: Boston Personalism began with Borden Parker Bowne at Boston University in the late nineteenth century and was developed and enriched by Bowne's student, Edgar Sheffield Brightman, and by Brightman's student, Peter Anthony Bertocci. Philosophers working in the Boston Personalist tradition wrote in the major areas of philosophy, but mostly in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of religion. Their thinking was animated by the insight that personal categories must be taken seriously by anyone attempting to develop an adequate philosophy. At (...) the core of that vision is person and its significance for an adequate metaphysics. (shrink)

thomas o. buford was the founder of the journal that evolved into The Pluralist. It was one of many things he “started.” Tom was a great starter of things, but also a strong continuer. This journal began as The Personalist Forum in 1984, with the first issue appearing in 1985. The reason Tom started the journal was that the two principal organs of personalist philosophy in the United States had ceased to recognize the relationship to personalism, which had provided (...) their missions. These were The Personalist, started by Borden Parker Bowne’s student Ralph Tyler Flewelling at the University of Southern California in 1920, and The Philosophical Forum, started at Boston University in 1943. The former was... (shrink)

For forty years, acclaimed photographer and native Minnesotan Tom Arndt has been documenting the faces of Minnesota with unparalleled skill and candor. In Home, Arndt presents what he calls "a poem to my home state" through a series of poignant and compelling photographs that highlight the unique character of Minnesota. From Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis to Main Street in Willmar, from carnival workers at the state fair to drag racing fans in Anoka, and from small town street dances to the (...) sidewalks of Minneapolis, Home captures everyday life in the North Star State. By allowing people's lives to speak for themselves, Arndts photographs reveal the often forgotten moments that build common bridges across a diverse and ever-changing state. Enriched with more than 100 photographs, along with a personal and insightful preface by the author and a foreword by Garrison Keillor, Home is a landmark testimony to the people and culture of Minnesota. Arndt approaches his subjects - he would call them neighbors - with honesty, empathy, and humanity, and what emerges is a portrait of Minnesota that is at once achingly familiar and surprisingly new. (shrink)

3500 word interview with Tom Cochrane discussing his philosophical background, the nature of aesthetic value, the benefits of art, and aestheticism.

The principal thesis in this book is that bioethics emerged—in the 1960s through the 1980s—under the influence of philosophers who claimed to have universally valid principles that could steer medicine and research to the solution of ethical problems, including even those arising at the bedside of patients. Tom Koch contends that these philosophers and their allied bioethicists “stole medicine” and its traditional values, substituting a philosophical discourse generally inaccessible to the average person. Philosophers thereby refashioned medical ethics in accordance with (...) their vision of a morally and intellectually robust new field. Koch maintains that philosophers have failed to deliver on their promises and that .. (shrink)

Kant's claim that modality is a 'category' provides an approach to modality to be contrasted with Lewis's reductive analysis. Lewis's position is unsatisfactory, since it depends on an inherently modal conception of a world. This suggests that modality is 'primitive'; and the Kantian position is a prima facie plausible position of this kind, which is filled out by considering the relationship between modality and inference. This provides a context for comparing the Kantian position with Wright's non-cognitivist 'conventionalism'. Wright's position is (...) vulnerable to the type of argument used against ethical non-cognitivism, and the Kantian position is further confirmed by Blackburn's acknowledgment that modality is 'antinaturalistic to its core'. The position is further elaborated to show that it can accommodate the famous Kripkean categories of the empirically necessary and the contingent a priori, and finally defended against the criticisms used by Quine against Carnap. (shrink)

This article develops an unconventional perspective on the utilitarianism of Bentham and Mill in at least four areas. First, it is shown that both authors conceived of utility as irreducibly multi-dimensional, and that Bentham in particular was very much aware of the ambiguity that multi-dimensionality imposes upon optimal choice under the greatest happiness principle. Secondly, I argue that any attribution of intrinsic worth to any form of human behaviour violates the first principles of Bentham's and Mill's utilitarianism, and that this (...) renders both authors immune to the claim by G. E. Moore that they committed a ‘naturalistic fallacy’. Thirdly, in light of these contentions, I find no flaw in Mill's ‘proof of utility’. Fourthly, I use the notion of intrapersonal utility weights to provide an interpretation of Mill's qualitative hedonism that is entirely consistent with his value monism. (shrink)

A response to Kavita Shah's article Selecting Barrenness.

David Hume; Enactivism; Cognitive Science; Phenomenology; Philosophy of mind.

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This book presents selected addresses presented before the Personalist Discussion Group meetings held in conjunction with the annual meetings of The American Philosophical Association, Eastern Division. It includes the central ideas of American Personalistic Idealism developed during the twentieth century, its major criticisms, and recent developments by philosophers who are either Personalistic Idealists of sympathetic to the position.

Self-Knowledge: An Essay in Social Personalism proposes that social Personalism can best provide for self-knowledge. Thomas O. Buford offers a social personalist understanding of self-knowledge which focuses on the relation of persons to each other and to the Personal, and avoids the impersonalisms that erode the dignity of persons and their moral life which characterize modern life.

This book is focused on what stabilizes and unifies our second nature, or that which we participants in a culture share in common. The claim is that in the triadic structure of the experience of all persons, trust is the key to the solidarity and stability of our second nature.

The frequency of death from miscarriage is very high, greater than the number of deaths from induced abortion or major diseases.Berg (2017, Philosophical Studies 174:1217–26) argues that, given this, those who contend that personhood begins at conception (PAC) are obliged to reorient their resources accordingly—towards stopping miscarriage, in preference to stopping abortion or diseases. This argument depends on there being a basic moral similarity between these deaths. I argue that, for those that hold to PAC, there are good reasons to (...) think that there is no such similarity. There is a morally relevant difference between preventing killing and letting die, giving PAC supporters reasons to prioritize reducing abortion over reducing miscarriage. And the time-relative interest account provides a morally relevant difference in the badness of death of miscarriages and deaths of born adults, justifying attempts to combat major diseases over attempts to combat miscarriage. I consider recent developments in the literature and contend that these new arguments are unsuccessful in establishing moral similarities between deaths from miscarriage and abortion, and deaths from miscarriage and disease. (shrink)

Described by Jeffrey Masson as 'the single best introduction to animal rights ever written,' this new book by Tom Regan dispels the negative image of animal rights advocates perpetrated by the mass media, unmasks the fraudulent rhetoric of 'humane treatment' favored by animal exploiters, and explains why existing laws function to legitimize institutional cruelty.

This is a book about Hobbes's philosophy as a whole, viewed through the lens of his philosophy of science. Political philosophy is claimed to have a certain autonomy within Hobbes's scheme of philosophy and science as a whole, and in particular, a kind of autonomy in relation to natural sciences. Hobbes's moral and political philosophies guide action --of both individual subjects and sovereigns. They have a role in a special kind of rhetorical product called counsel. In natural science Hobbes probably (...) exaggerates the explanatory powers of mechanics --the theory of matter in motion-- including by an attempted assimilation of geometry to the sciences of motion. (shrink)

The essays collected here demonstrate that the philosophy of habit is not confined to the work of just a handful of thinkers, but traverses the entire history of Western philosophy and continues to thrive in contemporary theory. A History of Habit: From Aristotle to Bourdieu is the first book to document the richness and diversity of this history. It demonstrates the breadth, flexibility, and explanatory power of the concept of habit as well as its enduring significance. It makes the case (...) for habit’s perennial attraction for philosophers, psychologists, and sociologists. (shrink)

More than twenty years after its original publication, _The Case for Animal Rights _is an acknowledged classic of moral philosophy, and its author is recognized as the intellectual leader of the animal rights movement. In a new and fully considered preface, Regan responds to his critics and defends the book's revolutionary position.

One strategy for dealing with apparent cases of knowledge from falsehood is to deny that the knowledge actually is from a falsehood. Those endorsing such a move have suggested that cases of knowledge from falsehood are instead cases of knowledge despite falsehood. We here provide a dilemma for those wanting to reject the possibility of knowledge from falsehood. The dilemma is explained in part by examining recent attempts to deny that knowledge can be inferentially derived from falsehood.

This article illustrates the important scientific role that a systems approach might play within the social sciences and humanities, above all through its contribution to a common language, shared conceptualizations, and theoretical integration in the face of the extreme (and growing) fragmentation among the social sciences (and between the social sciences and the natural sciences). The article outlines a systems theoretic approach, actor-system-dynamics (ASD), whose authors have strived to re-establish systems theorizing in the social sciences (after a period of marginalization (...) since the late 1960s). This is done, in part, by showing how key social science concepts are readily incorporated and applied in social system analysis. (shrink)

Tom Stoneham offers a clear and detailed study of Berkeley's metaphysics and epistemology, as presented in his classic work Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, originally published in 1713 and still widely studied. Stoneham shows that Berkeley is an important and systematic philosopher whose work is still of relevance to philosophers today.

In “Imaging or Imagining? A Neuroethics Challenge In- The assumption at issue here is the assumption that the formed by Genetics,” Judy Illes and Eric Racine (see this ismind literally is the brain (i.e., is numerically identical to sue) argue that “traditional bioethics analysis” (TBA), as de-.

Tom Gibson: False Evidence Appearing Real features forty-four photographs, an interview with Gibson, and critical commentary. Gibson's photographs depict cities and their inhabitants in Europe, Canada, and the United States. In many images, the city streets are stages on which pedestrians are the actors and urban artifacts like mannequins, graffiti, billboards, and statues are the props. In others, Gibson focuses on the reactions of his human subjects by turning the camera on passersby who observe him at work.

This article argues that parliamentary institutions have increasing difficulty in addressing and dealing with the growing complexity, highly technical character and rapidity of many developments in modern societies. Deficits in representation, in knowledge and competence, and in engagement or commitment effectively erode the authority and status of parliamentary government. Major rule- and policy-making activities are being substantially displaced from parliamentary bodies and central governments to global, regional and local agents as well as agents operating in the many sectors of a (...) highly differentiated, modern society. Governance - and sovereignty - are increasingly diffused upward, downward and outward beyond parliament and its government. The author identifies problems, practical as well as normative, with this general development and discusses the possibilities and limitations of reform. (shrink)

In this book, Tom Cochrane develops a new control theory of the emotions and related affective states. Grounded in the basic principle of negative feedback control, his original account outlines a new fundamental kind of mental content called 'valent representation'. Upon this foundation, Cochrane constructs new models for emotions, pains and pleasures, moods, expressive behaviours, evaluative reasoning, personality traits and long-term character commitments. These various states are presented as increasingly sophisticated layers of regulative control, which together underpin the architecture of (...) the mind as a whole. Clearly structured and containing numerous diagrams and examples to illustrate the discussion, this study draws on the latest research from fields including philosophy, psychology and neuroscience, and will appeal to readers interested in the philosophy and cognitive science of emotion. (shrink)