What Nietzsche Really Said gives us a lucid overview -- both informative and entertaining -- of perhaps the most widely read and least understood philosopher in history. Friedrich Nietzsche's aggressive independence, flamboyance, sarcasm, and celebration of strength have struck responsive chords in contemporary culture. More people than ever are reading and discussing his writings. But Nietzsche's ideas are often overshadowed by the myths and rumors that surround his sex life, his politics, and his sanity. In this lively and comprehensive analysis, (...) Nietzsche scholars Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins get to the heart of Nietzsche's philosophy, from his ideas on "the will to power" to his attack on religion and morality and his infamous Übermensch (superman). What Nietzsche Really Said offers both guidelines and insights for reading and understanding this controversial thinker. Written with sophistication and wit, this book provides an excellent summary of the life and work of one of history's most provocative philosophers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Robert C. Solomon IN DEFENSE OF SENTIMENTALITY "A sentimentalist is simply one who desires to have the luxury of an emotion without paying for it." —Oscar Wilde, De Profundis. 66TA That's Wrong with Sentimentality?"1 That tide of Mark JefV V ferson's 1983 Mindessay already indicates a great deal notonly about the gist of his article but about a century-old prejudice that has been devastating to ethics and literature (...) alike. According to that prejudice, it goes without saying that there is something wrong with it, even if it is difficult to put one's finger on it. To be called "sentimental" is to be ridiculed, or dismissed. Sentimentality is a weakness, it suggests hypocrisy. Or, perhaps it is the fact that sentimental people are so... so embarrassing. (How awkward it is talking or sitting next to someone weeping or gushing, when one is dry-eyed and somber.) Or, perhaps it is the well-confirmed fact that sentimentalists have such poor taste, and sentimental literature is, above all, literature that is cheap, superficial, and manipulative—in other words, verbal kitsch. Such mawkish literature jerks tears from otherwise sensible readers, and sentimentalists are those who actually enjoy that humiliating experience. Perhaps that is why Oscar Wilde thought that sentimentalists were really cynics ("Sentimentality is merely the bank holiday of cynicism").2 Or, perhaps what bothers us is what bothered Michael Tanner, that sentimental people indulge themselves in their feelings instead of doing what should be done.3 It is often said that the problem is that sentimentality and sentimental literature alike give us a false view of the world, distort our thinking and substitute a "saccharine" portrait of the world in place ofwhat we all know to be the horrible realities. Moreover, as Jefferson more than merely suggests, the "simple-minded sympathies " ofsentimentality might actually promote fascism and racism. Mary Midgley similarly suggests that sentimentality leads to brutality.4 But Philosophy and Literature, © 1990, 14: 304-323 Robert C. Solomon305 even where sentimentality is a harmless diversion—a Daphne du Maurier novel on a sad Saturday afternoon—it seems to be all but agreed that sentimentality is no virtue even ifit is not, like cruelty and hypocrisy, intrinsically vicious. Something is wrong with sentimentality; the only question is, what is it that is wrong? In this essay, I will argue that there is nothing wrong with sentimentality. Of course, like any quasi-ethical category, it admits of unwarranted excesses and hypocritical abuses, and is prone to various pathological distortions. But the prejudice against sentimentality, I want to argue, is ill-founded and in fact is an extension ofthat all-too-familiar contempt for the passions in Western literature and philosophy. Our disdain for sentimentality is the rationalist's discomfort with any display of emotion, warranted as well as unwarranted, appropriate as well as inappropriate. It is as ifthe very word, "sentimentality," has been loaded with the connotations of "too much"—too much feeling and too litde common sense and rationality, as if these were opposed instead of mutually supportive. It is as if sentimentality and its sentiments are never warranted and always inappropriate. The word has come to be used as the name of a deficiency or a weakness if not, as some critics have written, a malaise. But I take sentimentality to be nothing more nor less than the "appeal to tender feelings," and though one can manipulate and abuse such feelings (including one's own), and though they can on occasion be misdirected or excessive, there is nothing wrong with them as such and hence nothing (in that respect) wrong with literature that provokes us, that "moves" us, to abstract affection or weeping. Sentimentality implies no deficiency in one's rational faculties and does not imply any inappropriateness, unwillingness, or lack of readiness to act. Sentimentality does not involve any distortion of the world and it does not impede but rather prepares and motivates us to react in "the real world." It is not an escape from reality or responsibility, but, quite to the contrary, provides the precondition for ethical engagement rather than an obstacle to it. Historically, I want to trace the fate of sentimentality to... (shrink)

D‐amino acids are being recognized as functionally important molecules in mammals. We recently identified endogenous D‐cysteine in mammalian brain. D‐cysteine is present in neonatal brain in substantial amounts (mM) and decreases with postnatal development. D‐cysteine binds to MARCKS and a host of proteins implicated in cell division and neurodevelopmental disorders. D‐cysteine decreases phosphorylation of MARCKS in neural progenitor cells (NPCs) affecting its translocation. D‐cysteine controls NPC proliferation by inhibiting AKT signaling. Exogenous D‐cysteine inhibits AKT phosphorylation at Thr 308 and Ser (...) 473 in NPCs. D‐cysteine treatment of NPCs led to 50% reduction in phosphorylation of Foxo1 at Ser 256 and Foxo3a at Ser 253. We hypothesize that in the developing brain endogenous D‐cysteine is as a physiologic regulator of NPC proliferation by inhibiting AKT signaling mediated by Foxo1 and Foxo3a. Endogenous D‐cysteine may regulate mammalian neurodevelopment with roles in schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease (AD). (shrink)

Lennart Åqvist (1992) proposed a logical theory of legal evidence, based on the Bolding-Ekelöf of degrees of evidential strength. This paper reformulates Åqvist's model in terms of the probabilistic version of the kappa calculus. Proving its acceptability in the legal context is beyond the present scope, but the epistemological debate about Bayesian Law isclearly relevant. While the present model is a possible link to that lineof inquiry, we offer some considerations about the broader picture of thepotential of AI & Law (...) in the evidentiary context. Whereas probabilisticreasoning is well-researched in AI, calculations about the threshold ofpersuasion in litigation, whatever their value, are just the tip of theiceberg. The bulk of the modeling desiderata is arguably elsewhere, if one isto ideally make the most of AI's distinctive contribution as envisaged forlegal evidence research. (shrink)

© 2015 Wong,Tassone,Rivera and Simon.Carriers of the fragile X premutation allele have an expanded CGG trinucleotide repeat size within the FMR1 gene and are at increased risk of developing fragile x-associated tremor/ataxia syndrome. Previous research has shown that male fXPCs with FXTAS exhibit cognitive decline, predominantly in executive functions such as inhibitory control and working memory. Recent evidence suggests fXPCs may also exhibit impairments in processing temporal information. The attentional blink task is often used to examine the dynamics of (...) attentional selection, but disagreements exist as to whether the AB is due to excessive or insufficient attentional control. In this study, we used a variant of the AB task and neuropsychological testing to explore the dynamics of attentional selection, relate AB performance to attentional control, and determine whether fXPCs exhibited temporal and/or attentional control impairments. Participants were adult male fXPCs, aged 18–48 years and asymptomatic for FXTAS and age-matched male controls. We found that fXPCs did not differ from controls in the AB task, indicating that the temporal dynamics of attentional selection were intact. However, they were impaired in the letter-number sequencing task, a test of executive working memory. In the combined fXPC and control group, letter-number sequencing performance correlated positively with AB magnitude. This finding supports models that posit the AB is due to excess attentional control. In our two-pronged analysis approach, in control participants we replicated a previously observed effect and demonstrated that it persists under more stringent theoretical constraints, and we enhance our understanding of fXPCs by demonstrating that at least some aspects of temporal processing may be spared. (shrink)

Zygon®, Volume 57, Issue 2, Page 467-489, June 2022.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hermeneutics, Neuroscience and PsychiatryMichael T. H. Wong, MBBS, MD, MA, MDiv, PhD, FRCPsych, FRANZCP, FHKAM (bio)Hermeneutic practice in mental health has been a theme in Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology (PPP) since its very beginnings. In this essay I argue that hermeneutics, the theory and practice of interpretation, promotes therapeutic interaction between mental health professionals, patients and their family.Why does this patient present in such a way at this (...) particular point in time? The distressing symptoms are there. The changes in behavior are obvious. Impairments of functions are hurting. A mental illness clearly runs in the family. There were early losses of loved ones, physical abuse at home, bullying by peers and self-medication with drugs and alcohol. Three in four adults with a mental illness first experienced that before they turned 24. The brain goes through major reorganization during adolescence and early adulthood. If synaptic pruning went wrong, psychoses emerged. When stresses activated the hypothalamic–pituitary–adrenal axis the elevated cortisol level impacted the size and function of the hippocampus and amygdala in the genetically vulnerable; anxiety, depression, bipolar, and personality disorders developed. The patient needs a voice/language to describe all these experiences and events and the psychiatrist needs a discourse to make sense of them.Eisenberg laments the swings between "brainlessness" and "mindlessness" in psychiatry. Engel argues for a "biopsychosocial" discourse. The major challenge for psychiatry is how to organize clinical information of different nature (categories, dimensions, narratives; i.e., objective vs. subjective, personal vs. interpersonal) into a coherent and comprehensible account for us all. Mental illnesses are not only neuropsychiatric spectrum disorders but also dysfunctions of social relationship and environmental/ecological adaptation. Psychiatry as a clinical neuroscience per se lacks the semantics to address the rich interactions between the physical, psychological, social, cultural, and spiritual in the illness experience of our patients. Explanation in the diagnostic formulation (objective scientific discourse on cause and effect) and understanding in the patient narrative (subjective ordinary everyday discourse on significance and meaning) are irreducible to each other (Wong, 2018). They instead interact with one another to achieve an integrative formulation, not through merging different discourses into a single assertion/monologue but via the dialectic/dialogue of "explaining more in order to understand better," as Ricoeur puts it, and between "the whole and the parts," as Schleiermacher highlights.This "therapeutic hermeneutic circle" of "explanation vs understanding" and "the whole vs the parts" includes symptoms behavior function and life events. It correlates between bio-psychosociocultural-spiritual dimensions/perspectives and does not reduce them to any particular/single [End Page 13] stance. The whole integrates the parts and the parts enrich the whole. It explains but does not explain away. It understands through an articulation of meaning and significance. This discourse is a multilayered (bio-psycho-social-cultural-spiritual) personal narrative that formulates diagnosis and care in a correlative (linking different voices/discourses) and non-reductive (no particular voice/discourse is prejudiced against) manner that is comprehensible to us all (Wong, 2021).PPP will be an excellent forum for discussing clinical hermeneutics in the future. In this digital era of social media and virtual reality, hermeneutics has the never-ending task to tackle the unprecedented challenges to meaning illness and health posed by polarizing discourses.Michael T. H. Wong Michael T.H. Wong, MBBS, MD, MA, MDiv, PhD, FRCPsych, FRANZCP, FHKAM, is Hon Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry, School of Clinical Medicine, LKS Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, HKSAR, China. Michael is Chair, Section of Philosophy & Humanities in Psychiatry, World Psychiatric Association. He is an Organizational Partner & International Lead with The Collaborating Centre for Values-Based Practice in Health and Social Care, St Catherine's College Oxford. He is Advisor to the Chinese Health Foundation of Australia.ReferencesWong M. T. H. (2018). Ricoeur and the third discourse of the person: From philosophy and neuroscience to psychiatry and theology. London: Lexington Books. Google ScholarWong, M. T. H. (2021). Values, meanings, hermeneutics and mental health. In Stoyanov, D., Fulford, K. M. W. F., Stanghellini, G., Van Staden, W., & Wong, M. TH. (Eds.), International perspectives in values-based mental health practice: Case studies and commentaries (pp. 341–349... (shrink)

The authors of this essay challenge the notion that “philosophy” is irredeemably Eurocentric by providing a series of personal, professional, and pedagogical reflections on their experience in a new graduate seminar on “Indigenous philosophy.” The authors—a graduate student, professor, and Indigenous course-facilitator—share in the fashion of “Indigenous storywork,” as outlined by Stó:lō pedagogue Jo-Ann Archibald. We begin with the instructor and how he was personally challenged to re-evaluate his roots and philosophical praxis in spite of his experience teaching over several (...) decades. The second section describes a student experience and how they measured the exigencies of decolonization against the esteem that their family holds for Canada’s brand of multiculturalism. Finally, we turn to the Indigenous seminar facilitator and his skepticism over whether the course truly constituted decolonized, or “landed,” pedagogy. Throughout, the authors ask about the demands of decolonization and how philosophical pedagogy may center Indigenous futurity. (shrink)

Robert Solomon's essay makes interesting reading against the background of the current efforts to find common ground between continental philosophersand the British and American philosophers. His article begins with a central point in analytic-linguistic philosophy. Soon it becomes a confrontation withphenomenology and eventually a confrontation of issues within phenomenology.

This ethnographic study introduces the term “distressed work” to describe the emergence of chronic frictions between moral imperatives for health care workers to keep working and the dramatic increase in distress during the Covid‐19 pandemic. Interviews and observant participation conducted in a hospital intensive care unit during the Covid‐19 pandemic reveal how health care workers connected job duties with extraordinary emotional, physical, and moral burdens. We explore tensions between perceived obligations of health care professionals and the structural contexts of work. (...) Key findings cluster around the moral imperatives of health care work and the distress that work engendered as work spaces, senses of vocation, patient and family interactions, and end‐of‐life care shifted. While the danger of working beyond limits has long been an ordinary feature of health care work, it has now become a chronic crisis. Assessing this problem in terms of distressed work and its structural contexts can better address effective, worker‐informed responses to current health care labor dilemmas. (shrink)

The seven deadly sins have provided gossip, amusement, and the plots of morality plays for nearly fifteen hundred years. In Wicked Pleasures, well-known philosopher, business ethicist, and admitted sinner Robert C. Solomon brings together a varied group of contributors for a new look at the old catalogue of sins. Solomon introduces the sins as a group, noting their popularity and pervasiveness. From the formation of the canon by Pope Gregory the Great, the seven have survived the sermonizing of (...) the Reformation, the Inquisition, the Enlightenment, the brief French reign of supreme reason, the apotheoses of capitalism, communism, secular humanism and postmodernism, the writings of numerous rabbis and evangelical moralists, two series in the New York Times, and several bad movies. Taking their cue from this remarkable history, the contributors, including Thomas Pynchon, allowed one sin apiece, provide a non-sermonizing and relatively light-hearted romp through the domain of the deadly seven. (shrink)

I thought the paper by Kai-yee Wong and Chris Fraser was fascinating and insightful. Two things I especially appreciated are the clarity with which they summarize my views. I think they are quite fair and accurate. Second, I appreciate their suggestion that the way to deal with the practical problem of weakness of will has much to do with the role of the Background in shaping our actions. I think they are especially on the right track when they say (...) that the improvement of Background skills may actually narrow the range of real options for action, (p. 21) nonetheless, they do not decrease freedom. As they say, “It is a process of strengthening the self, and the agent is likely to experience the concomitant restriction of ‘live’ options not as a limitation but as strength of character.” (p. 21). That seems to me very much on the right track. What they are suggesting, and it is a powerful addition to my own writings, is that we should not just think of the Background as facilitating languages, games and social practices generally, but for morality as well (p. 23). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XXVI, Number 1, April 2000, pp. 129-142 Hume on ''Greatness of Soul" GRAHAM SOLOMON The "great-souled man" was first described in detail in Book iv of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics. Simon Blackburn concisely summarizes Aristotle's portrait of this "lofty character": "The great-souled man is of a distinguished situation, worthy of great things, 'an extreme in respect of the greatness of his claims, but a mean in (...) respect of the Tightness of them', perfectly virtuous, good at conferring benefits but ashamed of receiving them, neither humble nor vain. The combination involves proper pride or magnanimity." Such men will enter politics with the aim of preserving justice and working for the good of society, or they will exhibit great personal courage in battle, or, more generally, they will aim at virtuous action at all times, even when faced with painful choices and life-threatening circumstances. Historians disagree about whether Aristotle held that the great-souled man is motivated in part by a desire to be admired by others, but certainly he held that the great-souled man was capable of performing great and virtuous actions that would be admired.1 By the mid-eighteenth century, greatness of soul could be found in much less distinguished situations. Consider, for example, Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy. Tristram attributes greatness of soul to his mother for wanting to give birth to him under the care of a midwife rather than a doctor. His father thinks that turning down a large purse of money offered in exchange for naming one's son Judas is an act of greatness of mind. And Tristram says his friend Jenny exhibited greatness of soul by purchasing a much less expensive piece of silk than the one she initially wanted, deferring to Tristram's unvoiced but Graham Solomon is at the Philosophy Department,Wilfrid Laurier University,Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5. e-mail: [email protected] 130 Graham Solomon obvious judgment.2 For an example from the nineteenth century, consider the following passage from the novel The Wrecker (1891) by Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne. The narrator, a wealthy young American, is slumming as a bohemian art student in the Latin Quarter of Paris: "I always looked with awful envy... on a certain countryman of my own, who had a studio in the Rue Monsieur Ie Prince, wore boots, and long hair in a net, and could be seen tramping off, in this guise, to the worst eating-house of the quarter, followed by a Corsican model, his mistress, in the conspicuous costume of her race and calling. It takes some greatness of soul to carry even folly to such heights as these."3 There the character's greatness of soul seems to involve an ability to ignore or overlook or misinterpret the opinions others might have of him. While the phrase "greatness of soul" or "greatness of mind" is not commonly used nowadays,4 the Latin form "magnanimity" is still in use in ordinary, everyday, reasonably educated discourse. And occasionally "highmindedness " is used. The capacity to make magnanimous gestures is still widely felt to be a virtue. "Magnanimity" nowadays refers to a mix of unselfishness, generosity, the capacity to rise above petty feelings of resentment and revenge, and more generally and vaguely to a kind of nobility of heart and mind. These are features that Aristotle would recognize. But, it seems to me, we are prepared to apply the term to a far wider class of people than Aristotle would. Magnanimity is nowadays thought to be a virtue that can be exhibited by almost anyone. The first extended discussion in English-language philosophy of the concept of greatness of soul or mind is in David Hume's Treatise III iii 2, a section titled "Of greatness of mind." Hume's discussion contributed to a domesticated and democratized understanding of the concept, a more serious ancestor of the concept found in Tristram Shandy5 and The Wrecker. Donald Siebert argues in the chapter "In Search of the Hero of Feeling" in The Moral Animus of David Hume6 that after the initial exploration of the concept in the Treatise, Hume eventually settled in The History... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Rebirth of Cool:Toward a Science SublimeE. David Wong (bio)We love and hate "the cool." As educators, few things are more coveted than being recognized as teaching the "coolest" class in the school. We look forward to the rare moment when students gasp in awe or scream in amazement. However, in the quiet that returns after the last student rushes out the classroom door, we may feel an (...) uneasy ambivalence. Perhaps we admonish ourselves that serious science is substantial, enduring, and intellectual. We wonder whether our "cool" class was merely superficial, fleeting, and mindless.In this article I examine the cool—this idea we love and hate—and assert its importance in science education. I acknowledge that some experiences can be engaging but are superficial and unimportant—this is the "merely cool." By contrast, some experiences are deeply moving because we feel a growing capacity to perceive meaning and value in the world—this is the "sublimely cool." I draw from philosophy, literature, psychology, and aesthetics to build connections between cool and sublime experiences. By highlighting the surprisingly substantial connection between the cool and sublime, I hope to bring greater depth to the meaning of "cool," this imprecise, but honest, term. I also take care to define sublimely cool experiences in science as having a direct relationship with subject-matter understanding. It is true that the full meaning of aesthetic experiences extends beyond the grasp of words and conceptualization; however, it is equally true that knowledge and reason are central to all worthwhile experiences. The expansion of meaning and perception, not just intense sensation or emotion, is the heart of the sublimely cool experience. Nobel laureate physicist Richard Feynman provides a personal example of how his knowledge of science enhances his sublimely cool experience of Nature: "Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars—mere globs of gas atoms. Nothing is 'mere.' I too can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more? The [End Page 67] vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination—stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light."1Cool as a Sign of Compelling Experience"Cool" is an intriguing expression for it is at once both crude and incisive. On the one hand, "cool" is a colloquial term used by people of all ages and backgrounds in many contexts to describe many things. So wide and informal is its use that "cool" may seem trite and banal. "Cool" is rarely chosen carefully when used: indeed, it is more often an unintentional, reflexive utterance.Thus, the more one thinks before speaking, the less likely "cool" will be used. Nonetheless, because it is an impulsive expression, "cool" may be all the more honest. Dewey made a similar point in his observation of the word "beauty": "Beauty... is properly an emotional term, though one denoting a characteristic emotion. In the presence of a landscape, a poem or a picture that lays hold of us with immediate poignancy, we are moved to murmur or to exclaim 'How beautiful.' The ejaculation is a just tribute to the capacity of the object to arouse admiration that approaches worship."2 With "just tribute" Dewey emphasizes the honesty of the term. By "admiration that approaches worship," Dewey reminds us that the spontaneous uttering of "beautiful" is a sign that a powerful experience has been had. I will make a similar argument that the term "cool"—although common and ordinary—can signal the having of a compelling experience. As a compelling experience, the cool becomes an important resource for teachers.Dewey goes on to describe how the meaning of "beauty" has, unfortunately, lost its value to aesthetic theoreticians: "Beauty is at the furthest remove from an analytic term, and hence from a conception that can figure in theory as a means of explanation or classification. Unfortunately, it has been hardened into a peculiar object; emotional rapture has been subjected to what philosophy calls hypostatization, and the concept of beauty as an essence of intuition has resulted. For purposes of theory, it then becomes an obstructive term."3Because of the way they are... (shrink)

The question of what constitutes a finished work is thrown open, reminding us that in certain of his completed autographs Beethoven continued the process that he normally reserved for the earlier stages of composition, setting out further choices, possibilities, and interchangeabilities, including radical alterations in goal as well as detail. In particular, the revision of movement endings was one of his long-standing preoccupations. In works of his middle period, Emil Platen observed, Beethoven continued to make essential alterations in the closing (...) sections of movements after the works had already taken concrete notational form; for example, in the scores of the String Quartets, op. 59, “out of a total of seven movement endings, six were altered after the fact, four in essential ways.”6 Indeed the relationship between sketches and compositional goals was always more problematical than traditional scholars were willing to allow. As Lewish Lockwood has shown, the closer one looks at the sketches the less one can continue to accept as an article of faith that “as a work progresses from first inklings to final realization it should pass through successive phases of growth and clarification of structure, and of complication of detail in relation to that structure, becoming progressively more definite en route to its goal.”7 To further thicken the issue, Janet Levy has pointed out that one “cannot assume that the goals of a completed work are necessarily the same as the goals of the sketches for it,” inasmuch as the composer’s intentions may well have changed during the course of composition and we may be left with sketches made in connection with goals no longer reflected in the final work.8 Composition is only partly a teleological process whereby the composer eventually finds a lapidary form for a predetermined idea. With Beethoven, not only is there no prospective inevitability, there may even be no inevitability after the fact. His sketches and autographs may well be series of rough maps to the multiplicity of universes he glimpsed, to a plurality of possibilities, a jammed crossroads of paths taken and not taken. 6. Emil Platen, “Beethovens Autographen als Ausgangspunkt morphologischer Untersuchungen,” in Bericht über den internationalen musikwissenschaftlichen Kongress: Bonn 1970, ed. Carl Dahlhaus et al. , p. 535. See also Lewis Lockwood, “Beethoven and the Problem of Closure: Some Examples from the Middle-Period Chamber Music,” in Beiträge zu Beethovens Kammermusik, p. 270.7. Lockwood, “On Beethoven’s Sketches and Autographs: Some Problems of Definition and Interpretation,” Acta Musicologica 42 : 34.8. Levy, Beethoven’s Compositional Choices, p. 3. Maynard Solomon’s books include Beethoven , Beethoven Essays , and, most recently, Beethoven’s Tagebuch . He has also written on Schubert, Ives, and Freud, and has edited a standard work on Marxist aesthetics. He is currently writing a life of Mozart and a study of the origins of music. In 1990 he was visiting professor of music at Columbia University. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Some Sources for Hume's Opening Remarks to Treatise LIVJII Graham Solomon Hume opens Book I, Part IV, Section III of the Treatise with these remarks: Several moralists have recommended it as an excellent method ofbecoming acquainted with our own hearts, and knowing our progress in virtue, to recollect our dreams in a morning, and examine them with the same rigour, that we wou'd our most serious and deliberate (...) actions. Our character is the same throughout, say they, and appears best where artifice, fear, and policy have no place, and men can neither be hypocrites with themselves nor others. The generosity, or baseness of our temper, our meekness or cruelty, our courage or pusilanimity, influence the fictions of the imagination with the most unbounded liberty, and discover themselves in the mostglaring colours. Who were these moralists? One looks in vain in the work of Malebranche, Locke, Shaftesbury and Hutcheson for such a recommendation. Did anyone make that recommendation? One moralist who did was "John Shadow," in a letter to Joseph Addison published in The Spectator, no. 586, 27 August 1714. Addison introduces Shadow's letter with the remark that it "is built upon a thought that is new, and very well carried on; for which Reasons I shall give it to the Publick without Alteration, Addition, or Amendment." I quote at length, for easy comparison with Hume: Sir, It was a good Piece of Advice which Pythagoras gave to his Scholars. That every Night before they slept they should examine what theyhad been a doing that Day, and so discover what Actions were worthy of Pursuit to Morrow, and what little Vices were to be prevented from slipping unawares into a Habit. If I might second the Philosopher's Advice, it should be mine, That in a morning before my Scholar rose, he should consider what he had been about that Night, and with the Volume XVI Number 1 57 GRAHAM SOLOMON same Strictness, as if the Condition, he has believed himself to be in, was real. Such a Scrutiny into the Actions ofhis Fancy must be of considerable Advantage, for this Reason, Because the Circumstances which a Man imagines himself in during Sleep, are generally such as entirely favour his Inclinations good or bad, and give him imaginary Opportunities of pursuingthem to the utmost; so thathis Temper will lye fairly open to his View, while he considers howitis moved when free from those Constraints which the Accidents ofreal Life put it under. Dreams are certainly the Result of our waking Thoughts, and our daily Hopes and Fears are what give the mind such nimble Relishes of Pleasure, and such severe Touches ofPain, in its Midnight Rambles. AMan that murders his Enemy, or deserts his Friend in a Dream, had need to guard his Temper against Revenge and Ingratitude, and take heed that he be not tempted to do a vile thing in Pursuit of false, or the Neglect of true Honour... I think it has been observed in the Course of your Papers, how much one's Happiness or Misery may depend upon the Imagination: ofwhich Truth those strange Workings ofFancy in Sleep are no inconsiderable Instances; so that not only the Advantage a Man has ofmaking Discoveries ofhimself, but a Regard to his own Ease or Disquiet, may induce him to accept ofmy Advice... Shadow has been identified as the poet John Byrom by various of the later editors of The Spectator? Of these, D. F. Bond footnotes Byrom's reference to Pythagoras, noting the publication in English of André Dacier's The Life ofPythagoras, with his Symbolism and Golden Verses; together with the Life ofHierocles, and his Commentaries upon the Verses. Bond notes Hierodes' comments on the following Verses: Never suffer Sleep to close thy Eye-lids, after thy going to Bed, Till thou hast examin'd by thy Reason all thy Actions of the Day Wherein have I done amiss? What have I done? What have I omitted that I ought to have done? If in this Examination, thou find that thou hast done amiss, reprimand thy self severely for it: And if thou has done any Good, rejoice. Dacier cites Porphyry and Marcus Aurelius... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Robert C. Solomon L'ETRANGER AND THE TRUTH Lying is not only saying what is not true. It is also and especially saying more than is true and, as far as the human heart is concerned, saying more than one feels. Albert Camus What would it be—not to lie? Perhaps it is impossible. It is not difficult to avoid uttering falsehoods, of course. One can always keep silent. But (...) what if lying is also not seeing the truth? For instance, not seeing the truth about oneself even in the name of "not lying"? What then would it be not to lie?—to see oneself and one's feelings as brute facts, as matters already fixed and settled? The very idea of not lying would then be a lie. The lie—the very heart of French Existentialism. It is the infamy of the human condition for Sartre, the gravest sin for Camus. But where Sartre suspects that the lie—or what he calls mauvaise foi—is inescapable, Camus glorifies his characters—and apparently himself—as men without a lie. Meursault of L'Étranger, Camus tells us in a retrospective interpretation, "refuses to lie... accepts death for the sake of truth." Dr. Rieux of The Plague refuses to release information to Tarrou the reporter unless he reports "without qualification." Clamence of The Fall has been living a lie. He is now in purgatory (the seedy inner circles of Amsterdam), a judge-penitent: a judge, we come to see, of other people's hidden falsehoods, a penitent for his own past lie of a life. In The Myth of Sisyphus, it is "the absurd" that becomes the ascertainable truth, and it is the absurd hero who "keeps the absurd alive" with his defiant recognition of that truth. In the turmoil of French leftist politics through the Algerian crises and the Stalin show trials, Camus portrays himself in hisJournals and in The Rebel as the "independent intellectual," the spokesman for the truth who refuses to accept the necessary political fabrications of the left during a time of crisis and change. Accordingly, Camus has himself been interpreted and 141 1 42Philosophy and Literature praised as the hero and martyr for the truth, as "Saint Just," the absurd hero and existential champion.3 L'Étranger is the best known of Camus's works, and it is on the basis of this early short novel that the interpretations of Camus's philosophy reasonably begin. But virtually every interpretation of this work has resulted in what I shall argue to be a false claim—that Meursault is a totally honest man, the "stranger" who does not lie. In his own interpretation of The Stranger, Camus writes,... the hero of the book is condemned because he doesn't play the game. In this sense he is a stranger to the society in which he lives; he drifts in the margin, in the suburb of private, solitary, sensual life. This is why some readers are tempted to consider him as a waif. You will have a more precise idea of this character, or one at all events in closer conformity with the intentions of the author, if you ask yourself in what way Meursault doesn't play the game. The answer is simple: He refuses to lie. Lying is not only saying what is not true. It is also and especially saying more than is true and, as far as the human heart is concerned, saying more than one feels. This is what we all do every day to simplify life. Meursault, despite appearances, does not wish to simplify life. He says what is true. He refuses to disguise his feelings and immediately society feels threatened. He is asked, for example, to say that he regrets his crime according to the ritual formula. He replies that he feels about it more annoyance than real regret and this shade of meaning condemns him. Meursault for me is then not a waif, but a man who is poor and naked, in love with the sun which leaves no shadows. Far from it being true that he lacks all sensibility, a deep tenacious passion animates him, a passion for the absolute and... (shrink)

For the last forty years, two claims have been at the core of disputes about scientific change: that scientists reason rationally and that science is progressive. For most of this time discussions were polarized between philosophers, who defended traditional Enlightenment ideas about rationality and progress, and sociologists, who espoused relativism and constructivism. Recently, creative new ideas going beyond the polarized positions have come from the history of science, feminist criticism of science, psychology of science, and anthropology of science. Addressing the (...) traditional arguments as well as building on these new ideas, Miriam Solomon constructs a new epistemology of science. After discussions of the nature of empirical success and its relation to truth, Solomon offers a new, social account of scientific rationality. She shows that the pursuit of empirical success and truth can be consistent with both dissent and consensus, and that the distinction between dissent and consensus is of little epistemic significance. In building this social epistemology of science, she shows that scientific communities are not merely the locus of distributed expert knowledge and a resource for criticism but also the site of distributed decision making. Throughout, she illustrates her ideas with case studies from late-nineteenth- and twentieth-century physical and life sciences. Replacing the traditional focus on methods and heuristics to be applied by individual scientists, Solomon emphasizes science funding, administration, and policy. One of her goals is to have a positive influence on scientific decision making through practical social recommendations. (shrink)

How is medical knowledge made? There have been radical changes in recent decades, through new methods such as consensus conferences, evidence-based medicine, translational medicine, and narrative medicine. Miriam Solomon explores their origins, aims, and epistemic strengths and weaknesses; and she offers a pluralistic approach for the future.

The unfolding of schematic formal systems is a novel concept which was initiated in Feferman , Gödel ’96, Lecture Notes in Logic, Springer, Berlin, 1996, pp. 3–22). This paper is mainly concerned with the proof-theoretic analysis of various unfolding systems for non-finitist arithmetic . In particular, we examine two restricted unfoldings and , as well as a full unfolding, . The principal results then state: is equivalent to ; is equivalent to ; is equivalent to . Thus is proof-theoretically equivalent (...) to predicative analysis. (shrink)

The view defended is one sense externalist on the relation between moral reasons and motivation: A's having a moral reason to do X does not necessarily imply that A has a motivation that would support A's doing X via some appropriate deliberative route. However, it is in another sense externalist in holding that there are the kind of moral reasons there are only if the relevant motivational capacities are "generally present" in human beings, if not in all individuals. The process (...) of socialization is an attempt to embed the recognition of what we have moral reason to do in the intentional content of one's feelings. E.g., learning that about others' suffering embeds their suffering as a reason to help in the intentional content of incipient compassionate feelings. This endows the reason with motivational efficacy while conferring further direction to the feelings in ways that shape us for social cooperation. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to situate the early Indian (Nikāya) Buddhist notion of karmic causation within the mental causation discourse in the Western analytic tradition, which concerns causal transactions involving mental events, such as desires, beliefs, and intentions, whether the transactions are between mental events, or between mental events and physical events. Karmic causation involves actional causes, in concert with non-actional causes, and their experiential effects on the actor, in concert with non-experiential effects. The problems generated by karmic (...) causation in Buddhism overlap with those generated by mental causation in the Western analytic tradition. They include how the mental aspects relate to the physical aspects of the self, sense perception, and action, as well as how the mental and physical aspects of an actional cause relate to the experiential and non-experiential aspects of an effect on the actor. -/- To make sense of mental causation, it is crucial to understand a cluster of associated concepts such as causation, the self, sense perception, and action. Similarly, to make sense of karmic causation, it is crucial to understand a cluster of associated concepts such as dependent arising (paṭiccasamuppāda), the fivefold laws of nature (pañca-niyāma), the five aggregates (pañca-khandha), the six sense bases (Saḷayatana), action (karma), and results (vipāka). I shall discuss these concepts under the headings of causation, the self, sense perception, and action before I move on to address karmic causation in the context of the mental causation debate. (shrink)

This paper discusses why speech regulations are logically necessary for any account of a moral right to free speech. My argument for limiting the right to free speech (and more widely any right to freedom) will be grounded in compossibility. Rights to freedom, formally speaking, are claims by an agent that other people not interfere with them; a compossible set of rights is one where the domains of permissible actions—permitted by each claim (and its correlative duty) within the set—do not (...) contradict one another across claims. I will argue that in order for claims to be coherent, they cannot generate contradictory domains, and that for a claim to non-interference to not generate contradictory domains across multiple people with the same claim, the claim must be restricted. This account as it currently stands can at least generate conclusions on the permissibility of incitement. (shrink)

The Phenomenology of Spirit was Hegel's grandest experiment, changing our vision of the world and the very nature of philosophical enterprise. In this book, Solomon captures the bold and exhilarating spirit, presenting the Phenomenology as a thoroughly personal as well as philosophical work. He begins with a historical introduction, which lays the groundwork for a section-by-section analysis of the Phenomenology. Both the initiated and readers unacquainted with the intricacies of German idealism will find this to be an accessible and (...) exciting introduction to this great philosopher's monumental work. (shrink)

In this book, David B. Wong defends an ambitious and important new version of moral relativism. He does not espouse the type of relativism that says anything goes, but he does start with a relativist stance against alternative theories such that there need not be only one universal truth. Wong proposes that there can be a plurality of true moralities existing across different traditions and cultures, all with one core human question as to how we can all live (...) together. (shrink)

The story of our lives is the story of our passions. We fall in love, we are gripped by scientific curiosity and religious fervor, we fear death and grieve for others, we humble ourselves in envy, jealousy, and resentment. In this remarkable book, Robert Solomon shares his fascination with the emotions and illuminates our passions in an exciting new way.

Using questionnaires, case studies, and problem-solving exercises, Robert C. Solomon shows corporations, employees, and students of business how to explore their own ethical principles and integrity. He illustrates how a workable ethical program can save a company when disaster strikes, as in the case of Johnson & Johnson's handling of the Tylenol poisonings, and how the lack of one can ensure the death of a good reputation, as in the case of Nestle's slow response to the protest they met (...) with they began marketing baby formula in third-world countries. Originally published as It's Good Business, this book has been extensively revised and updated to address ethical issues of the 1990s. The new edition includes new or expanded chapters on quality management, the customer, America and Japan, the environment, sexual harassment, and the glass ceiling for women and minorities. (shrink)

This is a collection of essays on the work of the German philosopher Friederich Wilhelm Nietzsche. Each essay concentrates on a single work, and the volume is organized on a chronological principle, considering the works in the order in which Nietzsche wrote them. Among the contributors are many Nietzsche scholars, including Ivan Soll, Alexander Nehemas, Frithjof Bergmann, and Arthur Danto. Most of the essays are previously unpublished, and none has been anthologized before.

In this work, Robert Solomon tries to put the fun back in philosophy, recapturing the heart-felt confusion and excitement that originally brings us all into philosophy. It is not a critique of comtemporary philosophy so much as it is an attempt to engage in philosophy in a different kind of way, beginning with a re-evaluation of Socrates and the nature of philosophy and defending the passionate life in contrast to the calm life of thoughtful contemplation so often held up (...) as an ideal by traditional philosophers. In short, it is an attempt to recapture the kind of philosophy that Nietzsche celebrated as a "joyful wisdom". The author tries to break down the walls between academic philosophy and its lost audience, between thin logic and thick rhetoric, between philosophical reason and philosophical passion, between 'analytic' and 'continental' philosophy, between philosophy and life. (shrink)

In this enduring text, renowned philosopher Robert C. Solomon provides students with a detailed introduction to modern existentialism. He reveals how this philosophy not only connects with, but also derives from, the thought of traditional philosophers through the works of Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle, writing over two thousand years before Wall Street, called people who engaged in activities which did not contribute to society "parasites." In his latest work, renowned scholar Robert C. Solomon asserts that though capitalism may require capital, but it does not require, much less should it be defined by the parasites it inevitably attracts. Capitalism has succeeded not with brute strength or because it has made people rich, but because it has produced responsible citizens and--however (...) unevenly--prosperous communities. It cannot tolerate a conception of business that focuses solely on income and vulgarity while ignoring traditional virtues of responsibility, community, and integrity. Many feel that there is too much lip-service and not enough understanding of the importance of cooperation and integrity in corporate life. This book rejects the myths and metaphors of war-like competition that cloud business thinking and develops an "Aristotelean" theory of business. The author's approach emphasizes several core concepts: the corporation as community, the search for excellence, the importance of integrity and sound judgment, as well as a more cooperative and humane vision of business. Solomon stresses the virtues of honesty, trust, fairness, and compassion in the competitive business world, and confronts the problem of "moral mazes" and what he posits as its solution--moral courage. (shrink)

Extensive case studies, questionnaires, and problem-solving exercises make this an essential guide for business people.