In this volume, author Steven L. Bindeman presents a survey of the key figures in postmodern antiphilosophy. Noting that the main thrust of their work can be found in their need to respond to the threat of nihilism, he is guided by the question, if the path to abstract truth is no longer viable, what then? He shows how the antiphilosophers turn their focus on the complexity of lived experience in place of the search for certainty, which was in (...) their view what previously had guided the dominating discourse of the modernist philosophical tradition. Through close examination of a broad variety of texts, Bindeman illuminates how the antiphilosophers initiate a new way of doing philosophy, one which prefers to examine the question, Does it work? instead of, Is it true? Moreover, Bindeman demonstrates how the antiphilosophers are united in questioning the centrality of the great cornerstones of western metaphysics - time, self, universe, and God - because of their insistence that there is no way to reach beyond any of these words to the actual things to which they refer. Utilizing the exposed, significant fault in the foundation of all philosophical systems, "The Antiphilosophers" delivers new insight concerning the issue of how we should relate to the resultant chaos. Written with a rare combination of philosophical rigor and clarity of expression, Bindeman's work will be of interest to students and scholars of postmodern philosophy. (shrink)

This study examines the conditions under which apologies help to elicit forgiveness and restore trust following trust violations between leaders and followers. The intentionality and severity of violations are examined in a critical incident study and a laboratory study. The results support a model in which forgiveness mediates the relation of apology quality and trust. More importantly, the moderation–mediation model shows that apology quality influenced forgiveness and subsequent trust following violations that were moderate in severity–intentionality combination. The effect of apologizing (...) affects trust directly without forgiveness when the severity–intentionality combination held minor or extreme intensity. The results suggest a range in which apologies are effective and enrich understanding of the conditions under which trust can be recovered through an apology–forgiveness process in leader–follower relationships. The contribution of the study lies in elucidating that the combination of severity and intentionality of leaders’ trust violations has greater importance than either one separately. (shrink)

Between 300,000 and 250,000 years ago early humans in Africa and Eurasia began to use durable material substances and objects as media for signaling. Initially material signals were confined to ochre and other pigments, but over time objects such as beads were also added as technologies for sending messages. Changes in the types of materials used, their durability and costs, and the contexts of their disposal indicate a series of transitions in how early humans employed signaling media. Signaling theory from (...) biology suggests that shifts in technologies over the course of the Pleistocene reflect problems in coordinating action and resolving conflicts within increasingly large and internally differentiated societies. (shrink)

Cognitive science is transforming our understanding of the mind. New discoveries are changing how we comprehend not just language, but thought itself. Yet, surprisingly little of the new learning has penetrated discussions and analysis of the most important social institution affecting our lives-the law. Drawing on work in philosophy, psychology, anthropology, linguistics, and literary theory, Steven L. Winter has created nothing less than a tour de force of interdisciplinary analysis. A Clearing in the Forest rests on the simple notion (...) that the better we understand the workings of the mind, the better we will understand all its products-especially law. Legal studies today focus on analytic skills and grand normative theories. But, to understand how real-world, legal actors reason and decide, we need a different set of tools. Cognitive science provides those tools, opening a window on the imaginative, yet orderly mental processes that animate thinking and decisionmaking among lawyers, judges, and lay persons alike. Recent findings about how humans actually categorize and reason make it possible to explain legal reasoning in new, more cogent, more productive ways. A Clearing in the Forest is a compelling meditation on both how the law works and what it all means. In uncovering the irrepressibly imaginative, creative quality of human reason, Winter shows how what we are learning about the mind changes not only our understanding of law, but ultimately of ourselves. He charts a unique course to understanding the world we inhabit, showing us the way to the clearing in the forest. (shrink)

Adequate epistemic justification is best conceived as the appearance, over time, of knowledge to the subject. ‘Appearance’ is intended literally, not as a synonym for belief. It is argued through consideration of examples that this account gets the extension of ‘adequately justified belief’ at least roughly correct. A more theoretical reason is then offered to regard justification as the appearance of knowledge: If we have a knowledge norm for assertion, we do our best to comply with this norm when we (...) express as assertions only beliefs that appear to us to be knowledge. If we are doing our best, there is little point in further sanctions. So a norm of knowledge for assertion would lead to a secondary norm of justified belief as the appearance of knowledge, marking a point at which our assertions may be corrected but should not be blamed. (shrink)

Early 20th century philosopher Henri Bergson posited an initial push that propelled the diversity of life forward into a varied, novel future: The élan vital, a necessary force or impulse that animated life’s progress and development. His idea had largely been abandoned by mid-century. Even so, much of the conceptual and explanatory work this impulse targeted is yet in want of an explanation. In particular, Bergson’s derelict ideas on evolution addressed three areas that have once again become relevant in the (...) effort to unite evolutionary genetics, biological development, and ecological context : the purposeful nature of individual organisms and their parts; the integrative, holistic, non-linear emergent dynamics seen in evolutionary processes; and how genuine novelty emerges into the universe :422, 2016; Simondon et al. in On the mode of existence of technical objects. Univocal series, Univocal Publishing LLC, Minneapolis, 2017; Bang, in: Winther-Lindqvist, Bang, Valsiner Nothingness: philosophical insights into psychology, Transaction Publishers, Somerset, 2016; Moreno and Mossio in Biological autonomy: a philosophical and theoretical enquiry. History, philosophy and theory of the life sciences, Springer, Dordrecht, 2015). In this paper I argue that Bergson’s ideas may yet be relevant to these questions, and his work warrants a reexamination in light of current problems in evolutionary biology. This is not a call to ‘return’ to Bergson, nevertheless his notions about complexity suggest ways of looking at current biological problems in ways that offer a heuristic insight worth entertaining. Bergson’s Nobel Prize-winning book, Creative Evolution, provided a strikingly prescient early 20th century framework for understanding how Darwinian evolution acts as an engine for generating new forms, University Press of America, Lanham, Bergson 1911). (shrink)

Of the various loci of systematic theology that call for sustained philosophical investigation, the doctrine of sanctification stands out as a prime candidate. In response to that call, William Alston developed three models of the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit: the fiat model, the interpersonal model, and the sharing model. In response to Alston’s argument for the sharing model, this paper offers grounds for a reconsideration of the interpersonal model. We close with a discussion of some of the implications (...) of one’s understanding of the transforming work of the Holy Spirit for practical Christian spirituality. (shrink)

Throughout the twentieth century, women's magazines in the United States have socialized their readers to the “proper” expression of love and anger in marriage. Our analysis of a random sample of marital advice articles from 1900 to 1979 examines this cultural convergence of gender, marriage, and emotion. A qualitative analysis identifies techniques for socializing readers to the emotional culture of marriage and shows a historical change toward equating love with self-fulfillment and advocating the expression of anger. A quantitative analysis then (...) specifies the timing of changes in emotion norms and showed an oscillation between modern and traditional norms that is related to waves of political liberation versus oppression. We discuss the relation between emotion norms and behavior and explore the effect of group conflict on the production of emotional culture. Emotion norms have become less rigid and more tolerant of diversity; but gender differences persist, and women are still responsible for maintaining intimate relationships. Historical trends in love and anger norms are nonlinear, not a continuous shift toward individualism, self-development, and free expression, as suggested by recent cultural theories. (shrink)

‘Sovereignty’, Arendt says, ‘is contradictory to’ the human condition. It is not, in any event, the kind of thing that can be shared across generations. Subsequent generations lack sovereignty to the precise degree that they are bound by the decisions of their predecessors. It is no answer to say that contemporary citizens participate in the sovereignty of a whole, transgenerational people. To paraphrase de Tocqueville, later generations are not free because they are not entirely equal, and they are not equal (...) because they are not entirely free. Where ‘sovereignty’ is a metaphysical concept that transcends time, recognition is an act of the imagination that extends empathy diachronically in both directions. An earlier generation treats its successors with recognition and respect by bequeathing the best system it can manage and entrusting later generations to exercise the same freedom that it enjoyed. Democratic law can exist across generations only through negation. Later citizens may accept as valid the law made by their predecessors. But, in doing so, they implicitly affirm their right to alter, amend, or abolish what came before. Only by freely affirming the choices of their predecessors can current citizens participate in something approaching freedom. (shrink)

The claim of liberal constitutionalism is that a text-like object or a ‘diplomatically abstract’ set of principles can work a deflection of disagreements within a pluralist polity. But this project assumes both that pluralism remains amenable to reason and that reason is a capacity independent of the profound differences of meaning, value, and forms of life that shape those disagreements. Neither assumption is correct. Differences in norms, values, and forms of life inevitably undergird and structure differences in meaning, perception, and (...) interpretation. Consequently, a constitution (even when written and accompanied by judicial review) will necessarily unfold in an ongoing process of political cooperation and contestation. Legitimacy can arise only from the practice of democracy itself – that is, self-governance under conditions that realistically accord equal recognition and respect to all participants. Law is not some abstract entity or prior fixation, special and above. It is not, as Michelman once said, ‘an autonomous force’ that provides ‘an external untouchable rule of the game’. It is just another social institution or performative practice that does (or does not) reflect our democratic nomos. To be committed, as a strong democrat, to the rule of law is to be committed to the idea that we make the rules by which we govern ourselves. Equal voice, equal power, and equal law are just self-government. They are internal to – that is, constitutive of – the game. They are not untouchable; indeed, they are being manhandled every day. But they nevertheless describe a democratic constitution that fully legitimates itself in its performance. (shrink)

Non-propositional experiences can help justify beliefs, contrary to recent claims made by Donald Davidson and Laurence Bonjour. It is argued that a perceptual belief is justified if there are no undermining beliefs and it was arrived at in response to an experience through an adequate exercise of properly learned recognitional skills.

_Silence in Philosophy, Literature, and Art_ demonstrates how silence as a form of indirect discourse provides us with access to hitherto inaccessible aspects of human experience.

This article works toward a more meaningful answer to the question, What is a corporate issue? The article builds from existing literature in business strategy, public policy, and business and society. It synthesizes and integrates this literature and then expands the major points. The result is a reformulated definition of the corporate issue construct that enhances theory building and research activities in the area of issues management.

Various considerations are adduced toshow that we require that a testifier know hertestimony. Such a requirement apparentlyimproves testimony. It is argued that the aimof improving testimony explains why we have anduse our concept of knowledge. If we were tointroduce a term of praise for testimony, usingit at first to praise testimony that apparentlyhelped us in our practical projects, it wouldcome to be used as we now use the word``know''.

Spinoza's ethics is founded on the idea that we are egoists who should do nothing but search our own advantage , but that in doing so, this is when we are most virtuous, most moral, and most social . Community, taken in any sense stronger than a mere collection of things, only occurs, then, when each is drawn to seek his self-interest. ;Spinoza would hold that no study of ethics can be done in a metaphysical vacuum . To discuss the (...) ethics of an individual existing in community, one must first address the metaphysical foundations of the individual, its rights, and its place in community. To this end, the greater part of this work examines just those metaphysical bases which define an individual and how it relates in community. The analysis is textually based; focusing on how Spinoza uses certain terms , we attempt to understand what Spinoza understood to be an individual, community, right, etc. Then, because society affects an individual and the individual in turn affects society, the study looks at human individuals and their affects, that is, how humans affect and are affected by other humans. Just as a group of rocks makes only a pile and not what might be called a community, so too a group of human individuals does not necessarily make a society. The move from many individuals to one community is examined. ;Finally, after the metaphysical and psychological considerations are established, the study addresses its main question, that is, the value that should be accorded to a particular human life vis-a-vis the society in which the person lives. The study touches, therefore, questions concerning capital punishment, euthanasia, assisted suicide, and even abortion. The surprising conclusion is that Spinoza's ethics do allow for and can support what could be called a consistent human life ethic in which the right to life remains primary. (shrink)

Truth is an ethical relation. Facts, whether descriptions of the physical world or of historical events, are necessarily mediated by our frames of reference. This contingency opens a space for disagreement that cannot be adjudicated by an absolute standard of truth. For those seeking power or profit, the temptation to exploit this state of undecidability is strong. When many question the institutions that broker meaning – science, the professions, the media – rumors, misinformation, deliberate distortions and falsehoods all proliferate. In (...) the digital age, the ‘made’ is swiftly supplanted by the made-up. The remedy for this predicament is not technological or factual, but ethical and social. The normative resources for this project lie in our everyday ethic of communication and in the ideal of democracy as shared authority. Whether we can address this predicament effectively is uncertain. But the nature of the problem is clear: It is not that we live in a ‘post-truth’ age, but rather that we are facing a crisis of democratic society as such. It is not so much that we lost sight of truth, as that we have lost sight of one another. (shrink)

Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 5, Page 655-673, June 2022. The standard account of the relation between democracy and the rule of law focuses on law’s liberty-enhancing role in constraining official action. This is a faint echo of the complex, constitutive relation between the two. The Greeks used one word – isonomia – to describe both. If democracy is the system in which people have an equal say in determining the rules that govern social life, then the rule (...) of law is simultaneously before, after, concurrent and synonymous with democracy: It contributes to the formation of citizens with the capacity for self-governance, serves as the instrument through which democratic decisions are implemented, functions as one of the central social practices that constitute citizens as equals and addresses the question of how to ensure that government by the people operates for the people. The rule of law has many independently valuable qualities, including impartiality and predictability. But, to valorise the rule of law for its own sake is to fetishize authority. The fundamental values of the rule of law are as the instrument of democratic self-governance and the expression of the equal dignity of all persons. Democracy thus entails the rule of law, but both implicate the yet more comprehensive ideal of equality. Core rule-of-law values require political norms and conditions of equality, generality and comprehensiveness. In a modern, differentiated society, however, the constitutive relation between democracy and the rule of law is fractured and law becomes the agent of authority. Courts in the modern constitutional state have contributed to the decline of rule-of-law values, supporting role specialization through judge-made immunity doctrines that protect officials at all levels. The crisis of police violence against minorities is a symptom of this breakdown. Greater accountability can ameliorate the problem. But an effective solution requires the fair and equal distribution of political power. (shrink)

It is proposed that cortical activity is normally coordinated across synaptically connected areas and that this coordination supports cognitive coherence relations. This view is consistent with the NMDA- hypoactivity hypothesis of the target article in regarding disorganization symptoms in schizophrenia as arising from disruption of normal interareal coordination. This disruption may produce abnormal contextual effects in the cortex that lead to anomalous cognitive coherence relations.

Zusammenfassung In dem Beitrag wird argumentiert, dass sich aufgrund verschiedener Entwicklungen in den letzten zwanzig Jahren die Position des Fußballs in den Vereinigten Staaten im Vergleich zu seiner früheren vollständigen Marginalisierung im Sportraum Amerikas auffällig verändert hat. Zwar vermag der Fußball nirgendwo in den Vereinigten Staaten die kulturelle Vorherrschaft der nordamerikanischen „Großen Vier“ - die eine hegemoniale Sportkultur ausgebildet haben, die vergleichbar ist mit dem, was Fußball praktisch überall sonst in der Welt darstellt - nur ansatzweise streitig zu machen. Gleichwohl (...) hat er sich in den letzten beiden Dekaden in zwei Richtungen verändert: Auf der Seite der Produktion hat er sich zu einer weit verbreiteten sportlichen Aktivität entwickelt, die Millionen von Spielern auf dem ganzen Kontinent in Ligen, Vereinen und im Rahmen der gesamten, zu jeder Sportart gehörenden Infrastruktur betreiben. Auf der Seite der Konsumtion hat sich ebenfalls eine interessante Verschiebung ergeben, insofern als das Topereignis des Fußballs - die Weltmeisterschaft - Bestandteil der amerikanischen Sportkultur geworden ist, ohne dass der Fußballsport selbst aber eine solche Position einnimmt. Vor diesem Hintergrund sprechen die Autoren von einer „Olympianisierung“ des Fußballs in Amerika, wo dieser seit nunmehr zwei Dekaden alle vier Jahre Interesse hervorruft, was vorher nicht der Fall war. Ähnlich wie die Olympischen Spiele wird er in Amerikas Sportöffentlichkeit aber nur in diesem vierjährigen Rhythmus verfolgt. (shrink)

Based on his theory of animalrights, Regan concludes that humans are morallyobligated to consume a vegetarian or vegandiet. When it was pointed out to him that evena vegan diet results in the loss of manyanimals of the field, he said that while thatmay be true, we are still obligated to consumea vegetarian/vegan diet because in total itwould cause the least harm to animals (LeastHarm Principle, or LHP) as compared to currentagriculture. But is that conclusion valid? Isit possible that some other (...) agriculturalproduction alternatives may result in leastharm to animals? An examination of thisquestion shows that the LHP may actually bebetter served using food production systemsthat include both plant-based agriculture and aforage-ruminant-based agriculture as comparedto a strict plant-based (vegan) system. Perhapswe are morally obligated to consume a dietcontaining both plants and ruminant(particularly cattle) animal products. (shrink)

Against various detractors , this book develops a foundationalist theory of epistemic justification. In contrast with Laurence BonJour and borrowing from John McDowell, the essential argument is that conceptualized perpetual experience provides a non-doxastic foundation for perceptual beliefs about physical objects.

Nevin & Grace's behavioral-momentum model accommodates a large body of data. This commentary highlights some experimental findings that the model does not always predict. The model does not consistently predict resistance to change when response-independent food is delivered simultaneously with response-contingent food, when drugs are used as response disrupters, and when responding is reinforced under single rather than multiple schedules of reinforcement.