The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted the lives of families in the United States and across the world, impacting parent mental health and stress, and in turn, the parent-child relationship. Music is a common parent-child activity and has been found to positively impact relationships, but little is known about music’s role in parent-child interactions during a pandemic. The current study utilized an online questionnaire to assess the use of music in the home of young children and their parents (...) in the United States and Canada during Covid-19 and its relationship with parents’ affective attachment with their child. Musical activity was high for both parents and children. Parents reported using music for both emotion regulation and to socially connect with their children. Parent-child musical engagement was associated with parent-child attachment, controlling for relevant parent variables including parent distress, efficacy, education, and parent-child engagement in non-musical activities. These results indicate that music may be an effective tool for building and maintaining parent-child relationships during a period of uncertainty and change. (shrink)

According to tradition, logic is normative for reasoning. Gilbert Harman challenged the view that there is any straightforward connection between logical consequence and norms of reasoning. Authors including John MacFarlane and Hartry Field have sought to rehabilitate the traditional view. I argue that the debate is marred by a failure to distinguish three types of normative assessment, and hence three ways to understand the question of the normativity of logic. Logical principles might be thought to provide the reasoning agent with (...) first-personal directives; they might be thought to serve as third-personal evaluative standards; or they might underwrite our third-personal appraisals of others whereby we attribute praise and blame. I characterize the three normative functions in general terms and show how a failure to appreciate this threefold distinction has led disputants to talk past one another. I further show how the distinction encourages fruitful engagement with and, ultimately, resolution of the question. (shrink)

Logic, the tradition has it, is normative for reasoning. But is that really so? And if so, in what sense is logic normative for reasoning? As Gilbert Harman has reminded us, devising a logic and devising a theory of reasoning are two separate enterprises. Hence, logic's normative authority cannot reside in the fact that principles of logic just are norms of reasoning. Once we cease to identify the two, we are left with a gap. To bridge the gap one would (...) need to produce what John MacFarlane has appropriately called a bridge principle, i.e. a general principle articulating a substantive and systematic link between logical entailment and norms of reasoning. This is Harman's skeptical challenge. In this paper I argue that Harman's skeptical challenge can be met. I show how candidate bridge principles can be systematically generated and evaluated against a set of well‐motivated desiderata. Moreover, I argue that bridge principles advanced by MacFarlane himself and others, for all their merit, fail to address the problem originally set forth by Harman and so do not meet the skeptical challenge. Finally, I develop a bridge principle that meets Harman's requirements as well as being substantive. (shrink)

Introduction -- What is political judgment? -- Foundations: Plato and Aristotle -- The Kantian Problematic -- The Arendtian Theory of Judgment -- Hermeneutics, tacit knowledge and neo-rationalism.

Discussions about ethics of Big Data often focus on the ethics of data processing: collecting, storing, handling, analysing and sharing data. Data-based systems, however, do not come from nowhere. They are designed and brought into being within social spaces – or social milieu. This paper connects philosophical considerations of individual and collective capacity to enact practical reason to the influence of social spaces. Building a deeper engagement with the social imaginaries of technology development through analysis of two years of fieldwork (...) with start-ups working on Internet of Things, this paper suggests that different action positions can emerge, with consequences for how data is understood and valued. The Disengaged, Pragmatist and Idealist ethical action positions identified in the paper reveal the ways individuals and groups negotiate possibilities for ethical action, through justifications, explanations and structuring of system features. (shrink)

As philosophers are keen to say, there is a possible world where Socrates is a carpenter. Plausibly, truths about what might or could not be the case are not basic but grounded in more fundamental features of reality. Steinberg develops this insight into a novel account of the supervenience structure of the modal realm. This study was awardedthe 2012 GAP/ontos award.".

This article aims to understand what role Steve Biko and the Black Consciousness Movement, and the Soweto Uprising, played in Christian activism between the early 1970s and late 1980s. The question is: did the Black Consciousness Movement and the Soweto Uprising influence Christian activists to engage differently with notions such as reconciliation during the struggle against apartheid? The article revisits the actions and thinking of Christian activists before 1994 to understand some of their views on reconciliation, but most importantly, to (...) understand their interactions, engagement with the Black Consciousness Movement and the Soweto Uprising. The article focuses on some of the church leaders and liberation theologians who were inspired and encouraged by Black Consciousness movements, including Allan Boesak and Desmond Tutu. To revisit their thinking and actions, in the heart of the struggle against apartheid, may help us understand current struggles on reconciliation, particularly in connection with the new generation of activists known as the Fallists. We may discover that the new generation is opening ‘old or new’ debates around reconciliation in South Africa. (shrink)

How do essentialist beliefs about categories arise? We hypothesize that such beliefs are transmitted via language. We subject large language models (LLMs) to vignettes from the literature on essentialist categorization and find that they align well with people when the studies manipulated teleological information -- information about what something is for. We examine whether in a classic test of essentialist categorization -- the transformation task -- LLMs prioritize teleological properties over information about what something looks like, or is made of. (...) Experiments 1 and 2 find that telos and what something is made of matter more than appearance. Experiment 3 manipulates all three factors and finds that what something is for matters more than what it's made of. Overall, these studies suggest that language alone may be sufficient to give rise to essentialist beliefs, and that information about what something is for matters more. (shrink)

In The Afterlife of Moses, Steinberg addresses the story of Moses and the Exodus as a foundational myth of politics, of the formation not of a nation but of a political community grounded in universal law. Motivated in part by this recent period of reactionary insurgency in the US, Europe, and Israel, this work of intellectual history articulates the way in which a critique of myths of origin as a principle of democratic government, affect, and citizenship has equal relevance (...) in these places and equal fragility. (shrink)

This chapter considers the challenges to, and the resources for, cultivating a personal capacity for tolerance, given a Spinozist account of belief-formation. After articulating two main components of personal tolerance, I examine the features of Spinoza’s theory of cognition that make the cultivation of tolerance so difficult. This is followed by an analysis of Spinoza’s account of overcoming intolerant tendencies. Ultimately, I argue that the capacity of individuals to be tolerant depends crucially on the establishment of conditions of trust, conditions (...) that are conspicuously lacking in many modern democracies. (shrink)

Politics is, at its core, a kind of activity, a particular type of doing. It comprises a distinctive and varied repertoire of human practices that we regularly characterize as political and that we think of as somehow defining the essence of public life. One might say that specific forms of political engagement are to politics as batting, throwing, catching and running are to baseball. They constitute, in effect, the sum and substance of the enterprise.

Enūma eliš and Erra and Išum are richly intertextual poems that both make sophisticated allusions to Anzû. Both do so in competitive ways: Enūma eliš reshapes earlier motifs towards its goal of elevating Marduk and Babylon over the gods and cities that came before them, while Erra and Išum uses allusions to undermine the image of Marduk that Enūma eliš creates. Tiʼāmtu’s blood carried on the wind to announce Marduk’s victory and the tablet of destinies which Tiʼāmtu fastens to Qingu’s (...) chest are two well-known examples of borrowings from Anzû in Enūma eliš. This article traces them through all three poems and shows how they are transformed in each. In the case of Enūma eliš the way that the poem deploys these allusions has previously been called clumsy because they stand out and do not appear to fit seamlessly into the narrative. Yet a closer analysis reveals that they have been much better integrated than is usually recognized, and that their subtleties make important contributions to the program of Marduk supplanting Ninurta. In Erra and Išum the chain becomes ever more complex: the motifs refer back both to their original contexts in Anzû and to their occurrences in Enūma eliš, implying a self-conscious awareness and exploitation of techniques used by earlier poets. (shrink)

This note considers Marduk’s use of the net in Enūma eliš. This weapon is usually assumed to be a net for catching birds inherited from Marduk’s relationship to Ninurta mythology, since Ninurta’s opponent in battle was the demonic bird Anzû. Here it is suggested that the net can also be used as a fishing net and portrays Marduk as a fisherman. This coheres with the nature of Marduk’s opponent, Ti’āmtu, whose name means sea, and also fits into the depiction of (...) Marduk taking over from Enlil as chief god in Enūma eliš, since Enlil is also described as both fisher and fowler in Sumerian texts. Thus an image that is sometimes thought to be awkwardly borrowed is shown to be coherently integrated after all, adding another dimension to the depiction of Marduk in battle. (shrink)

Daniel and Frances Howard-Snyder suggest that it is possible for an omnipotent being, Jove, to create randomly a world from a continuum of ever more perfect possible worlds. They then go on to argue that Jove could be characterized as morally unsurpassable despite creating a surpassable world. I raise a number of problems for the view that Jove could be characterized as morally unsurpassable when he creates (randomly or not) a surpassable world.

This chapter argues that Spinoza's commitment to an essentialist reading of striving helps to explain his profound, and somewhat underappreciated, break with Thomas Hobbes not only in terms of his views of right and obligation, but also in terms of his conceptions of happiness and the good. It examines the similarities between Thomas Hobbes's and Spinoza's views on motivation. This is followed by an analysis of the distinct ways in which they understand striving, and in turn agency and artifice, showing (...) how these differences are reflected in their conceptions of civil life. Spinoza adopts a fundamentally different conception of action and agency, one that is rooted, unsurprisingly, in his conception of essence. The chapter considers how the differences yield fundamentally different views of goodness, happiness, liberty, and the function of the state. Spinoza's account of happiness and the agreement of essences profoundly shapes his view of the function of the state. (shrink)

BackgroundThis paper considers ethical dilemmas arising where a patient asks their General Practitioner for advice and their personal opinion regarding whether or not to have an abortion. Patients often seek their General Practitioner’s advice regarding treatments and procedures, which may occasionally lead to the General Practitioner facing a difficult dilemma of whether to share their personal opinion with their patient. As General Practitioners are more accessible as the first point of contact for patients and often have a closer relationship with (...) them, they may be particularly exposed to such situations. Additionally, the significance of abortion as a sensitive topic and the fact the General Practitioner may have their own personal viewpoint on its morality may make it particularly difficult for them to know how to respond to such a request.Main textThis paper explores the difficulties arising in such a situation and considers whether it could ever be ethically justifiable for General Practitioners to express their opinions on such a matter. We consider the duties of a doctor, and highlight the need for clearer guidance for healthcare professionals on managing tensions in their professional boundaries between their personal moral views and their professional responsibilities. A range of ethical viewpoints are considered to explore how a doctor might ap, in particular the principle of autonomy, virtue ethics, and consequentialism.ConclusionsThis article recognises that a General Practitioner in a situation such as this faces many ethical challenges. We propose that offering their opinion to the patient where specifically requested may be morally justifiable. A virtue ethics approach in particular requires that the General Practitioner applies practical wisdom to make this decision, and where they do disclose their opinion ensure this is done so in such a manner that it does not harm the patient and promotes flourishing. We encourage GPs and other healthcare professionals to consider their own moral perspectives on sensitive issues such as abortion, and reflect on how their moral viewpoints have the potential to influence their practice. In doing so, we hope clinicians can be better should they be faced with a situation such as this. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: How Does One Avoid Skepticism? The Experience Machine Contextualism My Take on Skepticism Notes.

This chapter contains sections titled: What's So Great About Sailing? Aristotle, Virtues, and Flourishing Is Sailing Virtuous? Is Sailing More Virtuous Than Other Pursuits? Conclusion.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Roots of the Blues in Trauma, Loss, and Adversity Transforming Trauma, Loss, and Adversity The Blues as Living Oral History Transformation through Music Emotional Regulation in the Blues The Creative Reverberation of Traumatic Loss The Blues as a Living, Evolving Legacy Notes.

This chapter introduces inferential role semantics (IRS) and some of the challenges it faces. It also introduces inferentialism and places it into the wider context of contemporary philosophy of language. The chapter focuses on what is standardly considered both the most important test case for and the most natural application of IRS: logical inferentialism, the view that the meanings of the logical expressions are fully determined by the basic rules for their correct use, and that to understand a logical expression (...) is to use it in accordance with the appropriate rules. It discusses some of the benefits of logical inferentialism, chiefly with regard to the epistemology of logic, and considers a number of objections. The chapter critically examines Robert Brandom's inferentialism about linguistic and conceptual content in general. Finally, it considers a number of general objections to IRS and possible responses on the inferentialist's behalf. (shrink)

Ewing, Selena R Sometimes we find a question in bioethics that seems so mundane and common that nobody cares to consider it, and yet it has no easy answer. The question of my current research project is this. When an elderly person, perhaps your parent or your patient, says 'I don't want to be a burden,' what do they mean and how should we respond?

Ewing, Selena This paper is part of a larger body of research which was partly supported by a grant from the Mary Phillippa Brazill Foundation.

Ewing, Selena R Sometimes we find a question in bioethics that seems so mundane and common that nobody cares to consider it, and yet it has no easy answer. The question of my current research project is this. When an elderly person, perhaps your parent or your patient, says 'I don't want to be a burden,' what do they mean and how should we respond?

A wider social stage -- Girls will be boys : gender, envy, and the Freudian social contract -- Anna-Antigone : experiments in group upbringing -- The defense of psychoanalysis/the anxiety of politics -- Conclusion : ego politics.

Analyzing the reception of Nietzsche’s work in the years following World War I is a delicate and important task, one that Nietzsche nella Rivoluzione conservatrice seeks to accomplish by focusing on the so-called Conservative Revolutionary movement and the prominent intellectuals who orbited it. The book is a rich summary of the eponymous congress held in Bologna, promoted by the University of Bologna and the Fondazione Gramsci Emilia-Romagna, and it contains fifteen essays from both young and established scholars, including the editors (...) of the volume, preceded by a short yet informative introduction. “Conservative Revolutionary” is an almost paradoxical expression, chosen by... (shrink)

Una lunga lettura filologica di Nietzsche allena all’attenzione per i testi, in ogni loro parola. Il volume di Pietro Gori dichiara nel titolo ciò che le sue pagine realizzano, donando un saggio del pensiero prospettivistico all’opera. Lungi dal limitarsi a fornire un ulteriore contributo alla già ricca riflessione sul prospettivismo nietzschiano, Gori intercetta il desiderio della comunità scientifica in merito al tema declinandolo secondo cinque diverse prospettive, atte a rendere conto del...

The matter of truth in Nietzsche’s thought is one of the most studied and debated topics in recent scholarship. It is a topic of great interest and has generated much scholarship, but rarely does such work offer anything new. The book, Teorie e pratiche della verità in Nietzsche, edited by Pietro Gori and Paolo Stellino, is an exception to this trend, as it offers important and original contributions to this area of study.The text—which is the result of a workshop by (...) the same name held in Valencia in May 2011— develops an original approach on two different levels. On the one hand, the authors acknowledge in the preface not only the importance of the search for truth in Nietzsche’s philosophy, but also the... (shrink)

In a series of recent papers, Corine Besson argues that dispositionalist accounts of logical knowledge conflict with ordinary reasoning. She cites cases in which, rather than applying a logical principle to deduce certain implications of our antecedent beliefs, we revise some of those beliefs in the light of their unpalatable consequences. She argues that such instances of, in Gilbert Harman’s phrase, ‘reasoned change in view’ cannot be accommodated by the dispositionalist approach, and that we would do well to conceive of (...) logical knowledge as a species of propositional knowledge instead. In this paper, we propose a dispositional account that is more general than the one Besson considers, viz. one that does not merely apply to beliefs, and claim that dispositionalists have the resources to account for reasoned change in view. We then raise what we take to be more serious challenges for the dispositionalist view, and sketch some lines of response dispositionalists might offer. (shrink)

The argument for modal collapse is partly responsible for the widespread rejection of the so-called Principle of Sufficient Reason in recent times. This paper discusses the PSR against the background of the recent debate about grounding and develops principled reasons for rejecting the argument from modal collapse.