Many population axiologies avoid the Repugnant Conclusion by endorsing Superiority: some number of great lives is better than any number of mediocre lives. But as Nebel shows, RC follows from the Intrapersonal Repugnant Conclusion: a guaranteed mediocre life is better than a sufficiently small probability of a great life. This result is concerning because IRC is plausible. Recently, Kosonen has argued that IRC can be true while RC is false if small probabilities are discounted to zero. This article details the (...) unique problems created by combining Superiority with discounting. The resultant view, Superiority Discounting, avoids the Repugnant Conclusion only at the cost of the Preposterous Conclusion: near-certain hell for arbitrarily many people is better than near-certain heaven for arbitrarily many people. (shrink)

Kaye and Prisco draw our attention to one of the more obvious difficulties with all versions of the argument from design.

Through the comparative study of non-Anglophone translations of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, we can achieve the progressive goals of Emily Apter's “translational transnationalism” and Edward Said's “cosmopolitan humanism.” Both translation and humanism were intrinsic to Chaucer's initial composition of the Tales, and in turn, both shaped Chaucer's later reception, often in ways that did a disservice to his reputation and his verse. In this essay, Candace Barrington argues that comparative translation provides a means whereby new modes of translation, (...) like Apter's, can promote a different version of humanism, like Said's; she demonstrates this process in a brief philological study of Nazmi Ağıl's Turkish translation of The Squire's Tale. While we can see the infusion of Turkish values and perspectives in the new text, we can also see that the Turkish reveals new insights into Chaucer's subtle and nuanced use of language. (shrink)

Tracking theories see knowledge as a relation between a subject’s belief and the truth, where the former is responsive to the latter. This relationship involves causation in virtue of a sensitivity condition, which is constrained by an adherence condition. The result is what I call a stable causal relationship between a fact and a subject’s belief in that fact. I argue that when we apprehend the precise role of causation in the theory, previously obscured problems pour out. This paper presents (...) thirteen distinct and original counterexamples to Nozick’s tracking theory—many of which also constitute problems for more recent tracking theories. I begin by discussing how tracking relates to causation: Nozick invokes causation through conditions similar to those of Lewisian causal dependence. As a result, when causal dependence is not necessary for causation, Nozick fails to identify knowledge. I then address the inability of causation to capture epistemically important concepts, such as justification and truth. I conclude by discussing the underlying asymmetries between causation and knowledge that undermine any attempt to reduce knowledge to a purely metaphysical relation. (shrink)

Personal narratives have become one of the most potent vehicles for advancing human rights claims across the world. Human Rights and Narrated Lives explores what happens when autobiographical narratives are produced, received, and circulated in the field of human rights. It asks how personal narratives emerge in local settings how international rights discourse enables and constrains individual and collective subjectivities in narration how personal narratives circulate and take on new meanings in new contexts and how and under what conditions they (...) feed into, affect, and are affected by the reorganization of politics in post-cold war, postcolonial, globalizing human rights contexts. (shrink)

"Moore's provocative conclusion is that monotheism - with its monopoly on virtue and failure to provide supernatural scapegoats - is responsible for some of the most virulent forms of intolerance and is a major cause of human nastiness and suffering.

Existing studies of statutory interpretation are often of excellent quality but they have tended either to focus on legal practice to the detriment of comparative jurisprudence, or have examined legal reasoning at a level of abstraction which has made empirical study difficult. The author examines a recent development in this area and considers how it might be used to begin a project to identify any divergences in statutory interpretation among the various legal systems of the United Kingdom.

This article foregrounds the intersection between queer Islamic masculinity and Islamic female identity in Rayda Jacobs’s Confessions of a Gambler, and shows how these two identity categories are subjugated in light of dominant expressions of Islamic masculinity. The novel’s action takes place within a traditional Cape Muslim community and employs, among other literary strategies, the main protagonist’s vice of gambling and her son’s sexuality as tools to illuminate the interstitial and perilous social space occupied by women and gay men in (...) South African Muslim society. The research dissects the poignant picture that Jacobs paints of marginal identities as they exist at the intersection of religion, gender identity and sexual identity, and ultimately exhibits that homophobia and gender inequalities are not necessarily intrinsic to Islam. The article adopts a cultural studies style literary analysis. In light of this theoretical approach, this article evaluates Jacobs’s novel in a manner that goes beyond its literariness and shows how it also acts as a form of social commentary. This article also shows how the novel problematises hegemonic representations of gender and sexuality within Islam by giving voice to women and gay men: identity categories which remain largely voiceless in the dominant representations of Islam. (shrink)

The social sources of antisocial behavior; principles of social inequality; and the origins, enemies, and possibilities of rational discussion in public affairs ...

This article presents an approach for structured reflection by a designer through journal writing. The journal writing situates the agency of the designer, using a range of internal conversations as a way to expand horizons and perspectives. Through a structured approach using journal entries, experiences of the design process are introduced as reflective internal talkback. In the approach that is described, decision points and perspectives are negotiated and potentially contested through a series of voices of self as I, Me, You, (...) and We. These voices are intertwined within the journal narrative and are proposed as a useful framework for negotiating and effectively engaging with design complexity. The article introduces the conceptual backgrounds with reference to conversation as a process of learning. The specific dynamics of the journal writing approach are explained and then illustrated in a case study. The case study describes how the approach is applied for a specific design project. (shrink)

Saunders & van Brakel's claim that Berlin and Kay (1969) assumed a language/vision correlation in the area of color categorization and disguised this assumption as a finding is shown to be false. The methodology of the World Color Survey, now nearing completion, is discussed and the possibility of an additional language/vision correlation in color categorization is suggested.

Subjectivists about practical normativity hold that an agent’s favoring and disfavoring attitudes give rise to practical reasons. On this view, an agent’s normative reason to choose vanilla over chocolate ice cream ultimately turns on facts about what appeals to her rather than facts about what her options are like attitude-independently. Objectivists—who ground reasons in the attitude-independent features of the things we aim at—owe us an explanation of why it is rational to choose what we favor, if not because favoring is (...) a source of reasons. My aim in this paper is to supply such a story. The proposal is roughly that when an agent cannot base her choices on her judgments about what she has most reason to do, structural rationality extends to her a license to choose something just because she favors it, without imbuing favoring with the authority of a normative reason. (shrink)

Each book in the series includes six 40-minute studies designed to draw you into God’s Word through basic inductive Bible study.

This Australian university case study explores the transition to emergency, remote teaching (ERT) in an intensive Block Model curriculum during the COVID-19 pandemic. An online survey investigated academics’ experiences of factors that helped or hindered their transition. A thematic analysis of the data revealed a symbiotic relationship between the Block Model curriculum, professional learning, and academics’ sense of agency as they experienced their transition. We relate our findings to Whittle et al.’s 2020 framework and propose an extended framework based on (...) how teaching was influenced by the changed environment. Drawing on the extended framework, we propose lessons for the future based on how academics were reflectively adapting to ERT. In the four-week Block Model, lessons were learned and applied in the subsequent Block. Critical lessons relevant to higher education institutions include increasing diversity of effective, un-invigilated assessment types, and fostering student wellbeing by facilitating learning spaces where students connect with peers and academics. Furthermore, academics need connections with peers and safe spaces in which to debrief on evolving situations and build confidence in using new learning technologies. Professional learning fostering an emergency-informed, safe learning environment effectively reduces isolation and better prepares institutions for future emergencies. (shrink)

The Logic of Happiness guidebook explores the logic concepts introduced in the novel and includes excerpts of original works by some of the most significant philosophers in human history: the Buddha, Lao Tzu, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, Marcus Aurelius, Thomas Aquinas, David Hume, John Stuart Mill, and Charles Darwin. The readings will introduce students to an array of theories about how to achieve happiness while also teaching them to use classical logic techniques to discern whether or not those theories are sound (...) enough to be applicable in modern daily life. The guidebook also contains discussion questions that will get students thinking critically and deeply about different aspects of the philosophical theories, giving them practice examining, analyzing, and evaluating the strength of various arguments. -/- This guidebook can be used by instructors, but it is meant to be a companion book to the novel that enables students to understand the theories and beliefs of a diverse group of individuals who explored the problem of how to find happiness in a complicated world filled with complicated people. Students who work through it will find themselves more thoughtful and discerning—and more prepared to work toward establishing for themselves a life that will bring them their own happiness. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein was a brilliant, intense, complex man, and this novel, a work of historical fiction but based on fact, explores his early thinking, which led him to publish one of the most important works of logic ever written. The story is told by David Pinsent, a student in mathematics who meets Wittgenstein at Trinity College in Cambridge, England, just before World War I. Despite Wittgenstein’s odd mannerisms and difficult personality, David is attracted to him, recognizing his genius immediately and (...) forming a friendship that is as volatile as it is rewarding. Wittgenstein, under the tutelage of the eminent mathematician and philosopher Bernard Russell, has developed a picture theory of meaning to explain human language through the lens of logic, and he is tormented by the idea that he will die before he is able to put it into book form and present it to the world. -/- Both David and Ludwig are welcomed into the elite intellectual circles at Cambridge, which consist of some of the most notable philosophers, mathematicians, and logicians of the day, including not just Russell but also men like John Maynard Keynes and G.E. Moore, as well as the famous Bloomsbury Set. However, David is troubled by the mysteries that surround Wittgenstein. Ludwig, he learns, has developed an innovative propeller that can be used on a flying bomber, and David finds himself caught up in international intrigue as both England and Germany vie for the design to give them an advantage in the impending war. -/- But David and Ludwig have become both emotionally and physically intimate, and as war looms, David is forced to confront the role that their forbidden relationship plays in the escalating risks to Wittgenstein’s safety. Their story is one of tragedy and inspiration, and it aptly illustrates the deeply human core of philosophical ideas. This novel illuminates and clarifies the complex philosophical, linguistic, and mathematical issues that engaged some of the best thinkers of the early twentieth century. -/- There is an accompanying guidebook for this novel. (shrink)

Past and future coalesce in discussions of LGBTI rights, often embedded in narratives of progress, civilisation, colonisation and emancipation. An understanding of these dynamics can help to illuminate the complex power relations that currently striate international LGBTI rights discourses. This paper analyses how temporality operates in the context of international LGBTI rights through an examination of the World Bank’s withdrawal of a $90 million loan to Uganda after the passage of the Anti-Homosexuality Act 2014. To do this, the paper juxtaposes (...) postcolonial critiques of the ongoing international legal reproduction of the colonial encounter, with a Deleuzian conception of law’s ‘virtual memory’. These two theoretical lenses are used to show how attempts to advance LGBTI rights can reproduce problematic civilisational binaries, through which the Global North seeks to manage the unruly or ‘uncivilized’ Global South. These civilisational and spatial dichotomies are often obscured by un-interrogated ‘grand narratives’ of progress and by the codification of specific, narrow forms of rights protections. As such, the paper argues that in order to better advance current and future frameworks for sexual orientation and gender identity justice, we must undertake a more attentive encounter with the past. (shrink)

Discusses the issue of animal rights in regard to the use of animals in medical and scientific research, hunting, food, clothing, and entertainment.

Background Randomized controlled trials are central to generating knowledge about effectiveness of interventions as well as risk, protective and prognostic factors related to diseases in emergency newborn care. Whether prospective participants understand the purpose of research, and what they perceive as the influence of the context on their understanding of the informed consent process for RCTs in emergency obstetric and newborn care are not well documented. Methods Conceptual review. Discussion Research is necessary to identify how the illnesses may be prevented, (...) to explore the causes, and to investigate what medications could be used to manage such illness. Voluntary informed consent requires that prospective participants understand the disclose information about the research, and use this to make autonomous informed decision about participation, in line with their preferences and values. Yet the emergency context affects how information may be disclosed to prospective research participants, how much participants may comprehend, and how participants may express their voluntary decision to participate, all of which pose a threat to the validity of the informed consent. I challenge the claim that the ‘understanding’ of research is always necessary for ethical informed consent for research during emergency care. I argue for reconceptualization of the value of understanding, through recognition of other values that may be equally important. I then present a reflective perspective that frames moral reflection about autonomy, beneficence and justice in research in emergency research. Conclusion While participant ‘understanding’ of research is important, it is neither necessary nor sufficient for a valid informed consent, and may compete with other values with which it needs to be considered. (shrink)

This paper starts by investigating Ackermann's interpretation of finite set theory in the natural numbers. We give a formal version of this interpretation from Peano arithmetic (PA) to Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with the infinity axiom negated (ZF−inf) and provide an inverse interpretation going the other way. In particular, we emphasize the precise axiomatization of our set theory that is required and point out the necessity of the axiom of transitive containment or (equivalently) the axiom scheme of ∈-induction. This clarifies the (...) nature of the equivalence of PA and ZF−inf and corrects some errors in the literature. We also survey the restrictions of the Ackermann interpretation and its inverse to subsystems of PA and ZF−inf, where full induction, replacement, or separation is not assumed. The paper concludes with a discussion on the problems one faces when the totality of exponentiation fails, or when the existence of unordered pairs or power sets is not guaranteed. (shrink)

Introduction: Thinking, writing, and reading about the real -- Dialectic and the real : Lacan, Hegel, and the alchemy of après-coup -- 'Reality' and the real : culture as anamorphosis -- The real of sexual difference : imagining, thinking, being -- Ethics and the real : the ungodly virtues of psychoanalysis -- Politics, or, the art of the impossible.

Sharon M. Kaye - Passions in William Ockham's Philosophical Psychology - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:2 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.2 330-332 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Sharon Kaye John Carroll University Vesa Hirvonen. Passions in William Ockham's Philosophical Psychology. Studies in the History and Philosophy of Mind, 2. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2004. Pp. ix + 212. Cloth, €96.30. This volume is the second in a series aiming to produce monographs that "are (...) historically reliable as well as congenial to the contemporary reader" by providing "original insights into central contemporary problems" . The aim of this series is ambitious, yet sorely needed in scholarship today. As modern technology catapults our understanding of ourselves and the world into the future, history seems.. (shrink)