Tracing Walter Benjamin's convergences with, and divergences from, influential German theorist Carl Schmitt, this edited collection places his thinking in the context of broader 20th century political philosophy of his time, and examines the question of whether Benjamin presents the possibility for a distinctive political theology, mapping the coordinates of this question without collapsing the tensions internal to Benjamin's thought. This volume brings together a host of multifaceted contributions that explore why Benjamin has been a fertile source for thinking about (...) political theology and the possibilities that this new perspective brings to light. (shrink)

Evolutionary fitness threats and rewards are associated with subjectively unpleasant and pleasant sensations, respectively. Initially, these correlations appear explainable via adaptation by natural selection. But here I analyse the major metaphysical perspectives on consciousness – physicalism, dualism, and panpsychism – and conclude that none help to understand the adaptive-seeming correlations via adaptation. I also argue that a recently proposed explanation, the phenomenal powers view, has major problems that mean it cannot explain the adaptive-seeming correlations via adaptation either. So the mystery (...) – call it the evolutionary paradox of consciousness – remains. Some have used this mystery to argue for non-naturalistic (e.g. theistic) explanations. But I propose a naturalistic, non-adaptive explanation of the adaptive-seeming correlations: namely, ‘sensational associative learning’ during development. In this perspective, pairing of particular sensations with unconditioned stimuli – fitness rewards or threats – cause the sensations themselves to come to be interpreted as good or bad, respectively. Sensations, like colours, that are not reliably paired with either fitness rewards or threats remain largely unvalenced. Sensational associative learning also provides explanations for adaptive-seeming structural aspects of sensations, such as the observation that sounds of different pitch are experienced as ordinal in correspondence to their wavelengths while the same is not true of colours of different hue. The sensational associative learning perspective appears compatible with physicalism, panpsychism, and dualism (though not epiphenomenalism). (shrink)

Burt's argument relies on a motte-and-bailey fallacy. Burt aims to argue against the value of genetics for social science; instead she argues against certain interpretations of a specific kind of genetics tool, polygenic scores (PGSs). The limitations, previously identified by behavioural geneticists including ourselves, do not negate the value of PGSs, let alone genetics in general, for social science.

This paper discusses the connection between the actual history of mathematics and Lakatos's philosophy of mathematics, in three parts. The first points to studies by Lakatos and others which support his conception of mathematics and its history. In the second I suggest that the apparent poverty of Lakatosian examples may be due to the way in which the history of mathematics is usually written. The third part argues that Lakatos is right to hold philosophy accountable to history, even if Lakatos's (...) own view of mathematics fails that test. (shrink)

Ender Wiggin spends much of Ender's Game playing games of one sort or another. These range from simple role‐playing games with his siblings (“buggers and astronauts”), to battleroom contests, to the strange free play Giant's Drink video game in which he must kill a giant and confront his deepest fears. This chapter examines the role that games play in Ender's development as both a military commander and as a human being. It considers a number of interrelated questions: What is a (...) game? Is it really appropriate to call Battle School activities “games,” given how serious they are? What is the relationship between a good game and the development of a good person?. (shrink)

This volume consists of fourteen chapters selected from papers presented at the conference 'Ethics, Medicine and Health Care: An Appraisal of the Thought of H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr.' along with a response to those chapters by Engelhardt and a Foreword by Laurence B. McCullough. The chapters direct primary attention to various aspects of Engelhardt's philosophy of medicine and bioethics as presented in The Foundations of Bioethics and Bioethics and Secular Humanism: The Search for a Common Morality. Among the topics treated (...) are the economics of health care and the medical profession, the libertarian and communitarian aspects of Engelhardt's thought, the moral status of children, abortion, the moral foundations for a health care system, feminism and clinical epistemology, and the relation between secular and religious moralities. In response to the various challenges posed by the authors, Engelhardt considers the implications of the failure of the modern philosophical project, the role of reason in ethics, and the resolution of conflict among communities that do not share the same moral vision. The book will be of interest to professionals in medicine, philosophy, theology, health policy, and law, and to graduate students in those disciplines. (shrink)

The UK Arts and Humanities Research Council has agreed to fund a series of three meetings with associated publications on mathematical cultures. This note describes the project.

In The Structure of Scientific Inference, Mary Hesse has argued for a realist interpretation of science. Her realism, however, is not to be understood in the context of the traditional realist/instrumentalist debate within the philosophy of science. That debate focused on the question of whether or not science did anything other than systematize the empirical data given in our experience. The traditional realist answered “yes” and most frequently described the theoretical statements of science, not only as true, but also as (...) providing descriptions of the world. The instrumentalist on the other hand answered “no” and ascribed no descriptive force to the theoretical statements of science. However, according to Hesse, neither party in the contemporary realism debate assumes the notion of an empirical given. Consequently, the present dispute must be understood as taking place on a level which is logically prior to its predecessor. (shrink)

Bas van Fraassen has formulated a semantical or model theoretic analysis of the structure of scientific theories. He contrasts his semantical approach with the syntactic approach of the logical positivists and argues that his theory is preferable on a number of grounds. The aims of this paper are threefold. First, a brief description of van Fraassen's approach is presented. Secondly, his theory is compared with that of the logical positivists and, in so doing, the virtues that van Fraassen believes recommend (...) his theory over the positivist theory are identified. Finally, an objection that is positivist in spirit is raised which suggests that, epistemically, his account is indistinguishable from classical historicism. (shrink)

This article begins with a criticism of Mclntyre and Gorovitz's account of medical error. Their theory implies that error, at least sometimes, it a necessary consequence of the inductive character of medical inquiry. The counter intuitive consequences of this account suggest that the issues surrounding induction may not be the most fertile area for developing a coherent interpretation of medical error. Given these shortcomings, I develop a new theory which assumes that the best philosophical soil for constructing a theory of (...) medical trror is the problem of universals. I then explain the problem and how the medical universal functions within arguments concerning diagnosis and treatment. A Wittgensteinian solution to the problem is presented which emphasizes the "borderline" character of some, if not many, medical judgments. Next, an argument is offered to establish that questions of medical error are not purely professional questions. This is because the theories used to make such professional judgments permit borderline cases even under the best circumstances. Finally, while there are a number of legitimate responses to this situation, I recommend one which involves legislative action. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

This is a review of What is a Mathematical Concept? edited by Elizabeth de Freitas, Nathalie Sinclair, and Alf Coles. In this collection of sixteen chapters, philosophers, educationalists, historians of mathematics, a cognitive scientist, and a mathematician consider, problematise, historicise, contextualise, and destabilise the terms ‘mathematical’ and ‘concept’. The contributors come from many disciplines, but the editors are all in mathematics education, which gives the whole volume a disciplinary centre of gravity. The editors set out to explore and reclaim the (...) canonical question ‘what is a mathematical concept?’ from the philosophy of mathematics. This review comments on each paper in the collection. (shrink)

BackgroundThe evolution of the female orgasm in humans and its role in romantic relationships is poorly understood. Whereas the male orgasm is inherently linked to reproduction, the female orgasm is not linked to obvious reproductive or survival benefits. It also occurs less consistently during penetrative sex than does the male orgasm. Mate-choice hypotheses posit that the wide variation in female orgasm frequency reflects a discriminatory mechanism designed to select high-quality mates.ObjectiveWe aimed to determine whether women report that their orgasm frequency (...) varies between partners, whether this variation reflects mates' personal characteristics, and whether this variation reflects own and partner sexual behaviour during intercourse.DesignWe collected survey data from 103 women who rated the extent to which their orgasm frequency varied between partners, the characteristics of previous sexual partners who induced high-orgasm frequency and those who induced low-orgasm frequency,... (shrink)

In 1916, Walter Benjamin reportedly said to Gerhard Scholem that any "philosophy of my own … will somehow be a philosophy of Judaism."1 Scholem never accuses Benjamin of abandoning this desideratum. Benjamin's writings on Franz Kafka take on permutations, however, that very much bother Scholem.2 Benjamin's writings on Kafka undergo significant changes, but Scholem's disagreement constantly accompanies them.The German word "Missetäter," like its English counterpart "miscreant," historically refers to someone who has deviated from the true religious way.3 If there is (...) a miscreant justice of literature for Benjamin's writings on Kafka, it is an attentiveness to—a studying of—what is otherwise denigrated... (shrink)

In Kafka's work, Benjamin detects a gesture of shame, which he characterizes as historico-philosophic (geschichtsphilosophisch). He considers Kafka's gesture of shame to be philosophic in its opposition to myth, which is closure concerning history. In its elaboration of Kafka's gesture, moreover, Benjamin's analysis itself becomes a gesture of shame and thus somehow “literary.” This does not detract from the notion that the gesture—in Kafka's work and in Benjamin's criticism—remains philosophic. Kafka's literary work is philosophic in shaming mythic interpretations of it; (...) Benjamin's philosophic criticism continues this gesture by advancing shame about mythic tendencies either in the work or in its reception. Without pathos, Kafka presents astonished shame at mythic human order and is attentive to exceptions to, deviations from, such order. Benjamin's criticism continues the latter attentiveness, but the attentiveness, the philosophic element in Kafka's literature, is also betrayed by Benjamin in some respects. (shrink)

Walter Benjamin’s writings are often read in terms of their emphasis on undecidability. This article focuses on Benjamin’s view of decision as a philosophic capacity to suspend recognizable myth. Myth is recognizable as closure. Myth becomes recognizable as myth when exceptions and extremes arise in relation to it. Without necessarily following the specific exception or extreme (which may itself be mythic), philosophy is a politics that is attuned to the capacity of an exception or extreme to perform the limit of (...) a specific mythic form. In elaborating philosophically impelled decision as a capacity to take exception to myth, the article compares Benjamin’s works with writings by Agamben, Schmitt, Hiller, Sorel, Derrida and others. At various points in the article, and especially towards the end, the discussion of the notion of philosophic decision includes consideration of ways in which aspects of Benjamin’s enmity to myth might themselves become mythic, unphilosophic. (shrink)

Philosophy and Kafka is a collection of original essays interrogating the relationship of literature and philosophy. The essays either discuss specific philosophical commentaries on Kafka’s work, consider the possible relevance of certain philosophical outlooks for examining Kafka’s writings, or examine Kafka’s writings in terms of a specific philosophical theme, such as communication and subjectivity, language and meaning, knowledge and truth, the human/animal divide, justice, and freedom.

In the svārthānumāna chapter of his Pramāṇavārttika, the Buddhist philosopher Dharmakīrti presented a defense of his claim that legitimate inference must rest on a metaphysical basis if it is to be immune from the risks ordinarily involved in inducing general principles from a finite number of observations. Even if one repeatedly observes that x occurs with y and never observes y in the absence of x, there is no guarantee, on the basis of observation alone, that one will never observe (...) y in the absence of x at some point in the future. To provide such a guarantee, claims Dharmakīrti, one must know that there is a causal connection between x and y such that there is no possibility of y occurring in the absence of x. In the course of defending this central claim, Dharmakīrti ponders how one can know that there is a causal relationship of the kind necessary to guarantee a proposition of the form “Every y occurs with an x.” He also dismisses an interpretation of his predecessor Dignāga whereby Dignāga would be claiming non-observation of y in the absence of x is sufficient to warrant to the claim that no y occurs without x. The present article consists of a translation of kārikās 11–38 of Pramānavārttikam, svārthānumānaparicchedaḥ along with Dharmakīrti’s own prose commentary. The translators have also provided an English commentary, which includes a detailed introduction to the central issues in the translated text and their history in the literature before Dharmakīrti. (shrink)

A book review of Léa Veinstein, Les philosophes lisent Kafka: Benjamin, Arendt, Adorno, Anders.