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Sir John Templeton (1912–2008), the Wall Street legend who has been described as “arguably the greatest global stock picker of the twentieth century,” clearly knew what it took to be successful. The most important thing, he observed, was to have strong convictions that guided your life—this was the common denominator he saw in all successful people and enterprises. Fortunately for us, he was eager to share his own blueprint for personal success and happiness with the rest of the world. (...) In The Templeton Plan, he laid out the twenty-one guiding principles by which he governed both his professional and personal life. These principles were grounded in virtues that he considered important enough to be considered the “laws of life”—they include honesty, perseverance, thrift, enthusiasm, humility, and altruism. From this moral foundation, Templeton formulated a step-by-step plan to help improve anyone’s personal and professional life. Among the steps he enumerates, readers will find: · Four exercises that will help anyone find the positive in every negative · How to be the one person in ten that will productively use more time than they waste · The secret trait that separates great workers from good workers · How to control your thoughts for effective action · The practical applications of a sense of humility · How successful people approach risks differently from most people Taken as a whole, the lessons contained within his twenty-one steps will help readers make lasting friendships, reap significant financial rewards, and find personal satisfaction. Ever a believer in the future’s vast potential, Templeton hoped that sharing his principles would inspire others to seek their own laws of life, formulate their own plans, and find success and happiness on a scale exponentially greater than his own. He freely admitted that he didn’t know everything and that there was yet much to be discovered about prosperity and joy. The Templeton Plan not only offers his recipe for success, but also shows us the way to formulate our own plans. (shrink)

John Locke (29 August 1632 - 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism". Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Sir Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social contract theory. His work greatly affected the development of epistemology and political philosophy. His writings influenced Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, (...) as well as the American revolutionaries. His contributions to classical republicanism and liberal theory are reflected in the United States Declaration of Independence.Locke's theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self, figuring prominently in the work of later philosophers such as David Hume, Rousseau, and Immanuel Kant. Locke was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness. He postulated that, at birth, the mind was a blank slate or tabula rasa. Contrary to Cartesian philosophy based on pre-existing concepts, he maintained that we are born without innate ideas, and that knowledge is instead determined only by experience derived from sense perception. This is now known as empiricism. An example of Locke's belief in Empiricism can be seen in his quote, "whatever I write, as soon as I discover it not to be true, my hand shall be the forwardest to throw it into the fire." This shows the ideology of science in his observations in that something must be capable of being tested repeatedly and that nothing is exempt from being disproven. Challenging the work of others, Locke is said to have established the method of introspection, or observing the emotions and behaviors of one's self.Locke's concept of man started with the belief in creation. We have been "sent into the World by order, and about his business, are his Property, whose Workmanship are, made to last during his, not one anothers Pleasure." Like the two other very influential natural-law philosophers, Hugo Grotius and Samuel Pufendorf, Locke equated natural law with the biblical revelation, since in their view both had originated in God and could therefore not contradict each other. "As a philosopher, Locke was intensely interested in Christian doctrine, and in the Reasonableness he insisted that most men could not hope to understand the detailed requirements of the law of nature without the assistance of the teachings and example of Jesus.". (shrink)

v. 1. Autobiography and literary essays.--v. 2-3. Principles of political economy.--v. 4-5. Essays on economics and society, 1824-1879.--v. 6. Essays on England, Ireland, and the Empire.--v. 7-8. A system of logic; ratiocinative and inductive.--v. 9. An examination of Sir William Hamilton's philosophy.--v. 10. Essays on ethics, religion and society.--v. 11. Essays on philosophy and the classics.--v. 12-13. The earlier letters, 1812-1848.--v. 14-17. The later letters, 1849-1873.--v. 18-19. Essays on politics and society.--v. 20. Essays on French history and historians.--v. 21. Essays (...) on equality, law, and education.--v. 22-25. Newspaper writings.--v. 26-27. Journals and debating speeches.--v. 28-29. Public and parliamentary speeches.--v. 30. Writings on India.--v. 31. Miscellaneous writings.--v. 32. Additional letters of John Stuart Mill.--v. 33. Indexes to the collected works of John Stuart Mill. (shrink)

Abstract—How do judges decide cases? Are judges controlled by rules, principles and professional standards of reasoning or do they decide as politicians, using the law as an instrument to achieve predetermined goals. In Australia one influential view on this issue was expressed by Sir Owen Dixon when he called for a ‘strict and complete legalism’ for judges. Dixon’s strict legalism no longer commands the respect that it once did and his view is now commonly seen as naïve or as a (...) noble lie intended to hide the freedom open to judges when they decide cases. This article examines first Dixon’s understanding of strict legalism. It will argue that Dixon understood it as a form of practice and not as a rigorous scholarly system. Secondly, it will analyse Wilson v Darling Island Stevedoring to see whether the leading judgment of Fullagar J is in accord with Dixon’s judicial method. In Wilson the High Court was presented with a persistent legal problem—could stevedores claim the benefits of exemption and limitation clauses that commonly featured in bills of lading arising from the transport of goods and people? The third section of the article will consider the obvious belief of many of the judges in the authorities examined that the commercial inconvenience of not protecting stevedores was too great to ignore. These judges were willing to grant stevedores the protection of exemption clauses in contracts of carriage, a trend that continued, indeed accelerated, after Wilson. So, even if Fullagar J did judge as a strict legalist, does this perceived commercial imperative raise doubts about the appropriateness of this style of judging? In conclusion the article will consider the implications of showing that the reasoning in Wilson displayed a fidelity to Dixon’s notion of strict and complete legalism. (shrink)

Introduction A Brief Conceptual Framework for Biology PART ONE: UNDERSTANDING NATURE 1. The Antecedents of Scientific Thought Animism, Totemism, and Shamanism The Paleolithic View Mesopotamia Egypt 2. Aristotle and the Greek View of Nature The Science of Animal Biology The Parts of Animals The Classification of Animals The Aristotelian System Basic Questions 3. Those Rational Greeks? Theophrastus and the Science of Botany The Roman Pliny Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine Erasistratus Galen of Pergamum The Greek Miracle 4. The Judeo-Christian Worldview (...) The Bishop of Hippo Scholastic Thought Islamic Science Books on Beasts Antecedents of a Revolution 5. The Revival of Science Andreas Vesalius and the Study of Structure William Harvey and the Study of Function Sir Francis Bacon’s Great Instauration Induction, Hypothesis, Deduction The Very Small--Animalcules Robert Hooke and the Discovery of Cells 6. Figur’d Stones and Plastick Virtue Marine Life on Mountain Tops? Figured Stones of Unknown Creatures Baron Cuvier Quarries of the Paris Basin Catastrophism and Uniformitarianism William Smith and the Geological Column Understanding Nature in 1850 PART TWO: THE GROWTH OF EVOLUTIONARY THOUGHT 7. The Paradigm of Evolution First Questions The Paradigm of Natural Theology First Answers 8. Testing Darwins Hypotheses Have Life Forms Changed over Time? Do Species Evolve into Different Species over Time? Has There Been Time Enough for Evolution? Is Natural Selection the Mechanism of Change? The Genetic Basis of Natural Selection Accounting for the Diversity of Life 9. In the Light of Evolution Comparative Anatomy Embryonic Development Classification Microstructure Molecular Processes 10. Life over Time The Origin of Life The Rise of Multicelled Organisms What Is a Phylum? Burgess Shale Metazoans Early Evolution of the Vertebrates The Age of Dinosaurs Birds, Mammals, and Flowering Plants The Rancho La Brea Tar Pits Human Evolution The Role of Extinction in Evolution PART THREE: CLASSICAL GENETICS 11. Pangenesis What Is the Question? Hippocrates and Aristotle The Darwinian Answer Assembling the Data Formulating the Hypothesis by Induction Galton’s Rabbits 12. The Cell Theory The Discovery of Cells: Robert Hooke Schwann and Cells in Animals Gametes as Cells Omnis cellula e cellula? The Technology of Cell Research 13. The Hypothesis of Chromosomal Continuity The Ephemeral Nucleus Schneider, Flemming, and Cell Division The Chromosomes and inheritance Gamete Formation Fertilization 14. Mendel and the Birth of Genetics Model for Monohybrid Crosses Model for Dihybrid Crosses Mendel’s Laws Initial Opposition to Mendelism 15. Genetics + Cytology: 1900-1910 Sutton’s Model The Cytological Basis of Mendel’s Laws Boveri and Abnormal Chromosome Sets Variations in Mendelian Ratios The Discovery of Sex Chromosomes 16. The Genetics of the Fruit Fly Morgan’s First Hypothesis Morgan’s Second Hypothesis The Fly Room Linkage and Crossing-Over The Cytological Proof of Crossing-Over Mapping the Chromosomes The Final Proof The Determinants of Sex The Conceptual Foundations of Classical Genetics 17. The Structure and Function of Genes One Gene, One Enzyme The Substance of Inheritance The Watson-Crick Model of DNA Genes and the Synthesis of Proteins The Genetic Code PART FOUR: THE ENIGMA OF DEVELOPMENT 18. First Principles The Peripatetic Stagirite The Death and Rebirth of Scientific Thought Harvey and Malpighi A Two-Millennial Summing Up Preformation versus Epigenesis 19. The Century of Discovery Von Baer’s Discovery of the Mammalian Ovum Darwin’s Contribution to Embryology Haeckel and Recapitulation 20. Descriptive Embryology Germ Layers The External Development of the Amphibian Embryo The Internal Development of the Amphibian Embryo 21. The Dawn of Analytical Embryology His, Roux, and Mosaic Development Driesch and Regulative Development Novelty in Development Cell Lineage Nucleus or Cytoplasm? Fin de Siècle 22. Interactions during Development Amphibian Organizers Secondary Organizers The Reacting Tissue The Chemical Nature of the Organizer Putting It All Together Conclusion Further Reading References Illustration Credits Index. (shrink)

Although the notion of physician value neutrality in medicine may be traced back to the writings of Sir William Osler, it is relatively new to medicine and medical ethics. We argue in this paper that how physician value neutrality has been cashed out is often obscure and its defense not persuasive. In addition, we argue that the social/political implementation of neutrality, Political Liberalism, fails, and thus, PVN's case is weakened, for PVN's justification relies largely on the reasoning undergirding PL. For (...) these reasons, we conclude that PVN has no philosophical or ethical warrant and thus should be abandoned. We suggest that the physician present to her patients some type of statement or creed that would give them an idea of where she stands on important axiological issues and how these stands are cashed out clinically. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Science of Global Warming The Impacts of Global Warming Can We Believe the Evidence? International Agreement Required What Actions Can Be Taken?

Jacques Derrida offers his recent commentary on the early career of Paul de Man as an urgent intervention in a discussion he fears is going awry. The most pressing danger he sees in the recent revelations is that they have played into the hands of de Man’s antagonists, who are now ready to denounce the whole of his career and even deconstruction itself. Against such indiscriminate critiques Derrida hurls the epithet: totalitarian. He is attempting to reseize the initiative in the (...) discussion and to reset the terms of the debate. His agenda extends across historical, theoretical, and political questions.He wants to affirm that a radical, indeed absolute break separates the later from the earlier de Man. He also wants to show that the young de man, however firmly committed to fascist ideology and however much an accomplice of the Nazis occupying Belgium, at the same time regularly distanced himself from that ideology and even undermined its meanings. Moreover, Derrida boldly takes up the challenge that these revelations have cast on the intellectual movement he and de Man have shaped. Can deconstruction come to grips with the political and intellectual history of its own leading American proponent? And can deconstruction in the process make a distinctive contribution to the understanding of fascism and intellectuals’ participation in it? John Brenkman is associate professor of English at Northwestern University. He is the author of Culture and Domination . Jules David Law is assistant professor of English at Northwestern University. He is currently working on a book-length study of the metaphors of surface, depth, and reflection in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British prose. (shrink)

This incisive book deals with the use of the criminal law to enforce morality, in particular sexual morality, a subject of particular interest and importance since the publication of the Wolfenden Report in 1957. Professor Hart first considers John Stuart Mill's famous declaration: "The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community is to prevent harm to others." During the last hundred years this doctrine has twice been sharply challenged by two (...) great lawyers: Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, the great Victorian judge and historian of the common law, and Lord Devlin, who both argue that the use of the criminal law to enforce morality is justified. The author examines their arguments in some detail, and sets out to demonstrate that they fail to recognize distinction of vital importance for legal and political theory, and that they espouse a conception of the function of legal punishment that few would now share. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Instinct of Nature: Natural Law, Synderesis, and the Moral SenseRobert A. Greene“Instinct is a great matter.”—Sir John FalstaffThis essay traces the evolution of the meaning of the expression instinctus naturae in the discussion of the natural law from Justinian’s Digest through its association with synderesis to Francis Hutcheson’s theory of the moral sense. The introduction of instinctus naturae into Ulpian’s definition of the natural law by Isidore of (...) Seville in the seventh century posed a problem of definition for medieval commentators. Some said that it meant a universal and providential natura naturans; some defined it as the urge to self and species preservation in animals, degenerating in man into sensual and shameful impulses; some advanced the humanistic and paradoxical notion that it referred to a unique exercise of human reason in coming to know the natural law. The contemporaneous revival in the twelfth century of St. Jerome’s puzzling new term “synderesis,” and its gradual definition as the immediate apprehension of the first practical moral principles of the natural law, brought the two terms into proximity and loose association.A half-century later St. Bonaventure made explicit what had remained latent in the thinking of Thomas Aquinas by relocating synderesis in the affective rather than the intellectual part of man’s nature. Accordingly the moral discoveries of synderesis came to be spoken of as not only non-discursive but instinctive in nature—apprehensions for which no reason could be given, apprehensions somehow rooted in affective human experience. During the bilingual early modern period an increasingly secularized, internalized, and reified instinctus [End Page 173] naturae, together with its abbreviated vernacular cognate, “instinct,” came to serve as a substitute and synonym for the obsolescent synderesis. Edward Herbert’s attention to instinctus naturae in his De Veritate (1624), Sir Matthew Hale’s speculations about the place of rational instinct in the natural law, and Francis Hutcheson’s theory of a moral sense all exemplify this semantic legacy.The first entry in Justinian’s Digest has had a disproportionate influence on later speculation about the natural law. It begins a chapter that gives pride of place to general definitions of justice, law, jus naturale and jus gentium, and it is drawn from the writings of the Roman jurisconsult Domitius Ulpianus (d. 223), whose work constitutes forty percent of the Digest. Ulpian defines the natural law, with insistent repetition, as that which nature has taught to, or is common to, all animals:Jus naturale is that which nature has taught to all animals; for it is not a law specific to mankind but is common to all animals—land animals, sea animals, and the birds as well. Out of this comes the union of man and woman [male and female] which we call marriage, and the procreation of children, and their rearing. So we can see that the other animals, wild beasts included, are rightly understood to be acquainted with this law. Jus gentium, the law of the nations, is that which all human peoples observe. That it is not coextensive with natural law can be grasped easily, since this latter is common to all animals whereas jus gentium is common only to human beings among themselves. 1Justinian’s compilers gave Ulpian’s definition striking prominence at the beginning of the Digest and then in the same short chapter quoted the incompatible and more traditional definitions of his contemporaries Gaius and Paulus. They confined the operation of the natural law to mankind and spoke of reason as its source. 2 The compilers had been charged to eliminate just such conflicts; yet here at the very outset they set a conundrum that perplexed commentators [End Page 174] and invited explanation from Isidore of Seville to Hugo Grotius. Their selection of quotations suggests that as lawyers they regarded such general definitions as “for legal purposes no more than ornament to discussion.” 3 For those of a more speculative bent, however, the dilemmas could not have been more fundamental. How was the natural law to be defined in relation to those appetitive and self-preservative urges that man seemed to share with animals? Or did the term law apply only... (shrink)

In between the time of John Austin and H.L.A. Hart a great legacy, and an accompanying debate, spawned out of the work of Sir ­Henry Maine. While employing a primarily comparative, historical perspective, Maine sought to scrutinize and redefine the way philosophy relates to the social sciences within jurisprudential enquiries. From this perspective, the present paper aims to reclaim and represent Maine’s work as a project in and for the philosophy of law. A project which came to inspire and (...) influence future generations of philosophers, and two subsequent schools of thought, by instigating a forgotten debate around the concept of custom, its relation to the concept law, and the status of customary law. This examination will close with a note, highlighting certain aspects the revival of Maine’s works, as well as the legacy which spawned out of them, can have generally for the philosophy of law and interdisciplinary jurisprudence, as well as more particularly for the philosophy of customary international law. (shrink)

Sir John Fortesque was a leading jurist in fifteenth-century England, and while his works are not rigorously philosophical or theoretical, they are a description and defense of English government at the crucial period when England was moving from medieval to modern times. One reason Fortesque’s work is so fascinating is the tension and contrast between medieval and modern ideas.

Sir John Hicks is one of the most important and influential economists of the twentieth century. Awarded the Nobel Prize for economics in 1972, he has made contributions across a wide range of economic theory, writing some twenty books. Arguably the most important of these, _Value and Capital_, is seen as the roots of modern microeconomics and general equilibrium theory. Hicks possessed an unusual ability to synthesize the ideas of other economists – something that is evident in his invention (...) of the ‘IS-LM’ diagram to expound Keynes’ General Theory, and is perhaps what he is best known to present day economists for. This two volume set is the second collection on Hicks in this series and includes new assessments of his contributions, covering the last fifteen years. With a new introduction by the editor, this comprehensive and scholarly collection provides students and scholars immediate access to Sir John Hicks’ contributions. (shrink)

Sir John Hicks is one of the highest-regarded contemporary economists, and it is fitting that the new series of _Critical Assessments of Contemporary Economists_ should commence with his work. Awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1972, Sir John Hicks’ work is extremely wide-ranging, with the list of topics reading almost like an agenda for the whole of modern economics: general equilibrium theory, welfare economics, problems of index numbers, trade cycles, wages and many others. He may, however, be (...) best known to present day economists for having introduced IS-LM curves, now a standard means of Keynesian analysis. A comprehensive, scholarly work, this four-volume set gives students of economics and economic thought immediate access to Sir John Hicks' contributions and shows how his work has been received and modified by others. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Studies causation both as a concept and as it is 'in the objects.' Offers new accounts of the logic of singular causal statements, the form of causal regularities, the detection of causal relationships, the asymmetry of cause and effect, and necessary connection, and it relates causation to functional and statistical laws and to teleology.

A Border Disputeintegrates the latest work in logic and semantics into a theory of language learning and presents six worked examples of how that theory revolutionizes cognitive psychology. Macnamara's thesis is set against the background of a fresh analysis of the psychologism debate of the 19th-century, which led to the current standoff between logic and psychology. The book presents psychologism through the writings of John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant, and its rejection by Gottlob Frege and Edmund Husserl. It (...) then works out the general thesis that logic ideally presents a competence theory for part of human reasoning and explains how logical intuition is grounded in properties of the mind. The next six chapters present examples that illustrate the relevance of logic to psychology. These problems are all in the semantics of child language (the learning of proper names, personal pronouns, sortals or common nouns, quantifiers, and the truth-functional connectives) and reflect Macnamara's rich background in developmental psychology, particularly child language - a field, he points out, that embraces all of cognition. Technical problems raised by but not included in the examples in the main part of the text are dealt with in a separate chapter. The book concludes by describing laws in cognitive psychology, or the type of science made possible by Macnamara's new theory. John Macnamara is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Program in the History and Philosophy of Science, McGill University. A Bradford Book. (shrink)

"What is a military aircraft? John Law shows in his beautiful analysis that it is a constant oscillation between multiplicity and singularity.

From a moral point of view we think of ourselves as capable of responsible actions. From a scientific point of view we think of ourselves as animals whose behaviour, however highly evolved, conforms to natural scientific laws. Natural Agency argues that these different perspectives can be reconciled, despite the scepticism of many philosophers who have argued that 'free will' is impossible under 'scientific determinism'. This scepticism is best overcome, according to the author, by defending a causal theory of action, (...) that is by establishing that actions are constituted by behavourial events with the appropriate kind of mental causal history. He sets out a rich and subtle argument for such a theory and defends it against its critics. Thus the book demonstrates the importance of philosophical work in action theory for the central metaphysical task of understanding our place in nature. (shrink)

Although much recent social science and humanities work has been a revolt against simplification, this volume explores the contrast between simplicity and complexity to reveal that this dichotomy, itself, is too simplistic. John Law and Annemarie Mol have gathered a distinguished panel of contributors to offer—particularly within the field of science studies—approaches to a theory of complexity, and at the same time a theoretical introduction to the topic. Indeed, they examine not only ways of relating to complexity but complexity (...) _in practice._ Individual essays study complexity from a variety of perspectives, addressing market behavior, medical interventions, aeronautical design, the governing of supranational states, ecology, roadbuilding, meteorology, the science of complexity itself, and the psychology of childhood trauma. Other topics include complex wholes in the sciences, moral complexity in seemingly amoral endeavors, and issues relating to the protection of African elephants. With a focus on such concepts as multiplicity, partial connections, and ebbs and flows, the collection includes narratives from Kenya, Great Britain, Papua New Guinea, the Netherlands, France, and the meetings of the European Commission, written by anthropologists, economists, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, and scholars of science, technology, and society. _Contributors._ Andrew Barry, Steven D. Brown, Michel Callon, Chunglin Kwa, John Law, Nick Lee, Annemarie Mol, Marilyn Strathern, Laurent Thévenot, Charis Thompson. (shrink)

Let me start with a well-known story. Kant held that logic and conceptual analysis alone cannot account for our knowledge of arithmetic: “however we might turn and twist our concepts, we could never, by the mere analysis of them, and without the aid of intuition, discover what is the sum [7+5]” (KrV, B16). Frege took himself to have shown that Kant was wrong about this. According to Frege’s logicist thesis, every arithmetical concept can be defined in purely logical terms, and (...) every theorem of arithmetic can be proved using only the basic laws of logic. Hence, Kant was wrong to think that our grasp of arithmetical concepts and our knowledge of arithmetical truth depend on an extralogical source—the pure intuition of time (Frege 1884, §89, §109). Arithmetic, properly understood, is just a part of logic. (shrink)

This book presents the first detailed history of the modern passport and why it became so important for controlling movement in the modern world. It explores the history of passport laws, the parliamentary debates about those laws, and the social responses to their implementation. The author argues that modern nation-states and the international state system have 'monopolized the 'legitimate means of movement',' rendering persons dependent on states' authority to move about - especially, though not exclusively, across international boundaries. (...) This new edition reviews other scholarship, much of which was stimulated by the first edition, addressing the place of identification documents in contemporary life. It also updates the story of passport regulations from the publication of the first edition, which appeared just before the terrorist attacks of 9/11, to the present day. (shrink)

Cognitivism in psychology and philosophy is roughly the position that intelligent behavior can (only) be explained by appeal to internal that is, rational thought in a very broad sense. Sections 1 to 5 attempt to explicate in detail the nature of the scientific enterprise that this intuition has inspired. That enterprise is distinctive in at least three ways: It relies on a style of explanation which is different from that of mathematical physics, in such a way that it is not (...) basically concerned with quantitative equational laws; the states and processes with which it deals are in the sense that they are regarded as meaningful or representational; and it is not committed to reductionism, but is open to reduction in a form different from that encountered in other sciences. Spelling these points out makes it clear that the Cognitivist study of the mind can be rigorous and empirical, despite its unprecedented theoretical form. The philosophical explication has another advantage as well: It provides a much needed framework for articulating questions about whether the Cognitivist approach is right or wrong. The last three sections take that advantage of the account, and address several such questions, pro and con. (shrink)

This book espouses an innovative theory of scientific realism in which due weight is given to mathematics and logic. The authors argue that mathematics can be understood realistically if it is seen to be the study of universals, of properties and relations, of patterns and structures, the kinds of things which can be in several places at once. Taking this kind of scientific platonism as their point of departure, they show how the theory of universals can account for probability, (...) class='Hi'>laws of nature, causation, and explanation, and explore the consequences in all these fields. This will be an important book for all philosophers of science, logicians, and metaphysicians, and their graduate students. The readership will also include those outside philosophy interested in the interrelationship of philosophy and science. (shrink)

This Element is an introduction to the metaphysics of biology, a very general account of the nature of the living world. The first part of the Element addresses more traditionally philosophical questions - whether biological systems are reducible to the properties of their physical parts, causation and laws of nature, substantialist and processualist accounts of life, and the nature of biological kinds. The second half will offer an understanding of important biological entities, drawing on the earlier discussions. This division (...) should not be taken too seriously, however: the topics in both parts are deeply interconnected. Although this does not claim to be a scientific work, it does aim to be firmly grounded in our best scientific knowledge; it is an exercise in naturalistic metaphysics. Its most distinctive feature is that argues throughout for a view of living systems as processes rather than things or, in the technical philosophical sense, substances. (shrink)

In this book, J. L. Mackie makes a careful study of several philosophical issues involved in his account of causation. Mackie follows Hume's distinction between causation as a concept and causation as it is ‘in the objects’ and attempts to provide an account of both aspects. Mackie examines the treatment of causation by philosophers such as Hume, Kant, Mill, Russell, Ducasse, Kneale, Hart and Honore, and von Wright. Mackie's own account involves an analysis of causal statements in terms of counterfactual (...) conditionals though these are judged to be incapable of giving a complete account of causation. Mackie argues that regularity theory too can only offer an incomplete picture of the nature of causation. In the course of his analysis, Mackie critically examines the account of causation offered by Kant, as well as the contemporary Kantian approaches offered by philosophers such as Bennett and Strawson. Also addressed are issues such as the direction of causation, the relation of statistical laws and functional laws, the role of causal statements in legal contexts, and the understanding of causes both as ‘facts’ and ‘events’. Throughout the discussion of these topics, Mackie develops his own complex account of the nature of causation, finally bringing his analysis to bear in regard to the topic of teleology and the question of whether final causes can be justifiably reduced to efficient causes. (shrink)

"Powers and Capacities in Philosophy" is designed to stake out an emerging, discipline-spanning neo-Aristotelian framework grounded in realism about causal powers. The volume brings together for the first time original essays by leading philosophers working on powers in relation to metaphysics, philosophy of natural and social science, philosophy of mind and action, epistemology, ethics and social and political philosophy. In each area, the concern is to show how a commitment to real causal powers affects discussion at the level in question. (...) In metaphysics, for example, realism about powers is now recognized as providing an alternative to orthodox accounts of causation, modality, properties and laws. Dispositional realist philosophers of science, meanwhile, argue that a powers ontology allows for a proper account of the nature of scientific explanation. In the philosophy of mind there is the suggestion that agency is best understood in terms of the distinctive powers of human beings. Those who take virtue theoretic approaches in epistemology and ethics have long been interested in the powers that allow for knowledge and/or moral excellence. In social and political philosophy, finally, powers theorists are interested in the powers of sociological phenomena such as collectivities, institutions, roles and/or social relations, but also in the conditions of possibility for the cultivation of the powers of individuals. The book will be of interest to philosophers working in any of these areas, as well as to historians of philosophy, political theorists and critical realists. (shrink)

The prevalence of optimality models in the literature of evolutionary biology is testimony to their popularity and importance. Evolutionary biologist R. C. Lewontin, whose criticisms of optimality models are considered here, reflects that "optimality arguments have become extremely popular in the last fifteen years, and at present represent the dominant mode of thought." Although optimality models have received little attention in the philosophical literature, these models are very interesting from a philosophical point of view. As will be argued, optimality models (...) are central to evolutionary thought, yet they are not readily accomodated by the traditional view of scientific theories. According to the traditional view, we would expect optimality models to employ general, empirical laws of nature, but they do not. Fortunately, the semantic view of scientific theories, a recent alternative to the traditional view, more readily accomodates optimality models. As we would expect on the semantic view, optimality models can be construed as specifications of ideal systems. These specifications may be used to describe empirical systems--that is, the specifications may have empirical instances. But the specifications are not empirical claims, much less general, empirical laws. Although philosophers have yet to discuss the general features and uses of optimality models, these topics have stimulated much recent discussion among evolutionary biologists. Their discussions raise a number of precautions concerning the proper use of optimality models. Moreover, many of their caveats can be interpreted as general reminders that 1) optimality models specify ideal systems whose empirical instantiations may be quite restricted, and that 2) optimality models should not be construed as general, empirical laws. As G. F. Oster and E. O. Wilson caution, "the prudent course is to regard optimality models as provisional guides to further empirical research and not necessarily as the key to deeper laws of nature." It seems, then, that the semantic view of theories is more sensitive to the nature and limitations of optimality models than is the more traditional view of theories. (shrink)

"Theoretical pluralism" obtains when there are good evidential reasons for accommodating multiple theories of the same domain. Issues of "relative significance" often arise in connection with the investigation of such domains. In this paper, I describe and give examples of theoretical pluralism and relative significance issues. Then I explain why theoretical pluralism so often obtains in biology--and why issues of relative significance arise--in terms of evolutionary contingencies and the paucity or lack of laws of biology. Finally, I turn from (...) explanation to justification, and raise questions about the purpose and value of concerns and disagreements about relative significance. (shrink)