Paul Silva has recently argued that doxastic justification does not have a basing requirement. An important part of his argument depends on the assumption that doxastic and moral permissibility have a parallel structure. I here reply to Silva's argument by challenging this assumption. I claim that moral permissibility is an agential notion, while doxastic permissibility is not. I then briefly explore the nature of these notions and briefly consider their implications for praise and blame.

Limits to Action: The Allocation of Individual Behavior presents the ideas and methods in the study of how individual organisms allocate their limited time and energy and the consequences of such allocation. The book is a survey of individual resource allocation, emphasizing the relationships of the concepts of utility, reinforcement, and Darwinian fitness. The chapters are arranged beginning with plants and general evolutionary considerations, through animal behavior in nature and laboratory, and ending with human behavior in suburb and institution. Topics (...) discussed include operant conditioning; the principle of diminishing returns; and issues in relation to mating strategies. Biologists, sociologists, economists, and psychologists will find the book interesting. (shrink)

Deontological evidentialism is the claim that we ought to form and maintain our beliefs in accordance with our evidence. In this paper, I criticize two arguments in its defense. I begin by discussing Berit Broogard’s use of the distinction between narrow-scope and wide-scope requirements against W.K. Clifford’s moral defense of. I then use this very distinction against a defense of inspired by Stephen Grimm’s more recent claims about the moral source of epistemic normativity. I use this distinction once again to (...) argue that Hilary Kornblith’s criticism of Richard Feldman’s defense of is incomplete. Finally, I argue that Feldman’s defense is insensitive to the relation between normative requirements and privileged values: values that have normative authority over us. (shrink)

Stephen Schiffer presents a groundbreaking account of meaning and belief, and shows how it can illuminate a range of crucial problems regarding language, mind, knowledge, and ontology. He introduces the new doctrine of 'pleonastic propositions' to explain what the things we mean and believe are. He discusses the relation between semantic and psychological facts, on the one hand, and physical facts, on the other; vagueness and indeterminacy; moral truth; conditionals; and the role of propositional content in information acquisition and (...) explanation. This radical new treatment of meaning will command the attention of everyone who works on fundamental questions about language, and will attract much interest from other areas of philosophy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Insurrectionist Ethics: Radical Perspectives on Social Justice ed. by Jacoby Adeshei Carter and Daryl ScrivenDuncan R. CordryEdited by Jacoby Adeshei Carter and Daryl Scriven Insurrectionist Ethics: Radical Perspectives on Social Justice Palgrave Macmillan, 2023, 295 pp.In the collected volume Insurrectionist Ethics, edited by Jacoby Adeshei Carter and Daryl Scriven, contributors engage in discussion over the ethics of revolt. Faced with the systemic persistence of immiseration, and given normative (...) morality's complicity in sustaining such systems of domination, what ethical and practical recourse do the oppressed have to liberate themselves? This is a question which runs throughout the book and motivates the problem of an 'insurrectionist ethics,' as coined by Leonard Harris: a field of ethics which takes up a position, as he writes in the foreword, "that is in, starts from, and sojourns to a different place" (p. xiii). It is a re-imagining of the ethical which departs from romanticized notions of agency and reason, often in ways that favor descriptions over normative or explanatory principles. This shift gives it a high degree of flexibility with respect to its approach, which nevertheless remains guided by a common "insurrectionist sentiment" that lends consistency to the works of the text's contributors: they all "favor the abolition of what creates non-being, living death and necro-being" (p. xi). The book is split into a total of five topical sections, each of which discusses a different facet of insurrectionist ethics: its conceptions and context, its ties to liberation theory throughout the Americas, applications and correctives for its theory, its relation to pragmatism, and its future. Bookending contributions from the editors unpack the meaning and definition of an insurrectionist ethics.In this review, I survey several chapters of the volume by discussing Scriven's and Carter's definitions and examining a few ways in which these definitions produce tensions in a few selected contributions. Doing so will highlight some important differences between [End Page 110] the authors' approaches to insurrectionist ethics while underscoring the consistency which commits them to abolition; ultimately, Insurrectionist Ethics is as much an invitation as it is an introduction to the tradition it espouses.Scriven's introductory chapter, "The Very Idea of Insurrectionist Ethics," exposes an insurrectionist ethic within the thought of David Walker, while Carter's conclusive essay, "Death by a Thousand Cuts: Insurrectionist Ethics in a Present less Oppressive than the Past," attempts to pin down a definition by analyzing its essential elements. Their difference in approach is not insignificant. What is revealed through Scriven's angle, for example, is that insurrectionist ethics is indeed a tradition—to work through the meaning of such an ethics is to lend historical weight to the lives of past and present insurrectionists and to declare solidarity with their actions at the level of valuation. A number of such figures circulate throughout the volume, including David Walker, Maria W. Stewart, Alain L. Locke, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Tommy Curry, and Leonard Harris. With the exception of the latter-most, none of these figures make direct contributions to the collection (although their spirits animate it). Its status as a tradition means that insurrectionist ethics is not limited to the confines of this volume, itself more knot than archive: such a tradition reaches well beyond the text and invites its readers to extend its concepts and debates in all directions. It has not one past but several, and not one future but many.Furthermore, Scriven's essay points out that insurrectionist ethics is not simply an indictment of corrupt institutions on the basis of some moral framework or other—it is foremost an outright rejection of the alliance between customary morality and systems of oppression; it searches for an ethos that condones direct action against such systems, operating at a philosophical level to produce conceptual and theoretical weaponry that "incite resistance and demands action" (p. xiv). Yet, as the form of the volume itself demonstrates, the arguments and methods of reasoning deployed by insurrectionists (past and present) to condone such actions has tended to vary, sometimes drastically. Nonetheless, the multiplicity which properly belongs to this tradition—a point explored further in... (shrink)

For over thirty years Susan Wolf has been writing about moral and nonmoral values and the relation between them. This volume collects Wolf's most important essays on the topics of morality, love, and meaning, ranging from her classic essay "Moral Saints" to her most recent "The Importance of Love.".

Using astrology as a case study, this paper attempts to establish a criterion for demarcating science from pseudoscience. Numerous reasons for considering astrology to be a pseudoscience are evaluated and rejected; verifiability and falsifiability are briefly discussed. A theory is said to be pseudoscientific if and only if (1) it has been less progressive than alternative theories over a long period of time, and faces many unsolved problems, but (2) the community of practitioners makes little attempt to develop the theory (...) towards solutions of the problems, shows no concern for attempts to evaluate the theory in relation to others, and is selective in considering confirmations and disconfirmations. This criterion has the interesting consequence that a theory can be scientific at one time but pseudoscientific at another. (shrink)

Deontological evidentialism is the claim that S ought to form or maintain S’s beliefs in accordance with S’s evidence. A promising argument for this view turns on the premise that consideration c is a normative reason for S to form or maintain a belief that p only if c is evidence that p is true. In this paper, I discuss the surprising relation between a recently influential argument for this key premise and the principle that ought implies can. I (...) argue that anyone who antecedently accepts or rejects this principle already has a reason to resist either this argument’s premises or its role in support of deontological evidentialism. (shrink)

The chapter introduces and characterizes the notion of fittingness. It charts the history of the relation and its relevance to contemporary debates in normative and metanormative philosophy and proceeds to survey issues to do with fittingness covered in the volume’s chapters, including the nature and epistemology of fittingness, the relations between fittingness and reasons, the normativity of fittingness, fittingness and value theory, and the role of fittingness in theorizing about responsibility. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of issues (...) to do with fittingness that aren’t covered extensively by the volume’s chapters in order to indicate avenues for further research. (shrink)

Abstract:Organizational justice and injustice are widely noted influences on employees’ ethical behavior. Corporate ethics programs also raise issues of justice; organizations that fail to “follow-through” on their ethics policies may be perceived as violating employees’ expectations of procedural and retributive justice. In this empirical study of four large corporations, we considered employees’ perceptions of general organizational justice, and their perceptions of ethics program follow-through, in relation to unethical behavior that harms the organization, and to employees’ willingness to help the (...) organization by reporting ethical problems and issues to management. Results show that when employees perceive general organizational justice and ethics program follow-through, there is less unethical behavior and greater willingness to report problems. General justice and ethics program follow-through also interact with each other, showing that the impact of ethics initiatives is influenced by the organizational context. (shrink)

Recognition of conscientious objection seems reasonable in relation to controversial and contentious issues, such as physician assisted suicide and abortion. However, physicians also advance conscience‐based objections to actions and practices that are sanctioned by established norms of medical ethics, and an account of their moral force can be more elusive in such contexts. Several possible ethical justifications for recognizing appeals to conscience in medicine are examined, and it is argued that the most promising one is respect for moral integrity. (...) It is also argued that an appeal to conscience has significant moral weight only if the core ethical values on which it is based correspond to one or more core values in medicine. Finally, several guidelines pertaining to appeals to conscience and their ethical evaluation are presented. (shrink)

This article presents a sketch of a theory of action. It does so by locating the relation of intention to action -vithin a general theory of Intentionality. It introduces a distinction between ptiorintentions and intentions in actions; the concept of the experience of acting; and the thesis that both prior intentions and intentions in action are causally self-referential. Each of these is independently motivated, but together they allow suggested solutions to several outstanding problems within action theory (deviant causal chains, (...) the accordion effect, basic actions, etc.); the demonstration of striking similarities between the logical structure of intentional action and the logical structure of perception; and the construction of an account of simple actions. A successfully performed intentional action characteristically consists of an intention in action together with the bodily movement or state of the agent which is its condition of satisfaction and which is caused by it. The account is extended to complex actions. (shrink)

Just Shelter: Gentrification, Integration, Race, and Reconstruction is a work of political philosophy that examines the core injustices of the contemporary U.S. housing crisis and its relation to enduring racial injustices. It posits that what is required to achieve justice in social-spatial arrangements—what is otherwise called “spatial justice”—is to prioritize, in the crafting and enforcement of housing policy, individual moral equality and liberty; distributive justice; equal citizenship; and, due to history and continuing practice and effects of racial discrimination in (...) housing policy and the housing market in the United States, corrective justice in the form of rectification programs to address the history of racism in housing policy that should be implemented by local, state, and federal governments. To arrive at and illustrate this conclusion, it investigates aspects of the housing crisis closely related to the history of American racial injustice, such as gentrification, segregation, desegregation, integration, and, to a lesser extent, homelessness, and offers liberal reform gestures toward a broad view of reconstructive justice. (shrink)

Rice crop diversity hasdecreased dramatically in the recent past.Understanding the causes that underlie theevident genetic erosion is critical for thefood security of subsistence rice farmers andbiodiversity. Our study shows that farmers inthe northeastern Philippines had a markedreduction in rice diversity from 1996 to 1998.The ultimate causes were a drought resultingfrom the El Niño phenomenon in 1997 andflooding due to two successive typhoons in1998. The proximate causes, however, includedlocal water control factors, limitations in thehousehold and village-level seedinfrastructure, farm location in (...) class='Hi'>relation tothe goods and services necessary to obtainseeds, policies and programs of the Departmentof Agriculture, and the characteristics of therice varieties themselves. The implications ofour study are that genetic erosion is notalways the result of purposeful acts by farmersnor is it necessarily gradual. Improvingon-farm seed technology will stabilize the seedproduction, distribution, and use system andthereby enhance household food security.Ultimately, rice diversity will be improvedonly if diversity is a safe and viable optionfor farmers. Therefore, public policy thatsupports farmers who maintain a diverse set ofcultivars is critical for any on-farmconservation strategy. (shrink)

We present a mathematical approach to defeasible reasoning based on arguments. This approach integrates the notion of specificity introduced by Poole and the theory of warrant presented by Pollock. The main contribution of this paper is a precise, well-defined system which exhibits correct behavior when applied to the benchmark examples in the literature. It aims for usability rather than novelty. We prove that an order relation can be introduced among equivalence classes of arguments under the equi-specificity relation. We (...) also prove a theorem that ensures the termination of the process of finding the justified facts. Two more lemmas define a reduced search space for checking specificity. In order to implement the theoretical ideas, the language is restricted to Horn clauses for the evidential context. The language used to represent defeasible rules has been restricted in a similar way. The authors intend this work to unify the various existing approaches to argument-based defeasible reasoning. (shrink)

The concept of yinyang lies at the heart of Chinese thought and culture. The relationship between these two opposing, yet mutually dependent, forces is symbolized in the familiar black and white symbol that has become an icon in popular culture across the world. The real significance of yinyang is, however, more complex and subtle. This brilliant and comprehensive analysis by one of the leading authorities in the field captures the richness and multiplicity of the meanings and applications of yinyang, including (...) its visual presentations. Through a vast range of historical and textual sources, the book examines the scope and role of yinyang, the philosophical significance of its various layers of meanings and its relation to numerous schools and traditions within Chinese philosophy. By putting yinyang on a secure and clear philosophical footing, the book roots the concept in the original Chinese idiom, distancing it from Western assumptions, frameworks and terms, yet also seeking to connect its analysis to shared cross-cultural philosophical concerns. (shrink)

John McDowell’s recent collection of essays, _Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars_ is a penetrating work that builds upon insights from Kant, Hegel, and Sellars in order to articulate “an idealism that does not diverge from common-sense realism,” a view according to which “thought and the world must be understood together” (p. 143). McDowell argues that the insights from Kant, Hegel, and Sellars should enable us to see that certain perennial philosophical difficulties concerning how thought (...) is related to empirical reality are in fact based on mistaken, noncom- pulsory views about the nature of intentionality in general, and about the relationship between free human rationality and passive sensory intake from the world in particular. In this critical notice I first highlight some central issues that reappear throughout the essays, and then I raise some questions concerning issues both internal to McDowell’s account and in relation to the ways in which his views clash with those of Sellars in particular. (shrink)

For millennia, human beings have believed that it is morally wrong to judge others by the fortuitous or unfortunate events that befall them or by the actions of another person. Rather, an individual’s own intended, deliberate actions should be the basis of his or her evaluation, reward, and punishment. In a series of studies, the authors investigated whether such rules guide the judgments of children. The first 3 studies demonstrated that children view lucky others as more likely than unlucky others (...) to perform intentional good actions. Children similarly assess the siblings of lucky others as more likely to perform intentional good actions than the siblings of unlucky others. The next 3 studies demonstrated that children as young as 3 years believe that lucky people are nicer than unlucky people. The final 2 studies found that Japanese children also demonstrate a robust preference for the lucky and their associates. These findings are discussed in relation to M. J. Lerner’s (1980) just-world theory and J. Piaget’s (1932/1965) immanent-justice research and in relation to the development of intergroup attitudes. (shrink)

This collection of original essays aims to reinvigorate the debate surrounding philosophical realism in relation to philosophy of science, pragmatism, epistemology, and theory of perception. Questions concerning realism are as current and as ancient as philosophy itself; this volume explores relations between different positions designated as ‘realism’ by examining specific cases in point, drawn from a broad range of systematic problems and historical views, from ancient Greek philosophy through the present. The first section examines the context of the project; (...) contributions systematically engage the historical background of philosophical realism, re-examining key works of Aristotle, Descartes, Quine, and others. The following two sections epitomize the central tension within current debates: scientific realism and pragmatism. These contributions address contemporary questions of scientific realism and the reality of the objects of science, and consider whether, how or the extent to which realism and pragmatism are compatible. With an editorial introduction by Kenneth R. Westphal, these fourteen original essays provide wide-ranging, salient insights into the status of realism today. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Most theorists agree that our social order includes a distinctive legal dimension. A fundamental question is that of whether reference to specific legal phenomena always involves a commitment to a particular moral view. Whereas many philosophers advance the ‘positivist’ claim that any correspondence between morality and the law is just a function of political circumstance, natural law theorists insist that law is intrinsically moral. Each school claims the crucial advantage of consistency with our folk concept. Drawing on the notion (...) of dual character concepts, we develop a set of hypotheses about the intuitive relation between a rule’s moral and legal aspects. We then report a set of studies that conflict unexpectedly with the predictions by legal positivists. Intuitively, an evil rule is not a fully-fledged instance of law. (shrink)

In recent years, language has been shown to play a number of important cognitive roles over and above the communication of thoughts. One hypothesis gaining support is that language facilitates thought about abstract categories, such as democracy or prediction. To test this proposal, a novel set of semantic memory task trials, designed for assessing abstract thought non-linguistically, were normed for levels of abstractness. The trials were rated as more or less abstract to the degree that answering them required the participant (...) to abstract away from both perceptual features and common setting associations corresponding to the target image. The normed materials were then used with a population of people with aphasia to assess the relationship of abstract thought to language. While the language-impaired group with aphasia showed lower overall accuracy and longer response times than controls in general, of special note is that their response times were significantly longer as a function of a trial’s degree of abstractness. Further, the aphasia group’s response times in reporting their degree of confidence (a separate, metacognitive measure) were negatively correlated with their language production abilities, with lower language scores predicting longer metacognitive response times. These results provide some support for the hypothesis that language is an important aid to abstract thought and to metacognition about abstract thought. (shrink)

Cognitive Science is likely to make little progress in the study of human behavior until we have a clear account of what a human action is. The aim of this paper is to present a sketch of a theory of action. I will locate the relation of intention to action within a general theory of Intentionality. I will introduce a distinction between prior intentions and intentions in actions; the concept of the experience of acting; and the thesis that both (...) prior intentions and intentions in action are causally selfreferential. Each of these is independently motivated, but together they enable me to suggest solutions to several outstanding problems within action theory (deviant causal chains, the accordian effect, basic actions, etc.), to show how the logical structure of intentional action is strikingly like the logical structure of perceptions, and to construct an account of simple actions. A successfully performed intentional action characteristically consists of an intention in action together with the bodily movement or state of the agent which is its condition of satisfaction and which is caused by it. The account is extended to complex actions. (shrink)

The results of four experiments provide evidence for controlled processing in the absence of awareness. Participants identified the colour of a neutral distracter word. Each of four words was presented in one of the four colours 75% of the time or 50% of the time . Colour identification was faster when the words appeared in the colour they were most often presented in relative to when they appeared in another colour, even for participants who were subjectively unaware of any contingencies (...) between the words and the colours. An analysis of sequence effects showed that participants who were unaware of the relation between distracter words and colours nonetheless controlled the impact of the word on performance depending on the nature of the previous trial. A block analysis of contingency-unaware participants revealed that contingencies were learned rapidly in the first block of trials. Experiment 3 showed that the contingency effect does not depend on the level of awareness, thus ruling out explicit strategy accounts. Finally, Experiment 4 showed that the contingency effect results from behavioural control and not from semantic association or stimulus familiarity. These results thus provide evidence for implicit control. (shrink)

According to Kant, justifying the application of mathematics to objects in natural science requires metaphysically constructing the concept of matter. Kant develops these constructions in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science (MAdN). Kant’s specific aim is to develop a dynamic theory of matter to replace corpuscular theory. In his Preface Kant claims completely to exhaust the metaphysical doctrine of body, but in the General Remark to MAdN ch. 2, “Dynamics,” Kant admits that once matter is reconceived as basic forces, it (...) is no longer possible to construct the concept of matter. I argue that Kant’s admission is only the tip of the problem, and that none of Kant’s commentators has fully grasped the problems infecting the MAdN that underlie Kant’s admission. I show that Kant’s proof that matter consists of forces is fallacious. I then re-analyze the circularity in Kant’s definition of density, criticizing both Adickes’ formulations and his later dissolution of it. I also show that a third circularity infects the relations between Kant’s treatment of “Dynamics” and “Mechanics” (MAdN ch. 3). These three fundamental problems demonstrate the untenability of Kant’s metaphysical method, and they require the radical revision of the relation between mathematics and metaphysics Kant undertakes in his opus postumum. I show that some of Kant’s most surprising and critical later claims about the Critical philosophy are correct, and that they require the sorts of remedies Kant contemplates in the opus postumum. (I defend the essentially correct analyses offered by Burkhard Tuschling and Eckart Forster against criticisms by Michael Friedman.). (shrink)

The concept of an ecological niche (econiche) has been used in a variety of ways, some of which are incompatible with a relational or functional interpretation of the term. This essay seeks to standardize usage by limiting the concept to functional relations between organisms and their surroundings, and to revise the concept to include epistemic relations. For most organisms, epistemics are a vital aspect of their functional relationships to their surroundings and, hence, a major determinant of their econiche. Rejecting the (...) traditional dualism of organism and environment, an econiche is defined as the reciprocal (dual) of a functionally specified class of organisms (FSTU). From this perspective, an econiche necessarily implies a certain type of organism, and a class of functionally similar organisms implies a special econiche.The econiche concept is also discussed in relation to other ecological terms that reflect the distributional patterns of organisms, such as habitat, and the concept of an empty niche is criticized. (shrink)

Tracing a central theme of Plato's Republic , G. R. F. Ferrari reconsiders in this study the nature and purpose of the comparison between the structure of society and that of the individual soul. In four chapters, Ferrari examines the personalities and social status of the brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus, Plato's notion of justice, coherence in Plato's description of the decline of states, and the tyrant and the philosopher king—a pair who, in their different ways, break with the terms of (...) the city-soul analogy. In addition to acknowledging familiar themes in the interpretation of the Republic —the sincerity of its utopianism, the justice of the philosopher's return to the Cave—Ferrari provocatively engages secondary literature by Leo Strauss, Bernard Williams, and Jonathan Lear. With admirable clarity and insight, Ferrari conveys the relation between the city and the soul and the choice between tyranny and philosophy. City and Soul in Plato's Republic will be of value to students of classics, philosophy, and political theory alike. (shrink)

Cognitive Science is likely to make little progress in the study of human behavior until we have a clear account of what a human action is. The aim of this paper is to present a sketch of a theory of action. I will locate the relation of intention to action within a general theory of Intentionality. I will introduce a distinction between prior intentions and intentions in actions; the concept of the experience of acting; and the thesis that both (...) prior intentions and intentions in action are causally selfreferential. Each of these is independently motivated, but together they enable me to suggest solutions to several outstanding problems within action theory (deviant causal chains, the accordian effect, basic actions, etc.), to show how the logical structure of intentional action is strikingly like the logical structure of perceptions, and to construct an account of simple actions. A successfully performed intentional action characteristically consists of an intention in action together with the bodily movement or state of the agent which is its condition of satisfaction and which is caused by it. The account is extended to complex actions. (shrink)

My work in the philosophy of mind developed out of my early work in the philosophy of language, especially the theory of speech acts, Most of my work in the philosophy of mind has been concerned with the topics of intent ion ality and its structure, particularly the intentionality of perception and action and the relation of the intentionality of the mind to the intentionality of language. I have also written extensively on cognitive science (see cognitive psychology), especially on (...) the limitations Of the COMPUTATIONAL MODEL of the mind. Other work has concerned the mind‐body problem, the nature and structure of consciousness, the relation of consciousness to unconsciousness, the proper form of explanation in the social sciences and in the explanation of human behaviour generally, and the background of intentionality. I can only discuss a small number of these topics in this article, so I will confine myself to four of the most controversial areas. (shrink)

We approach the physics of \emph{minimal coupling} in general relativity, demonstrating that in certain circumstances this leads to violations of the \emph{strong equivalence principle}, which states that, in general relativity, the dynamical laws of special relativity can be recovered at a point. We then assess the consequences of this result for the \emph{dynamical perspective on relativity}, finding that potential difficulties presented by such apparent violations of the strong equivalence principle can be overcome. Next, we draw upon our discussion of the (...) dynamical perspective in order to make explicit two `miracles' in the foundations of relativity theory. We close by arguing that the above results afford us insights into the nature of special relativity, and its relation to general relativity. (shrink)

This book addresses the metaphysics of Armstrongian states of affairs, i.e. instantiations of naturalist universals by particulars. The author argues that states of affairs are the best candidate for truthmakers and, in the spirit of logical atomism, that we need no molecular truthmakers for positive truths. In the book's context, this has the pleasing result that there are no molecular states of affairs. Following this account of truthmaking, the author first shows that the particulars in (first-order) states of affairs are (...) bare particulars. He then argues that the properties in states of affairs are simple, non-relational and concrete universals. Next, he argues that (material) relations in states of affairs are external relations. Lastly, he argues that a state of affairs is unified by a distinctive formal relation without giving rise to Bradley’s regress. (shrink)

Visual research methods like photography and digital storytelling are increasingly used in health and social sciences research as participatory approaches that benefit participants, researchers, and audiences. Visual methods involve a number of additional ethical considerations such as using identifiable content and ownership of creative outputs. As such, ethics committees should use different assessment frameworks to consider research protocols with visual methods. Here, we outline the limitations of ethics committees in assessing projects with a visual focus and highlight the sparse knowledge (...) on how researchers respond when they encounter ethical challenges in the practice of visual research. We propose a situated approach in relation to visual methodologies that encompasses a negotiated, flexible approach, given that ethical issues usually emerge in relation to the specific contexts of individual research projects. Drawing on available literature and two case studies, we identify and reflect on nuanced ethical implications in visual research, like tensions between aesthetics and research validity. The case studies highlight strategies developed in-situ to address the challenges two researchers encountered when using visual research methods, illustrating that some practice implications are not necessarily addressed using established ethical clearance procedures. A situated approach can ensure that visual research remains ethical, engaging, and rigorous. (shrink)

There is a growing interest in how people conceptualise the legal domain for the purpose of legal knowledge systems. In this paper we discuss four such conceptualisations (referred to as ontologies): McCarty's language for legal discourse, Stamper's norma formalism, Valente's functional ontology of law, and the ontology of Van Kralingen and Visser. We present criteria for a comparison of the ontologies and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the ontologies in relation to these criteria. Moreover, we critically review the (...) criteria. (shrink)

Orsi and Garcia argue that fitting-attitude analysis of value is vulnerable to an explanatory objection. On FA-analysis, for an object to be valuable is for it to be a fitting target of an attitude—a pro-attitude if its value is positive and a con-attitude if it is negative. For different kinds of value different kinds of attitudes are fitting: desire for desirability, admiration for admirability, etc. To explain the fittingness relation we therefor need to appeal to the features of the (...) relevant attitude, but these seldom, if ever, are needed for explaining the object’s value. This explanatory disparity between the analysans and the analysandum implies that FA-analysis must be incorrect. In our reply to Orsi and Garcia, we provide a refutation of their objection. We argue that the features of a fitting attitude do have a right place in the explanation of an object’s value, even though they are not among the properties that make the object valuable. They help to explain this value-making relation itself. (shrink)

In the late preschool years children acquire a "theory of mind", the ability to ascribe intentional states, including beliefs, desires and intentions, to themselves and others. In this paper I trace how children's ability to ascribe intentions is derived from parental attempts to hold them responsible for their talk and action, that is, the attempt to have their behavior meet a normative standard or rule. Self-control is children's developing ability to take on or accept responsibility, that is, the ability to (...) ascribe intentions to themselves. This is achieved, I argue, when they possess the ability to hold an utterance or rule in mind in the form of a quoted expression, and second, when they grasp the causal relation between the rule and their action. The account of how children learn to ascribe intention to themselves and others will then be used to explore the larger question of the relations amongst language, intentional states and the ascription and avowal of those states. (shrink)

Defends and transforms naturalism and materialism to show how culture itself is formed by nature. Bryant endorses a pan-ecological theory of being, arguing that societies are ecosystems that can only be understood by considering nonhuman material agencies such as rivers and mountain ranges alongside signifying agencies such as discourses, narratives and ideologies.

In response to various shortcomings of regularity theories of natural law, some philosophers of a realist bent have recently been drawn to the view that a law of nature is a relation between universals. Heading this group are Michael Tooley and D. M. Armstrong.

"The chief business of twentieth-century philosophy” is “to reckon with twentieth-century history," claimed R. G. Collingwood. In this remarkable collection of essays, Frank Ankersmit demonstrates the prescience of that remark and goes a long way toward meeting its challenge. Responding to the work of Hayden White, Arthur Danto, and Hans-Georg Gadamer, he examines such issues as the difference between historical representation and artistic expression, the status of metaphor in historical description, and the relation of postmodernism to historicism. Ankersmit's fluent (...) grasp of European thought and his ability to incorporate concepts from literary theory, art history, the philosophy of science, and political thought into his analyses assure that this collection will interest readers throughout the humanities. (shrink)

Inspired by, and in close relation with, the contributions of this special issue, Kuperberg elegantly links event comprehension, production, and learning. She proposes an overarching hierarchical generative framework of processing events enabling us to make sense of the world around us and to interact with it in a competent manner.

We examine the closure conditions of the probabilistic consequence relation of Hawthorne and Makinson, specifically the outstanding question of completeness in terms of Horn rules, of their proposed (finite) set of rules O. We show that on the contrary no such finite set of Horn rules exists, though we are able to specify an infinite set which is complete.

Aside from bioethics, the main theme of Ronald Green's lifework has been an exploration of the relation between religion and morality, with special emphasis on the philosophies of Immanuel Kant and Søren Kierkegaard. This essay summarizes and assesses his work on this theme by examining, in turn, four of his relevant books. Religious Reason (1978) introduced a new method of comparative religion based on Kant's model of a rational religion. Religion and Moral Reason (1988) expanded on this project, clarifying (...) that religious traditions cannot be reduced to their moral grounding. Kierkegaard and Kant: The Hidden Debt (1992) offered bold new evidence that Kant, not Hegel, was the philosopher whose ideas primarily shaped Kierkegaard's overtly religious philosophy ; both philosophers focused on the problem of how to understand the relation between moral reasoning and historical religion. And Kant and Kierkegaard on Time and Eternity (2011) republished ten essays that explore various aspects of this theme in greater depth. I argue that throughout these works Green defends a " paradox of inwardness " : principles or ideals that are by their nature essentially inward end up requiring outward manifestation in order to be confirmed or fully justified as real. (shrink)

This paper begins the last instalment of a six-part project correlating the key aspects of Kant’s architectonic conception of philosophy with a special version of the Chinese Book of Changes that I call the “Compound Yijing”, which arranges the 64 hexagrams (gua) into both fourfold and threefold sets. I begin by briefly summarizing the foregoing articles: although Kant and the Yijing employ different types of architectonic reasoning, the two systems can both be described in terms of three “levels” of elements. (...) Starting at an unnumbered level devoid of any element (the tao or thing in itself), the system proceeds by elaborating a key fourfold distinction (or “quaternity”) on the first level, a twelvefold distinction on the second level, and twelve quaternities (grouped in four quadrants, each with a set of three quaternities) on the third level. Each set of three quaternities (i.e., each quadrant) on the third level corresponds to one of the four “faculties” of the university, as elaborated in Kant’s book, The Conflict of the Faculties. Previous papers have examined the correlations between three key quaternities that Kant defends in relation to each of three faculties (philosophy, theology, and law) and the 12 gua that correspond to that faculty in the Compound Yijing. The final step is to explore the fourth quaternity on the third level, the 12 gua corresponding to the medical faculty. The “idea of reason” in Kant’s metaphysics that guides this wing of the comparative analysis is freedom, and the ultimate purpose of this faculty of the university is to train doctors to care for people’s physical well-being, as free agents imbedded in nature. But this paper will focus only on the four gua that correspond to four basic concepts in Kant’s theory of medicine. The two quaternities in the “yin-yang” (medical) quadrant of the Compound Yijing that will be skipped here are as follows. First, Kant’s account of the idea of freedom itself, which gives rise to the area of traditional metaphysics known as rational cosmology, comes in the first Critique’s Dialectic, in the section on the Antinomy of Reason (CPR A405-567/B432- 595). There he examines four irresolvable issues: whether the world has a beginning in time; whether composite substances consist of simple parts; whether a causality of freedom operates in the natural world; and whether an absolutely necessary being exists. Later I will argue that these correspond to the quaternity consisting of gua 15, 22, 36, and 52. (shrink)

This highly original, provocative, and poetic work explores the nexus of time, truth, and death in the symbolic world of medieval kabbalah. Demonstrating that the historical and theoretical relationship between kabbalah and western philosophy is far more intimate and extensive than any previous scholar has ever suggested, Elliot R. Wolfson draws an extraordinary range of thinkers such as Frederic Jameson, Martin Heidegger, Franz Rosenzweig, William Blake, Julia Kristeva, Friedrich Schelling, and a host of kabbalistic figures into deep conversation with one (...) another. _Alef, Mem, Tau _also discusses Islamic mysticism and Buddhist thought in relation to the Jewish esoteric tradition as it opens the possibility of a temporal triumph of temporality and the conquering of time through time. The framework for Wolfson’s examination is the rabbinic teaching that the word _emet, _“truth,” comprises the first, middle, and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet, _alef, mem,_ and _tau,_ which serve, in turn, as semiotic signposts for the three tenses of time—past, present, and future. By heeding the letters of _emet _we discern the truth of time manifestly concealed in the time of truth, the beginning that cannot begin if it is to be the beginning, the middle that re/marks the place of origin and destiny, and the end that is the figuration of the impossible disclosing the impossibility of figuration, the finitude of death that facilitates the possibility of rebirth. The time of death does not mark the death of time, but time immortal, the moment of truth that bestows on the truth of the moment an endless beginning of a beginningless end, the truth of death encountered incessantly in retracing steps of time yet to be taken—between, before, beyond. (shrink)

Despite all its merits, the vast majority of critical attention devoted to colonialist literature restricts itself by severely bracketing the political context of culture and history. This typical facet of humanistic closure requires the critic systematically to avoid an analysis of the domination, manipulation, exploitation, and disfranchisement that are inevitably involved in the construction of any cultural artifact or relationship. I can best illustrate such closures in the field of colonialist discourse with two brief examples. In her book The Colonial (...) Encounter, which contrasts the colonial representations of three European and three non-European writers, M. M. Mahood skirts the political issue quite explicitly by arguing that she chose those authors precisely because they are “innocent of emotional exploitation of the colonial scene” and are “distanced” from the politics of domination.`1We find a more interesting example of this closure in Homi Bhabha’s criticism. While otherwise provocative and illuminating, his work rests on two assumptions—the unity of the “colonial subject” and the “ambivalence” of colonial discourse—that are inadequately problematized and, I feel, finally unwarranted and unacceptable. In rejecting Edward Said’s “suggestion that colonial power and discourse is possessed entirely by the colonizer,” Bhabha asserts, without providing any explanation, the unity of the “colonial subject .”2 I do not wish to rule out, a priori, the possibility that at some rarefied theoretical level the varied material and discursive antagonisms between conquerors and natives can be reduced to the workings of a single “subject”; but such a unity, let alone its value, must be demonstrated, not assumed. Though he cites Frantz Fanon, Bhabha completely ignored Fanon’s definition of the conqueror/native relation as a “Manichean” struggle—a definition that is not a fanciful metaphoric caricature but an accurate representation of a profound conflict.3 1. M. M. Mahood, The Colonial Encounter: A Reading of Six Novels , pp. 170, 171; and see p. 3. As many other studies demonstrate, the emotional innocence and the distance of the six writers whom Mahood has chosen—Joseph Conrad, E. M. Forster, Graham Greene, Chinua Achebe, R. K. Narayan, and V. S. Naipaul—are, at best, highly debatable.2. Homi K. Bhabha, “The Other Question—The Stereotype and Colonial Discourse,” Screen 24 : 25, 19.3. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth, trans. Constance Farrington , p. 41. Abdul R. JanMohamed, assistant professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of Manichean Aesthetics: The Politics of Literature in Colonial Africa. He is a founding member and associate editor of Cultural Critique and is currently working on a study of Richard Wright. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Simulation, Subjective Knowledge, and the Cognitive Value of Literary NarrativeScott R. Stroud (bio)IntroductionLiterary narrative holds the power to move individuals to thought, reflection, action, and belief. According to a longstanding view of literature, it is this impact on the reader that leads to literary narrative being valued so highly in our culture and in others. What exactly is the value of literature? Humanists such as Peter Lamarque and Stein (...) Olsen1 argue for this value in terms of perennial themes that literature allows one to "grapple with," as opposed to cognitivist accounts that discuss the value of literary narrative in terms of conveyed truths or knowledge. One particularly important position that explains the cognitive value of literature can be labeled the "Subjective Knowledge Theory" (SKT). Such an account of literature places its value in the subjective perspectives or experiences the narrative opens up to the reader. Thus, one can gain knowledge of "what it is like" to be caught in the throes of jealousy, endangered by an opposing army, or captivated by the lure of magical prowess. Lamarque and Olsen, however, argue that SKT is fundamentally flawed in its analysis of knowledge derivable from the literary narrative and in terms of its account of literary practice.I wish to defend a version of SKT in this article. In order to do so, I make and defend the following claims. First, Lamarque and Olsen's critique of SKT relies on a conflation of two distinct types of knowledge—the knowledge provided by the simulated subjective experience and its appropriation/ generalization to forms useful for the reader's real life activities. I will argue that the former of these outcomes is due strictly to the aesthetic features of the literary narrative, whereas the second involves a non-necessary psychological reaction to the text (that is, judgments of the veracity or usefulness of the text for one's own purposes). By conflating both of these into the cognitive knowledge derivable from the text, Lamarque and Olsen's critique can [End Page 19] gain its purchase against SKT. If these two processes and the resultant sorts of knowledge are separated, then the SKT account does seem to show how literature holds value in itself and in relation to the reader's moral activities/ judgments. Second, the process of simulation is the primary means by which one can gain any type of subjective knowledge from a literary narrative. This type of knowledge will be gained by virtue of the literary narrative's aesthetic qualities, which result in a certain type of activity in the reader. Third, I will argue that the second sort of knowledge—that derived from the simulated subjective experience—results from the process of reader identification with the values, beliefs, and/or behaviors of the simulated agent. This sense of identification involves selective appropriation and generalization and will be shown not to be subject to the critiques of simple identification offered by Noël Carroll.2 It is at this stage that individuals learn what they believe they ought to value, how they ought to act, and what they should believe from their experience of simulation in reading the literary narrative. Notice that this knowledge is separate from the first sort of knowledge, which is knowledge of what it is like to experience x through y's eyes.As I elucidate and defend these claims, I hope it will become clear that this is an account that does justice to the value resident in literature and in the activities readers do after they partake in the aesthetic object of the literary narrative. Thus, I will conclude by showing how this account does not fall prey to the conflation that both critics and supporters of SKT commit in muddling the different types of knowledge available from and in relation to a literary narrative.Before I proceed, it is important that some basic concepts are clearly set forth. A narrative can be defined as any representation of two or more events over time. The number of events and the relationship among them can be as simple or complex as one likes, but the crucial aspect is that the representation supplies the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:John Dewey and the Question of Artful CommunicationScott R. StroudThe American pragmatist John Dewey included tantalizing sections of praise of the power of communication in his important work on community, experience, and their improvement, noting in 1925 that "of all aff airs, communication is the most wonderful" (1988a, LW 1:132) and in 1927 that communication plays an important part in the individual's attempt "to learn to become human" (1984, (...) LW 2:332).1 Some in the field of communication have sensed the important, but undeveloped, role that communication plays in his thought and have attempted to use Dewey's work in analyzing rhetorical practice, cultural studies, and the role of journalism in society.2 While such studies strive to clarify the value and process of communication in Dewey's thought, they fall short of explaining one seemingly simple thing that is implied in these passages—that communication can be experienced as aesthetic or artful. Nathan Crick identifies such a lacuna in the literature and notes that "beyond its utility as an argument against elite forms of academic criticism, the value of Dewey's aesthetic theory for communication studies remained underdeveloped" (2004, 303). Although he does an admirable job of tracing the relation of aesthetics to communication in Dewey's evolving thought, Crick comes no closer than others in answering the fundamental question of how communication can be artful or aesthetic—he merely argues for the general point that " communication, [End Page 153] whether it occurs in an oration, a conversation, or a television, is best understood as a form of art that has the potential to bring about aesthetic experience in its participants and open their eyes to the world of possibility embodied within each of us" (2004, 314). How exactly does this aesthetization of communication occur? Crick ends his article with the interesting claim that "in its aesthetic form communication becomes rhetorical. It turns communication into an art whose goal is a presentation that unites form and rhythm in a manner that can reach down into the experiences of the audience and literally transform them into something new" (2004, 317). How exactly does communication meet such standards? Does such a "high" art of communication as rhetoric fit everyday communication, the vast majority of human communicative practices?3 Although Crick's study is an important inquiry into the overall role of communication in Dewey's aesthetics, it still leaves open the fundamental question—How exactly can any given act of communication (beyond the eloquent and poetic oration) be rendered aesthetic or artful?This question was vitally important for Dewey, as he places artistic and aesthetic aspects of communicative practice at the very heart of his social and political philosophy. In describing the "Great Community," he announces that it will take place when two conditions hold: "The highest and most difficult kind of inquiry and a subtle, delicate, vivid and responsive art of communication must take possession of the physical machinery of transmission and circulation and breathe life into it.... Democracy will come into its own, for democracy is a name for a life of free and enriching communion.... It will have its consummation when free social inquiry is indissolubly wedded to the art of full and moving communication" (1984, LW 2:350). This is a vital passage for understanding Dewey's aims, as it clearly links a scientific method of thinking (his preferred method of "inquiry") with a form of communication that can be taken as an art.Yet scholars of communication systematically miss this part of the Deweyan equation. For instance, take Lary Belman's early study of Dewey's view of communication. He concludes by analyzing this same passage from Dewey on the two conditions of the Great Community and states, "The basic conditions for the creation of a Great Community... were, Dewey postulated, the presence of (a) vigorous, systematic, and continuous social inquiry to reveal the influential agencies at work in society and their mode of operation, and (b) widespread and rapid distribution of the findings of this inquiry in a form readily understood by those for whom these findings [End Page 154] have significance" (1977, 36–37). It is remarkable that the... (shrink)

A study in the philosophy of mind, centred on the problem of 'intentionality' the sense in which emotions can be said to have objects, their relation to these objects, and the implications of this relation for our understanding of human action and behaviour. Dr Wilson sets his enquiry against a broad historical background on what distinguishes man from inanimate objects by describing both Cartesian view of man is matter plus mind and the neo-Wittgensteinian view that there is a (...) dynamic behavioural difference – causal notions being often inapplicable to human action. Dr Wilson goes on to show the controversies and arguments that arise from the notion of intentionality cannot be analysed in causal terms. Dr Wilson believes that this notion can be shown causally and sets out to prove it. Finally, he brings this argument to a larger context mentioning that it has far-reaching effects in natural and social sciences. (shrink)