The functional basis of disgust in disease avoidance is widely accepted; however, there is disagreement over what disgust is. This is a significant problem, as basic questions about disgust require...

There have been few tests of whether exposure to naturalistic or experimental disease-threat inductions alter disgust sensitivity, although it has been hypothesized that this should occur as part of disgust’s disease avoidance function. In the current study, we asked Macquarie university students to complete measures of disgust sensitivity, perceived vulnerability to disease, hand hygiene behavior and impulsivity, during Australia’s Covid-19 pandemic self-quarantine period, in March/April 2020. These data were then compared to earlier Macquarie university, and other local, and overseas student (...) cohorts, to determine if disgust sensitivity and the other measures, were different in the lockdown sample. The most consistent finding in the lockdown sample was of higher core disgust sensitivity, with some evidence of greater germ aversion on the PVD, and an increase in hand and food-related hygiene, but with little change in impulsivity. The consistency with which greater core disgust sensitivity was observed, suggests exposure to a highly naturalistic disease threat is a plausible cause. Greater disgust sensitivity may have several functional benefits and may arise implicitly from the threat posed by the Covid-19 pandemic. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this paper I investigate how conceptual engineering applies to mathematical concepts in particular. I begin with a discussion of Waismann’s notion of open texture, and compare it to Shapiro’s modern usage of the term. Next I set out the position taken by Lakatos which sees mathematical concepts as dynamic and open to improvement and development, arguing that Waismann’s open texture applies to mathematical concepts too. With the perspective of mathematics as open-textured, I make the case that this allows us (...) to deploy the tools of conceptual engineering in mathematics. I will examine Cappelen’s recent argument that there are no conceptual safe spaces and consider whether mathematics constitutes a counterexample. I argue that it does not, drawing on Haslanger’s distinction between manifest and operative concepts, and applying this in a novel way to set-theoretic foundations. I then set out some of the questions that need to be engaged with to establish mathematics as involving a kind of conceptual engineering. I finish with a case study of how the tools of conceptual engineering will give us a way to progress in the debate between advocates of the Universe view and the Multiverse view in set theory. (shrink)

Derivationists, those wishing to explain the correctness and rigour of informal proofs in terms of associated formal proofs, are generally held to be supported by the success of the project of translating informal proofs into computer-checkable formal counterparts. I argue, however, that this project is a false friend for the derivationists because there are too many different associated formal proofs for each informal proof, leading to a serious worry of overgeneration. I press this worry primarily against Azzouni's derivation-indicator account, but (...) conclude that overgeneration is a major obstacle to a successful account of informal proofs in this direction. (shrink)

Extinction is a concept of rapidly growing importance, with the world currently in the sixth mass extinction event and a biodiversity crisis. However, the concept of extinction has itself received surprisingly little attention from philosophers. I will first argue that in practice there is no single unified concept of extinction, but instead that its usage divides between descriptive, epistemic, and declarative concepts. I will then consider the epistemic challenges that arise in ascertaining whether a species has gone extinct, and how (...) these lead to serious limitations on responsibility and accountability for preventing extinctions. I will propose two conceptual engineering changes to our understanding of extinction. Firstly, to use twin epistemic concepts of extinction, corresponding to high and low epistemic demands. Secondly, to explicitly recognize that in many contexts extinction is a thick concept that contains an evaluative component, which therefore motivates explicit ethical considerations such as the use of precautionary principles. (shrink)

This thesis is about the nature of proofs in mathematics as it is practiced, contrasting the informal proofs found in practice with formal proofs in formal systems. In the first chapter I present a new argument against the Formalist-Reductionist view that informal proofs are justified as rigorous and correct by corresponding to formal counterparts. The second chapter builds on this to reject arguments from Gödel's paradox and incompleteness theorems to the claim that mathematics is inherently inconsistent, basing my objections on (...) the complexities of the process of formalisation. Chapter 3 looks into the relationship between proofs and the development of the mathematical concepts that feature in them. I deploy Waismann's notion of open texture in the case of mathematical concepts, and discuss both Lakatos and Kneebone's dialectical philosophies of mathematics. I then argue that we can apply work from conceptual engineering to the relationship between formal and informal mathematics. The fourth chapter argues for the importance of mathematical knowledge-how and emphasises the primary role of the activity of proving in securing mathematical knowledge. In the final chapter I develop an account of mathematical knowledge based on virtue epistemology, which I argue provides a better view of proofs and mathematical rigour. (shrink)

In this paper I shall consider two related avenues of argument that have been used to make the case for the inconsistency of mathematics: firstly, Gödel’s paradox which leads to a contradiction within mathematics and, secondly, the incompatibility of completeness and consistency established by Gödel’s incompleteness theorems. By bringing in considerations from the philosophy of mathematical practice on informal proofs, I suggest that we should add to the two axes of completeness and consistency a third axis of formality and informality. (...) I use this perspective to respond to the arguments for the inconsistency of mathematics made by Beall and Priest, presenting problems with the assumptions needed concerning formalisation, the unity of informal mathematics and the relation between the formal and informal. (shrink)

: In this paper, I lay out a case for why those objects of aesthetic attention which are principally characterized as natural objects should be understood not statically, as existing in merely a three-dimensional fixed state, but as dynamic, as existing in a space-time context, complete with change, movement, and flux. After this, I explain why this is important, how the dynamic nature of natural objects raises a concern for aesthetically evaluating natural objects, and how that concern may be addressed.

In this paper, I explore some parallels and dissimilarities between aesthetic appreciation that takes as its focus art objects and that which focuses on natural objects. I cover three areas. The first deals with general approach, whether a paradigm of engagement is more appropriate to environmental aesthetics than one of detachment and disinterest. The second theme is about preservation and whether the appropriate model is static or dynamic. The final theme is about environmental criticism and the application of aesthetic theory (...) to arguments for preservation. (shrink)

The consensus among spacetime substantivalists is to respond to Leibniz's classic shift arguments, and their contemporary incarnation in the form of the hole argument, by pruning the allegedly problematic metaphysical possibilities that generate these arguments. Some substantivalists do so by directly appealing to a modal doctrine akin to anti-haecceitism. Other substantivalists do so by appealing to an underlying hyperintensional doctrine that implies some such modal doctrine. My first aim in this paper is to pose a challenge for all extant forms (...) of this consensus position. My second aim is to show what form substantivalism must take in order to uphold the consensus while addressing this challenge. The result is a novel "plenitudinous" substantivalist view, which predicts that certain modal facts about spacetime are vague or indeterminate. I then argue against this view on independent grounds, concluding that substantivalists should reject the consensus position. The paper also discusses the way forward for substantivalists in light of this conclusion. (shrink)

This paper first argues that we can bring out a tension between the following three popular doctrines: (i) the canonical reduction of metaphysical modality to essence, due to Fine, (ii) contingentism, which says that possibly something could have failed to be something, and (iii) the doctrine that metaphysical modality obeys the modal logic S5. After presenting two such arguments (one from the theorems of S4 and another from the theorems of B), I turn to exploring various conclusions we might draw (...) in light of these results, and argue that none comes cost free. In the course of laying out possible responses to my arguments, we'll have a chance to evaluate various doctrines about the interplay between contingency and essence, as well as develop some alternative reductions of metaphysical modality to essence. I don't decisively come down in favor of one response over the others, though I say some things that point towards the conclusion that essence has no role to play in reducing metaphysical modality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Context Building and Educating Imaginative EngagementDavid E. W. Fenner (bio)IntroductionIn my experience—with students, colleagues, friends, myself—I find that most people view aesthetic objects and art objects (which sometimes overlap but not always) through a variety of "lenses": subjectively located, psychologically based perspectives or "contexts" through which the object is viewed, considered, appreciated, and many times even criticized. I believe that many times the depth and richness of aesthetic (...) reward depends on the perspective through which the subject attends to an object or event. While a part of aesthetic perspectival context is objective—such as the physical conditions surrounding and history concerning the aesthetic object—the majority of it is subjective, and I want to take another step and say that the majority is psychological.1 Aesthetic attenders bring to aesthetic experiences thick sets of background beliefs, personal associations, taste preferences, attitudes, and values—and this is not to mention the more temporal items like how they feel on the day or whether they are attending alongside friends, relatives, or colleagues. Hundreds of psychological factors result in differences in aesthetic experience; this is most likely true of all experiences, but it is even more the case in aesthetic experience and those kinds of experiences that set the occasions for attenders to think, feel, consider, spend time with, introspect, and be in a relationship—subject and object—that is distinct from the ordinary and the routine.Attenders can employ a single lens or multiple ones. It is entirely possible to attend in the absence of the employment of any lens—a purely disinterested or purely formalist perspective would be such a thing—but the vast majority of aesthetic attenders bring with them layers of lenses through which they naturally, nontheoretically (which is not to say noncognitively) view objects. On different occasions, given particular objects and particular subjects, the subject may view an aesthetic object from an art historical [End Page 109] perspective (whether or not the object is an art object); a moral perspective; a cultural, political, or national perspective; a social, class, race, ethnic, or gender perspective; a religious or spiritual point of view; an emotional point of view; a point of view colored by personal associations, personal history, personal identification, personal preference; and on and on.2 Sometimes the employment of lenses is distracting, and sometimes the experience is less than positive given such employment. But (1) many times—I want to say most times—the employment of such lenses results in a richer and more meaningful experience, and (2) it is the natural stance. Adopting a noncontextualized perspective requires conscious volitional effort. Seeing through particular psychological lenses is the default.I want to focus in this paper on a kind of perspective, a kind of psychological context, that has not been much discussed: I will call it aesthetic engagement preparation. Essentially, this has to do with the level of readiness that the subject possesses for engaging with particular objects aesthetically. To engage in a way that will provide a good return on her investment of attention, the subject must be open to the object, must be comfortable with the objective context, must be ready to enter into a relationship with the object—a relationship that may be psychologically associational in all sorts of ways (affectively, cognitively, and so forth)—and must be ready to employ a range of lenses, like the ones described above, to get the most out of her experience. Again, those who advocate noncontextualized (disinterested or formalist) approaches—Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Addison, Kant, Schopenhauer, Wilde, Whistler, Wimsatt, Greenberg, Brooks, Wolfflin, Bell, Moore, Bullough, Hanslick, Ortega y Gassett, Fry, Hampshire, Stolnitz, and Zangwill, just to name a few—will find aesthetic engagement preparation not only unnecessary but counterproductive. However, given its efficacy for enhancing actual aesthetic experience, I take this as a sign that these noncontextualists may have been on the wrong path. But of course this is an empirical question, and certainly there are cases—though rare, I claim—where employment of aesthetic lenses results in a less positive experience than otherwise.What I will try to do in this paper is to demonstrate (1) the scope of aesthetic engagement preparation on... (shrink)

The hole argument purports to show that all spacetime theories of a certain form are indeterministic, including the General Theory of Relativity. The argument has given rise to an industry of searching for a metaphysics of spacetime that delivers the right modal implications to rescue determinism. In this paper, I first argue that certain prominent extant replies to the hole argument—namely, those that appeal to an essentialist doctrine about spacetime—fail to deliver the requisite modal implications. As part of my argument, (...) I show that threats to determinism of the sort brought out by the hole argument are more general than has heretofore been recognized. I then use these results to propose a novel essentialist doctrine about spacetime that successfully rescues determinism, what I call sufficiency metric essentialism. However, I go on to argue that once we realize what an essentialist doctrine about spacetime must look like in order to address the hole argument, we should reject all such doctrines, because they can't fulfill their ambition of improving on standard modal replies to the argument. I close by suggesting some lessons for future work on spacetime and the metaphysics of physics more broadly, and also drawing some general morals for contemporary metaphysics, in particular about (i) whether essence can be used to articulate a precise structuralist doctrine, and (ii) the relationship between essence and modality. (shrink)

Formal criteria of theoretical equivalence are mathematical mappings between specific sorts of mathematical objects, notably including those objects used in mathematical physics. Proponents of formal criteria claim that results involving these criteria have implications that extend beyond pure mathematics. For instance, they claim that formal criteria bear on the project of using our best mathematical physics as a guide to what the world is like, and also have deflationary implications for various debates in the metaphysics of physics. In this paper, (...) I investigate whether there is a defensible view according to which formal criteria have significant non-mathematical implications, of these sorts or any other, reaching a chiefly negative verdict. Along the way, I discuss various foundational issues concerning how we use mathematical objects to describe the world when doing physics, and how this practice should inform metaphysics. I diagnose the prominence of formal criteria as stemming from contentious views on these foundational issues, and endeavor to motivate some alternative views in their stead. (shrink)

The volumes in the Clarendon Aristotle Series seek to meet the needs of philosophically inclined readers who do not know Greek by providing accurate translations of selected Aristotelian texts accompanied by philosophical commentaries. To these ends, Trevor Saunders’s welcome addition to the series, a treatment of the first two books of Aristotle’s Politics, provides a number of useful tools. First there is a new translation of books I and II. Saunders numbers the paragraphs of the translation and the corresponding (...) sections of the commentary to facilitate reference to the text and commentary within the discussion of each chapter, though not across chapters. Saunders provides Greek-English and English-Greek glossaries. These will be especially useful to Greek-less readers, because Saunders is often traditional in his translation of key terms and thus, for example, obscures connections that have to be made explicit. So, for example, Saunders follows the very common practice of rendering the cognates polis, politês, and politeia as ‘state’, ‘citizen’, and ‘constitution’, respectively. Each section of the commentary begins with an introduction and proceeds to discuss each paragraph in turn, often including several recommendations for where to go next in the secondary literature. The book also has a guide to the translation and commentary, a brief but helpful introduction, a short appendix on the alleged oligarchic bias in Plato’s Laws, a list of departures from Ross’s Oxford Classical Text, a bibliography of works cited, and a selective index. Sadly, but in company with most of its companions in the Clarendon Aristotle Series, it lacks an index locorum. (shrink)

There is a family of questions in relativized complexity theory--weak analogs of the Friedberg Jump-Inversion Theorem--that are resolved by 1-generic sets but which cannot be resolved by essentially any weaker notion of genericity. This paper defines aw2-generic sets. i.e., sets which meet every dense set of strings that is r.e. in some incomplete r.e. set. Aw2-generic sets are very close to 1-generic sets in strength, but are too weak to resolve these questions. In particular, it is shown that for any (...) set X there is an aw2-generic set G such that $\mathbf{NP}^G \cap co-\mathbf{NP}^G \nsubseteq \mathbf{P}^{G \oplus X}$ . (On the other hand, if G is 1-generic, then $\mathbf{NP}^G \cap co-\mathbf{NP}^G \subseteq \mathbf{P}^{G \oplus \mathrm{SAT}}$ . where SAT is the NP-complete satisfiability problem [6].) This result runs counter to the fact that most finite extension constructions in complexity theory can be made effective. These results imply that any finite extension construction that ensures any of the Friedberg analogs must be noneffective, even relative to an arbitrary incomplete r.e. set. It is then shown that the recursion theoretic properties of aw2-generic sets differ radically from those of 1-generic sets: every degree above O' contains an aw2-generic set: no aw2-generic set exists below any incomplete r.e. set; there is an aw2-generic set which is the join of two Turing equivalent aw2-generic sets. Finally, a result of Shore is presented [30] which states that every degree above 0' is the jump of an aw2-generic degree. (shrink)

BL Contains a clear, accurate translation of Books I and II, together with a philosophical commentaryAristotle's Politics is a key document in Western political thought; it raises and discusses many theoretical and practical political issues which are still debated today. This edition is well suited to the requirements of students, including those who do not know Greek.

Negative eugenics, purposive practices to eliminate some trait from our progeny, is a topic that commands discussion today. We have had the ability to practice negative eugenics for many years, perhaps for our entire history in one form or another, but today we have many options, several quite scientifically sophisticated, for such practices. What concerns me is that the easier is becomes to practice negative eugenics, the greater is the need for some consistent criterion of what makes a given trait (...) properly erasable. In this paper, I will argue that there is a need for a criterion of what makes a given trait properly a candidate for elimination through programs and practices of negative eugenics. I will begin by presenting the problem, then will proceed to explore the topic through a series of three questions: First, can we engage in programs of negative eugenics? Second, should we engage in any such programs? Third, which programs should we practice, and how should they be practiced? The paper will conclude with my own suggested criteria. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the technologizing of most things in our daily lives, from work and education to finance and leisure, can be seen to promote a loss of the tangible and a rootlessness for human societies, causing a disorientation in the knowledge and beliefs acquired over millennia. Arendt’s proposal that ‘the earth is the very quintessence of the human condition’ (1958, p. 2) appears to be challenged as digital interactions create new spaces that coax humans away from (...) a focus on their physical world. Instantaneity and simultaneity avoid the historic conditions of humanity in relation to time and place, while the hyperreal images and simulations of the virtual either distort reality or do not depict anything with a real existence. Stiegler goes so far as to suggest that human knowledge and memory is being confiscated by technology. The acceleration of reality, as a condition of the instant, erases the beginning as much as the end, and past, present and future are diminished as contemporary becomes simply temporary. My position, while not utopian, does not seek to be irrationally dystopian and accepts that there is much in technology that advances human physical well-being and thought. It is, however, cautionary in its concern that private technology corporations, having seconded science, actively seek to increase their market and control over hyperconnectivity, thinking, knowledge and the human condition. I draw on the writings of Stiegler and Virilio in particular, both of whom acknowledge a debt to Heidegger. (shrink)

Readers have much to consider when evaluating Greenblum and Hubbard’s conclusion that ‘physicians have no business doing theology’.1 The two central arguments the authors offer are fairly convincing within the confines they set for themselves, the provisos they stipulate and their notions of ‘privacy’ and ‘public reason’. However, I would ask readers to consider two questions, the answers to which I believe the authors leave opaque. First, what is theological negotiation? Second, what makes chaplains the singular group of healthcare professionals (...) responsible for theological negotiation? In this Commentary, I explore these questions not with the goal of rejecting the authors’ conclusion, but rather with the goal of highlighting relevant considerations when evaluating the authors’ central tenets. First, I would like readers to consider Greenblum and Hubbard’s descriptions of theological negotiation. They categorise theological negotiation into metaphysical, normative and alternative responses, and hold that this kind of negotiation is, for the most part, impermissible for healthcare professionals, save chaplains.1 The examples of Dr Chatterjee and Dr Thompson expand theological negotiation to include instances where physicians add a theological veneer to their clinical recommendations. In both the examples, the physician has made the case for accepting or rejecting a certain intervention—for Dr Chatterjee, accepting …. (shrink)

Once a group of physicists at my university invited me to a physics colloquium. They were certain that I would get a great deal out of it. I love theoretical physics, although my preparation for understanding the "real stuff" is extremely modest. After the first ten minutes of the lecture, I realized I was in way over my head; though I understood the topic and the trajectory, I was not able to follow the path. But I stayed and continued to (...) enjoy the lecture. No longer was I understanding the lecture as a physics lecture—that is, as a lecture the contents of which was the articulation of a case for understanding a physical phenomenon or the application of a physical theory for understanding a physical phenomenon.... (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the technologizing of most things in our daily lives, from work and education to finance and leisure, can be seen to promote a loss of the tangible and a rootlessness for human societies, causing a disorientation in the knowledge and beliefs acquired over millennia. Arendt’s proposal that ‘the earth is the very quintessence of the human condition’ (1958, p. 2) appears to be challenged as digital interactions create new spaces that coax humans away from (...) a focus on their physical world. Instantaneity and simultaneity avoid the historic conditions of humanity in relation to time and place, while the hyperreal images and simulations of the virtual either distort reality or do not depict anything with a real existence. Stiegler goes so far as to suggest that human knowledge and memory is being confiscated by technology. The acceleration of reality, as a condition of the instant, erases the beginning as much as the end, and past, present and future are diminished as contemporary becomes simply temporary. My position, while not utopian, does not seek to be irrationally dystopian and accepts that there is much in technology that advances human physical well-being and thought. It is, however, cautionary in its concern that private technology corporations, having seconded science, actively seek to increase their market and control over hyperconnectivity, thinking, knowledge and the human condition. I draw on the writings of Stiegler and Virilio in particular, both of whom acknowledge a debt to Heidegger. (shrink)

The word ‘environment’ has a history. Before the mid-nineteenth century, the idea of a singular, abstract entity—the organism—interacting with another singular, abstract entity—the environment—was virtually unknown. In this paper I trace how the idea of a plurality of external conditions or circumstances was replaced by the idea of a singular environment. The central figure behind this shift, at least in Anglo-American intellectual life, was the philosopher Herbert Spencer. I examine Spencer’s work from 1840 to 1855, demonstrating that he was exposed (...) to a variety of discussions of the ‘force of circumstances’ in this period, and was decisively influenced by the ideas of Auguste Comte in the years preceding the publication of Principles of psychology (1855). It is this latter work that popularized the word ‘environment’ and the corresponding idea of organism–environment interaction—an idea with important metaphysical and methodological implications. Spencer introduced into the English-speaking world one of our most enduring dichotomies: organism and environment. (shrink)

In this paper I seek to show how cultural niche construction theory offers the potential to extend the human evolutionary story beyond the Pleistocene, through the Neolithic, towards the kind of very large-scale societies in which we live today. The study of the human past has been compartmentalised, each compartment using different analytical vocabularies, so that their accounts are written in mutually incompatible languages. In recent years social, cognitive and cultural evolutionary theories, building on a growing body of archaeological evidence, (...) have made substantial sense of the social and cultural evolution of the genus Homo. However, specialists in this field of studies have found it difficult to extend their kind of analysis into the Holocene human world. Within southwest Asia the three or four millennia of the Neolithic period at the beginning of the Holocene represents a pivotal point, which saw the transformation of human society in the emergence of the first large-scale, permanent communities, the domestication of plants and animals, and the establishment of effective farming economies. Following the Neolithic, the pace of human social, economic and cultural evolution continued to increase. By 5000 years ago, in parts of southwest Asia and northeast Africa there were very large-scale urban societies, and the first large-scale states. An extension of cultural niche construction theory enables us to extend the evolutionary narrative of the Pleistocene into the Holocene, opening the way to developing a single, long-term, evolutionary account of human history. (shrink)

It seems to be the case that when we look at a flower in the way that the scientist does, we see the flower in one way, but when we look at the flower in a way as to view it as a thing of beauty, charm, elegance, we see it in a different way; we see it as an aesthetic object. Viewing the flower in such a way as to see it, or any object, as an aesthetic object, is (...) to be in the aesthetic attitude. What this work means to do is to formulate necessary and sufficient conditions for adoption of the aesthetic attitude. ;Analytically and traditionally, the aesthetic attitude is an attitude or state-of-perceiving that is entered into by an agent which serves to make the agent receptive to the having of an aesthetic experience, and transform the object of the agent's attention from an object-in-the-world into an aesthetic object. ;The aesthetic attitude has figured prominently in aesthetics from the Enlightenment until the present. Its most important formulations are disinterestedness , Psychical Distance , Aldrich's Impressionistic Viewing, Scruton's Empiricistic Account, and the naturalistic work of John Dewey and Monroe Beardsley. I conclude that a naturalistic formulation of the aesthetic attitude is correct. (shrink)

In Animal Ethics in Context, Clare Palmer tries to harmonise two competing approaches to animal ethics. One focuses on the morally relevant capacities that animals possess. The other is the Laissez-Faire Intuition (LFI): the claim that we have duties to assist domesticated animals but should (at least generally) leave wild animals alone. In this paper, I critique the arguments that Palmer offers in favour of the No-Contact LFI - the view that we have (prima facie) duties not to harm wild (...) animals but no duties to assist them. I argue that Palmer's endorsement of the No-Contact LFI is unwarranted. Her arguments actually provide strong reasons to endorse what I call the Gradient View - a position that posits weak presumptive duties to assist wild animals that become stronger as our relations with the animals grow stronger. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Prepping for the Day You Hope Never Arrives:Facing RecurrenceTerra TrevorMy 14–year–old son was eight years past diagnosis of a brain tumor. Gone were the pristine sick days when his white hooded sweatshirt stayed spotlessly clean for weeks at a time. Each time he left a muddy footprint on the kitchen floor I rejoiced; it felt so good to have a healthy kid again. However, my son was a survivor (...) of an anaplastic ependymoma, grade IV, brain tumor, and although I wanted to be out of the woods, I knew we were not. I’d climbed out of the space where medical problems were fi led in my mind, yet I kept the door open because statics showed that the type of brain tumor he had, frequently recurred.Still, I was determined to keep our lives as ordinary as possible. But for a brain tumor family this meant staying connected to sources of support. Parent programs, patient and sibling support groups [End Page 27] and camps, and we remained connected to hospital resources. Most of all we needed to have fun as a family, and we attended the cancer survivor picnics and parties our hospital hosted, where the doctors served as volunteers, grilling hamburgers and dishing up ice cream for the guest of honor patients.My husband and I felt confident that as long as we worked as a team with our doctors and stayed connected to resources offered, we would find a way to meet any challenges that might surface.In the end ultimately what saved us was this mosaic of support provided to us over the years from a multitude of good people and organizations offering help when we needed it most. And I had the opportunity to learn to accept help, which it turns out, is far harder than offering to help.Shortly after my son Jay celebrated his 8th year as a brain tumor survivor, I watched him open the medicine cabinet and reach for the bottle of Advil, for the second time in a row that day. “Do you have a headache again?” I asked. He shrugged his shoulders, then hiccupped hard, and ducked his head in the toilet and threw up. Tears welled in his eyes. I sank into the deep, silent panic that made me calm.Our primary care physician called in an authorization for an MRI. Jay hid his fear behind a mask of quiet strength. It was ten days before his fifteenth birthday.While we waited for the MRI appointment, that week Jay was elected student of the month, and he got a lead part in the school play. My idyll of family hood continued until the MRI confirmed my worst fear—the tumor was back, and this time its fingers spread into the brainstem.We had to decide on a plan of treatment. Surgery was scheduled. When Jay was admitted to the hospital and I requested that he be placed in the pediatric ward, an environment he was familiar with, they agreed. Although Jay was a teenager, the recurrence caused him to revert emotionally back to a younger age. It was as if he was seven–years–old again, reliving his first brain tumor experience, and he kept his childhood security item—a small teddy bear with him, tucked under the hospital covers, like he had with the first diagnosis.Luck held. With surgery most of the tumor was resected and symptoms disappeared. Three days later, on Thanksgiving, he was feeling well enough to be excited about the Thanksgiving dinner our hospital provided us. A table and chairs were brought in, along with a feast of good food. The nurses gave Jay lavish attention, they laughed at the corny jokes he told, and made us feel like special company.Within a week Jay was out of the hospital, recovering well. But what to do about the remaining brain tumor slivers that were inoperable? He had already received his lifetime dose of whole brain radiation, and chemotherapy available offered little hope of curing a recurrent tumor. But there was a small chance that stereotactic radiation might stall tumor growth. We set up a consultation.We had... (shrink)

Although better known for his phenomenology of perception and the perceived world, Merleau-Ponty’s writings also contain the outlines of a rich and unique account of the imagination and the imaginary. In this paper, I explicate the phenomenology of the image that Merleau-Ponty develops throughout his work. I show how Merleau-Ponty develops this account of the image in critical response to Sartre and in a way that follows from his own descriptions of what painters do when they paint and of what (...) we experience when we look at their paintings. The investigation of the particular mode of being of images leads to a consideration of the body and Merleau-Ponty’s later ontology. (shrink)

This paper will explore an epistemic aspect of hope, namely hope’s relationship to knowledge. It has been taken for granted that people do not hope for things to occur that they know will occur. I will be giving an argument that hope and knowledge are compatible, and I will defend that argument against one primary objection. More specifically, I will argue that there are instances when an agent knows that p and still hopes that p.

The Asymmetry in procreative ethics consists of two claims. The first is that it is morally wrong to bring into existence a child who will have an abjectly miserable life; the second is that it is permissible not to bring into existence a child who will enjoy a very happy life. In this paper, I distinguish between two variations of the Asymmetry. The first is the Abstract Asymmetry, the idealized variation of the Asymmetry that many philosophers have been trying to (...) solve. The second is the Real-World Asymmetry, a non-idealized variation that applies explicitly to cases of ordinary human reproduction. I argue that the Real-World Asymmetry can be defended by properly acknowledging the general wrongness of causing someone else to suffer, the limits of what morality can reasonably demand of us, and the significance of respecting women’s autonomy. I then argue that the Abstract Asymmetry is indefensible. (shrink)

In this paper, I lay out a case for why those objects of aesthetic attention which are principally characterized as natural objects should be understood not statically, as existing in merely a three-dimensional fixed state, but as dynamic, as existing in a space-time context, complete with change, movement, and flux. After this, I explain why this is important, how the dynamic nature of natural objects raises a concern for aesthetically evaluating natural objects, and how that concern may be addressed.

Offering aesthetic judgments of gardens is common. These judgments follow an evidentiary structure that is common to the evaluation of other aesthetic objects: summary judgments evidenced by the attribution of narrow formal aesthetic properties, “formal-adjacent” aesthetic properties, and relevant contextual relations. Yet, in a garden, these evidencing properties and relations take on forms that are different from those of other aesthetic and/or art objects. In this article, I consider these differences and consider whether aesthetic analyses of gardens rest on one (...) or more conceptual mistakes. In the end, I conclude that we can meet all challenges. (shrink)

In 1749, Linnaeus presided over the dissertation "Oeconomia Naturae," which argued that each creature plays an important and particular role in nature 's economy. This phrase should be familiar to readers of Darwin, for he claims in the Origin that "all organic beings are striving, it may be said, to seize on each place in the economy of nature." Many scholars have discussed the influence of political economy on Darwin's ideas. In this paper, I take a different tack, showing that (...) Darwin's idea of an economy of nature stemmed from the views of earlier naturalists like Linnaeus and Lyell. I argue, in the first section of the paper, that Linnaeus' idea of oeconomia naturae is derived from the idea of the animal economy, and that his idea of politia naturae is an extension of the idea of a politia civitatis. In the second part, I explore the use of the concept of stations in the work of De Candolle and Lyell – the precursor to Darwin's concept of places. I show in the third part of the paper that the idea of places in an economy of nature is employed by Darwin at many key points in his thinking: his discussion of the Galapagos birds, his reading of Malthus, etc. Finally, in the last section, I demonstrate that the idea of a place in nature 's economy is essential to Darwin's account of divergence. To tell his famous story of divergence and adaptation, Darwin needed the economy of nature. (shrink)

There can be little doubt, at least in the Western world, that autonomy is the ruling principle in contemporary bioethics. In spite of its ‘triumph’ however, the dominance of the utilitarian concept of autonomy is being increasingly questioned. In this paper, I explore the nature of autonomy, how it came to displace the Hippocratic tradition in medicine and how different concepts of autonomy have evolved. I argue that the reduction of autonomy to ‘the exercise of personal choice’ in medicine has (...) led to a ‘tyranny of autonomy’ which can be inimical to ethical medical practice rather than conducive to it. I take the case of Kerrie Wooltorton as an illustration of how misplaced adherence to respect for patient autonomy can lead to tragic consequences. An analysis of autonomy based on the work of Rachel Haliburton is described and applied to the role of autonomy in a recent bioethical debate — that arising from Savulescu's proposal that conscientious objection by health-care professionals should not be permit.. (shrink)

Determining whether a homoplastic trait is the result of convergence or parallelism is central to many of the most important contemporary discussions in biology and philosophy: the relation between evolution and development, the importance of constraints on variation, and the role of contingency in evolution. In this article, I show that two recent attempts to draw a black-or-white distinction between convergence and parallelism fail, albeit for different reasons. Nevertheless, I argue that we should not be afraid of gray areas: a (...) clarified version of S. J. Gould's earlier account, based on a separation of underlying developmental mechanisms from the realized trait, still represents a useful approach. (shrink)

Environmental ethicists have not reached a consensus about whether or not individuals who contribute to climate change have a moral obligation to reduce their personal greenhouse gas emissions. In this paper, I side with those who think that such individuals do have such an obligation by appealing to the concept of integrity. I argue that adopting a political commitment to work toward a collective solution to climate change—a commitment we all ought to share—requires also adopting a personal commitment to reduce (...) one’s emissions. On these grounds, individuals who contribute to climate change have a prima facie moral duty to lower their personal greenhouse gas emissions. After presenting this argument and supporting each of its premises, I defend it from two major lines of objection: skepticism about integrity’s status as a virtue and concerns that the resulting moral duty would be too demanding to be morally required. I then consider the role that an appeal to integrity could play in galvanizing the American public to take personal and political action regarding climate change. (shrink)

In my contribution to this symposium on Miriam McCormick's Believing Against the Evidence, I challenge her claim that true beliefs are not valuable for their own sake. I argue that positing that true beliefs have at least some non-instrumental value better explains our attitudes toward the pursuit of truth than her alternative view. McCormick offers a response in the next segment of the symposium.

Socialism is dead and Christianity, at least in the modern West, is not feeling too good either. What remains of the substantive goals, ethics, and ideals of socialism in an epoch of political defeat and in the aftermath of a century of tragic experiments? Are ‘still existing’ socialists simply nostalgic, seeking consolation in an opiate of lost dreams, or are there fragments of ideas and policies that constitute a still living politics of hope for humanity? Christian socialism is one socialist (...) tradition well-suited to address these meta-questions of faith, meaning and goal, not least because it has no unitary political ideology, party or even movement. It is argued here that Christian socialism’s best legacy and use-value today is in its historic failure to be anything other than a modest discourse and practice of a social ethic of free association, political pluralism and a gift economy. To these ends, I use a case study of a clash between two rival versions of contemporary Christian socialism. I then explicate the more difficult and radical version to be found in the work of its leading representative. I outline Milbank’s arguments for Christian socialism as a counter ontology to the secular politics of the modern nation state, an alternative complex space that conceives of community as ‘nomadic city’, and a free market economy based on the poetic practice of gift-giving. This is an agenda, a discourse and a poetic practice bound to failure. Therein is its use value to socialism. (shrink)

I demonstrate that a set of well-known objections defeat John Stuart Mill’s plural voting proposal, but do not defeat plural voting as such. I adopt the following as a working definition of political equality: a voting system is egalitarian if and only if departures from a baseline of equally weighted votes are normatively permissible. I develop an alternative proposal, called procedural plural voting, which allocates plural votes procedurally, via the free choices of the electorate, rather than according to a substantive (...) standard of competence. The alternative avoids standards objections to Mill’s proposal. Moreover, reflection on the alternative plural voting scheme disrupts our intuitions about what counts as an egalitarian voting system. Undue emphasis on Mill’s version of plural voting obscures three important reasons to reject plural voting in favor of strictly egalitarian voting systems: that certain choices that generate inequalities of political power are morally impermissible; that even... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.1 (2003) 40-53 [Access article in PDF] Aesthetic Experience and Aesthetic Analysis David E. W. Fenner The "raw data" that aesthetics is meant to explain is the aesthetic experience. People have experiences that they class off from other experiences and label, as a class, the aesthetic ones. Aesthetic experience is basic, and allother things aesthetic — aesthetic properties, aesthetic objects, aesthetic attitudes — (...) are secondary in their importance to aesthetic experiences. 1Considering aesthetic experience as the raw data that philosophical aesthetics seeks to explain is a relatively recent phenomenon. This was certainly not the focus in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Aesthetic judgment was the focus of Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, and Kant: "How do we make meaningful judgments (hopefully real ones) about the aesthetic quality of (certain) objects and events?" But with George Santayana, John Dewey, and Jerome Stolnitz, the focus changes. Now the interest is in the aesthetic experience: what makes those experiences we label "aesthetic" special? Why do we separate those experiences from others?The movement from the Taste Theories to those focused on aesthetic experience is not a movement that is over and done with — far from it. There is still (and I think there will always be) a tension between these two very basic aspects of philosophical aesthetics. And, although I claim that aesthetic experience is the most basic thing that aesthetics studies, I recognize that this is challengeable and only true from a certain temporal viewpoint.I recently taught the most rewarding undergraduate course in aesthetics. The reason that it was so rewarding was that the students carried the class with deep and insightful discussions, and they were not shy about challenging what was coming out of my mouth. One of the challenges that informed our entire semester focused on the tension between experience and judgment. I lectured comfortably about aesthetic experience as our "raw data," and I lectured equally comfortably about how taking an aesthetic view of an object or event meant focusing primarily, if not exclusively, on [End Page 40] what is available to us through simple sensory acquaintanceship with the object. "Aesthetics," I said, "is about the sensuous aspects of our experiences." And so we could, for instance, take an aesthetic view of a Robert Mapplethorpe photograph which precluded our experiences being mired in the themes that the more famous Mapplethorpe photos take as their content. "Mapplethorpe is a great photographer," I argued, "and one can see this if one is willing to focus strictly on what meets your eye when you look at the picture." In short, I held the position that the aesthetic view is the formal one.Without saying more, what I did was conflate two different things. On the one hand, I argued that aesthetic experience is a natural part of life that aesthetics seeks to explore. On the other, I argued that appreciating something aesthetically was to appreciate its formal qualities, those qualities that one could access simply through looking, hearing, touching, for example. But these really are two different things.Aesthetic experiences, if we are to treat them as "raw data," must be explored without pre-conception, prejudice, or limitation. And, truly enough, the vast majority of aesthetic experiences are not focused exclusively, in terms of their contents, on formal or simple-sensory matters. Aesthetic experiences are, first, experiences. They are complex things, having to do with things as tidy as the formal qualities of the object under consideration and with things as messy as whether one had enough sleep the night before, whether one just had a fight with his roommate, whether one is carrying psychological baggage that is brought to consciousness by this particular aesthetic object. Later in this essay, I want to explore some of this complexity.The other side of what was happening in my class, the formal focus on the sensory as the basis for an aesthetic viewing, is not the substance of "aesthetic experience" per se. It is rather the basis of what we might call "aesthetic analysis." Aesthetic analysis has to do with separating out from our... (shrink)

The idea of organism-environment interaction, at least in its modern form, dates only to the mid-nineteenth century. After sketching the origins of the organism-environment dichotomy in the work of Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer, I will chart its metaphysical and methodological influence on later scientists and philosophers such as Conwy Lloyd Morgan and John Dewey. In biology and psychology, the environment was seen as a causal agent, highlighting questions of organismic variation and plasticity. In philosophy, organism-environment interaction provided a new (...) foundation for ethics, politics, and scientific inquiry. Thinking about organism-environment interaction became indispensable, for it had restructured our view of the biological and social world. (shrink)

I argue in this paper that rather than viewing John Dewey as either a historicist or a naturalist, we should see him as strange but potentially fruitful combination of both. I will demonstrate that the notion of organism-environment interaction central to Dewey’s pragmatism stems from a Hegelian approach to adaptation; his turn to biology was not necessarily a turn away from Hegel. I argue that Dewey’s account of the organism-environment relation derives from the work of Oxford Hegelians such as Edward (...) Caird and Samuel Alexander, who were attempting to reconcile evolutionary ideas with a critique of Herbert Spencer’s environmentalist account of human thought and action. This dialectical account of organism-environment interaction played a key role in Dewey’s philosophy from the 1890s to the 1940s, despite other shifts in his thinking. (shrink)