Non-Philosophy is a rigorous practice that can have useful applications for academic researchers and political activists alike. Utilizing its methods and frameworks, it is possible to bring Peace into the endless War of sectarian tendencies in which "the Left" is mired. In the following paper, we apply the technique of Non-Philosophy to Josh Moufawad-Paul's pamphlet "Maoism or Trotskyism," taking it as an instance of occasional material to be transformed. An important aspect of this analysis is a syntactical deployment of Non-Philosophy (...) not always found in non-philosophical texts: here our dualysis proceeds by double superposition. We effectuate two non-philosophical clones, using the first in order to recursively effectuate a second. First, we transform Trotskyism by isolating its philosophical and auto-positional structure, then we use this radicalized Trotskyism in order to transform Moufawad-Paul's Maoist polemic. The result is a radicalized Maoism-Trotskyism opening the way towards a productive and integrative Peace between Trotskyism and Maoism. (shrink)

Advancements in novel neurotechnologies, such as brain computer interfaces and neuromodulatory devices such as deep brain stimulators, will have profound implications for society and human rights. While these technologies are improving the diagnosis and treatment of mental and neurological diseases, they can also alter individual agency and estrange those using neurotechnologies from their sense of self, challenging basic notions of what it means to be human. As an international coalition of interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners, we examine these challenges and make (...) recommendations to mitigate negative consequences that could arise from the unregulated development or application of novel neurotechnologies. We explore potential ethical challenges in four key areas: identity and agency, privacy, bias, and enhancement. To address them, we propose democratic and inclusive summits to establish globally-coordinated ethical and societal guidelines for neurotechnology development and application, new measures, including “Neurorights,” for data privacy, security, and consent to empower neurotechnology users’ control over their data, new methods of identifying and preventing bias, and the adoption of public guidelines for safe and equitable distribution of neurotechnological devices. (shrink)

We dispute Penn et al.'s claim of the sharp functional discontinuity between humans and nonhumans with evidence in bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) of higher-order generalizations: spontaneous integration of previously learned rules and concepts in response to novel stimuli. We propose that species-general explanations that are in approach are more plausible than Penn et al.'s innatist approach of a genetically prespecified supermodule.

The mechanisms for cultural transmission remain disputable and difficult to validate through observational field studies alone. If controlled experimental laboratory investigation reveals that a putative mechanism is demonstrable in the species under study, then inferences that the same mechanism is operating in the field observation are strengthened.

Véronique Adam : Les neurosciences ne s’intéressent que depuis très récemment à l’olfaction. Pourriez‑vous expliquer pourquoi ce sens est devenu un objet d’étude plus prégnant? Jean-Louis Millot : En fait, l’olfaction demeure encore peu étudiée comparée à d’autres modalités sensorielles. De manière générale, les neurosciences cognitives actuelles, comme d’autres investigations scientifiques chez l’homme par le passé, se focalisent davantage sur les compétences cognitives complexes, telles qu...

Fluid-phase endocytosis (pinocytosis) kinetics were studied inDictyostelium discoideum amoebae from the axenic strain Ax-2 that exhibits high rates of fluid-phase endocytosis when cultured in liquid nutrient media. Fluorescein-labelled dextran (FITC-dextran) was used as a marker in continuous uptake- and in pulse-chase exocytosis experiments. In the latter case, efflux of the marker was monitored on cells loaded for short periods of time and resuspended in marker-free medium. A multicompartmental model was developed which describes satisfactorily fluid-phase endocytosis kinetics. In particular, it accounts (...) correctly for the extended latency period before exocytosis in pulse-chase experiments and it suggests the existence of some sorts of maturation stages in the pathway. (shrink)

YouTube has been implicated in the transformation of users into extremists and conspiracy theorists. The alleged mechanism for this radicalizing process is YouTube’s recommender system, which is optimized to amplify and promote clips that users are likely to watch through to the end. YouTube optimizes for watch-through for economic reasons: people who watch a video through to the end are likely to then watch the next recommended video as well, which means that more advertisements can be served to them. This (...) is a seemingly innocuous design choice, but it has a troubling side-effect. Critics of YouTube have alleged that the recommender system tends to recommend extremist content and conspiracy theories, as such videos are especially likely to capture and keep users’ attention. To date, the problem of radicalization via the YouTube recommender system has been a matter of speculation. The current study represents the first systematic, pre-registered attempt to establish whether and to what extent the recommender system tends to promote such content. We begin by contextualizing our study in the framework of technological seduction. Next, we explain our methodology. After that, we present our results, which are consistent with the radicalization hypothesis. Finally, we discuss our findings, as well as directions for future research and recommendations for users, industry, and policy-makers. (shrink)

ABSTRACTAdam Smith infused the expression ‘impartial spectator’ with a plexus of related meanings, one of which is a super-being, which bears parallels to monotheistic ideas of God. As for any genuine, identified, human spectator, he can be deemed impartial only presumptively. Such presumptive impartiality as regards the incident does not of itself carry extensive implications about his intelligence, nor about his being aligned with benevolence towards any larger whole. We may posit, however, a being who is impartial and who holds (...) higher levels of intelligence and of benevolence, and then converse over what her sentiments would be about the matter under discussion. It is natural to conceive of a being who is unsurpassable in such qualities, who is morally supreme, and who naturally takes the definite article the without having been definitized by the writer. Signal passages, new to edition 6, suggest that Smith formulates the man within the breast as a representative of the always present and everywhere morally supreme impartial spectator. When Smith speaks of the man within the breast as ‘the supposed impartial spectator’, we interpret ‘supposed’ as sup-pos-ed, not sup-pos’d. (shrink)

A course on the Western philosophical tradition, with multiple lecturers, available in audio and video formats through the Great Courses.

This research examines the relationships among the types of self-serving political messages sent in organizations, the channels through which they are sent, and the targets to whom they are sent. Two theoretical streams converge in this study: Communication as Political Behavior and Media Usage Theory. A review and synthesis of these two bodies of literature yielded three hypotheses, each of which received strong statistical support. The data suggest that the process of encoding and transmitting self-serving messages is strongly related to (...) the specific target to whom they are sent (boss, subordinate, or peer) and the channel through which they are sent (face-to-face, telephone, memo, or e-mail). (shrink)

When we think of theories that attempt to root capitalism in nature, the one that comes most readily to mind is Social Darwinism. In this theory, nature - driven by Darwinian natural selection (the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest) - is interpreted to imply, when applied to human activities, that extreme competition will allow the most "fit" competitors to rise to the top and to survive in this "struggle for existence," and this process of dog-eat-dog competition (...) leads to both material and social progress. Not only has this theory been shown to be seriously flawed, the putative social implications of Darwinian natural selection do not accord with the findings of contemporary neoDarwinists who maintain, for example, that the behavior of monkeys and apes reveals a blend of competition and cooperation and, generally, a close connection to human moral behavior. Adam Smith provides a more helpful view of the connection between nature and capitalism. He maintains that nature's wisdom, as seen in its harmony and balance, is displayed in economics and human nature. Competitive free enterprise, as a vehicle for exchange, functions within a cooperative context and exhibits virtues and values such as mutual help and benefit, trust, harmony, and friendship. I shall show that neoDarwinists agree with Smith's view that nature supports a connection between competition and cooperation, and they maintain that moral activity, rather than destructive dog-eat-dog competition, is necessary to achieve the goals of natural selection. (shrink)

We provide a retrospective of 25 years of the International Conference on AI and Law, which was first held in 1987. Fifty papers have been selected from the thirteen conferences and each of them is described in a short subsection individually written by one of the 24 authors. These subsections attempt to place the paper discussed in the context of the development of AI and Law, while often offering some personal reactions and reflections. As a whole, the subsections build into (...) a history of the last quarter century of the field, and provide some insights into where it has come from, where it is now, and where it might go. (shrink)

Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek saw the liberty principle as focal and accorded it strong presumption, but their wisdom invokes how little we can know. In Knowledge and Coordination, Daniel Klein re-examines the elements of economic liberalism. He interprets Hayek's notion of spontaneous order from the aestheticized perspective of a Smithian spectator, real or imagined. Klein addresses issues economists have had surrounding the notion of coordination by distinguishing the concatenate coordination of Hayek, Ronald Coase, and Michael Polanyi (...) from the mutual coordination of Thomas Schelling and game theory. Clarifying the meaning of cooperation, he resolves debates over whether entrepreneurial innovation enhances or upsets coordination, and thus interprets entrepreneurship in terms of discovery or new knowledge. Beyond information, knowledge entails interpretation and judgment, emergent from tacit reaches of the "society of mind," itself embedded in actual society. Rejecting homo economicus in favor of the "deepself," Klein offers a distinctive formulation of knowledge economics, entailing asymmetric interpretation, judgment, entrepreneurship, error, and correction-and kinds of discovery-which all serve the cause of liberty. This richness of knowledge joins agent and analyst, and meaningful theory depends on tacit affinities between the two. Knowledge and Coordination highlights the recurring connections to underlying purposes and sensibilities, of analysts as well as agents. Behind economic talk of market communication and social error and correction lies Klein's Smithian allegory, with the allegorical spectator representing a conception of the social. Knowledge and Coordination instructs us to declare such allegory. Knowledge and Coordination is an authoritative take on how, by confessing the looseness of its judgments and the by-and-large status of its claims, laissez-faire liberalism makes its economic doctrines more robust and its presumption of liberty more viable. (shrink)

This is a review of Turri and Klein's "Ad Infinitum: New Essays on Epistemological Infinitism".

We respond to a Letter to the Editor regarding "Principlism and contemporary ethical considerations for providers of transgender health care." We address criticisms by Castle & Klein (2024) of blatant fatphobia related to the ethical elements concerning BMI restrictions for gender-affirming surgery. Our response corrects several mischaracterizations of the article and clarifies our position. My co-authors and I remain focused on advocating for patient-centered, ethically sound, evidence-based, and equitable healthcare policies.

Klein’s account of epistemic justification, infinitism, supplies a novel solution to the regress problem. We argue that concentrating on the normative aspect of justification exposes a number of unpalatable consequences for infinitism, all of which warrant rejecting the position. As an intermediary step, we develop a stronger version of the ‘finite minds’ objection.

This book reconstructs the metapsychological and clinical theories of Melanie Klein and Jacques Lacan in a manner designed to redress prevalent mischaracterizations of their works that are largely responsible for the deadlocked polemics between partisans of Kleinian and Lacanian camps.

Building Better Health Care Leadership for Canada explains the development and implementation of the Executive Training in Research Application program. Managed and funded by the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation in partnership with the Canadian Medical Association, the Canadian Nursing Association, and the Canadian College of Health Care executives, EXTRA is a two-year national fellowship program that uses the principles of adult learning theory as well as practical projects to educate senior health care leaders in making more consistent use of (...) research evidence in their management roles. Fellows apply the theory learned in residency sessions and educational activities to projects within their home organizations. The authors identify the imperative for better use of evidence, outline the core elements of the curriculum, and capture the real-world experience of regional leaders and fellows involved in making specific changes informed by research-based evidence within their organization. Contributors include Jean-Louis Denis, Terrence Sullivan, Owen Adams, Malcolm Anderson, Lynda Atack, Robert Bell, Sam G Campbell, Sylvie Cantin, Ward Flemons, Dorothy Forbes, J. Sonja Glass, Paula Goering, Karen Golden-Biddle, Jeffrey S. Hoch, Paul Lamarche, Ann Langley, John N. Lavis, Jonathan Lomas, Margo Orchard, Raynald Pineault, Brian D. Postl, Christine Power, Trish Reay, Jean Rochon, Denis A. Roy, Andrea Seymour, Samuel B. Sheps, Micheline Ste-Marie, Nina Stipich, David Streiner, Carl Taillon, and Muriah Umoquit. (shrink)

Geraud de Cordemoy, 1600-1684 -- Clerselier, 1614-1684, and Rohault, 1620-1675 -- Louis de la Chambre, 1594-1669 -- Samuel Sorbière, 1615-1670 -- Louis de la Forge and the critique of substantial forms -- Cartesian doctrine and the animal soul -- Clauberg and the development of occasionalism -- Some historical steps towards parallelism -- Cartesian refutations of Spinoza -- Matter and scientific efficiency -- Man, Thomistic and Cartesian.

La Théorie des sentiments moraux d’Adam Smith, publiée pour la première fois en anglais en 1759, a été traduite en français quatre fois dans la seconde moitié du xviiie siècle. Puis, après deux siècles de simples rééditions, durant le xixe siècle et jusqu’à la toute fin du xxe siècle, une nouvelle traduction française a paru en 1999. Le présent article commence par des considérations méthodologiques portant sur le statut de la traduction comme retraduction, montrant en quoi l’acte de retraduire (...) peut être l’occasion d’un sentiment paradoxal d’insoutenable légèreté. On en déduit la nécessité d’étudier toute traduction par rapport à ce que l’on peut nommer son contexte objectif et son projet subjectif. C’est seulement à partir de la compréhension de ce contexte et de ce projet de traduction – lesquels peuvent être de nature politique, intellectuelle, économique, etc. – que l’on peut rendre compte des différents choix techniques de traduction qu’ont opérés les traducteurs successifs. Ainsi, on explique en quoi la traduction réalisée par la marquise de Condorcet en 1798 s’inscrit dans le contexte de la Révolution française du point de vue politique, et dans celui du rationalisme moral du point de vue philosophique. Par contraste, la traduction de Michaël Biziou, Claude Gautier et Jean-François Pradeau en 1999 correspond d’un point de vue politique à des interrogations portant sur le libéralisme économique, et d’un point de vue philosophique à la volonté d’interpréter Smith comme représentant du sentimentalisme moral. (shrink)

This article examines the excitement that Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments generated in France during the French Revolution, focusing particularly on the writings of political theorists, participants and commentators such as the abbé Sieyès, Pierre-Louis Rœderer, the Marquis de Condorcet and Sophie de Grouchy Condorcet, who were dismayed at their political opponents’ use of Rousseau, and looked to Smith for an understanding of the passions that was compatible with democratic sovereignty and representative government. In the political context (...) of the early 1790s, clarifying the concept of natural sociability, which Rousseau had rejected, but Smith and Helvétius, in different ways, each regarded as indispensible to a society dependent on advanced division of labour, became a central concern in the public lectures delivered by Pierre-Louis Rœderer as the Terror took hold. ☆ My thanks to Emma Rothschild, Michael Sonenscher, Brian Young and other participants in the History of Political Thought Seminar, Oxford, and The Hexagonal Forum, Cambridge, where earlier versions of this paper were presented and helpfully discussed. I’m also grateful for comments on an earlier draft from Carolina Armenteros, Clare Jackson, Duncan Kelly, Michael Sonenscher and Richard Whatmore. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices: Body ed. by Elliot N. Dorff and Louis E. NewmanGeoffrey ClaussenJewish Choices, Jewish Voices: Body Edited by Elliot N. Dorff and Louis E. Newman Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2008. 134 pp. $16.00This volume, focused on Jewish attitudes toward the human body, is the first volume of the Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices series published by the Jewish Publication Society. Subsequent volumes focus on (...) money, power, sex and intimacy, war and national security, and social justice. Each volume in the series presents hypothetical case studies involving modern moral questions, a collection of classical and contemporary sources relevant to the case studies, and a collection of short essays by a range of contemporary American Jews reflecting on these materials or on other related issues. Elliot Dorff and Louis Newman, the preeminent scholars of Jewish ethics who edited this first volume in the series, explain in their introduction that they sought to gather together “a variety of authors with many different Jewish beliefs and approaches” (xvi). They do not claim to present “what Judaism says,” but, rather, to anthologize a variety of Jewish perspectives. In doing so, they seek to follow the approach of the Bible and the Talmud, both of which contain “many, many voices articulating often diverse points of view” (xvi).On the other hand, Dorff and Newman reject the idea that “anything goes” when it comes to Jewish views about the body. They indicate that modern American Jews may be tempted to endorse such a perspective, accustomed as they are to the American notion that “I own my body.” But, Dorff and Newman suggest, American Jews would do well to consider the contrary notions that animate much of classical Jewish thought on the body: that God is the true owner of every human body, and that God makes demands about how one should use one’s body. The case studies that follow challenge readers to keep these ideas in mind as they consider duties to limit one’s body weight, refrain from tattooing one’s body, and avoid high-risk behaviors.The essays that make up the heart of this book do by and large embrace Dorff and Newman’s challenge. A few do so quite confidently, such as the one Orthodox contributor to the volume, who declares God’s ownership of human bodies to be “the attitude of Torah Judaism.” But a similar view is also upheld by less traditionally inclined authors such as Adam Goodkind, a college student who expresses his doubts about conventional Jewish observance and theology but who sees the idea of not owning one’s body as reflecting the “common sense” of the Jewish tradition. [End Page 213]Many of the essays are also linked by their view of Judaism as a tradition that does not disparage bodily pleasures. Such pleasures should be greatly valued, a number of authors stress, at least within certain limits. Goodkind takes a stronger stance, opining that “part of being a good Jew is getting a maximum amount of enjoyment out of life” (43). Such talk is not surprising—it fits well with the this-worldly ethos of contemporary American Judaism. But it is worth noting that the more ascetic and otherworldly voices found in the tradition are largely absent from this volume.The volume may not showcase the full breadth of traditional Jewish perspectives, but it does demonstrate how thoughtful and generally liberally minded American Jews do think about key ethical questions when they are asked to consider them through a Jewish lens. And while the essays in the volume are somewhat uneven in quality, they tend to be marked by moral sensitivity and by the creative application of traditional Jewish ideas. This first book in the Jewish Choices, Jewish Voices series offers stimulating reflections about the human body, and it also offers a fine introduction to the patterns of moral reasoning found among many contemporary American Jews.Geoffrey ClaussenElon UniversityCopyright © 2013 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

En este trabajo se cuestiona la opinión dada a menudo de acuerdo con la que la economía política se separa de la moralidad en los escritos de Adam Smith y su escuela. Según esta vieja idea, fuertemente defendida en el libro de Louis Dumont, From MandeVille to Marx los grandes economistas clásicos ingleses pensaron que en el espacio económico los hombres podían seguir exclusivamente su propio interés sin ninguna referencia a las reglas morales. Se muestra que esto es (...) estrictamente lo contrario de lo que en realidad dijeron. Así, en La riqueza de las naciones, Smith escribe que en el sistema de la libertad natural que propugna: "Todo hombre, mientras que no viole las leyes de justicia, es totalmente libre de perseguir su propio interés"- Aparentemente Dumont no conoce esta doctrina o no sabe que para Smith la "justicia" es una de las cuatro virtudes cardinales y que las reglas que prescribe son las más precisas y la parte más importante de la moralidad, sin las que una sociedad pacífica y próspera no puede existir. De ahí que se critiquen algunas otras opiniones populares que Dumont recoge también de acuerdo con las que se supone que los economistas clásicos ingleses han creído que el interés del individuo nunca se contradice con el interés público y que el Estado nunca debería intervenir. 5e concluye con Lionel Robbins "Identificar tales doctrinas con las ideas declaradas y fácilmente accesibles de los economistas clásicos constituye un signo cierto de ignorancia o maldad". (shrink)

In this paper we consider the prehistory of quantum gravity (1916–1930) from two perspectives. First, we investigate how this research field constituted itself and we propose for the first time a red thread to trace its evolution in this earliest period. Second, we focus on a case study: the earliest work of Léon Rosenfeld. In 1927 he tried to merge wave mechanics with general relativity in the context of a five‐dimensional universe. We describe how Oskar Klein, Louis de (...) Broglie, and Théophile De Donder influenced Rosenfeld's work and analyze how and why Rosenfeld attempted to reconcile Einstein's theory with quantum phenomena. We argue that Rosenfeld investigated for the first time the corrections to a classical space‐time metric generated by a quantum source. As far as we know, Rosenfeld's approach has been largely ignored until today: he himself considered it “an accident.” After having reconsidered its connection with de Broglie's ideas and Rosenfeld's interpretation of the wave function in 1927, we argue that Rosenfeld's work can be interpreted as a first attempt to introduce the pilot‐wave theory in the context of quantum gravity and we infer that this was one of the reasons that ruled it out. (shrink)

‘Adam’s laburnum’, produced by accident in 1825 by Jean-Louis Adam, a nurseryman in Vitry, became a commercial success within the plant trade for its striking mix of yellow and purple flowers. After it came to the attention of members of La Société d’Horticulture de Paris, the tree gained enormous fame as a potential instance of the much sought-after ‘graft hybrid’, a hypothetical idea that by grafting one plant onto another, a mixture of the two could be produced. (...) As I show in this paper, many eminent botanists and gardeners, including Charles Darwin, both experimented with Adam’s laburnum and argued over how it might have been produced and what light, if any, it shed on the laws of heredity. Despite Jean-Louis Adam’s position and status as a nurseryman active within the Parisian plant trade, a surprising degree of doubt and scepticism was attached to his testimony on how the tree had been produced in his nursery. This doubt, I argue, helps us to trace the complex negotiations of authority that constituted debates over plant heredity in the early 19th century and that were introduced with a new generation of gardening and horticultural periodicals. (shrink)

In 1927 Louis de Broglie proposed an alternative approach to standard quantum mechanics known as the double solution program (DSP) where particles are represented as bunched fields or solitons guided by a base (weaker) wave. DSP evolved as the famous de Broglie-Bohm pilot wave interpretation (PWI) also known as Bohmian mechanics but the general idea to use solitons guided by a base wave to reproduce the dynamics of the PWI was abandoned. Here we propose a nonlinear scalar field theory (...) able to reproduce the PWI for the Schrödinger and Klein–Gordon guiding waves. Our model relies on a relativistic ‘phase harmony’ condition locking the phases of the solitonic particle and the guiding wave. We also discuss an extension of the theory for the N particles cases in presence of entanglement and external (classical) electromagnectic fields. (shrink)

A milestone in the development of post-war Marxist thought.

Louis Dumont is a distinguished and versatile French social anthropologist. His Homo Hierarchicus examined the Indian caste system; in a series of writings under the general title Homo Aequalis, he has investigated modern European ideology, moving deftly through intellectual history from Aquinas to Schiller, from Adam Smith to Thomas Mann. German Ideology forms part of this general project; it comprises a number of essays, some previously published, centering on the distinctive German understanding of the individual's relation to society.

Organizations that believe they should "give something back" to the society have embraced the concept of corporate social responsibility (CSR). Although the theoretical underpinnings of CSR have been frequently debated, empirical studies often involve only limited aspects, implying that theory may not be congruent with actual practices and may impede understanding and further development of CSR. The authors investigate actual CSR practices related to five different stakeholder groups, develop an instrument to measure those CSR practices, and apply it to a (...) survey of 401 U.S. organizations. Four different clusters of organizations emerge, depending on the CSR practice focus. The distinctive features of each cluster relate to organizational demographics, perceived influence of stakeholders, managers' perceptions of the influence of CSR on performance, and organizational performance. (shrink)

Neste artigo fazem-se algumas considerações sobre a justificação da propriedade privada na filosofia do direito de Kant. A partir da análise do conceito de lei permissiva da razão, defende-se que na filosofia do direito opera uma perspectiva teleológico- reflexionante de caráter prático, a qual permite compreender, por um lado, que a propriedade no estado de natureza seja legítima ao mesmo tempo em que é problemática, enquanto, por outro lado, o estado civil envolve a exigência de que a propriedade seja adequada (...) segundo as condições de um sistema de justiça distributiva. (shrink)

The central claim of Kant's political philosophy is that rational agents sharing a territory can justifiably be forced to live under a state; they have, in Kant's words, a duty of right to leave the state of nature. Perhaps something along these lines is entailed by any theory of state legitimacy, but the point raises special difficulties for Kant. He believes that rational agents have a right to freedom; that is, he believes that a rational agent's external freedom - her (...) ability to set and pursue ends for herself without being subject to the choices of others - can justifiably be restricted only for the sake of external freedom itself. To establish that human beings can be forced to join a civil condition, it will therefore not do to show that the state promotes security, prosperity or any other such value: Kant has to show that human beings living side by side need a state to be free. (shrink)

We give a general description of a class of contrastive constructions, intended to capture what is common to contrastive knowledge, belief, hope, fear, understanding and other cases where one expresses a propositional attitude in terms of “rather than”. The crucial element is the agent's incapacity to distinguish some possibilities from others. Contrastivity requires a course-graining of the set of possible worlds. As a result, contrastivity will usually cut across logical consequence, so that an agent can have an attitude to p (...) rather than q but not to r rather than q , where r is a logical consequence of p . We relate these ideas to some general issues about thought, such as the question of whether all possibilities that can be distinguished in emotion can be distinguished in belief. (shrink)

It is difficult to wander far in contemporary metaphysics without bumping into talk of possible worlds. And reference to possible worlds is not confined to metaphysics. It can be found in contemporary epistemology and ethics, and has even made its way into linguistics and decision theory. What are those possible worlds, the entities to which theorists in these disciplines all appeal? This paper sets out and evaluates a leading contemporary theory of possible worlds, David Lewis's Modal Realism. I note two (...) competing ambitions for a theory of possible worlds: that it be reductive and user-friendly. I then outline Modal Realism and consider objections to the effect that it cannot satisfy these ambitions. I conclude that there is some reason to believe that Modal Realism is not reductive and overwhelming reason to believe that it is not user-friendly. (shrink)