Vitalism, from its early modern to its Enlightenment forms (from Glisson and Willis to La Caze and Barthez), is notoriously opposed to intervention into the living sphere. Experiment, quantification, measurement are all ‘vivisectionist’, morally suspect and worse, they alter and warp the ‘life’ of the subject. They are good for studying corpses, not living individuals. This much is well known, and it has disqualified vitalist medicine from having a place in standard histories of medicine, until recent, post-Foucauldian maneuvers have sought (...) to change the situation (but for unrelated, contextualist reasons). What is perhaps more suprising is that if we consider the emergence of medical ‘theory’ as a whole, from Harvey through to Locke and Sydenham, is the presence of a sustained anti-experimentalist line of argument, and this from the ‘empiricist’ (not Cartesian or Boerhaavian rationalist) side. It would seem then that ‘empiricks’, medical empiricists and other protagonists of an ‘embodied empiricism’ are not Boylean experimentalists who seek to map out Nature in its transparency, but deliberately archaic, Hippocratic observers of living bodies. (shrink)

This volume brings together for the first time some of the most helpful and insightful essays on the four most influential and discussed philosophers in the history of existentialism: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre.

In this paper, I delineate two major problems facing reliabilist approaches in epistemology. I argue that Alvin Goodman's (1986) position fails to solve either problem. I then suggest an alternative reliabilist approach that ties truth-ratio assessments to particular, well-specified cognitive tasks. I claim that a well-specified cognitive task is an empirical hypothesis about a system that involves the specification of input and output types and nomic correlations (including statistical correlations) that underlie the system's performance. On my approach, one characterizes processes (...) by reference to the system's dispositions across the situations consistent with the task. Characterization is best understood as revealing a strategy or a set of strategies for generating outputs from inputs relying on certain nomic correlations associated with the task. (shrink)

Given the concern they share for the common good, both patriotic and deliberative conceptions of democracy can be said to have roots in classical republicanism. But these two modern approaches to politics are not the same. In order to show this, as well as demonstrate patriotism's superiority to deliberative democracy, I offer four criticisms of the latter: (i) its support of a theory or systematic set of procedures for conversation distorts its practice; (ii) it is ideologically biased; (iii) its distinction (...) between conversation and negotiation is overstated; and (iv) its conception of the political community, in particular, of the proper relations between the state and civil society, is impoverished. The essay concludes with the suggestion that the debate in political philosophy between patriots and deliberative democrats is itself an exemplification of patriotic, rather than deliberative, conversation. (shrink)

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In this paper, we describe causal powers realism as a conjunction of four claims: causal powers are not reducible to counterfactuals; they are empirically-discoverable; they manifest effects in conjunction with partners; and their manifestations empower further manifestations. We describe four challenges to extended mind theory and for each show how an ontology of causal powers realism either avoids or dissolves the problem. We close by suggesting that causal powers realism isn’t a competitor with extended mind theory but rather a new (...) way to understand what it means for minds to be extended. (shrink)

The title analogy.--The child who conforms.--The child who varies.--Illumination.--The perception of the presence of God.--The lettered and the learned.--The turbulent bar.--Dark till Jesus comes.--Made-over garments.

Thèse. Sciences sociales. Sciences politiques. 1991.

Three problems are raised for Nicholas Georgalis’s recent work: (1) a problem with regard to the supposed noninferential knowledge of minimal content, (2) a problem with the “necessary condition” Georgalis stipulates for the legitimate application of a first-person methodology to a science of the mind, and (3) a problem with regard to denying phenomenal content to intentional acts.

Let us now consider the third class of statements, those completely nonrestrictive. For example, "Something exists." Since this is the pure contradictory of the wholly restrictive, "Nothing exists," which we have found reason to regard as impossible, and since the contradictory of an impossible statement is necessary, we should expect "Something exists" to be necessarily true, a statement valid a priori. And we see that it excludes nothing from existence, except bare "nothing" itself. But the existence of bare nothing is (...) no existence. Further, "Something exists" is in no conceivable circumstances falsifiable, since the falsifying experience would have to exist, and it would also have to be the experience of something existing--at least if, as I should maintain, experience is essentially a relative term, requiring that to which it is relative, or of which it is the experience. But though "Something exists" is unfalsifiable, it is verified every moment. Could the verifiable but in any conceivable world absolutely unfalsifiable be false? I hold that the necessarily true must be knowable as true and only as true, and that, conversely, whatever is in principle verifiable though not falsifiable is thereby shown to be necessarily true. (shrink)

Yet this widespread agreement as to the contingency of fact conceals an important possibility of disagreement. For there is a common assumption by which the doctrine of the exclusiveness of factual truths is trivialized. This is the assumption that the excluded alternative can be merely negative. Thus: there are elephants, there might have been no elephants; there is a world, there might have been no world. What the positive fact necessarily excludes, then, is only a privation: in short it may (...) exclude literally nothing. But to exclude nothing is not really, I suggest, to exclude. Real transactions are not concerned with non-entity, and exclusion is in some sense a real transaction. If I am just here, I prevent you from being here. If elephants exist, then, in certain portions of the world at a given moment, other large animals cannot exist, for the space they might occupy is otherwise occupied. The non-being of wild elephants in North America is a partly positive fact, for it means that every portion of the land surface of that continent is covered either by some solid object different from an elephant, or by empty air. (shrink)

It has generally been assumed since the 1950s that the African elephant known to classical antiquity, and thus the one used, inter alia, by Carthage and Ptolemaic Egypt, is the forest elephant, which is even smaller in stature than the Asian or Indian elephant. Yet a recent scientific study using DNA evidence has asserted that it was the larger bush or savannah elephant that was used in antiquity. This study adduces literary sources pertaining to habitat and representational evidence to explore (...) the issue of the most likely species of African elephant known to the ancient Mediterranean world. (shrink)

An argument has been made for identifying Mill as an individualistic thinker. Certainly, A System of Logic develops views, such as methodological individualism and a conception of the ‘art of life’, which portray persons as having unique essences that, when supported by autonomous choices with respect to life experiments, reveal their individuality. These views are at least loosely applied in later works. Principles of Political Economy treats economic aspects of social life frequently in terms consistent with those of classical economists (...) for whom the self-interested actions of individuals achieve economic growth. On Liberty, the flagship volume in this view, and, less centrally, The Subjection of Women provide impressive testimony for an individualistic way of life in terms of its contributions to social progress. Considerations on Representative Government examines means for institutionalizing an individualistic way of life. And Utilitarianism provides a basis for justifying an individualistic view of this social programme: more satisfaction of individual desires. But such an account, Mill's own assessment notwithstanding, would be unsatisfactory. (shrink)

Abstract John Breuilly's Nationalism and the State provides an indispensable guide to the history of nationalist doctrines and practices since 1800. Yet it misses a crucial dynamic. Top?down nationalizing efforts by European rulers generated bottom?up demands for autonomy or independence by political entrepreneurs claiming to represent distinct nations. Those demands gained credibility and strength when third parties such as great powers and international organizations validated them. This process established an evolving international procedure and an incentive structure that promote top?down suppression (...) of minorities, bottom?up bids for recognition, and violent struggles among the parties. (shrink)

The authors of the ‘Conversational Rollercoaster’ article give a vivid and engaging account of a difficult but worthwhile exercise: bringing live Conversation Analysis to the public in a Science Fair. Part of their motivation is a claim that CA is uniquely qualified for such exhibition: as a mode of enquiry, it has what they call a ‘public ethos’. I examine that part of their case and suggest that it might not be as waterproof as it appears. But, such qualms ought (...) not detract from the positive benefits of sharing CA’s attractions with the public. The manifest success of the event, and its grounding in solid CA practice, is enough reason to hope that others will be inspired to follow in these pioneers’ footsteps. (shrink)