PARANORMAL IS ABNORMAL ACTION OF MIND ON MATTER.\\ ONE NEEDS FIRST A THEORY OF NORMAL ACTION OF MIND ON MATTER.\\ CLASSICAL THEORY INADEQUATE: NO `MIND' IN THE DYNAMICS.\\ QUANTUM THEORY IS FORMULATED AS A THEORY OF MIND-MATTER INTERPLAY!\\ SIMPLER THAN CLASSICAL PHYSICS!\\ I SHALL:\\ 1. SHOW HOW QUANTUM THEORY OF MIND-MATTER IS CONSTRUCTED.\\ 2. DO TWO IMPORTANT MIND-MATTER CALCULATIONS.\\ 3. LOOK AT RAMIFICATIONS FOR PARANORMAL.

The population ethics literature has long focused on attempts to avoid the repugnant conclusion. We show that a large set of social orderings that are conventionally understood to escape the repugnant conclusion do not in fact avoid it in all instances. As we demonstrate, prior results depend on formal definitions of the repugnant conclusion that exclude some repugnant cases, for reasons inessential to any "repugnance" (or other meaningful normative properties) of the repugnant conclusion. In particular, the (...) literature traditionally formalizes the repugnant conclusion to exclude cases that include an unaffected sub-population. We relax this normatively irrelevant exclusion, and others. Using several more inclusive formalizations of the repugnant conclusion, we then prove that any plausible social ordering implies some instance of the repugnant conclusion. This understanding-that it is impossible to avoid all instances of the repugnant conclusion-is broader than the traditional understanding in the literature that the repugnant conclusion can only be escaped at unappealing theoretical costs. Therefore, the repugnant conclusion provides no methodological guidance for theory or policy-making, because it does not discriminate among candidate social orderings. So escaping the repugnant conclusion should not be a core goal of the population ethics literature. (shrink)

We argue that the main results of scientific papers may appropriately be published even if they are false, unjustified, and not believed to be true or justified by their author. To defend this claim we draw upon the literature studying the norms of assertion, and consider how they would apply if one attempted to hold claims made in scientific papers to their strictures, as assertions and discovery claims in scientific papers seem naturally analogous. We first use a case study of (...) William H. Bragg’s early 20th century work in physics to demonstrate that successful science has in fact violated these norms. We then argue that features of the social epistemic arrangement of science which are necessary for its long run success require that we do not hold claims of scientific results to their standards. We end by making a suggestion about the norms that it would be appropriate to hold scientific claims to, along with an explanation of why the social epistemology of science—considered as an instance of collective inquiry—would require such apparently lax norms for claims to be put forward. (shrink)

In the conclusion, McGinn distinguishes the ‘commandment’ paradigm and the ‘parable’ paradigm of ethical reflection, and argues that analytical moral philosophy, despite its emphasis on moral language, tends to follow the former. In this book, McGinn has argued that the latter, as exemplified in fictional narrative, with its appeal to our aesthetic sensibility, is the true vehicle of moral thought and persuasion. The fictional world is ideal for the exploration of ethical questions and the acquisition of ethical knowledge.

Our topic is the notion of logical consequence: the link between premises and conclusions, the glue that holds together deductively valid argument. How can we understand this relation between premises and conclusions? It seems that any account begs questions. Painting with very broad brushtrokes, we can sketch the landscape of disagreement like this: “Realists” prefer an analysis of logical consequence in terms of the preservation of truth [29]. “Anti-realists” take this to be unhelpful and o:er alternative analyses. Some, like Dummett, (...) look to preservation of warrant to assert [9, 36]. Others, like Brandom [5], take inference as primitive, and analyse other notions in terms of it. There is plenty of disagreement on the “realist” side of the fence too. It is one thing to argue that logical consequence involves preservation of truth. It is another to explain how far truth must be preserved. Is the preservation essentially modal (in all circumstances [25]) or analytic (vouchsafed by.. (shrink)

Philosophical applications of familiar paracomplete and paraconsistent logics often rely on an idea of . With respect to the paraconsistent logic LP (the dual of Strong Kleene or K3), such is standardly cashed out via an LP-based nonmonotonic logic due to Priest (1991, 2006a). In this paper, I offer an alternative approach via a monotonic multiple-conclusion version of LP.

Multiple -conclusion logic extends formal logic by allowing arguments to have a set of conclusions instead of a single one, the truth lying somewhere among the conclusions if all the premises are true. The extension opens up interesting possibilities based on the symmetry between premises and conclusions, and can also be used to throw fresh light on the conventional logic and its limitations. This is a sustained study of the subject and is certain to stimulate further research. Part I (...) reworks the fundamental ideas of logic to take account of multiple conclusions, and investigates the connections between multiple - and single - conclusion calculi. Part II draws on graph theory to discuss the form and validity of arguments independently of particular logical systems. Part III contrasts the multiple - and the single - conclusion treatment of one and the same subject, using many-valued logic as the example; and Part IV shows how the methods of 'natural deduction' can be matched by direct proofs using multiple conclusions. (shrink)

This paper argues that logical inferentialists should reject multiple-conclusion logics. Logical inferentialism is the position that the meanings of the logical constants are determined by the rules of inference they obey. As such, logical inferentialism requires a proof-theoretic framework within which to operate. However, in order to fulfil its semantic duties, a deductive system has to be suitably connected to our inferential practices. I argue that, contrary to an established tradition, multiple-conclusion systems are ill-suited for this purpose because (...) they fail to provide a 'natural' representation of our ordinary modes of inference. Moreover, the two most plausible attempts at bringing multiple conclusions into line with our ordinary forms of reasoning, the disjunctive reading and the bilateralist denial interpretation, are unacceptable by inferentialist standards. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy called 'irrelevant conclusion'. The fallacy of irrelevant conclusion, also known as the ignoratio elenchi (“ignorance of the proof”) fallacy, is, in effect, the parent of all other fallacies since every fallacy yields a conclusion that even if it be true is not related – that is, is irrelevant – to the premises of the argument. Arguments that commit the irrelevant conclusion fallacy all end with (...) a conclusion that is not related in any necessary way to the premises. Avoiding this fallacy is easier said than done, for it requires one to be a critical thinker at all times. The chapter finally presents an example of an argument with an irrelevant conclusion. (shrink)

According to the Aristotelian Thesis, the conclusion of practical reasoning is an action. Critics argue against it by pointing to cases in which some interference or inability prevents the production of action, yet in which that interference or inability doesn’t impugn the success of an agent’s reasoning. Some of those critics suggest instead that practical reasoning concludes in an intention, while others suggest it concludes in a belief with normative content, such as a belief about what one has conclusive, (...) or sufficient, reason to do. In this paper, I argue that we should allow that practical reasoning could conclude in either an intention or a belief with normative content. I begin by developing an objection to the Aristotelian Thesis, showing how the objection will not also undermine the possibility of practical reasoning concluding in an intention or a belief. I then respond to an argument from Joseph Raz designed to exclude the possibility of intentions as conclusions of practical reasoning. Lastly, I show how the worry that belief isn’t sufficiently “practical” to qualify as a conclusion of practical reasoning is misplaced. (shrink)

Formal arguments have proven that avoiding the Repugnant Conclusion is impossible without rejecting one or more highly plausible population principles. To many, such proofs establish not only a deep challenge for axiology, but also pose an important practical problem of how policymaking can confidently proceed without resolving any of the central questions of population ethics. Here we offer deflationary responses: first to the practical challenge, and then to the more fundamental challenge for axiology. Regarding the practical challenge, we provide (...) an overview of recent literature that explores the implications for public policy of the Repugnant Conclusion and related puzzles within population ethics, and shows that there is more commonality in the implications of different population axiologies than is generally recognized. The upshot is that uncertainty about population ethics presents no important problem for policymaking, and the importance of population ethics to policymaking has been overstated. We then turn to more fundamental issues about axiology, and describe a new series of formal proofs that undermine the idea that any plausible axiology could avoid the Repugnant Conclusion, including those that are assumed to avoid it in the literature. The philosophical upshot is that the Repugnant Conclusion cannot plausibly be avoided, and so it is a mistake to assume as a constraint on a plausible axiology that it must be avoided, as is assumed by most of the literature in population ethics, including by all of the fundamental impossibility theorems. (shrink)

Educational research tends to conduct its analysis according to fixed identity categories and concepts, and in its concern for voice, empowerment, and inclusion, offers ways in which researchers can articulate an account of themselves and their practice. The researcher herself then can be seen as being constituted as a particular subject in the current context of the entrepreneurial lifelong learning citizen, whose virtues are evidenced through the continual accumulation of skills and competencies. The concern with social justice, representation, and ethics (...) found in methodological discussion effects a shoring up of identity and a process of risk management in the sense of a thorough audit of who the researcher is. Considerations of citizenship and of educational research then begin to become inseparable because the understanding of both citizenship and research is seen to entail a particular relationship to the self. (shrink)

There is a puzzle about how to understand the conclusion of a successful instance of practical reasoning. Do the considerations adduced in reasoning rationalize the particular doing of an action, as Aristotle is sometimes interpreted as claiming? Or does reasoning conclude in the formation of an attitude – an intention, say – that has an action-type as its content? This paper attempts to clarify what is at stake in that debate and defends the latter view against some of its (...) critics. (shrink)

The repugnant conclusion can be formulated as follows: For any population consisting of people with very high positive welfare, there is a better population in which everyone has a very low positive welfare, other things being equal. As the name indicates, this conclusion appears unacceptable. Yet it has proven to be surprisingly difficult to find a theory that avoids it without implying other very counterintuitive conclusions. Moreover, the conclusion is a problem not just for total utilitarians or (...) those committed to welfarism but for all moral theories according to which welfare matters at least when all other things are equal, which arguably is a minimal adequacy condition for any moral theory. And, not the least, how to deal with it has implications for the present generations’ duties to future generations and intergenerational justice. The question as to how the repugnant conclusion should be dealt with has thus become one of the cardinal challenges of modern ethics, and the inquiry into what it shows about the nature of ethics has opened up many new avenues for research. This chapter covers the different suggestions in the literature on how to do deal with the conclusion, both on the axiological and on the normative levels. Moreover, the conclusion and different ways of deriving it are explained in detail. (shrink)

We are continually trying to make sense of our world through the stories we tell and are told, but in our search for coherence, we often sacrifice our freedom and the rich randomness of life. In this passionate and lucid book, Michael André Bernstein challenges our practice of "foreshadowing," in which we see our lives as moving toward a predetermined goal or as controlled by fate. Foreshadowing, he argues, demeans the variety and openness that exist in even the most ordinary (...) moments of life. And it is precisely ordinary life, with its random, haphazard, and contradictory choices, that Bernstein celebrates in his call for "sideshadowing"—an alternative practice that reminds us that every present is dense with possible futures. Bernstein sees the Holocaust as the prime example of how our tendency to "foreshadow" and "backshadow" misrepresents history. He argues eloquently against politicians and theologians who posit the Holocaust as foreordained and who depict its victims as somehow complicit with a fate that they should have been able to foresee. Instead, Bernstein proposes a radically new understanding of the relationship between the Holocaust and earlier Jewish experience, transforming how we read and write both individual and communal history. Foregone Conclusions is an extraordinarily wide-ranging book, both in its scope and in its broader intellectual and moral implications. From the latest biographies of Kafka to the peace accords between Israel and the PLO, from the role of cultural diversity in universities to the Crown Heights riots, Bernstein warns us against passively accepting our identities as being shaped primarily by historical or personal victimization. His book liberates us from stereotyped patterns of understanding the relationship between our lives as individuals and as members of racial, sexual, and historic/ethnic communities. Berstein ultimately opens a powerful new way to understand the principles governing how we read and write narratives--whether historical, personal, or literary. In striking original juxtapositions and critical evaluations of Marcel Proust, Robert Musil, and Aharon Appelfeld, Bernstein sugests the need for a new literary model based on the prosaics of daily life. Bernstein speaks directly and persuasively to many of the most pressing issues in Jewish history, Holocaust studies, literary criticism, and cultural history. Foregone Conclusions is a provocative and poignant attempt to find coherence in our world without accepting either ineluctable destiny of pure coincidence. (shrink)

This chapter discusses four packages, including Ludovician, Aristotelian, Fortibracchian, and Quietist. There are two quite coherent packages of answers to the some issues: a neo‐Humeist or Ludovician package, and a neo‐Aristotelian package. Ludovicians put little weight on common sense beliefs, especially when they are embedded in ethical and legal practices, and they do not rely heavily on the "manifest image of the world". Aristotelians rely more heavily on the semantic intuition about what could possibly be the truthmakers for familiar kinds (...) of claims, including those involving tense and modality. This chapter lists the Aristotelian package as including Meinongianism, ontological vagueness, and Tensism on the passage of time. Fortibracchians are very similar in methodology to Ludovicains. In practice, Fortibracchians give more weight to a kind of naive realism with respect to scientific theory than do Ludovicians. (shrink)

For anyone interested in China—its past, its present, and its future—_The_ _Analects_ (Lunyu) is a must-read. This new translation by renowned East Asian scholar Moss Roberts will offer a fresh interpretation of this classic work, sharpening and clarifying Confucius's positions on ethics, politics, and social organization. While no new edition of _The_ _Analects_ will wholly transform our understanding of Confucius’s teachings, Roberts’s translation attends to the many nuances in the text that are often overlooked, allowing readers a richer understanding of (...) Confucius’ historic and heroic attempt to restore order and morality to government. This edition features a critical introduction by the translator as well as notes on key terms and historical figures, a topical index, and suggestions for further reading in recent English and Chinese scholarship to extend the rich contextual background of the translation. This ambitious new edition of _The_ _Analects_ will enhance the understanding of specialists and newcomers to Confucius alike. (shrink)

Both utilitarian and deontological moral theories locate the source of our moral beliefs in the wrong sorts of considerations. One way this failure manifests itself, we argue, is in the ways these theories analyze the proper human relationship toward the non-human environment. Another, more notorious, manifestation of this failure is found in Derek Parfit's Repugnant Conclusion. Our goal is to explore the connection between these two failures, and to suggest that they are failures of act-centered moral theories in general. (...) As such, they cannot be fixed by simply developing a better version of such a theory. Virtue-based theories, we suggest, provide a more promising alternative. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Chapter Summaries Final Thoughts and Future Investigations.

This important and comprehensive work of 18th-century Islamic religious thought written in Arabic by a pre-eminent South Asian scholar provides an extensive and detailed picture of Muslim theology and interpretive strategies on the eve of the modern period.

The network is moving towards a global informational equilibrium that is irrevocable – if inter‐individual communication persists as the only driving force behind the network's evolution. On the basis of an example, this chapter compares the respective changes in the values of the main characteristic variables at the level of the network as a whole, and that of each cluster considered separately. Any local informational equilibrium achieved by a cluster is therefore fundamentally unstable, as it is constantly threatened by such (...) a phenomenon. It follows that the cumulative formation of local clusters of actors corresponding to a progressive regionalization of the effective space of the network is then erased as at least one category shared by all actors allows each of them to escape from the cluster in which they would otherwise remain enclosed. Maintaining separations between regions dividing the network space before the homogenization process ends means that it does not only have advantages. (shrink)

The prelims comprise: Half Title Title Copyright Contents Preface Acknowledgments.

The final chapter recapitulates the main puzzles considered in the book and summarizes how the book proposes to solve them. It also raises several problems with Hegel's project.

White men pretending to be black men by blackening their faces and performing, on stage, the peculiar antics that constituted their vision of blackness. This chapter explores how black people sustain themselves under conditions of racial terror, exclusion, and oppression. Eric Lott's point goes beyond shaming and repudiation, though, to suggest that minstrelsy is more, and more interesting, than a garden variety expression of racism. The men who donned blackface did so in an attempt to work out their own identities (...) as Americans, and some chose blackness as a vehicle for this because of a genuine, if paternalistic and complicated, respect for black culture. The point of the work has been to assemble black aesthetics as an object of philosophical study, using the resources, broadly speaking, of analysis, pragmatism, and genealogical cultural criticism and social theory. (shrink)

The inoffensive title of Section 1.4.7 of Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature, ‘Conclusion of this Book’, belies the convoluted treatment of scepticism contained within. It is notoriously difficult to decipher Hume’s considered response to scepticism in this section, or whether he even has one. In recent years, however, one line of interpretation has gained popularity in the literature. The ‘usefulness and agreeableness reading’ (henceforth U&A) interprets Hume as arguing in THN 1.4.7 that our beliefs and/or epistemic policies are justified (...) via their usefulness and agreeableness to the self and others; proponents include Ardal (in Livingston & King (eds.) Hume: a re-evaluation, 1976), Kail (in: Frasca-Spada & Kail (eds.) Impressions of Hume, 2005), McCormick (Hume Stud 31:1, 2005), Owen (Hume’s reason, 1999), and Ridge (Hume Stud 29:2, 2003), while Schafer (Philosophers, forthcoming) also defends an interpretation along these lines. In this paper, I will argue that although U&A has textual merit, it struggles to maintain a substantive distinction between epistemic and moral justification—a distinction that Hume insists on. I then attempt to carve out the logical space for there being a distinctly epistemic notion of justification founded on usefulness and agreeableness. However, I find that such an account is problematic for two reasons: first, it cannot take advantage of the textual support for U&A; secondly, it is incompatible with other features of the text. (shrink)

Population axiology concerns how to evaluate populations in regard to their goodness, that is, how to order populations by the relations “is better than” and “is as good as”. This field has been riddled with “paradoxes” which seem to show that our considered beliefs are inconsistent in cases where the number of people and their welfare varies. Already in Derek Parfit’s seminal contribution to the topic, an informal paradox — the Mere Addition Paradox — was presented and later contributions have (...) proved similar results.1 All of these contributions, however, have one thing in common: They all involve an adequacy condition that rules out Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion: The Repugnant Conclusion: For any perfectly equal population with very high positive welfare, there is a population with very low positive welfare which is better, other things being equal.2 A number of theorists, however, have argued that we should accept the Repugnant Conclusion and hence that avoidance of this conclusion is not a convincing adequacy condition for a population axiology. Torbjörn Tännsjö, for example, argues that the Repugnant Conclusion is not at all repugnant but rather “an unsought, but acceptable, consequence of hedonistic utilitarianism”:3.. (shrink)

The spectre of the repugnant conclusion and the search for a population axiology that avoids it has endured as a focus of population ethics. This is in part because the repugnant conclusion is often interpreted as a defining problem for totalism, while the implications of averagism and related views are taken to illustrate the theoretical cost of avoiding the repugnant conclusion. However, we show that this interpretation cannot be sustained unless one focuses only on a special case (...) of the repugnant conclusion: namely, the subset of instances of the repugnant conclusion where there is no portion of the population unaffected by the choice between population outcomes (as in Derek Parfit’s original illustration). To avoid an inappropriate focus on only this proper subset of instances of the repugnant conclusion, we formulate a general characterization of the repugnant conclusion. We then prove formally that all leading welfarist axiologies imply this conclusion, including averagism and Ng’s Theory X0 , including probabilistic and ‘very repugnant’ variants that involve the addition of negative lives. We then prove that the full range of axiologies considered by population ethics each imply an extended version of the repugnant conclusion, including axiologies that are incomplete, intransitive, rank-dependent, person-affecting, and/or pluralist. The upshot is that the repugnant conclusion does not ultimately tell against any approach to axiology, and the methodological requirement to avoid the repugnant conclusion should be dropped from population axiology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ConclusionNeil PickeringAs mentioned in my Introduction, and I am delighted to repeat now, the commentaries provided by Calvin Ho and Chua Hong Choon are both excellent. In reading them, some further thoughts were raised for me, and I briefly reflect on these now.In his legal commentary, Calvin Ho makes a plausible argument that Mr. T has the capacity (and hence the right) to make decisions in his current state (...) about his healthcare, and refers to two legal tests of decision-making competency laid down in the Singapore Mental Capacity Act (2008), which he believes Mr. T would pass. A question arises from each of the legal tests which Ho described.The first test involves the question of whether there is any “impairment of, or disturbance in the functioning of Mr. T’s mind or brain”. The claim made by Ho is that there is no impairment or dysfunction of Mr. T’s mind or brain. But, this raises a question: what are the functions of the mind? Christopher Boorse suggested that “We may surely assume … that the main function of perceptual and intellectual processes is to give us knowledge about the world” and against this standard “schizophrenia and all other psychoses with thought disorders look objectively unhealthy”.1 Further — and here is the specific point of discussion in relation to Mr. T — does his continuing denial that he is ill (his lack of insight) also constitute such a dysfunction? Is one function of our mind to tell us things about the functioning of our minds — to correct errors, spot illusions and self-deceptions, and respond to beliefs which are odd? If so, then perhaps Mr. T’s lack of insight indicates the presence of a dysfunction.The second test which (mainly for the sake of completeness) Calvin Ho refers to comprises a list of requirements for decision-making capacity. These are relevant if a dysfunction is identified by the first test. These are:(1). Understand information given to him;(2). Retain that information long enough to make the decision;(3). Use or weigh up that information as part of the process of decision-making; and(4). Communicate his decision.These requirements are familiar from other accounts of decision [End Page 222] making capacity, but at least some of these accounts have added a further requirement, “the ability to appreciate the nature of the situation and its likely consequences”.2 This is not merely the ability to understand what one is being told but also the ability “to apply the information abstractly understood to [one’s] own situation”. Potentially, Mr. T would fail this test. He frequently lacks insight into the fact that he is unwell, that is to say, he does not seem to appreciate that the information he is being given is true of him.I turn now to the clinical commentary by Dr. Chua. What chiefly struck me from this was the determination to engage with the patient as a person. Medication is not the first resort; rather, many other interpersonal approaches can and should be tried first. Medication is of course one aspect of treatment — and in some cases, any hope of any sort of engagement with a patient may rely upon some medical intervention succeeding. Perhaps Mr. T will turn out to be a patient of this kind, who can only be engaged in conversation about his experiences and the state of his mind if he has first taken a course of pills. But it has, over a number of years of speaking to psychiatrist colleagues, been borne in upon me that the psychiatrist himself or herself is a fundamental element of mental healthcare. The psychiatrist is not merely a route to help, the dispenser of prescriptions for pills, but someone with whom the patient can talk to and explore his or her experiences. In short, part of the therapeutic relationship which psychiatrists seek to establish is just a personal relationship. I am sure this is simply obvious to most clinicians and indeed to those who suffer from mental ill health and their caregivers. But sometimes, the obvious is worth pointing out.Indeed, the desire to engage with Mr. T as a person... (shrink)

This chapter summarizes the argument of the work. It situates the conception of natural resource justice that has been defended between the (egalitarian) principle of equal division and the (statist) principle of resource sovereignty. As an interpretation of relational egalitarianism concerning natural resources, the view is shown to avoid three of the most common objections to global egalitarianism. This is because the view is compatible with collective self-determination, protects cultural diversity, and avoids the metric problem. The chapter concludes that the (...) method of partial integrationism adopted in the work, considering questions of climate justice by reference to a conception of justice for natural resources alone, has been productive. A remaining task is to integrate this conception of natural resource justice with a more general theory of global justice, encompassing other important goods, institutions, practices, and relations. (shrink)