This book contains the Rockwell Lectures delivered at Rice University in February, 1989. What should a business firm do when its activities are within the law, yet potentially harmful? Each of the lectures is built around a case, reflecting the ethical dilemma faced by business managers when doing more than the law requires, which may mean substantial loss of profit. With the issue of dial-a-porn, telephone companies were faced with conflicting interests of protecting children against harm, preserving free speech, and (...) profit. In a property sales case, a potential flooding problem could result in substantial financial loss to the purchaser and damage to condominiums. In a case where the complete bid of a competitor had been obtained and the law was murky, winning a contract was pitted against fairness and honesty. (shrink)

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Part I is concerned with the tenet of modern Emperical Realism that while the theoretical concepts employed in science obtain their meanings entirely from the connections their usage establishes with the data language, the referents of such terms may be "unobservables," that is, entities which cannot be discussed within the data language alone. Such a view avoids both the restrictive excesses of logical positivism and the epistemic laxity of transcendentalism; however, it also necessitates a break with classical semantics, for it (...) follows from the empirical realistic position that a theoretical term must in principle be capable of simultaneously designating not just one entity, but indefinitely many. Drawing upon the Carnapian explication of "analytic truth," Part II examines a possible axiomatic basis for the empiricist theory of scientific meaningfulness to demonstrate that even if theoretical terms are able to designate entities inaccessible to the observation language, as held by Empirical Realism, so long as the meanings of theoretical terms derive from their connections with the observation language, the meaning content of a theory is exhausted by its observational consequences. (shrink)

Volume 13 in the RUSCH series continues work already begun on the School of Aristotle. Volume 9 featured Demetrius of Phalerum, Volume 10, Dicaearchus of Messana, Volume 11, Eudemus of Rhodes, and Volume 12, both Lyco of Troas and Hieronymus of Rhodes. Now Volume 13 turns our attention to Aristo of Iulis on Ceos, who was active in the last quarter of the third century BCE. Almost certainly he was Lyco's successor as head of the Peripatetic School. In antiquity, Aristo (...) was confused with the like-named Stoic philosopher from Chios, so that several works were claimed for both philosophers. Among these disputed works, those with Peripatetic antecedents, like Exhortations and Erotic Dissertations, are plausibly assigned to Aristo of Ceos. Other works attributed to the Peripatetic are Lyco, On Old Age, and Relieving Arrogance. Whether part of the last-named work or a separate treatise, Aristo's descriptions of persons exhibiting inconsiderateness, self-will, and other unattractive traits relate closely to the Characters of Theophrastus. In addition, Aristo wrote biographies of Heraclitus, Socrates, and Epicurus. We may be sure that he did the same for the leaders of the Peripatos, whose wills he seems to have preserved within the biographies. The volume gives pride of place to Peter Stork's new edition of the fragments of Aristo of Ceos. The edition includes a translation on facing pages. There are also notes on the Greek and Latin texts and substantive notes that accompany the translation. This edition will replace that of Fritz Wehrli, which was made over half a century ago and published without translation. (shrink)

Like Kolodny, I think feminism one of the most vital and energizing forces in literary criticism today, but for two reasons I found her exposition of the topic disappointing. It seems to me that she underplays the most crucial of the many aesthetic and pedagogical issues raised by feminist literary study, and she endorses a kind of intellectual defeatism when, in the conclusion of her essay, she places a "Posted" sign between the male readers of Critical Inquiry and her own (...) area of work. Both flaws arise, it appears, out of her underestimation or understatement of the revolutionary implications of feminist literary study. On the other hand, both flaws may be evidence of her problem in writing for so general an audience, for in addressing a very heterogeneous audience about a topic so potentially incendiary, she has to confront the rhetorical problem of how to tell the truth and still be heard. It is that problem, I think, that may have led Kolodny and other feminists to propose an intellectual separatism of sorts as a necessary interlude. It seems to me that once the revolutionary implications of feminist literary study are understood, separatism can be seen to be one of the most damaging proposals one could make. William W. Morgan, associate professor of English at Illinois State University, is a contributor to Thomas Hardy: An Annotated Bibliography of Writings About Him and has published essays on Hardy. He is presently working on a book on Hardy's poetry. This essay is a response to Annette Kolodny's "Some Notes on Defining a 'Feminist Literary Criticism'". (shrink)

In this module, which first appeared in Vol. 9, Nos. 2&3, pp. 168-170, 1989, an error in a formula appeared three times: CO2 and C2HSOH should read CO2. The entire article is reprinted here. The editors apoligize for this and regret any confusion this may have caused.

In this comment on John Yolton's Is There a History of Philosophy? (Yolton, 1985) I review his account of the development during the 17th to 19th centuries of a common sense of the range of philosophical problems and of the canon of philosophical works. I suggest that his account may be read in light of Rorty's four genres of historiography (Rorty, 1984). I criticize his view of the place of the history of philosophy in philosophy as too timid, though correct (...) as far as it goes. I then suggest, but do not attempt to establish, a bolder thesis. Finally, I raise some doubts about the adequacy of Yolton's reading of Descartes and Berkeley set out in two of his Puzzlements. The Puzzlements themselves are supposed to illustrate typical misreading of major figures in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

In recent years, religious studies has undergone an ethnographic turn. More and more, scholars attend to the social location and significance of religious practice. This approach foregrounds the self-understandings of religious communities and practitioners and raises the question of the relation between ethnography and philosophical analysis. For instance, Saba Mahmood, in The Politics of Piety, draws from ethnographic study so as to critique philosophy’s universalizing claims regarding subjectivity, enabling a recognition of the diverse forms feminist subjectivity and political agency may (...) take within religious traditions and practice.2 Jeffrey Stout’s Blessed are the Organized likewise shifts the terrain of .. (shrink)

This article draws on key models of monitoring and blockholding articulated in the incomplete contracts theory of the firm. Under incomplete contracts theory, different governance systems have incentive structures that entail different tradeoffs—tradeoffs between ownership concentration and liquidity, between monitoring and management initiative, and between private rent-seeking and activity benefiting shareholders as a group. The tradeoffs delimit opportunities for productive cross-reference. More specifically, blockholder systems, such as those in Europe, subsidize monitoring by permitting blockholders to reap private benefits of control (...) through self-dealing and insider trading. Market systems, such as those in the United States and Britain, regulate such private rent-seeking toward the end of maintaining an institutional framework that supports diffuse share ownership and liquid trading markets. It follows that a legal framework conducive to blockholding may be ill-equipped to foster dispersed equity ownership and thick trading markets and that a legal framework conducive to liquid trading markets may have properties that discourage blockholding. This gives rise to questions for law reform agendas on both sides of the Atlantic. In the United States, proponents ask for deregulation of controls on institutional investors, looking to encourage blockholding and more effective monitoring. In Europe, proponents ask for stronger securities regulation, looking to encourage deeper trading markets. This article suggests that each reform program may lead to disappointing results because neither assures conforming adjustments to the pertinent actors’ incentives. Alternatively, strict reforms that materially change prevailing incentive patterns could perversely destabilize workable arrangements without assuring the appearance of more effective alternatives. (shrink)

In the past two decades, reinforcement learning has become a popular framework for understanding brain function. A key component of RL models, prediction error, has been associated with neural signals throughout the brain, including subcortical nuclei, primary sensory cortices, and prefrontal cortex. Depending on the location in which activity is observed, the functional interpretation of prediction error may change: Prediction errors may reflect a discrepancy in the anticipated and actual value of reward, a signal indicating the salience or novelty of (...) a stimulus, and many other interpretations. Anterior cingulate cortex has long been recognized as a region involved in processing behavioral error, and recent computational models of the region have expanded this interpretation to include a more general role for the region in predicting likely events, broadly construed, and signaling deviations between expected and observed events. Ongoing modeling work investigating the interaction between ACC and additional regions involved in cognitive control suggests an even broader role for cingulate in computing a hierarchically structured surprise signal critical for learning models of the environment. The result is a predictive coding model of the frontal lobes, suggesting that predictive coding may be a unifying computational principle across the neocortex. (shrink)

ArgumentIn the United States, scientific knowledge is brought before the courts by way of testimony – the testimony of scientific experts. We argue that this expertise is best understoodfirstas related to the quality of the underlying scienceand thenin terms of who delivers it. Bloodstain pattern analysis (BPA), a contemporary forensic science, serves as the vaulting point for our exploration of objectivity as a metric for the quality of a science in judicial contexts. We argue that BPA fails to meet the (...) minimal standard set by Helen Longino’s social-procedural account of objectivity (1990, 2002). In light of some pressing issues for social-procedural accounts, we offer an infrastructural account of objectivity. This account offers what amounts to a friendly amendment to Longino’s account and adds to the ways in which we might analyze social-procedural objectivity. Finally, we address an issue that is pressing in the legal context: given that scientific knowledge is delivered by individuals, not communities, at least in U.S. courts, we (may) need a way to evaluate individual scientific and epistemic agents. We suggest a means for making this evaluation that is derived from our infrastructural account of objectivity. (shrink)

The Search for the Legacy of the USPHS Syphilis Study at Tuskegee is a collection of essays from experts in a variety of fields seeking to redefine the legacy of the infamous Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The essayists place the legacy of the study within the evolution of racial and ethnic relations in the United States. Contributors include two leading historians on the study, two former United States Surgeons General, and other prominent scholars from a wide range of fields.

A commentary on “Patient-Satisfaction Surveys on a Scale of 0 to 10: Improving Health Care, or Leading It Astray?,” byAlexandra Junewicz and Stuart J. Youngner in the May-June 2015 issue.

1 Evidence-based policy requires researchers to provide the answers to ecological questions that are of interest to policy makers. To find out what those questions are in the UK, representatives from 28 organizations involved in policy, together with scientists from 10 academic institutions, were asked to generate a list of questions from their organizations. 2 During a 2-day workshop the initial list of 1003 questions generated from consulting at least 654 policy makers and academics was used as a basis for (...) generating a short list of 100 questions of significant policy relevance. Short-listing was decided on the basis of the preferences of the representatives from the policy-led organizations. 3 The areas covered included most major issues of environmental concern in the UK, including agriculture, marine fisheries, climate change, ecosystem function and land management. 4 The most striking outcome was the preference for general questions rather than narrow ones. The reason is that policy is driven by broad issues rather than specific ones. In contrast, scientists are frequently best equipped to answer specific questions. This means that it may be necessary to extract the underpinning specific question before researchers can proceed. 5 Synthesis and applications. Greater communication between policy makers and scientists is required in order to ensure that applied ecologists are dealing with issues in a way that can feed into policy. It is particularly important that applied ecologists emphasize the generic value of their work wherever possible. (shrink)

The basic idea of his Origin of Species is that in nature there is a process similar to what goes on in the breeding of domestic plants and animals. If a breeder wants to produce a variety with certain characteristics, he/she keeps an eye out for individuals that have some approximation to those characteristics and breeds from them and not from individuals that do not have something like the desired characteristics. The other individuals may be destroyed, or they may just (...) be segregated; at any rate they are not allowed to breed with the selected stock. The breeder follows this policy also with the second generation of the offspring of the selected individuals of the first generation; those that after all do not have the desired characteristics are rejected, those that do are selected to produce the third generation, and so on. The whole process presupposes some degree of variability within the plant or animal being bred from. There have to be spontaneously produced individuals with something like the desired characteristics for the breeder to select. What can be accomplished by selection breeding depends of the range of variation that occurs spontaneously. (Hence the topic of Darwin's book of 1868, Variation of Plants and Animals under Domestication.) See in the Readings book the picture of the different breeds of pigeons from the Illustrated London News, 1864; Darwin was a pigeon fancier. (shrink)

This article uses the case of “social impact bonds” (SIBs) to explore the role of social science methods in new markets in “social investment.” Pioneered in the UK in 2010, SIBs use private capital to fund social programs with governments paying returns for successful outcomes. Central to the SIB model is the question of evaluation and the method to be used in determining program outcomes and investor returns. In the United States, the randomized controlled trial (RCT) has been the dominant (...) method. However, this has not been without controversy. Some SIB practitioners and investors have argued that, while this may be the perfect tool, the need to grow the SIB market demands a more pragmatic approach. Drawing from a three-year study of SIBs, and informed by Science and Technology Studies (STS)-inspired work on valuation and the social life of methods, the article explores RCTs as both a valuation technology central to SIB design and the object of a micropolitics of valuation which has impeded market growth. It is the relationship between, and the politics of, evaluation and valuation that is a key lesson of the SIB experiment and an important insight for future research on “social investment” and other settings where methods are constitutive of financial value. (shrink)

The authors relate the major groups involved in the desegregation of Boston's public schools to divergent understandings of rights in America's political and religious traditions. After an initial historical review, the authors suggest that the desegregation controversy may be understood as a conflict between a natural law theory of rights which requires remedial action to correct injustices and a traditionalist theory which sanctions prevailing liberties. In Boston, one natural law position is represented by black parents and the Federal court's desegregation (...) orders. Another position is represented by many white parents, who base their opposition to desegregation on a traditionalist notion of natural law. The authors suggest that any permanent resolution of the conflict must address these divergent understandings of natural law, as well as the political realities peculiar to Boston. (shrink)

We comment that covariances between brain divisions may be constraining or facilitating, depending on what is being selected, and that modern quantitative genetic methods provide the tools to discover and manipulate the genetic networks that give rise to the covariances described in the target article.

Patient decision aids enable patients to be better informed about the potential benefits and harms of their healthcare options. Certification of patient decision aids at the national level in the United States is a critical step towards responsible governance—primarily as a quality measure that increases patients’ safety, as mandated in the U.S. Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Certification would provide a verification process to identify conflicts of interest that may otherwise bias the scientific evidence presented in decision aids. (...) Certification also benefits clinicians who may otherwise face malpractice claims based on harm to patients caused by possible reliance on patient decision aids that are inaccurate, incomplete, or presented in a manner that biases the patient’s decision. Existing work by the International Patient Decision Aid Standards Collaboration could guide the establishment of a certification process within the U.S. This article argues for national certification of patient decision aids and discusses how that may be achieved. (shrink)

Speech variability facilitates non-tonal language speakers’ lexical tone learning. However, it remains unknown whether tonal language speakers can also benefit from speech variability while learning second language (L2) lexical tones. Researchers also reported that the effectiveness of speech variability was only shown on learning new items. Considering that the first language (L1) and L2 probably share similar tonal categories, the present study hypothesizes that speech variability only promotes the tonal language speakers’ acquisition of L2 tones that are different from the (...) tones in their L1. To test this hypothesis, the present study trained native Mandarin (a tonal language) speakers to learn Cantonese tones with either high variability (HV) or low variability (LV) speech materials, and then compared their learning performance. The results partially supported this hypothesis: only Mandarin subjects’ productions of Cantonese low level and mid level tones benefited from the speech variability. They probably relied on the mental representations in L1 to learn the Cantonese tones that had similar Mandarin counterparts. This learning strategy limited the impact of speech variability. Furthermore, the results also revealed a discrepancy between L2 perception and production. The perception improvement may not necessarily lead to an improvement in production. (shrink)

Institutional review boards are almost universally considered to be overworked and understaffed. They also require substantial commitments of time and resources from their members. Although some surveys report average IRB memberships of 15 people or more, federal regulations require only five. We present data on IRB meetings at eight of the top 25 academic medical centers in the United States funded by the National Institutes of Health. These data indicate substantial contributions from primary reviewers and chairs during protocol discussions but (...) little from other members, which implies that it may be possible for smaller IRBs to accomplish the same tasks with no reduction in the quality of review. (shrink)

About one third of patients with epilepsy have seizures refractory to the medical treatment. Electrical stimulation mapping is the gold standard for the identification of “eloquent” areas prior to resection of epileptogenic tissue. However, it is time-consuming and may cause undesired side effects. Broadband gamma activity recorded with extraoperative electrocorticography during cognitive tasks may be an alternative to ESM but until now has not proven of definitive clinical value. Considering their role in cognition, the alpha and beta bands could further (...) improve the identification of eloquent cortex. We compared gamma, alpha and beta activity, and their combinations for the identification of eloquent cortical areas defined by ESM. Ten patients with intractable focal epilepsy participated in a delayed-match-to-sample task, where syllable sounds were compared to visually presented letters. We used a generalized linear model approach to find the optimal weighting of each band for predicting ESM-defined categories and estimated the diagnostic ability by calculating the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. Gamma activity increased more in eloquent than in non-eloquent areas, whereas alpha and beta power decreased more in eloquent areas. Diagnostic ability of each band was close to 0.7 for all bands but depended on multiple factors including the time period of the cognitive task, the location of the electrodes and the patient’s degree of attention to the stimulus. We show that diagnostic ability can be increased by 3–5% by combining gamma and alpha and by 7.5–11% when gamma and beta were combined. We then show how ECoG power modulation from cognitive testing can be used to map the probability of eloquence in individual patients and how this probability map can be used in clinical settings to optimize ESM planning. We conclude that the combination of gamma and beta power modulation during cognitive testing can contribute to the identification of eloquent areas prior to ESM in patients with refractory focal epilepsy. (shrink)

The confounding effects of heterogeneity in biological psychiatry and psychiatric genetics have been widely discussed in the literature. We suggest an approach in which heterogeneity may be put to use in hypothesis testing, and may find application in evaluation of the Crespi & Badcock (C&B) imprinting hypothesis. Here we consider three potential sources of etiologic subtypes for analysis.

In Natural Ethical Facts William Casebeer argues that we can articulate a fully naturalized ethical theory using concepts from evolutionary biology and cognitive science, and that we can study moral cognition just as we study other forms of cognition. His goal is to show that we have "softly fixed" human natures, that these natures are evolved, and that our lives go well or badly depending on how we satisfy the functional demands of these natures. Natural Ethical Facts is a (...) comprehensive examination of what a plausible moral science would look like.Casebeer begins by discussing the nature of ethics and the possible relationship between science and ethics. He then addresses David Hume's naturalistic fallacy and G. E. Moore's open-question argument, drawing on the work of John Dewey and W. V. O. Quine. He then proposes a functional account of ethics, offering corresponding biological and moral descriptions. Discussing in detail the neural correlates of moral cognition, he argues that neural networks can be used to model ethical function. He then discusses the impact his views of moral epistemology and ontology will have on traditional ethical theory and moral education, concluding that there is room for other moral theories as long as they take into consideration the functional aspect of ethics; the pragmatic neo-Aristotelian virtue theory he proposes thus serves as a moral "big tent." Finally, he addresses objections to ethical naturalism that may arise, and calls for a reconciliation of the sciences and the humanities. "Living well," Casebeer writes, "depends upon reweaving our ethical theories into the warp and woof of our scientific heritage, attending to the myriad consequences such a project will have for the way we live our lives and the manner in which we structure our collective moral institutions.". (shrink)

In Natural Ethical Facts William Casebeer argues that we can articulate a fully naturalized ethical theory using concepts from evolutionary biology and cognitive science, and that we can study moral cognition just as we study other forms of cognition. His goal is to show that we have "softly fixed" human natures, that these natures are evolved, and that our lives go well or badly depending on how we satisfy the functional demands of these natures. Natural Ethical Facts is a (...) comprehensive examination of what a plausible moral science would look like.Casebeer begins by discussing the nature of ethics and the possible relationship between science and ethics. He then addresses David Hume's naturalistic fallacy and G. E. Moore's open-question argument, drawing on the work of John Dewey and W. V. O. Quine. He then proposes a functional account of ethics, offering corresponding biological and moral descriptions. Discussing in detail the neural correlates of moral cognition, he argues that neural networks can be used to model ethical function. He then discusses the impact his views of moral epistemology and ontology will have on traditional ethical theory and moral education, concluding that there is room for other moral theories as long as they take into consideration the functional aspect of ethics; the pragmatic neo-Aristotelian virtue theory he proposes thus serves as a moral "big tent." Finally, he addresses objections to ethical naturalism that may arise, and calls for a reconciliation of the sciences and the humanities. "Living well," Casebeer writes, "depends upon reweaving our ethical theories into the warp and woof of our scientific heritage, attending to the myriad consequences such a project will have for the way we live our lives and the manner in which we structure our collective moral institutions.". (shrink)

The concept of scientific history / Isaiah Berlin -- The limits of scientific history / W.H. Walsh -- The objectivity of history / J.A. Passmore -- Explanation in science and in history / C.G. Hempel -- The Popper-Hempel theory reconsidered / Alan Donagan -- The autonomy of historical understanding / Louis O. Mink -- Historical continuity and causal analysis / Michael Oakeshott -- Causal judgment in history and in the law / H.L.A. Hart and A.M. Honoré -- Causes, connections and (...) conditions in history / Michael Scriven -- The historical individual / A.C. Danto -- Methodological individualisms : definition and reduction / May Brodbeck -- Societal laws / Maurice Mandelbaum -- Determinism in history / Ernest Nagel. (shrink)

© 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.Genetic studies have identified single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with the risk of prostate cancer. It remains unclear whether such genetic variants are associated with disease aggressiveness. The NCI-SPORE Genetics Working Group retrospectively collected clinicopathologic information and genotype data for 36 SNPs which at the time had been validated to be associated with PC risk from 25,674 cases with PC. Cases were grouped according to race, Gleason score and aggressiveness. Statistical analyses were used to compare the frequency (...) of the SNPs between different disease cohorts. After adjusting for multiple testing, only PC-risk SNP rs2735839 was significantly and inversely associated with aggressive and high-grade disease in European men. Similar associations with aggressive and high-grade disease were documented in African-American subjects. The G allele of rs2735839 was associated with disease aggressiveness even at low PSA levels in both European and African-American men. Our results provide further support that a PC-risk SNP rs2735839 near the KLK3 gene on chromosome 19q13 may be associated with aggressive and high-grade PC. Future prospectively designed, case-case GWAS are needed to identify additional SNPs associated with PC aggressiveness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:82 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY PEIRGE'S MARGINALIA IN W. T. HARRIS' Hegel's Logic Among the most eminent philosophers of nineteenth-century America were William Torrey Harris (1835-1909) and Charles Sanders Peirce (18391914 ). The former, by his establishment in 1867 of The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, furnished a starting point for American philosophical maturity. The latter, who contributed to that iournal, has been considered America's greatest logician. It may therefore (...) be of interest to examine Peirce's marginalia in the first edition of Harris' chief work, Hegel's Logic: A Book on the Genesis of the Categories of the Mind (Chicago: S. C. Griggs, 1890). Discovered by the present writer on a New York book-stall, in a cheaply priced, coverless, and water-stained copy, and now in his possession, it bears imprinted on the reverse of the title page: "Harvard University: Philos. Dept. Library. Gift of Mrs. Charles S. Peirce. June 28, 1915." Shortly after Peirce, in depressed circumstances, died on April 19, 1914, the Harvard Philosophy Department acquired from his wife the manuscripts that were published in the Collected Papers.1 Harris' Hegel's Logic, which presumably accompanied that transaction, contains several marginal annotations, mostly in faded ink, in a neat, small hand, similar to that reproduced in the frontispiece to Volume IV of Peirce's Collected Papers. Recalling a notable philosophical conjunction, the markings also reveal aspects of Peirce's character and confirm his complex attitude toward Hegel, crucial to the development of his philosophy. Peirce's shifting view and persistent concern regarding Hegel may be traced in some other remarks. For example, in a letter to Harris dated January 1, 1868, he says, "I admit there is music in the logic of Hegel, but that is all I discover there. ''2 In another letter to Harris, dated May 13, 1868, he indicates his ambivalence: "But as I should draw the line... I should come on the same side as Hegel, because I am idealistic. I do not 1eel very much opposed to Hegel, though I think his main point.s tin his own estimate of importance) are wrong. ''s About 1890, Peirce declared, "I reiect his philosophy in toto, ''~ and about 1896, he accused Hegel of reaching "each category from the last preceding by virtually calling 'next!'-5 Yet, in 1903, he acclaimed Hegel "in some respects the greatest philosopher that ever lived. ''6 And, in the very same year, reviewing another treatment of Hegel's logic, and including a reference to Harris' t Eds. Charles Hartshorne, Paul Weiss,and Arthur Burks (Vols.I-VIII; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958). 2,.C.S. Peirce to W. T. Harris." ed. WallaceNethery, The Personalist,XLIII (19fi2),37. I am indebted to Dr. Nethery for his kindness in letting me see these letters in advanceof publication. sIbid.,40. 4Collected Papers,I, 193. 5 Ibid., I, 246. eIbid., I, 277. NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 83 treatise, Peirce flatly remarks: "But all these Hegelians--Harris, XVallace, Hibben, Everett, etc.--who dog the steps of their master in almost textual comments, are profoundly unfaithful to the spirit of his philosophy... the Logik now condemns itself. ''7 A constant feature in Peirce's negative attitude toward Hegel concerns the latter's failure to equip himself scientifically to deal with a subject the American considered basically scientific. For instance, about 1899, Peirce writes: Hegel, while regarding scientific men with disdain, has for his chief topic the importance of continuity, which was the very idea the mathematicians and physicists had been chiefly engaged in following out for three centuries. This made Hegel's work less correct and excellent in itself than it might have been; and at the same time hid its true mode of affinity with the scientific thought into which the life of the race had been chiefly laid up. It was a misfortune for Hegelism~ a misfortune for "philosophy," and a misfortune (in lesser degree) for science: Although Peirce adds, "My philosophy resuscitates Hegel, though in a strange costume, ''9 and his dialectic parallels Hegel's, he attempts to escape the Hegelian subjectivism by an "objective logic" and by avoiding Hegel's supposed mathematical ignorance. "Most of what is true in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:82 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY PEIRGE'S MARGINALIA IN W. T. HARRIS' Hegel's Logic Among the most eminent philosophers of nineteenth-century America were William Torrey Harris (1835-1909) and Charles Sanders Peirce (18391914 ). The former, by his establishment in 1867 of The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, furnished a starting point for American philosophical maturity. The latter, who contributed to that iournal, has been considered America's greatest logician. It may therefore (...) be of interest to examine Peirce's marginalia in the first edition of Harris' chief work, Hegel's Logic: A Book on the Genesis of the Categories of the Mind (Chicago: S. C. Griggs, 1890). Discovered by the present writer on a New York book-stall, in a cheaply priced, coverless, and water-stained copy, and now in his possession, it bears imprinted on the reverse of the title page: "Harvard University: Philos. Dept. Library. Gift of Mrs. Charles S. Peirce. June 28, 1915." Shortly after Peirce, in depressed circumstances, died on April 19, 1914, the Harvard Philosophy Department acquired from his wife the manuscripts that were published in the Collected Papers.1 Harris' Hegel's Logic, which presumably accompanied that transaction, contains several marginal annotations, mostly in faded ink, in a neat, small hand, similar to that reproduced in the frontispiece to Volume IV of Peirce's Collected Papers. Recalling a notable philosophical conjunction, the markings also reveal aspects of Peirce's character and confirm his complex attitude toward Hegel, crucial to the development of his philosophy. Peirce's shifting view and persistent concern regarding Hegel may be traced in some other remarks. For example, in a letter to Harris dated January 1, 1868, he says, "I admit there is music in the logic of Hegel, but that is all I discover there. ''2 In another letter to Harris, dated May 13, 1868, he indicates his ambivalence: "But as I should draw the line... I should come on the same side as Hegel, because I am idealistic. I do not 1eel very much opposed to Hegel, though I think his main point.s tin his own estimate of importance) are wrong. ''s About 1890, Peirce declared, "I reiect his philosophy in toto, ''~ and about 1896, he accused Hegel of reaching "each category from the last preceding by virtually calling 'next!'-5 Yet, in 1903, he acclaimed Hegel "in some respects the greatest philosopher that ever lived. ''6 And, in the very same year, reviewing another treatment of Hegel's logic, and including a reference to Harris' t Eds. Charles Hartshorne, Paul Weiss,and Arthur Burks (Vols.I-VIII; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1958). 2,.C.S. Peirce to W. T. Harris." ed. WallaceNethery, The Personalist,XLIII (19fi2),37. I am indebted to Dr. Nethery for his kindness in letting me see these letters in advanceof publication. sIbid.,40. 4Collected Papers,I, 193. 5 Ibid., I, 246. eIbid., I, 277. NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 83 treatise, Peirce flatly remarks: "But all these Hegelians--Harris, XVallace, Hibben, Everett, etc.--who dog the steps of their master in almost textual comments, are profoundly unfaithful to the spirit of his philosophy... the Logik now condemns itself. ''7 A constant feature in Peirce's negative attitude toward Hegel concerns the latter's failure to equip himself scientifically to deal with a subject the American considered basically scientific. For instance, about 1899, Peirce writes: Hegel, while regarding scientific men with disdain, has for his chief topic the importance of continuity, which was the very idea the mathematicians and physicists had been chiefly engaged in following out for three centuries. This made Hegel's work less correct and excellent in itself than it might have been; and at the same time hid its true mode of affinity with the scientific thought into which the life of the race had been chiefly laid up. It was a misfortune for Hegelism~ a misfortune for "philosophy," and a misfortune (in lesser degree) for science: Although Peirce adds, "My philosophy resuscitates Hegel, though in a strange costume, ''9 and his dialectic parallels Hegel's, he attempts to escape the Hegelian subjectivism by an "objective logic" and by avoiding Hegel's supposed mathematical ignorance. "Most of what is true in... (shrink)

Model-theoretic 1-types overa given first-order theory T may be construed as natural metalogical miniatures of G. W. Leibniz' ``complete individual notions'', ``substances'' or ``substantial forms''. This analogy prompts this essay's modal semantics for an essentiallyundecidable first-order theory T, in which one quantifies over such ``substances'' in a boolean universe V(C), where C is the completion of the Lindenbaum-algebra of T.More precisely, one can define recursively a set-theoretic translate of formulae νNϕ of formulae ν of a normal modal theory Tm based (...) on T, such that the counterpart `ξi' of a the modal variable `xi' of L(Tm) in this translation-scheme ranges over elements of V(C) that are 1-types of T with value 1 (sometimes called `definite' C-valued 1-types of T).The article's basic completeness-result (2.13) then establishes that ϕvarphi; is a theorem of Tm iff [[νN(ϕ) is aconsequenceof νN(Tm) for each extension N of T which is a subtheory of the canonical generic theory (ultrafilter) u]] = 1 – or equivalently, that Tm is consistent iff[[there is anextension N of T such that N is a subtheory of the canonical generic theory u, and νN(ϕ) for all ϕ in Tm]] > 0.The proof of thiscompleteness-result also shows that an N which provides a countermodel for a modally unprovable ϕ – or equivalently, a closed set in the Stone space St(T) in the sense of V(C) – is intertranslatable with an `accessibility'-relation of a closely related Kripke-semantics whose `worlds' are generic extensions of an initial universe V via C.This interrelation providesa fairly precise rationale for the semantics' recourse to C-valued structures, and exhibits a sense in which the boolean-valued context is sharp. (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)

Despite a profound concern for the epistemological, ontological and ethical conditions for being-at-home-in-the-world, G.W.F. Hegel published very little on a particularly serious threat to being-at-home: mental illness and disorder. The chief exception is found in Hegel's Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences (1830). In this work, Hegel briefly provides an ontology of madness (Verrücktheit), wherein madness consists in the inward collapsing of subjectivity and objectivity into the individual's unconscious and primordial feeling soul. While there has been an increasing number of studies (...) on Hegel's conception of madness, I propose that there is another overlooked way to understand madness in Hegel's system: as social pathology. I argue in this article that Hegel offers a compelling social account of madness in the Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), which arises at the elevated, self-reflective and community level of spirit. This sociality of madness, as I call it, occurs when spirit is unable to reconcile two contradictory yet equally essential aspects of its reality, resulting in spirit's structural homelessness. I argue that by examining this overlooked sociality of madness, we may read Hegel's political-philosophical project in a new light: on the one hand, the ethical life (Sittlichkeit) presented in the Philosophy of Right (1821) becomes understood as a political therapeutic. On the other hand, if the ethical life fails to live up to the demand of being an adequate spiritual therapeutic, then the traditional reading of the Philosophy of Right as a reconciliatory hermeneutic becomes problematized, opening up new avenues for the proliferation of social pathology. (shrink)

In this volume, originally published in 1983, W Montgomery Watt looks at the meeting of Christianity and Islam, how they see and have seen each other, and considers how they can aid each other in dealing with the problems of the world today. He emphasizes those beliefs which Christianity and Islam have in common, and shows how they may be justified intellectually.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:St. John Henry Newman's Theory of Doctrinal Development and the Synodal Process:A Survey and Concrete ApplicationWilliam B. GoldinGood afternoon, Your Excellencies, Most Reverend bishops, and my brother priests. Firstly, please permit me to say that, while it is certainly an honor to have been invited to speak to you, for which I would like to express my gratitude to my own bishop and our host for this reunion, His (...) Excellency, Bishop Kevin W. Vann, it is also not a little bit daunting. To speak to such an erudite group of clerics, all of whom have a connection to our common alma mater and to the various celebrated universities in the Eternal City, brings back fond memories of my three years at the Casa Santa Maria. During that time, while I would occasionally have the opportunity to preach at Sunday Masses at the Casa, I was always keenly aware that I was not nearly as qualified to do so as many of my listeners. As such, I beg your pardon if I should fail to explain adequately any aspect of this lecture, and I would be grateful for any questions and/or corrections, theological or otherwise, that you may have afterwards.Let us begin with a prayer:In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. [End Page 21]Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of thy faithful, and enkindle in them the fire of thy love. Send forth thy Spirit and they shall be created, and thou shalt renew the face of the earth.Let us pray.O God, who didst inspire thy faithful by the light of thy Holy Spirit, grant that, in the same Spirit we may be truly wise and ever more rejoice in His holy consolation.Through Christ our Lord.Amen.Vergine Immacolata... Aiutateci.Introduction: The Synod on Synodality and Speculation on Doctrinal ChangeIn the late autumn of 2021, Bishop Vann appointed me and my colleague, Mrs. Katie Dawson, our diocesan director of parish faith formation, as the coordinators for the Synod on Synodality in the Diocese of Orange. In this role, we were tasked with bringing to fruition the diocesan phase of the synodal consultation of the faithful here in Orange County. Since last autumn, we have labored to carry out the bishop's synodal plan for this diocese, and I must say that I have been pleasantly surprised with the manner in which the consultation took place, and in its results, notwithstanding my initial reservations both as to the scope of this particular synod and as to the potential risks inherent in such a universal survey. As we all know from diocesan and parochial life, "listening sessions" have a tendency to become "shouting sessions"; and as a thoroughgoing introvert myself, such sessions do not exactly bring joy to my heart. Thankfully, though, my fears were not realized, and the actual experience of our synodal process was almost altogether pleasant.Perhaps surprisingly, one of the fruits of our consultation, which we heard from the majority of the faithful, is their clear desire for doctrinal clarity in their faith journeys. The majority of the People of God in Orange County whom we surveyed do not want to see any doctrinal changes emerge from this synod that could be critiqued for being in serious discontinuity with the [End Page 22] solemnly defined magisterial teaching of the past. Regularly, they expressed to us that, if our "journeying together" is to be authentic and credible, then the continuity of our doctrinal teaching is a matter of no small importance. Indeed, the ability of many to take the Church's faith seriously depends on whether the doctrinal content of that faith seems solid and unshakeable. If the content of our faith can shift substantially in ways that mirror modern shifts in secular thinking, then people can easily critique our faith as being blown about by the winds of change, with no certitude whatsoever. If something taught by the Catholic Church can be true today and false tomorrow, then why is the Catholic Church's message worth listening to at all? What we heard from the overwhelming majority of... (shrink)

The works of Plato have been a cornerstone of Western philosophy for centuries, inspiring countless readers and thinkers over the course of millennia. But not all of the writings attributed to Plato are genuine. In this scholarly investigation, W.A. Heidel explores the origins and authenticity of some of these so-called 'pseudo-Platonic' texts, providing insights into the ways in which ancient cultures valued and appropriated the ideas of its greatest thinkers. 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 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. 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)

PREFACE I AM greatly indebted to my friends, Professor Dewar of Reading and Miss Maude G. May of Glasgow, for many corrections and suggestions while the following pages were passing through the press. W. M. D. PART I I INTRODUCTION Y. D.H.S. The most singular and deepest themes in the History of the Universe and Mankind, to which all the rest are subordinate, are those in which there is a conflict between Belief and Unbelief, and all epochs, wherein Belief prevails, (...) under, what form it will, are splendid, heart-elevating and fruitful. (shrink)

The view that properties have their causal powers essentially, which I will here call property essentialism, has advocates in Chris Swoyer,[1] Sydney Shoemaker [2], Alan Chalmers [3], Brian Ellis [4] and Caroline Lierse [5], among a few other authors in recent literature. I am partial to this view as well and I will shortly explain the grounds I find compelling in favor of it. However, we will also see that the essentialist view of properties and laws does not adequately do (...) quite so much as might be hoped. Property essentialism has the straightforward result that at least causal laws are metaphysically necessary. A natural view of such laws is that they are analyses of the essential nature of basic properties in terms of their essential causal powers. Brian Ellis proposes that conservation laws and other laws that may not be exactly causal are best thought of as characterizing the essential properties of worlds. But this further essentialist thesis is not directly relevant to the issues I want to address here. (shrink)

“The Will to Believe” defines the religious question as forced, living and momentous, but even in this article James asserts that more objective factors are involved. The competing religious hypotheses must both be equally coherent and correspond to experimental data to an equal degree. Otherwise the option is not a live one. “If I say to you ‘Be a theosophist or be a Mohammedan’, it is probably a dead option, because for you neither hypothesis is likely to be alive.” James, (...) WB, p. 3. Analogously, in A Pluralistic Universe James is at pains to convince the reader that his own religious hypothesis is just as “objective,” makes just as much sense, etc. as alternative possibilities: the “only thing I emphatically insist upon is that it [pluralistic pantheism] is a fully coordinate hypothesis with monism. This world may, in the last resort, be a block universe; but on the other hand, it may be a universe only strung along, not rounded in and closed. Reality may exist distributively just as it sensibly seems to, after all. On that possibility I do insist.”William James, A Pluralistic Universe (New York: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1909) p. 328.Here, once again, before the will to believe can be employed, the objective factors of competing hypotheses, their equal coherence and correspondence, must be brought out.When reconstructed, James' overall outlook has a “qausi Kuhnian” taint to it- though obvious differences remain. Much of what goes on in evaluating competing scientific hypotheses is either not forced, or not living, or not momentous, but rather “typical,” “dead,” and “avoidable,” in short very “normal.” But there are moments in the history of science where the decision between hypotheses might well be forced, living and momentous, and sometimes James comes close to recognizing this.Analogously, a good deal of what goes on in religion is not forced, not living or not momentous - in short it is all too “normal”. In The Varieties of Religious Experience for example, James proposes to ignore the institutional branch of the religious domain and to concentrate on personal and psychological factors, his reason being that the institutional aspect concentrates on the routine, the normal. “Worship and sacrifice, procedures for working on the dispositions of the deity, theology and ceremony and ecclesiastical organization, are the essentials of religion in the institutional branch. Were we to limit our view to it, we should have to define religion as an external art, the art of winning the favor of the gods.” James, VRE, p. 29. and again “The word ‘religion,’ as ordinarily used, is equivocal. A survey of history shows us that, as a rule, religious geniuses attract disciples, and produce groups of sympathizers. When these groups get strong enough to ‘organize’ themselves, they become ecclesiastical institutions with corporate ambitions of their own. The spirit of politics and the lust of dogmatic rule are then apt to enter and to contaminate the originally innocent thing; so that when we hear the word ‘religion’ nowadays, we think inevitably of some ‘church’ or other.” Clearly here religion has a normal, i.e. trivial side, just as does science. On the other hand, there are revolutionary moments in religion, such as that of choosing between theism and materialism in Pragmatism, or choosing among theism, monistic pantheism and pluralistic pantheism in A Pluralistic Universe. Such moments involve the will to believe and are clearly more personal than their counterparts in the domain of normal institutionalized religion. Going further, there are no doubt differences of degree between the will to believe decisions in science and the will to believe decisions in religion. These have been explicated in more specific terms by Ian Barbour in his article, “Paradigms in Science and Religion.” ...each of the ‘subjective’ features of science... is more evident in the case of religion: (1) the influence of interpretation on data, (2) the resistance of comprehensive theories of falsification, and (3) the absence of rules for choice among paradigms. Each of the corresponding ‘objective’ features of science is less evident in the case of religion: (1) the presence of common data on which disputants can agree, (2) the cumulative effect of evidence for or against a theory, and (3) the existence of criteria which are not paradigm-dependent. It is clear that in all three respects religion is a more ‘subjective’ enterprise than science. But in each case there is a difference of degree - not an absolute contrast between an ‘objective’ science and a ‘subjective’ religion. Ian Barbour, “Paradigms in Science and Religion,” in Paradigms and Revolutions, edited by Gary Gutting (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1980) pp. 242–43. Barbour correctly notes that the “...choice is not between religion and science, but between theism, pantheism, and naturalism, let us say, as each is expressed in a particular historical tradition. No basic beliefs are capable of demonstrable proof.”Ibid., p. 243. James sometimes comes close to recognizing this but his oscillation on the status of the everyday world of common sense, or the perceptual world, causes him not to see the issue clearly. When the animated world of the perceptual is taken as the all inclusive ‘really real,’ science is viewed as an abstract, second class citizen. But James offers what we would consider a more sophisticated and adequate perspective when he views the world of common sense, having become linguistified, as itself suspicious, and consequently views all three tiers - common sense, scholastic philosophy, and science - as “regional ontologies”, or “language games” in Wittgenstein's terminologySee Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, translated by G.E.M. Anscombe (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1953), paragraph 7, paragraph 23. For the notion of “regional ontology” see Edmund Husserl, Ideas, translated by W.R. Boyce Gibson (New York: Collier Books, Macmillan Publishing Company, Inc., 1962) p. 57ff; p. 158ff. - and opposes all three to a more primordial or prereflexive level. When James takes this second approach it is easier to see that the basic distinction he began to make in “The Will to Believe” was between the scientific and religious domain where the will to believe was to be employed, and the domain of “ordinary” religion and science. Finally this position anticipates his ultimate metaphysical outlook, viz. “pure experience” as approachable through language on a series of diverse regional levels, but nonetheless not completely describable within language. It is important to recall that in The Varieties of Religious Experience James distinguishes between the science of religions and what he calls living religion: [T] he science of religions may not be an equivalent for living religion; and if we turn to the inner difficulties of such a science, we see that a point comes when she must drop the purely theoretic attitude, and either let her knots remain uncut, or have them cut by active faith. James, VRE, p. 489. The study of religion, in short is not the activity of religion; the latter is animated, personal, and, we would argue, necessitates a commitment in terms of the will to believe. Once again, however, James hesitates over offering the same two-fold delineation in other areas of science. On the one hand he tells the reader that “science-has ended by utterly repudiating the personal point of view.”Ibid., p. 491. On the other hand, he offers the following comment a few pages later on in a footnote: ...the divorce between scientist facts and religious facts may not necessarily be as eternal as it at first sight seems, nor the personalism and romanticism of the world, as they appeared to primitive thinking, be matters so irrevocably outgrown. The final opinion may, in short, in some manner now impossible to forsee, revert to the more personal style, just as any path of progress may follow a spiral rather than a straight line. If this were so, the rigorously impersonal view of science might one day appear as having been a temporarily useful eccentricity rather than the definitely triumphant position which the sectarian scientist at present so confidently announces it to be.Ibid., p. 501, Footnote. The burden of this paper has been to indicate that when James' two-fold outlook on perception and/or common sense is properly reconstructed, the raproachment between science and religion is not so “impossible to forsee.”. (shrink)

Plato said that as long as wisdom and power, or philosophy and politics, are separated, “there can be no rest from troubles.”1 In The Republic, he sought to forge such a union. For over two millennia, from Plato through John Rawls, philosophers have put forward models for the just state.2 Despite these ongoing efforts, W. B. Gallie contends, “No political philosopher has ever dreamed of looking for the criteria of a good state viz-à-viz [sic] other states.”3 I will argue that (...) as long as wisdom and power are separated in international relations, we will continue to have problems. We need to forge a normative framework capable of addressing global issues. I further maintain that, in order to advance a global normative framework, achieving peace, or at least the “outlawry of war” championed by John Dewey, may well be the precondition for success in addressing the myriad global problems facing humanity.4 I agree with Ronald Glossop that among all the global issues we need to address, war is “humanity’s most pressing problem.”5 How can we adequately protect everyone’s human rights, secure economic well-being for all persons, preserve this planet’s rich biological diversity, and attend to other serious global concerns if we fail to end war? The structure of my argument is as follows: I will begin by reviewing the parochial and warist implications of the focus on national sovereignty within Enlightenment political philosophy from Thomas Hobbes through Immanuel Kant. Then, after indicating how Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Karl Marx point beyond the modern state in a way that would allow for the global application of normative principles, I will note that the Hegelian and Marxian traditions have not made this normative prospect focal. Finally, in order to develop a global normative framework, I will connect the efforts within twentieth-century philosophy to develop arenas of applied ethics to recent efforts in political science to develop a model of a humane world community.. (shrink)

"Today our nation saw evil." - President George W. Bush, September 11th 2001 Evil! Like a zombie back from the grave, it has arisen--a word many of us had long ago relegated to Sunday sermons, video games and horror flicks. But of course, evil is not old fashioned, nor has it ever gone away, and may be as robust as ever. So what is evil? Does it exist? Veteran journalist Bill Hart tries to drag evil out of the darkness and (...) hold it up to the light. In doing so, he has written a very readable account of 5,000 years of philosophy, theology and human history as it reflects and refines its notion of evil. More than an explanation of why bad things happen, Evil: A Primer is a tour through the nether regions in search of what we really know. (shrink)

O. A. W. Dilke disapproves of the reading uergens advocated by me in C.Q., NS. iv [1954], 188 f., retains uertens of the better manuscripts translating ‘and Fortune did not take long to change the balance of so many weights’, and, citing for the use of diu Sen. Contr. 2. 3. 10 ‘si non impetro ut uiuam, hoc certe impetrem ne diu moriar’, asks ‘How is this not a parallel?’ Others too have not hesitated to ascribe a similar use to (...) diu. The difficulty is that to which I briefly referred in C.Q,., I.e. The adverb diu is appropriate only with verbs representing a continuous or protracted action: e.g. morior may represent such an action, and it does so in Sen., I.e.—the speaker prays for exemption from a protracted death and diu retains its characteristic sense. (shrink)

L'A. soutient, contre Germain Grisez, Joseph Boyle, John Finnis et William May, que le contrôle naturel des naissances pratiqué avec une intention mauvaise n'est pas contraception. Il montre que les auteurs identifient de façon incorrecte la fin prochaine de la contraception comme choix qu'il n'y ait pas d'enfant, alors que la fin prochaine véritable est d'empêcher un enfant de venir au monde . Ainsi donc, puisque en NFP un couple ne cherche pas à empêcher la venue au monde d'un (...) enfant, NFP n'implique pas d'action contraceptive. L'A. soutient aussi qu'identifier la fin prochaine comme choix qu'il n'y ait pas d'enfant ne spécifie pas de façon adéquate une classe homogène d'actes objectifs, bien que cela spécifie une classe homogène d'actes moraux. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:W. T. Jones SOMNIO ERGO SUM: DESCARTES'S THREE DREAMS What is remarkable about Descartes's dreams is not that he dreamed (for even philosophers presumably dream), but that he wrote down a description of his dreams and of his interpretation of them and then kept this record for more than thirty years, until his death.* What is remarkable, in a word, is that this thinker, who prided himself on his (...) rationalism and who has come to represent, at least to philosophers, the very spirit of rationalism, should have taken his dreams so seriously. Philosophers—perhaps because the dreams conflict with their view of Descartes, perhaps because they conflict with their view of themselves and their discipline—have tended to play down the dreams or to ignore them altogether. Thus, though Bernard Williams, the author of a recent volume on Descartes, refers to the dreams as "a significant event," he proceeds in a footnote to undercut the adjective by quoting Christiaan Huygens, apparently with approval, to the effect that the dreams show "a great weakness [in Descartes], and I think that it will seem much the same to Catholics who have freed themselves from bigotry." If we try to free ourselves from what seems to be a standing philosophical prejudice against dreams and dreaming, what can Descartes's dreams tell us about his theories? That is the topic of this article. But first a caveat concerning my position on the interpretation of dreams generally. The interpreter of a dream, like the interpreter of other cultural products, has to try to steer a course between the Scylla of overinterpretation (reading into the dream something that is not expressed in it) and the Charybdis of underinterpretation (missing something that is actually expressed in the dream). My own bias leads me to fear overinterpretation more than underinterpretation; I had?Descartes's original Latin record of the dreams no longer survives. A new English translation by my colleague, John F. Benton, of a late seventeenth-century paraphrase of a portion of Descartes's text appears as an appendix to this article. 145 146Philosophy and Literature rather go aground on Charybdis than be shipwrecked on the Scylla of the Freudians and the Jungians.2 I am skeptical of interpretations of Descartes's dreams that are not supported by nondream materials—on the assumption that any dynamic element expressed in the dreams that is not also expressed in nondream materials is unlikely to be of much importance for understanding Descartes's thought. Therefore, instead of beginning with the dreams and then looking here and there in nondream materials for supporting evidence, I shall begin with nondream materials and only later turn to the dreams. In a word, I shall try to read back both from nondream material and from dream material to dynamic elements which may be present in, and shaping, both. My hope is that the uncovering of these elements will result in a better understanding of nondream and dream material alike. I Accordingly, I shall begin with a brief account of some of the themes of two of Descartes's best known philosophical writings, The Discourse on Method (1637) and the Meditations on First Philosophy (1641). The Discourse is particularly relevant to our inquiry because it "covers" the period in which the dreams occur, but in a very different medium from that of the Olympica and at a later date. The Discourse was in fact a discreet, as it were sanitized, version of the whole long voyage of discovery in which the dreams were but one, if nonetheless a critical, episode. Descartes tells us he had been educated "at one of the most celebrated schools in Europe" and had not beenjudged by his instructors "inferior" to his fellow students. Yet, on completing his course of study, he found himself "embarrassed with so many doubts and errors" that the only result of his efforts to instruct himself had been the "increasing discovery" of his own ignorance. Having gone through all the sciences of his time—languages, literature, rhetoric, theology, philosophy—without learning anything of consequence, he had then turned to travel, to seeing courts and armies, hoping thereby to discover the answers he sought "in... (shrink)

William James and Education is a dynamic collection of original essays spotlighting William James as a role model for bringing philosophy to bear on the persistent issues of life and education. Using James's philosophical ideas, the contributors evade the polarization and superficiality that permeate the debate around such educational issues as standards versus diversity, cultural consensus versus multiculturalism, religion versus science, and individual freedom versus social determinism. The result is a synthetic collection of essays offering original, unique, and (...) useful insights. One of the most influential of American philosophers, William James is relevant today because he provides a way of understanding human behavior that is both rigorous and humane. James shows how we may soften and sometimes harmonize rigid ideological divisions, such as those plaguing contemporary education, with a pragmatic approach to issues of theory and practice. By reconsidering some of the roots of American thought in James's work, this volume points the way to valuing both uniqueness and universality, among other seemingly opposing concerns. The result is a lively weave of historical and contemporary thought, providing philosophical perspectives on the critical issues facing educators today. (shrink)

Model-theoretic 1-types overa given first-order theory T may be construed as natural metalogical miniatures of G. W. Leibniz' ``complete individual notions'', ``substances'' or ``substantial forms''. This analogy prompts this essay's modal semantics for an essentiallyundecidable first-order theory T, in which one quantifies over such ``substances'' in a boolean universe V(C), where C is the completion of the Lindenbaum-algebra of T.More precisely, one can define recursively a set-theoretic translate of formulae N of formulae of a normal modal theory Tm based on (...) T, such that the counterpart `i' of a the modal variable `xi' of L(Tm) in this translation-scheme ranges over elements of V(C) that are 1-types of T with value 1 (sometimes called `definite' C-valued 1-types of T). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Spiritual Experience and PsychopathologyMike Jackson and K. W. M. Fulford (bio)AbstractA recent study of the relationship between spiritual experience and psychopathology (reported in detail elsewhere) suggested that psychotic phenomena could occur in the context of spiritual experiences rather than mental illness. In the present paper, this finding is illustrated with three detailed case histories. Its implications are then explored for psychopathology, for psychiatric classification, and for our understanding of (...) the concept of mental illness. It is argued that pathological and spiritual psychotic phenomena cannot be distinguished by 1) form and content alone (as in traditional psychopathology), 2) by their relationship either with other symptoms or with pathological causes (as in psychiatric classification), or 3) by reference to the descriptive criteria of mental illness implied by the “medical” model. The distinction is shown to depend, rather, on the way in which psychotic phenomena themselves are embedded in the values and beliefs of the person concerned. This in turn is shown to have implications for diagnosis (it shows the need for clinicians to attend to the values and beliefs of individual patients), for treatment (it points to a cognitive problem-solving model), and for research in psychopathology (especially as related to the emerging sciences of dynamic brain imaging and cognitive neuroscience).Keywordsfirst rank symptoms, schizophrenia, delusion, hallucination, thought disorder, religious experience, mystical experienceIntroductionThis paper explores some of the conceptual and practical implications of the finding that phenomena which in a medical context would probably be diagnosed as psychotic symptoms, may occur in the context of non-pathological, and indeed essentially benign, spiritual experiences.The existence of non-pathological psychotic experiences of this kind (we will call them “psychotic phenomena” as distinct from “psychotic symptoms”—see also Endnote 1, terminology) was a key finding in a study carried out by one of us (MJ) at the Alister Hardy Research Centre (AHRC) in Oxford. Details are given elsewhere both of the overall empirical findings of the study, including the relationship between spiritual experience and personality variables, and of a hypothetical cognitive problem-solving model of these phenomena (Jackson 1991, and forthcoming a and b). In the present paper, 1) the background to the study is described briefly in relation to earlier work on the possible links between spiritual experience and psychopathology; 2) some of the psychotic phenomena identified are illustrated with three detailed case histories; 3) the significance of these phenomena is reviewed for our understanding respectively of psychopathology, of diagnostic syndromes, and of the concept of mental illness; and 4) some of the practical implications of the study for clinical work and research in psychiatry are indicated.BackgroundIt has long been recognized that there are similarities between spiritual and psychotic experiences. [End Page 41] William James (1902), for example, argued that “in delusional insanity, paranoia as they sometimes call it, we may have a kind of diabolical mysticism, a sort of religious mysticism turned upside down” (426). Other commentators have noted a wide variety of phenomena, such as time distortion, synesthesias, loss of self-object boundaries and the transition from a state of conflict and anxiety to one of sudden “understanding,” all of which are reported in both spiritual and psychotic experiences (Buckley 1981; Watson 1982; Wapnick 1969; and Wootton and Allen 1983).Yet the similarities notwithstanding, the distinction between these two kinds of experience can be crucially important. Spiritual experiences, whether welcome or unwelcome, and whether or not they are psychotic in form, have nothing (directly) to do with medicine (Fulford 1996a). It would be quite wrong, then, to “treat” spiritual psychotic experiences with neuroleptic drugs, just as it is quite wrong to “treat” political dissidents as though they were ill (Fulford, Smirnoff and Snow, 1993). Pathological psychotic experiences, on the other hand, or psychotic symptoms, are by definition a proper object of medical treatment, sometimes even against the wishes of the person concerned. Hence it would be both negligent and, as Wing (1978) put it, morally “repellent,” to leave untreated someone who is genuinely ill (244).Given how much turns on the distinction between spiritual experience and psychopathology, it is perhaps not surprising that scholarly discussion of the relationship between them has at times... (shrink)