This out-of-print collection in the area of the history, politics, ethics, and theory of privacy includes selections from Peter Gay, Alan Westin, Walter Benjamin, Catharine MacKinnon, Seyla Benhabib, Anita Allen, Ann Jennings, Charles Taylor, Richard Sennett, Mark Wicclair, Martha Nussbaum, and Robert Nozick.

This article compares science and the novel as different rhetorical strategies for representing relationships to the limits of knowledge and what seems unknown. I draw on Kenneth Burke's figure of “equipment for living” to revive the question of the value of knowledge and art for life, identifying the comparison between science and the humanities itself as a social phenomenon and focusing on the uses and rhetorical value of such disciplines and of literature for life in a period ruled by concerns (...) for so-called applied knowledge and dreams of its transfer and dissemination. In this way, I try to escape from a notion of rhetoric limited solely to social interaction and the mutual persuasiveness of selves in order to develop, by linking rhetoric to subjectivity, a rhetorical approach to the consciousness of a subject conceived as relating to the limits of what can be known. (shrink)

The sublime evokes our awe, our terror, and our wonder. Applied first in ancient Greece to the heights of literary expression, in the 18th-century the sublime was extended to nature and to the sciences, enterprises that viewed the natural world as a manifestation of God's goodness, power, and wisdom. In The Scientific Sublime, Alan Gross reveals the modern-day sublime in popular science. He shows how the great popular scientists of our time--Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg, Brian Greene, Lisa (...) Randall, Rachel Carson, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, and E. O. Wilson--evoke the sublime in response to fundamental questions: How did the universe begin? How did life? How did language? These authors maintain a tradition initiated by Joseph Addison, Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant, and Adam Smith, towering 18th-century figures who adapted the literary sublime first to nature, then to science--though with one crucial difference: religion has been replaced wholly by science. In a final chapter, Gross explores science's attack on religion, an assault that attempts to sweep permanently under the rug two questions science cannot answer: What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of the good life? (shrink)

Lecture 1. Locke's theory of knowledge, guest lecture / by Alan Kors ; lecture 2. Locke's political theory, guest lecture / by Dennis Dalton ; lecture 3. montesquiey and the beginnings of political science ; lecture 4. Berkeley's idealism and the critique of materialism ; lecture 5. Hume's epistemiology ; lecture 6. Hume's theory of morality ; lecture 7. Smith's wealth of nations ; lecture 8. Rousseau's dissent, the challenge to the idea of progress, guest lecture / by (...) class='Hi'>Alan Kors ; lecture 9. Kant's copernicus revolution, epistemiology and the critique of metaphysics ; lecture 10. Kant's moral philosophy ; lecture 11. Burke and the birth of enlightened conservatism ; lecture 12. naturalism and materialism, the boundaries of the enlightenment, guest lecture. (shrink)

The longstanding interest in business ethics has been given renewed emphasis by high profile scandals in the world of business and finance. At the same time, many economists--dissatisfied with the discipline's emphasis on self-interest and individualism and by the asocial nature of much economic theory--have sought to englarge the scope of economics by looking at ethical questions. In Ethics and Economic Affairs a group of interdisciplinary scholars provide contributions on international interest in this aspect of socio-economics and economic-psychology. The book (...) is divided into four parts. The first looks at Business Ethics and Management. Part Two enlivens the debate with empirical data. The third part examines the implications for economic theory and asks if the integration of ethics in the economy is possible or if they are fundamentally different systems. Part Four introduces perspectives from other disciplines, sets economics within its wider context and looks to the future. The editors have brought together a group of contributors from nine different countries and a broad range of disciplines, including: Norman E. Bowie, Monroe Burk, Amitai Etzioni, Richard H. Guerette, Ralph E. Miner, Lynne M. Rosansky, N. Craig Smith, Roberts Stallaerts, Philip Stone and John Tomer. (shrink)

Joseph Priestley was a man of many and varied intellectual interests. This thesis surveys his philosophical thought, with a central focus on his philosophical theology. The subject can be divided into two parts, natural theology and moral theology. Priestley's natural theology is a perhaps unique attempt to combine and harmonize materialism, determinism and theism, under the auspices of Newtonian methodology. His materialism is based on three arguments: that interaction between matter and spirit is impossible; that a dynamic theory of matter (...) breaks down the active/passive dichotomy assumed by many dualists; and that Newton's "Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy" require the rejection of the "hypothesis" of the soul. His determinism arises from his theory of causation. He attempts to show that the only acceptable account of causation is one in which every cause is invariably followed by the same effect, and that libertarianism violates this central assumption of scientific thought. His theism rests on the Argument from Design. He defends the Argument by trying to show that none of the alternatives to Design advanced in Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion constitute a plausible scientific hypothesis. His critics accused his synthesis of materialism, determinism and theism of leading to atheism or pantheism. His defence against these charges is that his system is essentially theistic, and that its ontology is determined by the Argument from Design. Priestley's moral theology is also in part a response to Hume's Dialogues. He offers a number of replies to the "problem of evil". Evil and adversity heighten our appreciation of good; they are a consequence of the finitude of the creation; they follow from the desirability of having a world governed by general laws; and they make possible the achievement of moral character. Character-formation is his main defence, and his methodology requires him to show that adversity leads more often than not to positive results. This requirement is embodied in his progressivist philosophy of history. History, he holds, exhibits temporal purpose and Design, just as nature exhibits atemporal purpose and Design. Priestley's political thought can be seen as arising from his moral theology, mediated by the notions of "luxury", which he regards as morally harmless, and "idleness", which is the main source of moral evil. His combination of liberalism and radicalism is examined both for internal consistency and as a response to the events of his day, ending with the French Revolution. Priestley is interesting partly for his unorthodoxy, partly for the inter-connectedness of his diverse concerns, and partly because he debated with distinguished contemporaries. Throughout the thesis his views are juxtaposed with those of Hume, Reid, Price, Boscovich, Burke and a number of other thinkers. (shrink)

This essay compares and contrast Priestley and Burke on the nature of progress and politics and why, after having begun as political comrades, they arrived at such different evaluations of the French Revolution. Priestley had a robust account of progress, Burke a fragile one. Priestley's ideal, unlike Burke's, was not that of civic virtue but that of commercial virtue. By restricting the scope of government, Priestley diminished the status of the political virtues.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Catharine Macaulay's Republican Enlightenment by Karen GreenAlan CoffeeKaren Green. Catharine Macaulay's Republican Enlightenment. London: Routledge, 2020. Pp. 276. Hardback, $160.00.Though she was once one of the most recognizable and celebrated public intellectuals in Britain and was read avidly in both revolutionary America and France, after her death in 1791, Catharine Macaulay's work fell into almost total obscurity for around two hundred years. This began to change in the (...) 1990s, since which time interest in Macaulay from historians, philosophers, and feminist scholars has gathered pace. In the last decade and a half, no one has likely done more to advance this scholarship than Karen Green, who has published numerous journal articles and book chapters probing deeply into Macaulay's thought and intellectual context, and who helpfully edited The Correspondence of Catharine Macaulay (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019), which had not previously been easily available to readers. As one would expect, Green's Catharine Macaulay's Republican Enlightenment builds on this depth of research. For a relatively slim volume, this is the most complete and detailed intellectual biography of Macaulay that I know of, an impressive feat given Macaulay's voluminous output.The aims of the book are twofold: first, to provide a narrative biography following Macaulay's life and the development of her works as they unfolded across her life, and second, to offer an overview and exposition of her ideas in their social and political context (4). These aims are important to bear in mind, since they establish what the book [End Page 158] is able to do and what it stops short of giving us. The volume is organized chronologically, divided into seven main chapters, each representing a short period in Macaulay's life, with an introduction and concluding chapter that considers her legacy, bringing the total chapters to nine. In each of the substantive chapters, Green mixes a biographical account of Macaulay's life with an often detailed analysis of one or more of her main works written during that period, as well as an assessment of how these works both engaged with, and were received within, some of the political and intellectual debates at the time. This is expertly done, with Green drawing on her intimate acquaintance with Macaulay's correspondence with many of the key figures of the period. The book, therefore, would make an excellent companion to anyone reading through the Correspondence as well as for those studying any of Macaulay's historical volumes, treatises, and tracts.An especially strong aspect of Green's book is the way she weaves an ongoing dialogue between Macaulay and several influential figures from her intellectual world across the chapters. One of these is David Hume, who, like Macaulay, had written an ideologically situated—even if both authors claimed impartiality—multivolume History of England. Though Hume's series was completed before Macaulay's had begun, hers can be seen as a philosophical and political rival to his. While the two would only correspond directly once on the subject, Green compares the impact that their respective philosophies have on their resulting political positions. In the 1760s, Green argues, Hume's naturalism, empiricism, and skepticism gave rise to a social conservative politics, whereas Macaulay's theological rationalism provided the basis for her optimistic and radical politics (50). By the 1790s, however, when Macaulay was writing her Letters on Education, Green detects some elements of a Humean philosophy of mind coming to influence Macaulay, albeit likely through David Hartley, particularly concerning the importance of sympathy on our moral psychology, even if there remain important differences between them (180–82). Green also analyzes Macaulay's engagement with Thomas Hobbes in her Loose Remarks and her two formal Observations on writings by Edmund Burke. Of particular value to historians of republicanism is Green's tracing and examination of Macaulay's ongoing intellectual relationship with key political figures, such as John Wilkes in Britain; Benjamin Franklin, Benjamin Rush, John and Abigail Adams, James Otis, Mercy Otis Warren, and George Washington in America; Anne-Robert Jacques Turgot and Jacques-Pierre Brissot de Warville in France, among many others. Though Macaulay's reputation as an influential political writer... (shrink)

Players of electronic games, particularly on-line role-playing games, may invest a substantial degree of time, effort, and personal identity into the game scenarios they generate. Yet, where the wishes of players diverge from those of game publishers, the legal and ethical interests of players remain unclear. The most applicable set of legal principles are those of copyright law, which is often grounded in utilitarian justifications, but which may also be justified on deontological grounds. Past copyright cases involving video arcade and (...) per-sonal computer gaming suggest that the gaming scenaria generated by players may constitute original selec-tion and arrangement of the game elements, thus qualifying such gaming sequences for copyright protection as either derivative works or works of joint authorship. But this result may be difficult to justify on utilitarian theories. Rather, the personal investment of game players suggests a deontological basis for claims of game sequence ownership. (shrink)

This essay will strive to provide the reader with various entry points into the project of François Laruelle's non-standard philosophy and its relation to non-aesthetics, via its relation to philosophy as rigorous fiction. It is a new genre, what Laruelle also calls a philo-fiction. Via Laruelle's preoccupation with photography as a new kind of thought, we will follow his trajectory of applying non-philosophy to photography. From his concept of non-photography and continued in Photo-Fiction, a Non-Standard Aesthetics, Laruelle's practice of striving (...) to create a genre of thinking that would be akin to science fiction and use philosophy as material shows itself in the form of experimental, theoretical applications of his philo-fiction to the photo. In their performative thrust, one can begin to see the components or what he calls aspects of philosophy and quantum physics, including the use of superposition and the imaginary number, as well as conceptual personae and generic humanity. Laruelle's work has at its base a highly poetic, fictional strain that in striving to superpose philosophy and art (fiction) also has at its core a place for reducing the violence of decision and actions attempting to work within a space of radical immanence and radical passivity. A performation-withoutperformance. Laruelle will call the photo a ?weak insurrection.? This particle of Laruelle strives merely for such a poetic attempt. (shrink)

The theories of information ethics articulated by Luciano Floridi and his collaborators have clear implications for law. Information law, including the law of privacy and of intellectual property, is especially likely to benefit from a coherent and comprehensive theory of information ethics. This article illustrates how information ethics might apply to legal doctrine, by examining legal questions related to the ownership and control of the personal data representations, including photographs, game avatars, and consumer profiles, that have become ubiquitous with the (...) proliferation of information and communication technologies. Recent controversy over the control of player performance statistics in “fantasy” sports leagues provides a limiting case for the analysis. Such data representations will in many instances constitute the kind of personal data that information ethics asserts constitutes an information entity. Legal doctrine in some instances proves sympathetic to such an assertion, but remains largely inchoate as to which data might constitute a given information entity in a given instance. Neither is information ethics, in its current state of development, entirely helpful in answering this critical question. While information ethics holds some promise to bring coherence to this area of the law, further work articulating a richer theory of information ethics will be necessary before it can do so. (shrink)

This paper responds to John Milbank's essay, `The Poverty of Niebuhrianism' in The Word Made Strange, in which Milbank critiques Reinhold Niebuhr's Christian realism for reliance on Stoic natural law thinking and its deficiency in regard to original sin. While Milbank rightly detects naturalism in Christian realism, this naturalism is inaccurately identified as Stoic in conception. Additionally, more detailed analysis of Niebuhr's thought reveals similarities between Niebuhr and Milbank on original sin, as this article seeks to demonstrate.

Twenty years after cultivating a new orientation for aesthetics via the concept of non-photography, François Laruelle returns, having further developed his notion of a non-standard aesthetics. Published for the first time in a bilingual edition, _Photo-Fiction, a Non-Standard Aesthetics_ expounds on Laruelle’s current explorations into a photographic thinking as an alternative to the worn-out notions of aesthetics based on an assumed domination of philosophy over art. He proposes a new philosophical photo-fictional apparatus, or philo-fiction, that strives for a discursive mimesis (...) of the photographic apparatus and the flash of the Real entailed in its process of image making. “A bit like if an artisan, to use a Socratic example, instead of making a camera based off of diagrams found in manuals, on the contrary had as his or her project the designing of a completely new apparatus of philo-fiction, thus capable of producing not simply photos, but photo-fictions.” One must enter into a space for seeing the vectorial and the imaginary number. Laruelle’s philo-fictions become not art installations, but “theoretical installations” calling for the consideration of the possibility of a non-standard aesthetics being of an equal or superior power to art and philosophy, an aesthetics in-the-last-instance that is itself an inventive and creative act of the most contemporary kind. (shrink)

Simondon is a secret password among certain discussions within philosophy today. As a philosopher of technology, Simondon’s work has a place at the forefront of current thinking in media, technology, psychology, and philosophy with complex accounts of man’s relationship to technology and the realm that continues to form itself via this tension between man and his technical universe. In this introduction to Simondon’s oeuvre, the reader has access to the grounding of one of the most fundamental and critical questions that (...) has been the focus of philosophy for millennia: the relationship between man and animal. (shrink)

Very few thinkers have traveled the heretical path that François Laruelle walks between philosophy and non-philosophy. For Laruelle, the future of philosophy is problematic, but a mutation of its functions is possible. Up until now, philosophy has merely been a utopia concerned with the past and only provided the services of its conservation. We must introduce a rigorous and nonimaginary practice of a utopia in action, a philo-fiction—a close relative to science fiction. From here we can see the double meaning (...) of the watchword, a tabula rasa of the future. This new destination is imposed by a specifically human messianism, an eschatology within the limits of the Man-in-person as antihumanist ultimatum addressed to the History of Philosophy. This book elucidates some of the fundamental problems of non-philosophy and takes on its detractors. (shrink)

First published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The art of living today has shifted to a continuous state of the experimental. In one of his last texts, _Telemorphosis_, renowned thinker and anti-philosopher Jean Baudrillard takes on the task of thinking and reflecting on the coming digital media architectures of the social. While “the social” may have never existed, according to Baudrillard, his analysis at the beginning of the twenty-first century of the coming social media–networked cultures cannot be ignored. One need not look far in order to find (...) oneself snared within some sort of screenification of a techno-social community. “What the most radical critical critique, the most subversive delirious imagination, what no Situationist drift could have done... television has done.” Collective reality has entered a realm of telemorphosis. (shrink)

Number concepts must support arithmetic inference. Using this principle, it can be argued that the integer concept of exactly ONE is a necessary part of the psychological foundations of number, as is the notion of the exact equality - that is, perfect substitutability. The inability to support reasoning involving exact equality is a shortcoming in current theories about the development of numerical reasoning. A simple innate basis for the natural number concepts can be proposed that embodies the arithmetic principle, supports (...) exact equality and also enables computational compatibility with real- or rational-valued mental magnitudes. (shrink)

Since the times of Plato and Aristotle, the relation of poetry to philosophy has been controversial. For certain scholars, poetry should in no way be confused with philosophy. For others, poetry is at the heart of the possibility of thinking itself. In _Affirmation of Poetry_, Judith Balso defends the significance of poetry as a necessary practice for thinking. For Balso, if reading poetry properly has become an obscure task, poetry itself still carries with it a power of thinking: the efforts (...) of the poets must continue. In analyzing the affirmation of thought found within the work of such poets as Osip Mandelstam, Wallace Stevens, Alberto Caeiro, and Giacomo Leopardi, Balso reestablishes poetry’s place as a site of thought. (shrink)

Every perceptual experience has an objective and a subjective side. We see object size, independent of distance, but we also see that distant objects project smaller images. Early modern conceptions focused on local stimulation and thus on the subjective aspect. Helmholtz and Hering emphasized the objective aspect. Helmholtz split visual experience into two stages, with sensation representing the subjective side and perception, through cognitive processes, the objective side. Gestalt theory denied this dualism, rejecting both sensory and cognitive stages. Despite contrary (...) evidence, the sensation/perception dualism persists, in brightness models and past experience theories. That we can detect visual angle and luminance does not mean that these are raw sensations out of which perception of size and lightness is built. Size and color constancy are truly visual, not cognitive. Instructions to subjects in vision experiments must avoid the proximal mode on the one hand and cognitive judgments on the other. (shrink)

In this paper I examine a dispositional property that has been receiving increased attention in biology, evolvability. First, I identify three compatible but distinct investigative approaches, distinguish two interpretations of evolvability, and treat the difference between dispositions of individuals versus populations. Second, I explore the relevance of philosophical distinctions about dispositions for evolvability, isolating the assumption that dispositions are intrinsically located. I conclude that some instances of evolvability cannot be understood as purely intrinsic to populations and suggest alternative strategies for (...) resolving this difficulty. (shrink)

Republicans understand freedom as the guaranteed protection against any arbitrary use of coercive power. This freedom is exercised within a political community, and the concept of arbitrariness is defined with reference to the actual ideas of its citizens about what is in their shared interests. According to many current defenders of the republican model, this form of freedom is understood in strictly negative terms representing an absence of domination. I argue that this assumption is misguided. First, it is internally inconsistent. (...) The central republican focal point of arbitrariness is a necessarily socially constructed ideal that only exists as the creation of the citizens themselves. Second, republican freedom operates in two distinct realms or spheres. There is freedom under a law that is required to uphold the collective good as reflected in society’s norms, and there is freedom within that very system of norms. The threats to freedom from within each sphere are different and must be addressed accordingly. The negative approach, however, conflates the two and emphasises only the dangers faced under the law. This exposes citizens – especially those from marginalised social groups – to domination in the second realm from oppressive social norms. Only by clearly recognising the nature of both kinds of threats can a comprehensive republican freedom be formulated. (shrink)

Any system of taxation depends on a substantial degree of compliance from the taxpayer. But do ethical considerations stop at obeying the letter of the tax law, or do they drive one to take a more critical and socially responsible attitude towards tax avoidance as well as evasion? Dr Alan Stainer is Head of Engineering Management at Middlesex University, Bounds Green Road, London N11 2NQ, and Founder Director of the International Society for Productivity & Quality Research; Lorice Stainer is (...) Senior Lecturer in Business Ethics at the University of Hertfordshire Business School and a Business Ethics Consultant; and Alexandra Segal is a Chartered Accountant, Taxation Manager with Keelings Chartered Accountants, London, and a Taxation Consultant. (shrink)

Zusammenfassung Im Beitrag wird untersucht, ob und mit welchen Strategien Athleten sowie Sportorganisationen in Krisen des Sports Soziale Medien in ihrer Krisenkommunikation verwenden. Ausgehend von der Theorie der situationsbezogenen Krisenkommunikation nach Coombs, der bei verschiedenen Krisentypen spezifische Kommunikationsstrategien empfiehlt, werden Facebook-Posts und Tweets/retweets von Spielern und Verbänden bei zwei ausgewählten Krisen während der Fußball-WM 2014 qualitativ analysiert. Den Ergebnissen zufolge werden die Möglichkeiten Sozialer Medien nicht bzw. nur unzureichend genutzt. In beiden Fällen findet keine zeitnahe Krisenkommunikation statt. Bei der Spanien-Krise (...) schätzen die Beteiligten die Krisenschuldzuschreibung durch die Öffentlichkeit und den damit verbundenen Reputationsschaden höher ein als notwendig; im zweiten Fall wird ein individuelles Fehlverhalten trotz vorliegender Krisenhistorie dagegen unterschätzt. (shrink)

The integration of technology in care is core business in nursing and this role requires that we must understand and use technology informed by evidence that goes much deeper and broader than actions and behaviours. We need to delve more deeply into its complexity because there is nothing minor or insignificant about technology as a major influence in healthcare outcomes and experiences. Evidence is needed that addresses technology and nursing from perspectives that examine the effects of technology, especially related to (...) increasing demands for efficiency, the relationship of technology to nursing and caring, and a range of philosophical questions associated with empowering people in their healthcare choices. Specifically, there is a need to confront in practice the ways technique influences care. Technique is the creation of a kind of thinking that is necessary for contemporary healthcare technology to develop and be applied in an efficient and rational manner. Technique is not an entity or specific thing, but rather a way of thinking that seeks to shape and organize nursing activity, and manage efficiently individual difference(s) in care. It emphasizes predetermined causal relationships, conformity, and sameness of product, process, and thought. In response is needed a radical vision of nursing that attempts in a real sense to ensure we meet the needs of individuals and their community. Activism and advocacy are needed, and a willingness to create a certain detachment from the imperatives that technique demands. It is argued that our responsibility as nurses is to respond in practice to the errors, advantages, difficulties, and temptations of technology for the benefit of those who most need our assistance and care. (shrink)

We argue that the gap between an authentically ethical conviction of sustainability and a behaviour that avoids confronting the terrifying reality of its ethical point of reference is characteristic of the field of business sustainability. We do not accuse the field of business sustainability of ethical shortcomings on the account of this attitude–behaviour gap. If anything, we claim the opposite, namely that there resides an ethical sincerity in the convictions of business scholars to entrust capitalism and capitalists with the mammoth (...) task of reversing, the terrifying reality of ecological devastation. Yet, the very illusory nature of this belief in capitalism’s captains to save us from the environmentally devastating effects of capitalism gives this ethical stance a tragic beauty. While sincere and authentic, it nevertheless is an ethical stance that relies on an “exclusionary gesture of refusing to see”, what in psychoanalysis is referred to as a fetishist disavowal of reality. We submit that this disavowal is fetishistic because the act is not simply one of repressing the real. If it was, we would rightly expect that we could all see the truth if we only provide more or better information to fill the subject’s lack of knowledge. The problem is that the fetishist transfers a fantasy of the real as the real. In the case of destructive capitalism, the fetishist disavows that particular reality by believing in another, thus subjectively negating the lack. Therefore, from the perspective of psychoanalytic theory, we submit that the gap between attitude and behaviour is best understood not only as an ethical flaw, but also as an essential component of an ethics that makes possible the field of business sustainability. (shrink)

This book aims to distil the essentials of liberal constitutionalism from the jurisprudence and practice of contemporary liberal-democratic states. It argues that the model liberal-democratic constitution is best understood as a unity of three constitutional frameworks: libertarian, egalitarian, and communitarian. When viewed in this light, the liberal constitution embodies a surprising synthesis. It reconciles a commitment to individual liberty and freedom of conscience with the perfectionist idea that the state ought to cultivate a type of personality whose fundamental ends are (...) the goods essential to dignity. (shrink)

It is difficult to say in a few words how much I owe to Hans Albert. It all began with invitations to the wonderful Alpbach European Forum, where for many years Hans helped to organize [i. e. organized] the regular Philosophy Seminar. He first invited me there in 1975, and again in 1980, 1987, 1993, 1995, 1998 and 2001. Hans really was the ‘Spirit of Alpbach’, as somebody once described him to me, and these were all memorable occasions in many (...) ways. I also met Gretl there, and their sons. I played tennis with Gretl and had wonderful walks and talks with all of them. (shrink)