Could each and every one of us, instead of interacting with actual objects, really be brains in a vat? In the first chapter of his new book, Reason, Truth and History, Professor Putnam raises this and related questions with the aim of undermining what he calls the “metaphysical realist” or “externalist” conception of reality. Putnam describes metaphysical realism as a view which holds that the world consists in “some fixed totality of mind-independent objects”; truth on this view amounts to a (...) correspondence between words or thoughts and these objects. Putnam contrasts metaphysical realism with a doctrine which he names “internalism” and calls on Kant to explicate its basic ideas. Putnam claims that Kant was the first philosopher to see clearly the difficulties inherent in metaphysical realism. The doctrine of transcendental idealism, says Putnam, represents Kant’s attempt to avoid externalism. But is Kant’s doctrine really just an early version of Putnam’s internalism? In this paper I shall argue that it is not. Although Kant obviously rejects the position Putnam calls “externalism,” I shall try to show that Kant’s metaphysical theory is distinct from internalism. Kant couples transcendental idealism with a second doctrine of empirical realism, and this enables Kant to circumvent both the internalist’s coherence theory of truth as well as a simple-minded correspondence theory. To be sure, one of Kant’s major concerns is to argue against the possibility of knowing things-in-themselves; Kant thus maintains, as Putnam correctly points out, that the nature of perceivers must figure in the nature of what is perceived. But this is not to say, as Putnam implies, that there is no mind-independent reality in Kant’s theory. On the contrary, Kant’s Refutation of Idealism—an argument that strikingly resembles the first horn of Putnam’s brain-in-a-vat dilemma—is designed to establish the existence of “matter,” which is Kant’s general term for what we might call the “external” or the “mind-independent.” Kant does argue that the perception of matter must accord with space and time, the two forms of sensibility, and this is the source of his transcendental idealism. But if we take this to mean that there cannot be anything independent of our minds or of our conceptual schemes, then we miss the point of Kant’s double doctrine of transcendental idealism and empirical realism, which is intended to avoid a coherence-only theory of truth while yet affirming that objects are knowable only as appearances. Putnam, by running together a number of Kantian notions, misrepresents Kant’s position and thus fails to see that Kant does offer an alternative to both metaphysical realism and internalism. I shall begin my defense of the claim that Kant does provide a third alternative by exploring more fully the debate between Putnam and the externalist concerning the BV dilemma. I shall then explore the Refutation of Idealism to support my claim that Putnam’s internalism is distinct from transcendental idealism. We shall see in section IV that in interpreting Kant on transcendental idealism Putnam makes two crucial mistakes which lead him to equate internalism with transcendental idealism. The result of these mistakes is discussed in section V. (shrink)

Kant’s philosophy of mathematics presents two fundamental problems of interpretation: (1) Kant claims that mathematical truths or “judgments” are synthetic a priori; and (2) Kant maintains that intuition is required for generating and/or understanding mathematical statements. Both of these problems arise for us because of developments in mathematics since Kant. In particular, the axiomatization of geometry--Kant’s paradigm of mathematical thinking--has made it seem to some commentators as, for example, Russell, that both (1) and (2) are false (Russell 1919, p. 145).2 (...) If virtually all of mathematics, including geometry, is axiomatizable, it would seem that mathematics results in analytic judgments that are totally independent of sensibility, the source, according to Kant, of intuition. In this paper I will address both of these difficulties. I shall argue that Kant’s understanding of both “synthetic” and “intuition” make his position immune to these criticisms. (shrink)

This is a review essay on Carol Rovane's book The Metaphysics and Ethics of Relativism. I outline the main line of argument, clarify the central claim, raise some questions about some of the arguments, and suggest some limits on the extent to which one could see another's views as right but not accept them.

_Material Feminisms: New Directions for Education_ provides a range of powerful theoretical and innovative methodological examples to illuminate how new material feminism can be put to work in education to open up new avenues of research design and practice. It poses challenging questions about the nature of knowledge production, the role of the researcher, and the critical endeavour arising from inter- and post-disciplinarity. Working with diffractive methodologies and new materialist ecological epistemologies, the book offers resources for hope which widen the (...) scope for how educational problems are interrogated, and provides a political counter-movement to neo-positivist, outcomes-based approaches within education. Inspired by writers such as Barad, Bennett, and Deleuze and Guattari, the book makes a radical break with cognitive, dualist, and universal conceptions of human subjectivity and intelligence in education. By taking its starting point as the co-consitutiveness of discourse, materiality, corporeality, and place, the book foregrounds educational practices as material enactments of multiple, non-linear, entangled, affective, and relational forces. It offers new insights into how gender, class, and ethnicity are constituted in, and by, material assemblages that are often submerged or ‘unseen’. This book is an essential starting place for those intrigued by what new theoretical accounts of materiality, posthumanism, and affect can offer educational research. Diffractive methodologies challenge readers to take a fuller range of actors into account than in ‘objective’ humanist methodologies, and in so doing to pay closer attention to what data is. It invites researchers to engage with long-standing feminist concerns about power and knowledge production in research processes. This book was originally published as a special issue of _Gender and Education. _. (shrink)

Debates about moral judgments have raised questions about the roles of reasoning, culture, and conflict. In response, the cognitive prototype model explains that over time, through training, and as a result of cognitive development, people construct notions of blameworthy and praiseworthy behavior by abstracting out salient properties that lead to an ideal representation of each. These properties are the primary features of moral prototypes and include social context interpretation, intentionality, consent, and outcomes. According to this model, when the properties are (...) uniform and coherent, they depict a promoral or immoral prototype, relative to the orientations of the properties. A promoral prototype is represented by an action that is supported by the culture, intentionally benevolent or other-regarding, consensual, and resulting in positive outcomes. An immoral prototype is an action that is condemned by the culture, intentionally malevolent or self-serving, lacking consent, and resulting in negative outcomes. It is hypothesized that moral prototypes will result in a high level of agreement and require effortless processing. Alternatively, when properties conflict or the situation deviates from the prototype, a nonprototype will result. It is hypothesized that nonprototypical situations will act as a source of moral disagreement and may require more effortful processing. (shrink)

The article is an explication of husserl's theory of perception. In particular, The meaning of 'constitution' is analyzed, With the result that traditional realistic or idealistic readings of husserl are discarded. Examination of passive and active synthesis and the meaning of 'hyle' within the framework of husserl's theory of inner time-Consciousness clarifies in turn the nature of phenomenological intuition and the significance of reduction.

We know from the research literature that psychotherapy is effective, but we also know that hundreds of diverse therapies are being practiced that have not been subjected to scientific scrutiny; thus, in some circumstances iatrogenic effects do occur. Therefore, it is crucial that we recognize and implement therapeutic interventions that are evidence based rather than succumb to ethical dilemma, frustration, and complacency. Recommendations for family therapists are discussed, including the need to (a) keep abreast of research findings, (b) translate research (...) findings and developments as they apply to clinical practice, (c) prioritize techniques and intervention models, and (d) reexamine funding priorities and research foci. (shrink)

To illustrate the strength of Bartky's clarity of insight I focus on her discussion of shame found in two essays in Femininity and Domination. I argue that these essays as well as the other in the collection identify and offer a clear analysis of many issues central to feminism and call for Bartky to write a sequel which offers constructive suggestions of ways out.

This essay argues that making a diagnosis in medicine is essentially a hermeneutic enterprise, one in which interpretation skills play a major part in understanding a disease. The clinical encounter is an event comprised of two voices; one is the voice of science which is grounded in empiricism, the other is that of human experience, which is grounded in story-telling and the interpretation of those stories.Using two voices, one from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-III-Revised, which describes alcohol (...) abuse and alcohol dependence, and the other, that of Claire, a character in Edward Albee's play, A Delicate Balance, who is conversing with her brother-in-law, Tobias, I apply principles from Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutics to the clinical diagnostic process. The essay will demonstrate that we overlook an enormous amount of information about alcoholism by an overreliance on objective data and that our hope for understanding alcoholics is in listening to their voices, and sharing the interpretation of their experiences with them. (shrink)

What is the nature of communicative competence? Carol A. Kates addresses this crucial linguistic question, examining and finally rejecting the rationalistic theory proposed by Noam Chomsky and elaborated by Jerrold J. Katz, among others. She sets forth three reasons why the rationalistic model should be rejected: (1) it has not been supported by empirical tests; (2) it cannot accommodate the pragmatic relation between speaker and sign; and (3) the theory of universal grammar carries with it unacceptable metaphysical implications unless (...) it is interpreted in light of empiricism. Kates proposes an empiricist model in place of the rationalistic theory—a model that, in her view, is more consistent with recent findings in linguistics and psycholinguistics. In attempting to clarify the nature of utterance meaning, Kates develops theoretical perspectives on phenomenological empiricism and produces an account of reference and intentionality directly relevant to empirically based theories of speaking and understanding. Among the major topics addressed in the book are transformational-generative and universal grammar, cognitive theories of language acquisition, pragmatic structure, predication and topic-comment structure, and empiricism and the philosophical problem of universals. An innovative and probing work, Pragmatics and Semantics: An Empiricist Theory will be welcomed by philosophers, linguists, and psycholinguists. (shrink)

[opening paragraph]: My comment will focus on the following five claims of Humphrey's. At some points I will be drawing on his book A History of the Mind as well as the target article in this issue.

A Nietzschean theodicy would claimthat God has created the world exactly the wayit is in order to produce morally autonomousagents in Nietzsche's sense: self-consciousmoral subjectivists. Both atheism and a`Nietzschean theodicy' make the sameprediction: the world will appear to containgratuitous evil. Thus, observation ofapparently gratuitous evil is not evidence foror against either hypothesis. In the absenceof any other evidence for or against theism,the most reasonable position is agnosticism.

There are striking similarities between Perruchet & Vinter's SOC theory and the theories that they claim to be in opposition to. First, both kinds of theory lead to the induction of knowledge of complex patterns in the environment that serve the function of rules. Second, both involve unconscious mental processes of induction resulting in at least some conscious knowledge.

Three experiments investigated whether a motor-linked measure (string typing speed) and an judgment-linked measure (grammatical judgment of strings) accessed the same implicit learning mechanisms in the artificial grammar learning task. Participants first studied grammatical strings through observation or through responding to each letter by typing it and then performed typing and grammatical judgment tests. Grammatical judgment test performance was better after observation than after respond learning, whereas typing test performance on higher order relations was worse after observation than after respond (...) learning (Experiment 1). Participants transferred grammatical knowledge across letter sets on the grammatical judgment test, but not on the typing test (Experiment 2). Typing speed did not differ for hits (grammatical strings classified by participants as grammatical) and misses (grammatical strings classified as nongrammatical, Experiment 3). These results are consistent with typing and grammatical judgment tests tapping independent mechanisms and indicate that implicit learning may consist of many different forms of learning rather than being a unitary learning mechanism. (shrink)

A recognition of Ezekiel's skill in manipulating the power of metaphor to illumine reality helps us to grasp the subtlety, meaning, and prophetic force of his oracles against Tyre.

Relationships between self-ratings and expectations of an ideal U.S. president, were studied in 43 men drawn from a university setting in the eastern coast of the U.S.A. The men first rated themselves on personality variables, life choices (agentic and communal), peacefulness, spirituality, and morality. Then they were presented with a vignette requesting that they describe an ideal U.S. president on inventories measuring personality variables, life choices, peacefulness, spirituality, and morality. For the rating of the ideal U.S. president, they also were (...) asked to respond to a 20 item questionnaire that was a composite of several factors on organization and leadership, morality, spirituality, and peacefulness. The respondents belonged to one of seven different political persuasions, similar in some ways to different cultures. Self-ratings of the men and expectations of the president were highly correlated for extraversion, openness, trait morality, agentic and communal life choices. However, no significant correlations were found between the self-ratings and expectations of the president for neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, peacefulness, nor state morality. The men were also presented with vignettes for the ideal physician and ideal automechanic and asked to rate each of them on the inventory items. Overall, the U.S. President was rated as more neurotic and immoral in terms of ingrained ideas of right and wrong, but also as more caring for others, transcendent, seeking goodness and truth, forgiving, cooperative, and most concerned with matters of justice and mercy, and more concerned with both agentic (power-seeking) and communal (community-minded) life choices than were either the ideal physician or ideal automechanic. The ideal physician was rated as highest in extra-version, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and overall peacefulness, and lowest in neuroticism. The ideal automechanic was rated as highest in state or situational immorality, and lowest in both agentic (power-seeking, business-mindedness) and communal (community-mindedness) life choices, and also lowest in caring for others well-being, transcendence, seeking goodness and truth, forgiveness and cooperation, being concerned with justice and mercy, overall expectations, overall spirituality, and overall organization and leadership. In general, the self-ratings were significantly related to ratings/expectations, of the U.S. President, ideal physician, and ideal automechanic. The men seemed to identify more with the automechanic than with the present or physician. (shrink)

Two profound yet incompatible moral imaginations confront each other in the attempt to address Job's experience of turmoil That of the friends is grounded in a deep sense of the moral nature of creation. Job's moral imagination takes shape through an act of witness that attempts to create a community of answerability before God.