constituency and persistence of the host organism. A scaffolding perspective accommodates the contingency and heterogeneity of resident (...) microorganisms while accounting for their necessity and unifying contributions to host individuality. In our symbiotic view of life, holobionts may not be organisms or units of selection, but macroorganisms cannot persist nor function as individuals without their scaffolding microorganisms. (shrink)

It is always gratifying when another scholar endorses one's own publicly stated position on a controversial matter. It was therefore with distinct appreciation that I read John Banja's article crit...

This cutting edge collection of new and previously published articles by philosophers and social scientists addresses just what it means to invoke causal ...

In liberal political theory, meaningful work is conceptualised as a preference in the market. Although this strategy avoids transgressing liberal neutrality, the subsequent constraint upon state intervention aimed at promoting the social and economic conditions for widespread meaningful work is normatively unsatisfactory. Instead, meaningful work can be understood to be a fundamental human need, which all persons require in order to satisfy their inescapable interests in freedom, autonomy, and dignity. To overcome the inadequate treatment of meaningful work by liberal political (...) theory, I situate the good of meaningful work within a liberal perfectionist framework, from which standpoint I develop a normative justification for making meaningful work the object of political action. To understand the content of meaningful work, I make use of Susan Wolf’s distinct value of meaningfulness, in which she brings together the dimensions of objectivity and subjectivity into the ‘bipartite value’ of meaningfulness (BVM) (Wolf, Meaning in life and why it matters, 2010). However, in order to be able to incorporate the BVM into our lives, we must become valuers, that is, co-creators of values and meanings. This demands that we acquire the relevant capabilities and status as co-authorities in the realm of value. I conclude that meaningful work is of first importance because it is a fundamental human need, and that society ought to be arranged to allow as many people as possible to experience their work as meaningful through the development of the relevant capabilities. (shrink)

To the Editor: I was glad to see the Times taking an interest in the growing field of philosophical counseling, as evidenced by its March 21 article “The Socratic Shrink”. However, while providing...

The Deleuzian model and the masochistic contract -- Masochism, feminine "goodness" and sacrifice -- Self-mutilation and (a)signification -- Transgressive reconfigurations -- Heterocosms, spectres and the world remade -- Postscrip.

This article considers two arguments that purport to show that inductive reasoning is unjustified: the argument adduced by Sextus Empiricus and the (better known and more formidable) argument given by Hume in the Treatise. While Sextus’ argument can quite easily be rebutted, a close examination of the premises of Hume’s argument shows that they are seemingly cogent. Because the sceptical claim is very unintuitive, the sceptical argument constitutes a paradox. And since attributions of justification are theoretical, and the claim that (...) they are never (or seldom) true isn’t preposterous, the correct response to the paradox may well be to admit that the sceptic has exposed our error in making them. (shrink)

Once shunned, interdisciplinarity has now become fashionable-but badly in need of unpacking. The transfer of ideas from one field to another requires full understanding of the ways in which they are used and understood, where they come from and where they are going. This book calls attention to certain linguistic tools that served scholars in the past and that are still relevant today-if properly employed. It offers a roadmap that inter-relates problems within and between the sciences-human and natural. Throughout, the (...) book interpolates excerpts from scholarly texts that light the road. Spelling out how research may go beyond the mere assembly of facts, it invites the reader to join a sequence of steps that highlights the processes which problem solving entails. Ruth Katz (Ph.D. Columbia University) is one of the founding members of the Department of Musicology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Upon receiving the prestigious Israel Prize in 2012, her work was cited for shedding light on such things as the interdisciplinary processes implicated in "the origin of opera, the history of Western notation, the relationship of stylistic change to the history of ideas, music's place in philosophy, and the role of musical aesthetics in cognition." She founded the Excellence Program at the University and co-founded the Laboratory for the study of music. Her most recent book, hailed as "magisterial," is entitled A Language of Its Own: Sense and Meaning in the Making of Western Art Music (University of Chicago Press, 2009). It is an analysis of the decisions that underlay the crafting and understanding of stylistic change. (shrink)

This volume offers two complementary works, unabridged, in modernized, annotated texts--the only available edition priced for classroom use. Grant and Tarcov provide a concise introduction, a note on the texts, and a select bibliography.

Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) war wohl der berühmteste deutsche Staatsrechtler seiner Generation. Wegen seines Engagements für die Nationalsozialisten, die ihn zum Preussischen Staatsrat ernannten, war er zugleich der berüchtigste. Er hat sich zeitlebens als Angehöriger der katholischen Kirche zu erkennen gegeben. Problemlos war dieses Verhältnis freilich nicht, wie etwa aus einer Tagebuchnotiz von 1948 hervorgeht: "Das ist das geheime Schlüsselwort meiner gesamten geistigen und publizistischen Existenz: das Ringen um die eigentliche katholische Verschärfung dots". Was meinte Carl Schmitt mit diesem Begriff, und (...) wie ist die auffallende Absenz gerade der katholischen Theologie in seinem Werk zu erklären? Mein Buch ist unter anderem der Versuch einer Antwort auf diese beiden Fragen. (shrink)

This book makes a strong case for the abiding relevance of Dewey's notion of learning through experience, with a community of others, and what this implies for democratic 21st century education. Curricular and policy contexts in Spain, Cameroon, the US and the UK, explore what reading Dewey contributes to contemporary education studies.

Die Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters (MTU), seit Band 102 beim Max Niemeyer Verlag, machen bisher nicht oder ungenügend erschlossene Texte, Stoffe und Gattungen zugänglich. Neben höfischem und Heldenepos und der Lieddichtung des Hohen und Späten Mittelalters sind vor allem auch Prosaschriften des weltlichen und geistlichen Bereichs, vom theologischen Traktat über die Mystik bis zum Spiel und zur Sachliteratur aus der mittelalterlichen Alltagswelt vertreten. Die Auswahl der publizierten Werke besorgt ein internationales Gremium von Mediävisten verschiedener Disziplinen.

Challenging the posthumanist canon which celebrates the pre-eminence of matter, Ruth Miller, inFlourishingThoughtargues that what nonhuman systems contribute to democracy is thought. Drawing on recent feminist theories of nonhuman life and politics, Miller shows that reproduction and flourishing are not antithetical to contemplation and sensitivity. After demonstrating processes of life and processes of thought are indistinguishable, Miller finds that four menacing accumulations of matter and information--global surveillance, stored embryos, human clones, and reproductive trash--are politically productive rather than threats to (...) democratic politics. As a consequence, she questions the usefulness of individual rights such as privacy and dignity, contests the value of the rational metaphysics underlying human-centered political participation, and re-evaluates the gender relations that derive from this type of participation. Ultimately, in place of these human-centered structures, Miller posits a more meditative mode of democratic engagement. Miller's argument has shattering implications for the debates over the proper use and disposal of embryonic tissue, alarms about data gathering by the state and corporations, and other major ethical, social, and security issues. (shrink)

In their article, Nielsen Busch and Mjaaland defend the moral permissibility of cDCD, suggesting that much of the controversy around this donation practice has been the result of a misinterpretatio...

In times of current crisis, the voices of women are needed more than ever. The accumulation of war and environmental catastrophes teaches us that exploitation of people and nature through violent appropriation and enrichment for the sake of short-term self-interest exacts its price. This book presents contributions on the currently most relevant and most urgent issues: reshaping the economy, environmental problems, technology and the re-reading of history from the non-western and western tradition. With an outlook into the problems of class, (...) race and gender in its intersectional framing, the collection offers a unique overview of current research in these fields and contributes to the renewal and contemporary presentation of feminist thought from partly concrete perspectives with regard to factual issues. (shrink)