It is our job now - the job of this book - to influence and develop the unsettled discourse of human rights so as to complete the incomplete idea.

But there is considerable consensus, even among writers who disagree radically about the ultimate significance of time so understood, that time as ...

This volume studies the origin and evolution of philosophical interest in Aristotle's Categories, and illuminates the earliest arguments for Aristotle's approach to logic as the foundation of higher education.

The aim of this paper is to establish the existence of a significant difference, in a number of respects, between the style of the narrated portions of Homer and that of the speeches which are recorded in the two epics; and to offer some explanations for this fact. It will require the presentation of some statistics: I suspect that not all of the figures are absolutely accurate, but I feel confident that such inaccuracies as they may contain will not affect (...) the validity of the inferences drawn from them. The mere fact of differences in vocabulary, while not without interest, is not extremely interesting or surprising. The hope of this paper is that patterns will appear, and that the ‘reticence’ or ‘objectivity’ of Homer, more often praised than investigated, will be illuminated by them; that particular passages in the poems will be shown to be stylistically interesting or unusual; and that some general considerations will emerge which suggest that the difficulties confronting the oral theory of Homer are rather more complex than is often supposed. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell ranks as one of the giants of 20th century philosophy. This Companion focuses on Russell's contributions to modern philosophy and, therefore, concentrates on the early part of his career. Through his books, journalism, correspondence and political activity he exerted a profound influence on modern thought. New readers will find this the most convenient and accessible guide to Russell available. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Russell.

In an attempt to respond effectively to the COVID-19 pandemic, policy makers and scientific experts who advise them have aspired to present a unified front. Leveraging the authority of science, they have at times portrayed politically favored COVID interventions, such as lockdowns, as strongly grounded in scientific evidence—even to the point of claiming that enacting such interventions is simply a matter of “following the science.” Strictly speaking, all such claims are false, since facts alone never yield moral-political conclusions. More importantly, (...) attempts to present a unified front have led to a number of other actions and statements by scientists and policy makers that erode the authority of science. These include actions and statements that: (1) mislead the public about epidemiological matters such as mortality rates, cause of death determinations, and computerized modeling, or fail to correct mainstream media sources that interpret such concepts in misleading ways; (2) incorporate moral-political opinions into ostensible statements of fact; and (3) misrepresent or misuse scientific expertise. The fundamental thesis of the paper is not primarily that such actions and statements have proliferated during the COVID-19 epidemic (though I think they have), but rather that they are unscientific and that presenting them as science undermines the authority of science. In the moral-political realm, the great power of science and the source of its authority derives from its agnosticism about fundamental moral-political claims. Science, for instance, has no built-in presumption that we should respect life, promote freedom, or practice toleration; nor does it tell us which of these values to prioritize when values conflict. Because of this agnosticism, science is recognized across a broad diversity perspectives as morally and politically impartial, and authoritative within its proper sphere. When it is infused with partisan bias, it loses that authority. (shrink)

Russell brought three arguments forward against Meinong's theory of objects. None of them depend upon a misinterpretation of the theory as is often claimed. In particular, only one is based upon a clash between Meinong's theory and Russell's theory of descriptions, and that did not involve Russell's attributing to Meinong his own ontological assumption. The other two arguments were attempts to find internal inconsistencies in Meinong's theory. But neither was sufficient to refute the theory, though they do require some revisions, (...) viz. a trade-off between freedom of assumption and unhmited characterization. Meinong himself worked out the essentials of the required revisions. (shrink)

In the eleventh chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says to the inhabitants of Bethsaida and Corozain: “If the miracles worked in you had taken place in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes”. Passages like this support a scriptural argument for God’s knowledge of counterfactuals about created individuals. In the sixteenth century, Jesuits and Dominicans vigorously debated about how to explain this knowledge. The Jesuits, notably Luis de Molina and Francisco Suarez, argued that the (...) basis for this knowledge lies primarily in the divine intellect: counterfactuals about free creatures are primitive truths known to God by virtue of the immensity of his intellectual power. Their Dominican opponents, notably Domingo Bañez and Diego Alvarez, held that this knowledge is simply God’s knowledge of his own decrees, by which he determines the truth value of all contingent propositions, including counterfactuals. (shrink)

Based upon an analysis of the development of the human rights tradition, the language of human rights is best reserved for beings capable of agency. Less restrictive conceptions of rights, such as those that link rights to the protection of needs, leads to a proliferation of rights of a kind that dilutes the normative importance of rights. Denying that infants have rights need not diminish the moral significance of their claims to care. The absence of a right need not signal (...) diminished moral importance. (shrink)

There is already a copious literature comparing Claudius' oration on the admission of the primores Galliae into the Roman Senate with Tacitus’ account of the speech and of the opposition's case in Annals 11. 23–4. Yet the Emperor's own purpose in speaking as he did still needs some illumination. Scholarly concentration on technical points about the citizenship, on Claudius’ antiquarianism and on his debt to Livy has been fruitful, but it has often distracted attention from Claudius’ immediate aim. Meanwhile, Tacitus’ (...) interpretation has been insidious in colouring our view of what course of action the imperial orator was trying to defend before the Senate. (shrink)

The paper defends Meinong's theory of objects against criticism by Reinhardt Grossmann. In particular, it is argued that Grossmann fails to show that non-existent objects may not be constituents of states of affairs and fails to provide an adequate alternative analysis of states of affairs which putatively contain nonexistent items. Grossmann, in fact, is guilty of a pervasive psychologistic misinterpretation of Meinong according to which Meinong believed that objects have all the properties with which they appear before the mind. Once (...) this error is avoided, Meinong's theory not only escapes Grossmann's criticisms but has a highdegree of plausibility. (shrink)

This paper offers a critical interpretation and evaluation of Wilfrid Sellars’s treatment of skepticism about empirical justification. It defends three central claims. First, against the suggestion that Sellars’s work simply bypasses traditional skeptical problems, I make the novel interpretive claim that Sellars not only addresses skepticism about empirical justification, but offers two independent (albeit sketchy) arguments against it: a transcendental argument that the likely truth of our perceptual beliefs is a necessary condition of the possibility of empirical content, and a (...) pragmatic argument that we’re warranted in accepting their likely truth in virtue of our aim of being effective agents. To the extent these have previously been distinctly formulated by commentators, the transcendental argument has been regarded as forceful, while the pragmatic argument has been dismissed as non-responsive. My second and third claims challenge this understanding. I argue, second, that examination of the literature relating to transcendental arguments from semantic externalism like Sellars’s (especially concerning the McKinsey paradox) suggests that such arguments are unpromising, while, third, a modified version of his pragmatic argument represents a powerful skeptical solution to skepticism about empirical justification, one that answers the worry that such skepticism would undermine the rationality of all our practical commitments. (shrink)

A reply to Risjord's defense of the view that there is no conflict between non-Euclidean geometry and Kant's philosophy of geometry because, while the form of intuition restricts which systems of concepts may be accepted as a geometry, it does not do so uniquely ("Stud Hist Phil Sci, 21", 1990). I argue that under these circumstances it is difficult to sustain the synthetic "a priori" status of geometrical propositions. Two broad ways of attempting to do so are considered and criticized.

According to Native American myths, there once roamed an Eye Juggler—a humanoid deity who could detach his eyes and juggle them. His talents were of no special appeal to members of the various tribes, given that it is quite possible to hunt buffalo, prepare meals, or play stickball without tossing around your eyes. However, there was a white man who grew interested in the Eye Juggler. Sensing great utility in detachable eyes—for spying, or looking two ways at once—the white man (...) formulated a deal. He would trade away his wealth in return for the Eye Juggler's gift. To this proposition the Juggler agreed, but also issued a warning. If the eyes stay detached for very long, they rot and cannot be used. (shrink)

The migratory flows of recent decades that have exercised Europe as a socio-political and economic entity have produced extensive responses and interventions from European gender scholars. One relatively recent phenomenon in this context is the question of reparative surgical interventions, specifically clitoral reconstruction, in cases where women who have migrated to Europe have experienced female genital cutting. Clitoral reconstruction, which this article begins to explore, is recent in part because the related surgery was only established in the 1990s and is (...) to date only practised in a few European countries, and in part because the research with women who ask for and have undergone such surgery has also only recently begun. This article is therefore an initial attempt to map some of the related terrain and to suggest further work that needs to be done in this increasingly important area. (shrink)

This volume addresses persistent issues in the preservice and continuing education of teachers. Attention is focused upon perspectives on teacher education that differ significantly from those that have characterized views of this field in the past. Among developments that provide the current context for teacher education are the movement for standards, the emphasis upon inquiry in the classroom, increased expectations for teachers' participation in curriculum development, constructivism and the cognitive revolution, and professional development schools. These and other matters receive the (...) attention of a distinguished group of scholars and practitioners in the field. (shrink)

This department publishes articles on large-scale projects in which logic plays a significant role, especially editions of collected or selected works. In addition to factual and historical details, articles describe points of historiography and scholarship which are of more general interest. Articles should be submitted to the Editor.

The concept of number is the troublemaker in the history of Platonism. It separated the followers of Plato and Aristotle into two camps for generations. For Plotinus, however, the concept becomes the peacemaker, which reconciles the camps. The importance of this reconciliation is central to Plotinus’ philosophical system because it not only uses Aristotle to defend Plato from Aristotle himself, but establishes Plotinus’ concept of number as the fundamental link between the number theories of the Neopythagoreans and the later Neoplatonists.This (...) book demonstrates that the subject of number should be considered among the most important concepts for understanding Plotinus’ philosophy and therefore deserves greater scholarly attention than it has received. Plotinus adopts and adapts Platonic and Neopythagorean cosmology to place number in the foundation of the intelligible realm and the construction of the universe. Throughout the Enneads and especially in Ennead VI.6, he systematically peels off the layers of mathematical and quantitative perception from the concept of number to reveal that real intelligible number is the primary activity of substance, which orders the unfolding of the universe from its absolute source into a finite multiplicity. (shrink)

This chapter investigates the Neopythagorean roots of Plotinus’ concept of number. Porphyry’s reports of Plotinus’ use of Neopythagorean sources in his teachings are quickly confirmed in the Enneads. In addition to Numenius’ influence on the definition of multiplicity as “separation,” this chapter reveals the programmatic significance of Moderatus’ distinction between the monad as the principle of numbers and the one as the principle of enumerated things on Plotinus’ two kinds of number. This discovery also shows Plotinus’ use of Moderatus’ definition (...) of mathematical number in the formulation of the outward and inward directions of multiplicity. Next, the chapter examines the elements from Nicomachus of Gerasa’s Introduction to Arithmetic in Plotinus’ concept of multiplicity. The final conclusion of the chapter shows that Plotinus views multiplicity exclusively as number, which preserves it from dissipating into infinity and thus non-existence. (shrink)

This chapter analyzes the relationship between number and substance in the intelligible realm. Plotinus formulates three hypotheses about the existence of number in the intelligible: 1) number is posterior to the Forms; 2) number is simultaneous with the Forms; and 3) number is anterior to the Forms. He proves that the last hypothesis is true. Based on the distinction between substance as ontological actualization of beings and quantity as the countability of individual units, he defines two kinds of number: Substantial (...) Number, which is the activity of substance and a power of being; and Monadic Number, which enumerates individual things. As an activity of substance, the former enacts the limiting role of the Monad, while, as a power of substance, it enacts the role of the Indefinite Dyad as potentiality, limited into existence by the Monad. While substantial number actualizes the existence of that which has separated from the One in the intelligible, monadic number expresses quantitatively that which has been already defined by substantial number. Plotinus also pioneers the view of the substantial number as henad and, in turn, shapes the development of later Neoplatonic theory of number. (shrink)

This chapter examines the relationship of Substantial Number and all intelligible entities: Absolute Being as “unified number;” Intellect as “number moving in itself”; beings as “unfolded number;” and the Complete Living Being as “encompassing number.” A closer examination reveals that the four aspects of substantial number correspond to Plato’s primary kinds of rest, movement, otherness, and sameness respectively. The chapter concludes that the properties of substantial number enact the above four primary kinds, while the fifth primary kind, that of being, (...) is the common denominator which represents them all. This conclusion also elucidates the relationship of substantial number with the One and Soul, as Plotinus does not identify them with a particular property of number. Since the properties of substantial number order Intellect on the inside and since both the One and Soul stand on the outside of Intellect, they do not inherit a particular property of number. Substantial number is an ontological expression of the One “beyond Being,” which does not possess any particular characteristic. Soul, however, as an image of Intellect, possesses all the properties of substantial number. (shrink)

This book is Yount's second installment in the Bloomsbury Studies in Ancient Philosophy. It comes on the heels of his debut in the series with Plotinus the Platonist: A Comparative Account of Plato and Plotinus' Metaphysics. The titles of both works clearly indicate what is close to Yount's heart; and he delivers, here as well as previously, the same passionate defense that there is an essentially inseparable connection between the philosophies of Plato and Plotinus. This stance may come as a (...) surprise to the expert reader of late ancient philosophy. For no opinion to the contrary has been put forth in the Neoplatonic scholarship in the last 120 years if we take, with Yount, as our terminus post quem Shorey's... (shrink)

This chapter examines the relationship between Plotinus’ concept of the origin of multiplicity as “separation from the One” and Plato’s presentation of the Demiurge’s composition of the universe in the Timaeus. The two terms characterize the “top-down” approach in Ennead VI.6 and the “bottom-up” approach in the Timaeus. The two works achieve the same goal—the explanation of the universe—with the same means—according to number—but from opposite starting points. The missing conceptual link between the two approaches, the chapter discovers, is found (...) in Numenius’ concept of the Three Gods, ordering the universe: the Father, the Maker, and the Creation. The characteristics of Numenius’ First God convey the dichotomy between rest, as being and stability, and motion, as change, in the first principle. The explicit paradox of ontological stability and innate motion in Numenius’ First God is implicitly present in Plotinus’ explanation of the origin of the universe as “separation.” This chapter concludes that Plotinus induces the concept of multiplicity as a measurement of the ontological distance from the One. It also opens the possibility for stronger Neopythagorean influences. (shrink)