This introduction to a collection of papers on normativity provides a framework modelled on the division in ethics to approach normative issues. It suggests that is is useful to divide questions about normativity into five groups: normative ontology, normative semantics, normative epistemology, normative psychology, and substantial normative theory.

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

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)

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)

Nordenfelt has presented a very useful philosophical analysis of the nature and ethics of health promotion. The first section of this paper is a response to the starting point of that analysis—the equation of health promotion with health promotion action. It is argued that this starting point leads to a serious ambiguity, and that this ambiguity is characteristic of other writing about health promotion, including that of the WHO. The second section of this paper explores the implications of this ambiguity, (...) as it appears in the wider health promotion literature, for drawing the borders of health promotion. (shrink)

The hard-drinking, joke-cracking second-mate of Melville's Moby Dick doesn't receive much respect from critics. At best Stubb is seen as a comic foil, at worst as a cruel coward and mechanical optimist. Yet this perspective distorts the text and does him an injustice. In fact, Stubb can be read quite fruitfully as an exemplar of wisdom. Using recent scholarship to fill out Melville's conception of fine philosophy, a set of criteria emerges for the true philosopher according to which Stubb fares (...) remarkably well. (shrink)

Relevance with regard to the social sciences can be presented as a new imposition from external stakeholders and an obligation imposed upon the individual researcher. As an alternative approach, we place relevance in a larger institutional but also historical perspective. Taking the case of two non-traditional locations for the social sciences, we suggest that ‘relevance’ has been actively constitutive of both institutions from the beginning—even if the definition and practice of relevance have been matters of discussion, change and contestation. In (...) what we describe as a process of multi-layering, relevance has over time accumulated new meanings which can co-exist with older concerns. It follows that, even when universities express a commitment to relevance, the enactment of that commitment will be open to competing interpretations. Our account identifies an element of circularity as old issues return in new form. We also note that both the institutional past and organizational complexity can be overlooked within contemporary discussions. Relevance is not a static concept around which critical debate then circulates. Its contextuality, case-specificity and multi-dimensionality make it difficult to impose from above. Nevertheless, the shifting construction of its meaning and enactment provokes questions about the identity and purpose of both the social sciences and the universities. (shrink)

To be an Empiricist with respect to knowledge of the natural world, is to insist that all knowledge of that world is rooted in perceptual experience. All claims which go beyond the deliverances of the senses must, in the end, be justified by, and understood in terms of, relations holding between those claims and sensory data. Crucial to the Empiricist case, therefore, is an account of how perception can be a source of knowledge. How can sensory experiences provide, for the (...) owner of those experiences, information about objects and events which exist independently of the experiences themselves? The following essay scavenges in contemporary sources to arrive at a fresh Empiricist account of perceptual knowledge. There are sufficient parallels with earlier doctrines to call the outcome ‘New Phenomenalism’, but the label is not important. The materials for the thesis have been gathered from several current writers, most notably P.F. Strawson and Jonathan Bennett, but no one of these writers is a proponent of the expounded thesis as a whole. As with a composite photograph, no face completely fits. (shrink)

Covering the "long" Enlightenment, from the rise of Descartes' disciples in 1670 to the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1815, the Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment contains articles ranging from discussions of mercantilism and democracy to the dissemination of ideas in salons and coffeehouses. It is also an e-reference text from Oxford's Digital Reference Shelf.

Professor Needham tells me that I have misunderstood him, and I am sure he is right that I need to work harder to understand his arguments more fully and more precisely. But he has also misunderstood me, as well—no doubt because I have not expressed myself as carefully as I ought to have done. He writes that I have “clearly” argued that “the only possibility of representing nineteenth-century chemistry as a theoretical pursuit” is based on chemical atomism. I do not (...) believe that. For instance, Lavoisien antiphlogistic theory at the beginning of the century, and chemical thermodynamics and certain aspects of reaction dynamics a few decades later, did not depend on an atomistic view of nature.I do plead guilty to the claim that “at the heart of the theoretical achievement” of nineteenth-century chemistry stood “atomic and molecular theory”. But Professor Needham believes that nineteenth-century atomism did not provide chemistry with any explanations. Since I take it that a principal goal .. (shrink)

In his Introduction, the Editor of The Survival Hypothesis, manages to present us in the space of twelve pages—no mean feat—with some key definitions, a “necessarily brief and incomplete history of mediumship,” an introduction to the ‘source of psi’ problem with respect to mediumship, an outline of the structure and contents of the present volume, and his concluding wish that survival-related topics, such as mediumship will receive more attention than hitherto within mainstream parapsychology. Part I of the book is entitled (...) Explanation and Belief, and opens with two closely linked essays by Stephen E. Braude on The Possibility of Mediumship: Philosophical Considerations, and by Michael Sudduth on Is Postmortem Survival the Best Explanation of the Data of Mediumship? (shrink)