What limitations on intervention in support of democratic revolutions does proper regard for the collective right of self-determination impose? Some have held that if intervention in support of democratic revolutions is justified, it must cease once the authoritarian regime has been deposed—that any effort by the intervener to use force to shape the new political order would violate the people’s right of self-determination. This essay argues that proper regard for self-determination is compatible with much more extensive interventions.

Introduction : the politics of our selves -- Foucault, subjectivity, and the enlightenment : a critical reappraisal -- The impurity of practical reason : power and autonomy in Foucault -- Dependency, subordination, and recognition : Butler on subjection -- Empowering the lifeworld? autonomy and power in Habermas -- Contextualizing critical theory -- Engendering critical theory.

Not the least admirable of the late David Lewis’s attributes was his disdain for technical terminology and jargon. His writings are a model demonstrating that, with skill and care, it is possible to discuss even the most mathematical aspects of logic and semantics in clear English prose, and with only a minimum of symbolism. The main text of Parts of Classes [1, hereafter: PoC], a 120-page essay on the foundations of set theory, follows Aristotle in using letters as variables, and (...) has a few dashes and ellipses where it mentions schemata, but is otherwise free of logical notation. The essential advantages of what Church called “the logistic method” do not depend on its typographical accidents!) It is only natural that writers following him have taken one of his expressive words and turned it into a technical term: he allowed ‘atomless gunk’ as a possible complication in the mereological analysis of things, and ‘gunk’ is now a technical term in mereology. Gunk is stuff every part of which contains further parts, stuff which can be divided endlessly without ever arriving at an indivisible atom. (shrink)

Early liberal theories about the feasibility of moral progress were premised on empirically ungrounded assumptions about human psychology and society. In this article, we develop a richer naturalistic account of the conditions under which one important form of moral progress–the emergence of more “inclusive” moralities–is likely to arise and be sustained. Drawing upon work in evolutionary psychology and social moral epistemology, we argue that “exclusivist” morality is the result of an adaptively plastic response that is sensitive to cues of out-group (...) threat that are detected during development. We conclude with a blueprint for reinforcing and extending inclusivist progress. (shrink)

The book concludes that it is a mistake to think of Art as something subjective, or as an arbitrary social representation, and of Technology as an instrumental ..

In this paper we argue that there is much to learn about “wild justice” and the evolutionary origins of morality – behaving fairly – by studying social play behavior in group-living mammals. Because of its relatively wide distribution among the mammals, ethological investigation of play, informed by interdisciplinary cooperation, can provide a comparative perspective on the evolution of ethical behavior that is broader than is provided by the usual focus on primate sociality. Careful analysis of social play reveals rules of (...) engagement that guide animals in their social encounters. Because of its significance in development, play may provide a foundation of fairness for other forms of cooperation that are advantageous to group living. Questions about the evolutionary roots of cooperation, fairness, trust, forgiveness, and morality are best answered by attention to the details of what animals do when they engage in social play – how they negotiate agreements to cooperate, to forgive, to behave fairly, and to develop trust. We consider questions such as why play fairly? Why did play evolve as it has? Does “being fair” mean being more fit? Do individual variations in play influence an individual’s reproductive fitness? Can we use information about the foundations of moral behavior in animals to help us understand ourselves? We conclude that there is likely to be strong selection for cooperative fair play because there are mutual benefits when individuals adopt this strategy and group stability may also be fostered. Numerous mechanisms have evolved to facilitate the initiation and maintenance of social play, to keep others engaged, so that agreeing to play fairly and the resulting benefits of doing so can be readily achieved. (shrink)

A singularity of the famous Art of War《孫子兵法》 attributed to Sunzi is the way this work conceives of knowledge as a resource for the military strategist. The idea is new in Chinese tradition, and new in the worldwide context of thinking about strategy, where Sunzi’s ideas about the value of knowledge are far in advance of the thinking of Western theorists like Machiavelli or especially Clausewitz. In this paper I analyze the role of knowledge in the Sunzi theory of strategy, (...) and show the consistency of what this work says about knowledge with a philosophical idea of knowledge that emerges in Warring States texts of diverse genres. (shrink)

I begin with an appeal to the GHZ/Mermin state to illustrate the allure of contextualism and value-definiteness. I then point out that standard contextualism, with its special status for non-degenerate operators, faces some embarrassing questions. Further, there is an alternative that apparently does not have the same problems. A modest re-pasting of Hilbert space makes the honors almost even between these two varieties. The paper closes with some reflections on the peculiarities of contextualism.

Cognitive ethologists are in need of a good theoretical framework for attributing intentional states. Heyes and Dickinson (1990) present criteria that they claim are necessary for an intentional explanation of behavior to be justified. They suggest that questions of intentionality can only be investigated under controlled laboratory conditions and they apply their criteria to laboratory experiments to argue that the common behavior of approaching food is not intentional in most animals. We dispute the details of their argument and interpretation of (...) the laboratory experiments. While criteria such as those suggested have a role to play in comparative studies of cognition, both laboratory and field studies are important for assessing the applicability of intentional explanations across different taxa. (shrink)

Wisely, the authors begin this book by describing it as a polemic. They argue that most contemporary analytic metaphysics is a waste of time and resources since contemporary ‘neo-scholastic’ metaphysical theorizing cannot hope to attain objective truth given its penchant for making a priori claims about the nature of the world which are backed up by appeal to intuition. In engaging in this activity, metaphysicians have, the authors claim, abandoned hope of locating any interesting connection between their metaphysical pronouncements and (...) how our best empirical theories describe the world. Moreover, the success attained by empirical science just cannot be matched by metaphysical theorizing and so, faced with this asymmetry, empirical science wins: a priori metaphysical theorizing must give way to a naturalistic form of metaphysics, a positive account of which the authors attempt to elucidate in the second and third, rather lengthy chapters of the book.The first chapter consists of a statement of the authors’ negative view, a vigorous, sustained and sometimes withering attack upon contemporary a priori metaphysics. Most ire is reserved for those who indulge in what the authors call ‘pseudo-scientific metaphysics’; that is, those who pay lip service to keeping their metaphysical speculation in tune with physics, only to constrain their ontology in such a way that the entities and processes within it do not even play a role in current physical theory, or are in straightforward contradiction with it. Much philosophy of science and scientific metaphysics is too superficial and simplistic to deserve the name and bears more relation to ‘the philosophy of “A” Level chemistry’. The guilty in this respect include David Lewis, Jaegwon Kim, Jonathan Lowe, Donald Davidson, Jerry Fodor, Crawford Elder, Trenton Merricks among …. (shrink)

Heath services come with the promise of confidentiality.1 The ethical mandate to safeguard the confidentiality of personal health information aligns with legal mandates to do the same. Numerous state and federal laws demand one form of health data confidentiality or another, best illustrated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.2 In early 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services decided to take a tougher stand against HIPAA violators, utilizing powers created by the Health Information Technology for Economic and (...) Clinical Health Act.3 Ushering in a new era, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services imposed an unprecedented civil penalty of $4.3 million on Cignet Health of .. (shrink)

Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy is a volume of original articles on all aspects of ancient philosophy. The articles may be of substantial length, and include critical notices of major books. OSAP is now published twice yearly, in both hardback and paperback.

Let $V_\propto$ be a fixed, fully effective, infinite dimensional vector space. Let $\mathscr{L}(V_\propto)$ be the lattice consisting of the recursively enumerable (r.e.) subspaces of $V_\propto$ , under the operations of intersection and weak sum (see § 1 for precise definitions). In this article we examine the algebraic properties of $\mathscr{L}(V_\propto)$ . Early research on recursively enumerable algebraic structures was done by Rabin [14], Frolich and Shepherdson [5], Dekker [3], Hamilton [7], and Guhl [6]. Our results are based upon the more (...) recent work concerning vector spaces of Metakides and Nerode [12], Crossley and Nerode [2], Remmel [15], [16], and Kalantari [8]. In the main theorem below, we extend a result of Lachlan from the lattice E of r.e. sets to $\mathscr{L}(V_\propto)$ . We define hyperhypersimple vector spaces, discuss some of their properties and show if $A, B \in \mathscr{L}(V_\propto)$ , and A is a hyperhypersimple subspace of B then there is a recursive space C such that A + C = B. It will be proven that if $V \in \mathscr{L}(V_\propto)$ and the lattice of superspaces of V is a complemented modular lattice then V is hyperhypersimple. The final section contains a summary of related results concerning maximality and simplicity. (shrink)

Projecting Illusion offers a systematic analysis of the impression of reality in the cinema and the pleasure it gives to the film spectator. Film provides a compelling experience that can be considered as a form of illusion akin to the experience of day-dream and dream. Examining the concept of illusion and its relationship to fantasy in the experience of visual representation, Richard Allen situates his explanation within the context of an analytical criticism of contemporary film and critical theory. He (...) argues that many contemporary film theorists correctly identify the significance of the impression of reality, although their explanation of it is incorrect because of an invalid philosophical understanding of the relationship between the mind, representation and reality. Offering a clear presentation and critique of the central arguments of contemporary film and critical theory, Allen also touches on fundamental issues in current discourses of philosophy, art history and feminist theory. (shrink)

This is an incomplete entry that should be mapped to ALLTII on this site (see link below).

An edition of the letters of Erasmus, regarded as one of the greatest humanist writers. All 12 volumes of this work have been reissued, complete with their scholarly apparatus of commentary and notes, as well as plates.