In this paper I shall use terms such as “intrinsically good” which may be deemed old fashioned by many readers and which certainly to my own mind presuppose an objective non-naturalistic theory of ethics. I still hold such a theory and I have not mastered the new jargon by which a sort of higher synthesis between that and other theories is supposed to have been effected, but I do not think that such a view as mine of ethics in general (...) is necessarily presupposed if one is to understand or even agree with the contentions of my article. These relate to a specific problem as to certain ethical actions, which will arise on any view that admits the possibility of giving any sort of legitimate reasons for ethical judgments, as we all do in practice. After all a naturalist can easily translate “intrinsically good” into his own terms, say, valued for its own sake by most people who experience it, and there will still be a question as to what is intrinsically and what is merely instrumentally good and other questions as to what is the logical nature of certain arguments in ethics. (shrink)

Originally published in 1917, this collection of essays deals with the underlying aims and principles of education, particularly in a time of social and educational upheaval. The authors, all experienced teachers and administrators, examine a wide range of topics pertaining to teaching, including athletics, the use of leisure, religion at school and the role of science. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of education.

This article must open with a Warning. In face of the positive information which the sciences supply, the philosophical contribution to this problem will seem disappointingly negative, or at least mine will do so. For I shall insist, and I think we can only rightly insist, that the philosopher is not yet in a position to produce a satisfactory positive theory of the relation between mind and body. And I shall annoy many of you further by insisting that (...) the old-fashioned “dualism” has not really been disproved. However, even if you do not agree with me, it is at any rate a good general piece of advice that, when we are confronted with a philosophical view which has maintained its ground for a very long time but seems to ourselves or to our generation very unreasonable, we should look specially carefully to find the positive grounds which have made so apparently unplausible a doctrine seem true to so many competent thinkers. (shrink)

Nobody who reads this article is likely to need convincing that there are bad political arguments. But, however many of them are bad, unless there are also some good ones, we can do nothing by reason in politics, there is no possibility of settling disputes rationally or in any other way except by fighting and there could be no ground either why we fight for any one cause rather than any other or why we should fight rather than make peace (...) or vice versa. But surprisingly little has been said by philosophers about this important type of argument. However, this omission is less surprising and less harmful than it might appear at first sight because all thoroughgoing political arguments are, I think, at bottom arguments as to what ought to be done and therefore ethical arguments in a wide sense of the word, and philosophers have certainly said a good deal about ethical arguments. However, it is well worth while treating political arguments separately, especially in these very political days, and considering their particular character. By political arguments I mean, not the abstract arguments of books on political philosophy, but the everyday concrete political arguments of the platform, the press and the meal-time conversation. What is their logical nature in so far as they are not mere fallacies or unsupported assertions, and can the philosopher qua philosopher say anything that will help in such discussions and contribute towards the replacement of bad arguments by good, a most desirable consummation and one the achievement of which in all countries would certainly have prevented the present war? (shrink)

The most important question under this heading is the question whether states are subject to the moral law. That they are has sometimes been denied even in theory, and there are no doubt still countries in which it would be highly desirable to publish an article combating this denial. But, thank goodness, England is not one of these countries, and it will suffice to say briefly that I can find no even plausible argument for the contrary view. This view (...) has often been associated with the doctrine that the State is a sort of super-person over and above the individual citizens, to whom the latter can appropriately be sacrificed as beings of little worth, as we sacrifice to our own welfare, if we can, without any compunction the myriad germs inhabiting our bodies. I cannot see any reason whatever for holding this view either, but I should have thought that, if it were adopted, the analogy of the individual thus applied to the State would suggest the contrary conclusion that the State should find its true good not in its own unscrupulous aggrandizement but in co-operation with other States. We have been taught the analogous doctrine in regard to the individual from the beginning of the Christian era or earlier, and we can look on it as generally accepted in regard to the individual by reflective people in theory, although not, of course, by any means always in practice. If we regard the State as just a group of individuals, there is still less excuse for making it out to be subject to no moral law. In that case actions of the State will always be actions by individual persons, differing only from other such actions because they are performed on behalf of certain groups of persons. (shrink)

Some modern thinkers have supposed that “cause” is an outworn notion, or at least that it is one of which modern science has no need. This is due mainly to the discovery that, while the scientist can give us general laws as to what in fact happens, he cannot help us to discern the reason for the laws or the inward nature of the forces on which they depend. He can tell us the “that” but not the “why”; he cannot (...) show us in a single case that the effect follows necessarily a priori from the nature of the cause, that any other effect than the one which actually takes place would be logically impossible. He has studied the law of gravitation, but this law does not enable him to see why material bodies should attract each other in this fashion; it is only a generalized statement of the fact that they do. He knows that certain substances, if absorbed by eating, will nourish and others destroy our tissues; but he cannot say why they should do so. He can no doubt analyse them further and discover that, for example, meat is nourishing because it contains a large proportion of nitrogenous matter, but he could not tell a priori whether this nitrogenous matter would be likely to nourish or to poison us. Only where mathematics can be applied do we see necessity in such a way that any alternative becomes inconceivable to us; but mathematics alone can never establish from a quantity present here and now what quantity there will be at a later time or in another part of space. Mathematics can show, e.g. , that, if there is 2 + 2 here and now, there must be 4 here and now, not that, if there is 2 + 2 here and now, there will be 4 in an hour's time or a mile away; and therefore it cannot be made the sole basis of any causal law whatever. (shrink)

The editor suggested my writing an article on the question whether it was possible to provide an ethics based upon principles which would be agreed to by all enlightened men, and he further suggested that I should begin the article by stating clearly what morality is. That is a somewhat difficult task, because while “morality” might be defined as “living as one ought,” it is a very disputable question whether and how this “ought” is itself to be defined, and I (...) could not undertake to deal with this question by the way as an introduction to an article on something else. It is, however, clear that there is another sense of “ought” besides the strictly moral sense. We do use the term in cases where it does not entail that a man is neglecting his moral duty if he does not do what he “ought.” For instance we say: “You ought to have seen that film,” “You ought not to have made that move,” “You ought to have seen through that argument,” even “Hitler ought to have invaded England after Dunkirk” where we should have regarded it as the reverse of a good thing if he had done what we say he ought. In none of these cases are we asserting a moral obligation. For we do not ordinarily regard people as under a moral obligation to seek their own pleasure, nor to make certain moves in a game, and while we should say that in matters of serious concern a person is morally obliged to do his best to form a true view as to the merits of a relevant argument, we should not say that he was morally obliged actually to form a true view, for this does not depend solely on his will. And in the fourth instance the action is one which we should think morally wrong rather than morally obligatory. What is there in common between “ought” as used in these cases and the moral “ought”? It is that in each case the action fits the situation, either wholly, or with certain limitations, as in the last instance where we presumably mean that to invade England would have fitted in better with Hitler's ends in the given environment than did the policy Hitler actually adopted. (shrink)

'The unconsidered life is not worth living' - Socrates. Thinking about life, what it means and what it holds in store does not have to be a despondent experience, but rather can be enlightening and uplifting. A life truly worth living is one that is informed and considered so a degree of philosophical insight into the inevitabilities of the human condition is inherently important and such an approach will help us to deal with real personal dilemmas. This book is (...) an accessible, lively and thought-provoking series of linked commentaries, based on A. C. Grayling's 'The Last Word' column in the Guardian. Its aim is not to persuade readers to accept one particular philosophical point of view or theory, but to help us consider the wonderful range of insights which can be drawn from an immeasurably rich history of philosophical thought. Concepts covered include courage, love, betrayal, ambition, cruelty, wisdom, passion, beauty and death. This will be a wonderfully stimulating read and act as an invaluable guide as to what is truly important in living life, whether facing success, failure, justice, wrong, love, loss or any of the other profound experience life throws out. (shrink)

Professor Harry Frankfurt has made a distinction between what he calls first-order desires, such as a desire for a Porsche, and second-order desires, such as a desire to desire a Porsche. He claims that this analysis of the structure of the will can provide an account of free human action. I argue against Frankfurt as follows: First, his account does not really free our wills, but only binds our wills at successively higher levels of desire; second, there is no (...) good reason to think that desires of any level higher than second exist; and third, critical review of one's desires necessarily involves the idea of an ought, and is thus not really a second-order desire at all. Rightly understood, all "higher-order" critical review of one's desires occurs at a single "level" of review, contrary to what Frankfurt believes, and this fact makes room for the theory of agency. (shrink)

The revival of the philosophy of mathematics in the 60s following its post-1931 slump left us with two conflicting positions on arithmetic’s ontological relationship to set theory. W.V. Quine’s view, presented in 'Word and Object' (1960), was that numbers are sets. The opposing view was advanced in another milestone of twentieth-century philosophy of mathematics, Paul Benacerraf’s 'What Numbers Could Not Be' (1965): one of the things numbers could not be, it explained, was sets; the other thing numbers could not be, (...) even more dramatically, was objects. Curiously, although Benacerraf’s article appeared in the heyday of Quine’s influence, it declined to engage the Quinean position squarely, even seemed to think it was not its business to do so. Despite that, in my experience, most philosophers believe that Benacerraf’s article put paid to the reductionist view that numbers are sets (though perhaps not the view that numbers are objects). My chapter will attempt to overturn this orthodoxy. (shrink)

This comprehensive new collection is designed as a complete introduction to philosophy for students and general readers. Consisting of eleven extended essays, specially commissioned for this volume from leading philosophers, the book surveys all of the major areas of philosophy and offers an accessible but sophisticated guide to the main debates. An extended introduction provides general context and explains how the different subjects are related. The first part of the book deals with the foundations of philosophical inquiry: epistemology, philosophical logic, (...) methodology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of mind. The second part offers historical chapters, two on ancient philosophy and two on modern philosophy. Finally, two chapters deal with questions of value, ethics and aesthetics. Each chapter has a full bibliography. The contributors include Bernard Williams, Roger Scruton, Martin Davies, David Wiggins, Christopher Janaway, David Papineau, and Mark Sainsbury. Designed to be as useful to the third-year student as to the beginner, this exciting new text will give each reader a unique sense of involvement in philosophy as it is practiced today. (shrink)

This is the best general book on philosophy for university students: not just an introduction, but a guide which will serve them throughout their studies. It comprises specially commissioned explanatory surveys of the main areas of philosophy, written by thirteen leading philosophers.

This powerful study of freedom is the first volume of a new edition of Edwards' work under the general editorship of Perry Miller. The editors intend to publish the manuscript material as well as the printed works. This volume is handsome and well printed; Ramsey contributes a solid introduction outlining Edwards' argument and the relation of his thought to Locke, Berkeley, and Leibniz.--A. C. P.

The author believes that sociology will progress only if it adopts "a logic in which substantialism tends to become functionalized." The book is repetitious and of only mild philosophical interest.--A. C. P.

The first volume of a projected three volume series, this book is at once a history of ancient philosophy and an attempt to explore and defend the thesis that "what is called Greek ontology was not only a strictly logical, but also a religious, concern." The following two volumes of the series will deal with medieval and modern philosophy from the perspective of the relation between speculation and revelation. Kroner argues that speculative philosophy and revealed religion, although exhibiting ineradicable (...) differences of approach, fundamentally deal with the same problem, viz., the "apprehension of the Ultimate"; and that the history of philosophy is best understood in terms of the relations between these approaches. The argument is rich in insight and is developed with real power; but at crucial points there is a lack of clarity which detracts somewhat from the force of the book.--A. C. P. (shrink)

Lectures in which Mr. Adler outlines the political thought of Louis Kelso, "the first clear and systematic statement of the idea of capitalism...." Kelso holds that a capitalistic revolution will herald the era of "pure capitalism" in which all men will have the leisure to follow liberal rather than servile pursuits.--A. C. P.

An attempt to forecast the course of the "coming world civilization" with special attention to the place of religion. Hocking sees modernity as a victim of split-mentality; on the one hand, there has been, since Descartes, a progressive "advance into Subjectivity" with its attendant dangers of relativism and psychologism, while on the other, modern science represents "an advance into Objectivity" which has seemed to threaten men's most cherished values. This split will be overcome, he thinks, principally through a reconstituted (...) religion--a Christianity universalized and stripped of its provincial Western accretions. The author develops these themes with virtuosity and insight.--A. C. P. (shrink)

An interesting and well-written attempt to direct the light of contemporary British linguistic analysis into the recesses of educational theory. Though such illumination may be needed there, the book will be of more interest to philosophers than to educators; O'Conner limits himself to an elementary account of recent philosophical developments in areas broadly relevant to educational theory such as the nature of moral discourse and the nature of explanations and hypotheses.--A. C. P.

The fifteen essays which comprise this book are unified by an unmistakable philosophical voice, and addressed to an interlocking set of concepts: cause, law, event, action, feeling, freedom, and intention. Collectively they trace the loops and bights of the Welt-Knotte, where the physical and the psychological orders tie. But the book is more than a collection of bright inter-referential papers by a clever man, and its existence is justified by something greater than the value of having them bound conveniently together. (...) For it can be read as a kind of journal metaphysique, with advances and reversals, where early theses can be retained only by dialectical modification, and intuitions retained at the cost of sacrificing intuitions, and a kind of relentless will-to-system can be perceived coming to self-consciousness through the medium of invited papers to the routine conferences and symposia of academic philosophical life. What we have in the end is thinking, rather than specimens of thought. (shrink)

Since the time of Brunck there has been a more or less general acquiescence in his substitution of πνθμεθα for πνθομεθα, inasmuch as there is no obvious reason to be alleged in support of the optative. Campbell, it is true, found the optative more in accord with the feeling of the blind and weary Oedipus; but who will listen to this nowadays? Therefore it is the more surprising that Radermacher should retain the optative as expressing the eager wish to (...) attain the goal, basing himself on J. M. Stahl's Syntax of the Greek Verb, p. 482. For Stahl, who admits the existence of certain exceptional instances to be justified in this sense, expressly excludes from the category this passage as well as El. 57 and 760, and seeks to limit the scope of his pronouncement to the writings of Aristophanes, Xenophon and the Orators—a curious combination. (shrink)

Context: Practice-based design research is becoming more widely recognized in academia, including at doctoral level, yet there are arguably limited options for dissemination beyond the traditional conference format of paper-based proceedings, possibly with an exhibition or “demonstrator” component that is often non-archival. Further, the opportunities afforded by the traditional-format paper presentations is at times at odds with practice-based methodologies being presented. Purpose: We provide a first-hand descriptive account of developing and running a new international conference with an experimental format that (...) aims to support more analogously the dissemination of practice-based design research. Method: Our approach herein is broadly interpretative, phenomenological and critically reflective in orientation, to analyze our own experiential insights from the conference conception, through to the event itself and post-conference reflections, alongside the reflections fed back by conference delegates. Results: We have found the roundtable format continues to function well for creating a discursive interactional context. However issues arose around the crucial nature of the session chair’s role in enabling rich and multi-voiced discussion and how presenters’, organizers’ and delegates’ voices were captured and documented, with implications for further developing the conference design. Looking forward, there are also questions raised about: balancing the stringency of a rigorous review process with provision of an encouraging platform for early-career researchers; and balancing the need for clear criteria and formatting standards with the “openness” of the submission template and formatting guidelines and/or writing. This includes designers who are new to research cultures. It should also appeal to those working in interdisciplinary research in collaboration with design practitioners (but who may not be practitioners themselves. The conference aims to foster and support a burgeoning “research through design” academic community and to provide a fitting dissemination platform for this community. We hope that the conference will encourage academic communities to give proper consideration to the concept of design as a knowledge-generating activity. Constructivist content: Knowledge about design research is generated from meaningful interaction between people and artifacts as part of the unfolding conference experience. The organizational features of the conference aim to support knowledge dissemination through dialogical relations between people and things in particular contexts of interaction. (shrink)

My central concern is to show that attempts to resolve problems of non-extensionality in abstraction from speech act theory are unsatisfactory. Generally, I shall argue that speech act theory identifies the various units, levels, and dimensions of analysis which are relevant to the problem of non-extensionality. To ignore or underplay this results in interpretations of non-extensionality which are counter-intuitive and plagued with counter-examples. In what follows, I shall first distinguish what I take to be the essential ingredients of the problem (...) of non-extensionality and restrict the primary scope of my discussion to a certain kind of paradigm case, viz., that kind of non-extensional context generated by the use of so-called verbs of propositional attitude. Although other kinds of context must also be reckoned with, I am especially interested in the attitudinal context, because it is here, as I shall try to show, that recent interpretations exhibit a significant philosophical mistake. Then I shall isolate the kind of interpretation I want to emphasize and criticize—one which I label "soft extensionalism." Finally, I shall differentiate those aspects of speech act theory which pertain to non-extensionality and apply them to the paradigm case. This will require a clarification of the role which the locutionary act, the propositional act, and the illocutionary act respectively play in the determination of the referential status of singular terms in linguistic contexts. (shrink)

It will be best to explain here, at the start, that I do not propose new etymologies for the words εὒξεινος and πόντος. I regard, then, εὒξεινος πόντος as meaning ‘the hospitable way’. My purpose is to show how such a name came to be given to the Black Sea by the Greeks. First, the word πόντος. The familiar explanation connects it with a series of words, of which I give the most important: Gk. πάτος ‘trodden path’; Skt. pάnthā (...) ‘way’, fem. pathyā ‘id.’; Zend paθ ‘id.’; Arm. hun ‘ford, road’; Lat. pons ‘bridge’. Further, as a verb the root appears in Gk. πατεν ‘tread down’ and is given in Walde-Pokorny as *pent- ‘tread, go’: W.-P. points out that the derived nouns mean ‘way’, and particularly a way that goes over or through water, as can be seen from the Armenian and Latin. (shrink)

There are many passages in Plato which look as if they alluded to well-worn practices, discussions, or lessons in the Academy. As is natural with allusions, they are often marked by a puzzling brevity or oddity of expression. One need not assume that they are always conscious allusions; for every writer has moments of obscurity which are due not so much to his conclusions as to his reaching them along lines that have long been familiar to Mm. To appreciate his (...) whole meaning the reader has then to infer as best he can the writer's train of thought. I wish to suggest that the language in which Dialectic is described in the later Dialogues presupposes a particular and probably familiar method of illustrating it. This was a geometrical illustration of the rules of Division by means of a divided line. By failing to notice it readers have not been led into any important misunderstanding of the Academy's rules. But I hope it will appear that the recognition of it makes Plato's manner of describing Division intelligible to an extent that is otherwise difficult. It is only a tentative suggestion, and would perhaps not have been worth making but for the possibility that some points of interest might at the same time emerge for those who were unconvinced by it. (shrink)

There are many passages in Plato which look as if they alluded to well-worn practices, discussions, or lessons in the Academy. As is natural with allusions, they are often marked by a puzzling brevity or oddity of expression. One need not assume that they are always conscious allusions; for every writer has moments of obscurity which are due not so much to his conclusions as to his reaching them along lines that have long been familiar to Mm. To appreciate his (...) whole meaning the reader has then to infer as best he can the writer's train of thought. I wish to suggest that the language in which Dialectic is described in the later Dialogues presupposes a particular and probably familiar method of illustrating it. This was a geometrical illustration of the rules of Division by means of a divided line. By failing to notice it readers have not been led into any important misunderstanding of the Academy's rules. But I hope it will appear that the recognition of it makes Plato's manner of describing Division intelligible to an extent that is otherwise difficult. It is only a tentative suggestion, and would perhaps not have been worth making but for the possibility that some points of interest might at the same time emerge for those who were unconvinced by it. (shrink)

The origin of marine invertebrate larvae has been an area of controversy in developmental evolution for over a century. Here, we address the question of whether a pelagic “larval” or benthic “adult” morphology originated first in metazoan lineages by testing the hypothesis that particular gene co-option patterns will be associated with the origin of feeding, indirect developing larval forms. Empirical evidence bearing on this hypothesis is derivable from gene expression studies of the sea urchin larval gut of two closely (...) related but differently developing congenerics, Heliocidaris tuberculata (feeding indirect-developing larva) and H. erythrogramma (nonfeeding direct developer), given two subsidiary hypotheses. (1) If larval gut gene expression in H. tuberculata was co-opted from an ancestral adult expression pattern, then the gut expression pattern will remain in adult H. erythrogramma despite its direct development. (2) Genes expressed in the larval gut of H. tuberculata will not have a coordinated expression pattern in H. erythrogramma larvae due to loss of a functional gut. Five structural genes expressed in the invaginating archenteron of H. tuberculata during gastrulation exhibit substantially different expression patterns in H. erythrogramma with only one remaining endoderm specific. Expression of these genes in the adult of H. erythrogramma and larval gut of H. tuberculata, but not in H. erythrogramma larval endoderm, supports the hypothesis that they first played roles in the formation of adult structures and were subsequently recruited into larval ontogeny during the origin and evolution of feeding planktotrophic deuterostome larvae. (shrink)

The origination of novel structures has long been an intriguing topic for biologists. Over the past few decades it has served as a central theme in evolutionary developmental biology. Yet, definitions of evolutionary innovation and novelty are frequently debated and there remains disagreement about what kinds of causal factors best explain the origin of qualitatively new variation in the history of life. Here we examine aspects of these debates, survey three empirical case studies, and reflect on directions for future inquiry (...) that will advance research into the developmental evolution of novel structures. (shrink)

Under the careful editorship of R. A. Markus, this book appears to be one of the very finest anthologies of critical essays dedicated to the elucidation of the thought of St. Augustine. Those familiar with Markus’ contribution to The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Philosophy will readily attest to the depth as well as to the breadth of understanding which Markus brings to Augustine scholarship. Three of the essays appear for the first time: "Action and Contemplation," (...) by Robert J. O’Connell; "Si Fallor, Sum," by Gareth B. Matthews; "On Augustine’s Concept of a Person," by A. C. Boyd. The remaining articles have appeared either as separate pieces or as journal articles: "St. Augustine and Christian Platonism," by A. H. Armstrong; "St. Augustine on Signs," by R. A. Markus; "The Theory of Signs of St. Augustine’s De Doctrina Christiana," by B. Darrell Jackson; "Augustine on Speaking from Memory" and "The Inner Man," by Gareth B. Matthews; "Augustine on Foreknowledge and Free Will," by William L. Rowe; "Augustine on Free Will and Predestination," by John M. Rist; "Time and Contingency in St. Augustine," by Robert Jordan; "Empiricism and Augustine’s Problems about Time," by Hugh M. Lacey; "Political Society," by P. R. L. Brown; "The Development of Augustine’s Ideas on Society before the Donatist Controversy" and "De Civitate Dei, XV, 2, and Augustine’s Idea of the Christian Society," The essays display scholarly depth as well as concern for contemporary philosophical problems. It is an excellent addition to Augustine scholarship and to contemporary philosophizing. This book is part of the Doubleday Anchor Modern Studies in Philosophy Series, under the general editorship of Amelie O. Rorty.—D. A. C. (shrink)

When Matthew Arnold wrote Culture and Anarchy over a hundred years ago, he gave expression to the ideal of excellence in the fostering of culture, by describing it as "getting to know, on all the matters that most concern us, the best which has been thought and said in the world, and, through this knowledge, turning a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits." Arnold was an inspector of schools, and a champion of higher education, (...) and he believed in excellence in education as the way not only to staff the economy, important though that is, but to produce an enculturated society which will live up to the ideal in Aristotle's dictum: "we educate ourselves in order to make noble use of our leisure.". (shrink)

When the International Olympic Committee meets in Moscow this weekend to choose a host city for the 2008 Games, the front-runner will be China's capital Beijing. Its main rivals are Toronto and Paris, but Canada and France have twice hosted winter or summer Games. In addition, the IoC's retiring President, Juan Antonio Samaranch, is a keen supporter of China's bid, and was disappointed when Sydney beat Beijing for the 2000 Games by just two votes. As his last presidential act (...) he wants to be able to declare Beijing the IoC's choice. (shrink)

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

Nobody who reads this article is likely to need convincing that there are bad political arguments. But, however many of them are bad, unless there are also some good ones, we can do nothing by reason in politics, there is no possibility of settling disputes rationally or in any other way except by fighting and there could be no ground either why we fight for any one cause rather than any other or why we should fight rather than make peace (...) or vice versa. But surprisingly little has been said by philosophers about this important type of argument. However, this omission is less surprising and less harmful than it might appear at first sight because all thoroughgoing political arguments are, I think, at bottom arguments as to what ought to be done and therefore ethical arguments in a wide sense of the word, and philosophers have certainly said a good deal about ethical arguments. However, it is well worth while treating political arguments separately, especially in these very political days, and considering their particular character. By political arguments I mean, not the abstract arguments of books on political philosophy, but the everyday concrete political arguments of the platform, the press and the meal-time conversation. What is their logical nature in so far as they are not mere fallacies or unsupported assertions, and can the philosopher qua philosopher say anything that will help in such discussions and contribute towards the replacement of bad arguments by good, a most desirable consummation and one the achievement of which in all countries would certainly have prevented the present war? (shrink)

It is very unfortunate that the philosopher who, as would be generally agreed, has had the greatest influence on modern thought is a writer whose style presents a particularly formidable barrier to the layman, or indeed to any reader tackling him for the first time; and this makes it all the more necessary that an effort should be made by those who have read and studied his works to communicate what they take to be the essential parts of his message. (...) The present article is an attempt to fulfil a part of this function, i.e. to convey a few of the leading ideas of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, while leaving aside altogether his other writings. I hope Kantian scholars will forgive me if in the attempt to make some of Kant's ideas clear in a very small space to readers who have not specialized in the subject but are interested in philosophy I seem not to do justice to the complexity of his finer distinctions. Also I had better add that this article is simply an attempt to state Kant's doctrine; it is not intended as an expression of my own views, and refrains from criticism. (shrink)

In Britain and, I think, America at least the “idealist movement” in philosophy is very widely regarded as a spent force, as a subject only for historical study. There are indeed different definitions of “idealism.” The term was defined explicitly by at least one distinguished British philosopher as covering “all those philosophies which agree in maintaining that spiritual values have a determining voice in the ordering of the universe.” This doctrine, though unfortunately less vocal than it was, has by no (...) means died out, and will not as long as there are theists who talk about God in any but a subjectivist sense. But a theist would not usually be called an idealist unless he based his theism on a particular kind of approach to the problems of metaphysics. Further, the term “idealist” would also be applied to a pessimist like Schopenhauer, for whom evil rather than good was conceived as predominant and whose philosophy could certainly not be described in the above terms. Some would apply it to philosophers who did not make any positive metaphysical assertion but only insisted that we had to reduce the concept of physical objects to a concept for organising human experience. Like -isms in general the term “idealism” has therefore a distinctly varied connotation; but in its most characteristic and influential form it was an attempt to give a philosophical proof of the essential doctrines of religion or at least of something which, though not identical with orthodox Christianity, provided an adequate substitute for it, being the philosophical truth which the teachings of the Church metaphorically expressed. (shrink)

Helm criticizes contemporary—largely analytic—work in philosophy of religion which closes off dispute or objection by a simple appeal to "the grammar of religious language" or to "what the believer would say." "The argument of this book is that such approaches involve an important error in philosophical method, for they rest on the mistaken assumption that the ‘religious believer’ has an unmistakable identity, and that ‘religious language’ is a distinct, homogeneous form of language". The issue is methodological because it focuses on (...) "the conceptual imperialism that has plagued accounts of religious belief". Helm believes that philosophical models will more adequately and less dogmatically reflect the pluralism and complexity of religion if we separate religion or theology from metareligion or metatheology. Thus, Part I of the book argues for this distinction and for the interpenetration of meta- and object-languages, in order to reject what are presented as straightforward appeals to an uncontroversial univocity in the logic or language of religious belief. Part II illustrates the inadequacy of such appeals by describing four prominent models of religious belief: 1) the probability model, based on empirical data or natural analogies ; 2) the self-authentication model, based on the intuitively grasped character of a document ; 3) the regulative model, based on morality ; and 4) the acquaintance model, based on immediate awareness and a free or unconstrained interpretation. Part III suggests how each of these four paradigm theories might respond to the two basic questions in Flew’s "falsificationist challenge": What would falsify p? and What reasons would induce A to change his mind as to the truth of p? The variety of the responses is intended to reinforce Helm’s contention that philosophers must give over question-begging methodologies which surreptitiously impose favored models on religious belief.—C.A.C. (shrink)

It will be seen that has twofold prosodic value: in passage it equals but in the others It is usual to connect the word with Alc, Pind. i.e. Lejeune, Traité de phon. grecque, p. 155note), thus following a lead given by Hesychius This is indeed the only suggestion advanced in the respective etymological dictionaries of Boisacq, Hofmann, and Frisk, and by Seiler ; though all but Seiler express more or less of doubt, particularly on the ground of meaning.

The taxa that appear in biological classifications are commonly seen as representing information about the traits of their member organisms. This paper examines in what way taxa feature in the storage and retrieval of such information. I will argue that taxa do not actually store much information about the traits of their member organisms. Rather, I want to suggest, taxa should be understood as functioning to localize organisms in the genealogical network of life on Earth. Taxa store information about (...) where organisms are localized in the network, which is important background information when it comes to establishing knowledge about organismal traits, but it is not itself information about these traits. The view of species and higher taxa that is proposed here follows from examining three problems that occur in contemporary biological systematics and are discussed here: the problem of generalization over taxa, the problem of phylogenetic inference, and the problematic nature of the Tree of Life. (shrink)

The taxa that appear in biological classifications are commonly seen as representing information about the traits of their member organisms. This paper examines in what way taxa feature in the storage and retrieval of such information. I will argue that taxa do not actually store much information about the traits of their member organisms. Rather, I want to suggest, taxa should be understood as functioning to localize organisms in the genealogical network of life on Earth. Taxa store information about (...) where organisms are localized in the network, which is important background information when it comes to establishing knowledge about organismal traits, but it is not itself information about these traits. The view of species and higher taxa that is proposed here follows from examining three problems that occur in contemporary biological systematics and are discussed here: the problem of generalization over taxa, the problem of phylogenetic inference, and the problematic nature of the Tree of Life. (shrink)

Judgments of plausibility involve appearance of the truth or reasonableness, which is always a function of background knowledge. What anyone will countenance is conditioned by what they already know (or think they know). Marc Kirschner (professor of systems biology at Harvard) and John Gerhart (professor of molecular and cell biology at the University of California—Berkeley) aim to show that molecular, cellular, and developmental processes relevant to the generation of phenotypic variation in anatomy, physiology, and behavior demonstrate how evolutionary processes, (...) especially the origins of novelty, are plausible. The outstanding question for Kirschner and Gerhart concerns not the modification of structures but their origination—a question unanswered by the theoretical framework of the modern synthesis. (shrink)

Ontological monists hold that there is only one way of being, while ontological pluralists hold that there are many; for example, concrete objects like tables and chairs exist in a different way from abstract objects like numbers and sets. Correspondingly, the monist will want the familiar existential quantifier as a primitive logical constant, whereas the pluralist will want distinct ones, such as for abstract and concrete existence. In this paper, we consider how the debate between the monist and (...) pluralist relates to the standard test for logicality. We deploy this test and show that it favors the monist. (shrink)

A key source of support for the view that challenging people’s beliefs about free will may undermine moral behavior is two classic studies by Vohs and Schooler (2008). These authors reported that exposure to certain prompts suggesting that free will is an illusion increased cheating behavior. In the present paper, we report several attempts to replicate this influential and widely cited work. Over a series of five studies (sample sizes of N = 162, N = 283, N = (...) 268, N = 804, N = 982) (four preregistered) we tested the relationship between (1) anti-free-will prompts and free will beliefs and (2) free will beliefs and immoral behavior. Our primary task was to closely replicate the findings from Vohs and Schooler (2008) using the same or highly similar manipulations and measurements as the ones used in their original studies. Our efforts were largely unsuccessful. We suggest that manipulating free will beliefs in a robust way is more difficult than has been implied by prior work, and that the proposed link with immoral behavior may not be as consistent as previous work suggests. (shrink)

Twenty-five essays originally published by Mead in various journals and now out-of-print books. This collection contains almost all of the philosophically significant writings of Mead which were published during his lifetime. Reck has written a fine introduction which relates the essays to Mead's posthumously published work and places his thought as a whole in historical perspective. This volume will be of interest both to philosophers and to students of social psychology.—G. A. C.