An epistemic duty would be a duty to believe, disbelieve, or withhold judgment from a proposition, and it would be grounded in purely evidential or epistemic considerations. If I promise to believe it is raining, my duty to believe is not epistemic. If my evidence is so good that, in light of it alone, I ought to believe it is raining, then my duty to believe supposedly is epistemic. I offer a new argument for the claim that there are no (...) epistemic duties. Though people do sometimes have duties to believe, disbelieve, or withhold judgment from propositions, those duties are never grounded in purely epistemic considerations. (shrink)

Throughout much of the twentieth century, the relationship between analytic and continental philosophy has been one of disinterest, caution or hostility. Recent debates in philosophy have highlighted some of the similarities between the two approaches and even envisaged a post-continental and post-analytic philosophy. Opening with a history of key encounters between philosophers of opposing camps since the late nineteenth century - from Frege and Husserl to Derrida and Searle - the book goes on to explore in detail the main methodological (...) differences between the two approaches. This covers a very wide range of topics, from issues of style and clarity of exposition to formal methods arising from logic and probability theory. The final section of this book presents a balanced critique of the two schools' approaches to key issues such as time, truth, subjectivity, mind and body, language and meaning, and ethics. "Analytic versus Continental" is the first sustained analysis of both approaches to philosophy, examining the limits and possibilities of each. It provides a clear overview of a much-disputed history and, in highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of both traditions, also offers future directions for both continental and analytic philosophy. (shrink)

We might suppose it is not only instrumentally valuable for beliefs to be true, but that it is intrinsically valuable – truth makes a non-derivative, positive contribution to a belief's overall value. Some intrinsic goods are better than others, though, and this article considers the question of how good truth is, compared to other intrinsic goods. I argue that truth is the worst of all intrinsic goods; every other intrinsic good is better than it. I also suggest the best explanation (...) for truth's inferiority is that it is not really an intrinsic good at all. It is intrinsically neutral. (shrink)

Case-based instruction is a stable feature of ethics education, however, little is known about the attributes of the cases that make them effective. Emotions are an inherent part of ethical decision-making and one source of information actively stored in case-based knowledge, making them an attribute of cases that likely facilitates case-based learning. Emotions also make cases more realistic, an essential component for effective case-based instruction. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of emotional case content, and complementary (...) socio-relational case content, on case-based knowledge acquisition and transfer on future ethical decision-making tasks. Study findings suggest that emotional case content stimulates retention of cases and facilitates transfer of ethical decision-making principles demonstrated in cases. (shrink)

Several of the contributions to the Lynch et al. Special issue make the claim that conversation-analytic research into epistemics is ‘routinely crafted at the expense of actual, produced and constitutive detail, and what that detail may show us’. Here, we seek to address the inappositeness of this critique by tracing precisely how it is that recognizable actions emerge from distinct practices of interaction. We begin by reviewing some of the foundational tenets of conversation-analytic theory and method – including the relationship (...) between position and composition, and the making of collections – as these appear to be primary sources of confusion for many of the contributors to the Lynch et al. Special Issue. We then target some of the specific arguments presented in the Special Issue, including the alleged ‘over-hearer’s’ writing of metrics, the provision of so-called ‘alternative’ analyses and the supposed ‘crafting’ of generalizations in epistemics research. In addition, in light of Lynch’s more general assertion that conversation analysis has recently been experiencing a ‘rapprochement’ with what he disparagingly refers to as the ‘juggernaut’ of linguistics, we discuss the specific expertise that linguists have to offer in analyzing particular sorts of interactional detail. The article as a whole thus illustrates that, rather than being produced ‘at the expense of actual, produced and constitutive detail’, conversation-analytic findings – including its work in epistemics – are unambiguously anchored in such detail. We conclude by offering our comments as to the link between CA and linguistics more generally, arguing that this relationship has long proven to be – and indeed continues to be – a mutually beneficial one. (shrink)

This paper argues against the almost universally held view that truth is an instrumentally valuable property of beliefs. For truth to be instrumentally valuable in the way usually supposed, it must play a causal role in the satisfaction of our desires. As it happens, truth can play no such role, because it is screened off from causal relevance by some of the truth-like properties first discussed by Stephen Stich. Because it is not causally relevant to the success of our actions, (...) truth is not instrumentally valuable in the way usually supposed. (shrink)

This paper argues against the realization principle, which reifies the realization relation between lower-level and higher-level properties. It begins with a review of some principles of naturalistic metaphysics. Then it criticizes some likely reasons for embracing the realization principle, and finally it argues against the principle directly. The most likely reasons for embracing the principle depend on the dubious assumption that special science theories cannot be true unless special science predicates designate properties. The principle itself turns out to be false (...) because the realization relation fails the naturalistic test for reality: it makes no causal difference to the world.Footnote11This paper resulted from work done at John Heil's 2006 Mind and Metaphysics NEH Summer Seminar at Washington University in St. Louis. An early version of it was presented in a special symposium on realization at the 2007 meeting of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology. I owe thanks to all the participants in both events for helpful discussions, and I owe particular thanks to Ken Aizawa, Torin Alter, Jason Ford, Carl Gillett, John Heil, Nicholas Helms, Pete Mandik, John Post, Gene Witmer, Michelle Wrenn, Tad Zawidzki, and two anonymous referees for the AJP. (shrink)

Forty years of experimentation on class inclusion and its probabilistic relatives have led to inconsistent results and conclusions about human reasoning. Recent research on the conjunction "fallacy" recapitulates this history. In contrast to previous results, we found that a majority of participants adhere to class inclusion in the classic Linda problem. We outline a theoretical framework that attributes the contradictory results to differences in statistical sophistication and to differences in response mode-whether participants are asked for probability estimates or ranks-and propose (...) two precise cognitive algorithms for ranking probabilities. Our framework allows us to make novel predictions about when and why people adhere to class inclusion. Evidence obtained in several studies supports these predictions and demonstrates that the proposed ranking algorithms can account for about three-quarters of participants' inferences in the Linda problem. (shrink)

Philip Kitcher has argued for a causal correspondence view of truth, as against a deflationary view, on the grounds that the former is better poised than the latter to explain systematically successful patterns of action. Though Kitcher is right to focus on systematically successful action, rather than singular practical successes, he is wrong to conclude that causal correspondence theories are capable of explaining systematic success. Rather, I argue, truth bears no explanatory relation to systematic practical success. Consequently, the causal correspondence (...) view is not in a better position to explain success than the deflationary view; theories of truth are the wrong place to look for explanations of systematic practical success. (shrink)

In this paper, we consider the implications of Grace de Laguna and Joel Katzav's work for the charge of conservatism against the analytic tradition. We differentiate that conservatism into three kinds: starting place; path dependency; and modesty. We also think again about gender in philosophy, consider the positive account of speculative philosophy presented by de Laguna and Katzav in comparison to some other naturalist trajectories, and conclude with a brief Australian addendum that reflects on a similar period in our own (...) country which was also associated with the professional institutionalisation of analytic philosophy. (shrink)

About 25 years ago, it came to light that a single combinatorial property determines both an important dividing line in model theory and machine learning. The following years saw a fruitful exchange of ideas between PAC-learning and the model theory of NIP structures. In this article, we point out a new and similar connection between model theory and machine learning, this time developing a correspondence between stability and learnability in various settings of online learning. In particular, this gives many new (...) examples of mathematically interesting classes which are learnable in the online setting. (shrink)

Laurence BonJour has recently proposed a novel and interesting approach to the problem of induction. He grants that it is contingent, and so not a priori, that our patterns of inductive inference are reliable. Nevertheless, he claims, it is necessary and a priori that those patterns are highly likely to be reliable, and that is enough to ground an a priori justification induction. This paper examines an important defect in BonJour's proposal. Once we make sense of the claim that inductive (...) inference is "necessarily highly likely" to be reliable, we find that it is not knowable a priori after all. (shrink)

According to strong pluralist theories of truth, ‘true’ designates different properties depending on which sentences it’s applied to. An influential objection to strong pluralism claims it can’t make sense of logically complex sentences whose components have different truth-properties. For example, if ‘true’ designates correspondents for ‘Tabby is a cat’, and it designates coherence for ‘Tabby is beautiful’, what does it designate for ‘Tabby is a beautiful cat’ (Tappolet 1997)? Will Gamester (2019) has proposed a novel pluralist theory meant to avoid (...) the problem. The theory construes ‘true’ as designating a different property for each possible logical structure, and he has challenged monists to identify shortcomings of the theory in virtue of its pluralism. This paper answers Gamester’s challenge and identifies three such shortcomings. (1) The theory can’t make sense of the idea that all true conjunctions share the property of having true conjuncts, in virtue of which they are true. (2) The theory imposes unmotivated syntactic constraints on the language in which the theory of truth is formulated. (3) Avoiding the second shortcoming requires arbitrary choices among equally good candidates for “the” logical form of sentences and hence the designation of ‘true’ as applied to them. (shrink)

According to a common objection to epistemological naturalism, no empirical, scientific theory of knowledge can be normative in the way epistemological theories need to be. In response, such naturalists as W.V. Quine have claimed naturalized epistemology can be normative by emulating engineering disciplines and addressing the relations of causal efficacy between our cognitive means and ends. This paper evaluates that "engineering reply" and finds it a mixed success. Based on consideration of what it might mean to call a theory "normative," (...) seven versions of the normativity objection to epistemological naturalism are formulated. The engineering reply alone is sufficient to answer only the four least sophisticated versions. To answer the others, naturalists must draw on more resources than their engineering reply alone provides. (shrink)

In ‘Epistemic Folkways and Scientific Epistemology’Goldman offers a theory of justification inspired by the exemplar account of concept representation. I discuss the connection and conclude that the analogy does not support the theory offered. I then argue that Goldman's rule consequentialist framework for analysis is vulnerable to a problem of epistemic access, and use this to present an analysis of justification as an indicator concept we use to track how well the evaluated agent is doing with respect to the primary (...) epistemic norm of believing truths and not falsehoods. A theory of justification along these lines is then given, and its prospects of handling the evil demon objection to reliabilism are assessed. (shrink)

W.V. Quine is committed to the claim that all beliefs are rationally revisable; Jerrold Katz has argued that this commitment is unstable on grounds of self-application. The subsequent discussion of this issue has largely proceeded in terms of the logic of belief revision, but there is also an issue here for the treatment of Quine’s views in a doxastic modal system. In this paper I explore the treatment of Quinean epistemology in modal terms. I argue that a set of formal (...) revisability desiderata can be distilled from Quine’s epistemic writings, and that there are demonstrably coherent and non-trivial systems that meet these conditions. (shrink)

ABSTRACT According to a prominent objection, deflationist theories of truth can’t account for the explanatory connection between true belief and successful action [Putnam 1978]. Canonical responses to the objection show how to reformulate truth-involving explanations of particular successful actions, so as to omit any mention of truth [Horwich 1998]. According to recent critics, though, the canonical strategy misses the point. The deflated paraphrases lack the generality or explanatory robustness of the original explanatory appeals to truth [Kitcher 2002; Lynch 2009; Gamester (...) 2018]. This article diagnoses the canonical response’s failure and shows how deflationists can make sense of appeals to truth in explaining practical success, in all of their generality and robustness, without construing truth as a substantial property. (shrink)

In this paper, we examine the historical relationship between phenomenology and the emerging analytic tradition. We pay particular attention to the reception of Husserl’s work by Russell, Moore, and others, and to some convergences between phenomenology and ordinary language philosophy, noted by Wittgenstein, Austin, and Ryle. Focusing on Russell and Ryle, we argue that the historical details suggest an alternative parsing of the ways to the “parting of the ways” narrative made famous by Dummett but also committed to by many (...) others, in which we start from a common source or origin only to have two increasingly divergent inheritances of philosophy that have next to nothing in common, like the Rhine and the Danube. We will show that the period thought to be prior to the “gulf” does not evince the sort of philosophical unity and commonality of purpose sometimes ascribed to it, and that the period of socio-political institution of the ‘divide’ post World War Two, is both historically and philosophically much more complicated than is usually thought, with the ostensible rivers being rather more intertwined than is often supposed. (shrink)

The core of alethic pluralism is the idea that truth is a different property in some discourses from others. Orthodox pluralists such as Crispin Wright and Michael Lynch share three commitments that motivate their view. One is Ecumenicalism, the view that scientific and moral claims are both truth-apt. The second is Occasional Realism, the view that truth in science is a matter of justification-independent, accurate representation, while truth in ethics is a matter of ideal epistemic justifiability. The third is Normativism, (...) the view that truth-attributions are normative in a way deflationary theories cannot accommodate. This paper articulates the “aletheiological dilemma” for orthodox pluralists. The dilemma arises when we ask whether the truth-property relevant to truth-attributions is epistemic. Occasional Realism requires it not be, but Normativism and the pluralists’ other commitments require truth for truth-attributions to be a matter of ideal justifiability. The paper also considers some ways around the dilemma, none of which looks very promising for pluralists. (shrink)

An investigation of the views on space and time of the Russian polymath Pavel Florensky. After a brief account of his life, I study Florensky’s conception of time in The Meaning of Idealism, where he first confronts Einstein’s theory of special relativity, comparing it to Plato’s metaphor of the Cave and Goethe’s myth of the Mothers. Later, in his Analysis of spatiality and time, Florensky speaks of a person’s biography as a four-dimensional unity, in which the temporal coordinate is examined (...) in sections. In On the Imaginaries in Geometry, Florensky argues that the speed of light is not, as in Relativity, an absolute speed limit in the universe. When bodies approach and then surpass the speed of light, they are transformed into unextended, eternal Platonic forms. Beyond this point, time runs in reverse, effects precede their causes, and efficient causality is transformed into final or teleological causality, a concept on which Florensky elaborates in his Iconostasis. Florensky thus transformed the findings of Einsteinian relativity in order to make room for Plato’s intelligible Ideas, the Aristotelian distinction between a changing realm of earth and the immutable realm of the heavens, and the notion of teleology or final causation. His notion that man can approximate God’s vision of past, present and future all at once, as if from above, is reminiscent of Boethius’ ideas. (shrink)

En este artículo se investigan los orígenes griegos y latinos de la máxima escolástica que dicta que lo primero en la composición es lo último en la resolución. Estudio a la tradición que sostuvo que la síntesis procede de lo anterior a lo posterior, mientras que el análisis procede de lo posterior a lo anterior. En primer lugar, busco los orígenes de estas nociones en las matemáticas griegas. Posteriormente me ocupo de autores del platonismo medio, quienes identificaron el análisis con (...) la diairesis platónica. Paso después a un breve estudio de las nociones de análisis y síntesis en algunos neoplatónicos. Muestro que tanto la versión matemática como la filosófica del método analítico/sintético se asoció con varios contextos nuevos. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: With a view to suggesting the possible relevance of Aristotelian thought to current notions of complexity and self-organization, studies Aristotlenard cells, and the theories of Schneider, Kay, and D. Sagan.

We set up a general context in which one can prove Sauer-Shelah type lemmas. We apply our general results to answer a question of Bhaskar [1] and give a slight improvement to a result of Malliaris and Terry [7]. We also prove a new Sauer-Shelah type lemma in the context of op-rank, a notion of Guingona and Hill [4].

Examines the life of Elie Halevy who was a historian in the grand tradition of Thucydides, the philosophe manque.

Epistemic teleology is the view that (a) some states have fundamental epistemic value, and (b) all other epistemic value and obligation are to be understood in terms of promotion of or conduciveness to such fundamentally valuable states. Veritistic reliabilism is a paradigm case: It assigns fundamental value to true belief, and it makes all other assessments of epistemic value or justification in terms of the reliable acquisition of beliefs that are true rather than false. Teleology faces potentially serious problems from (...) cases of cross-propositional tradeoffs and cases of epistemic self-promotion. Both are cases in which committing some intuitive epistemic ill (such as believing against one’s evidence) promotes the greater epistemic good. It can seem that epistemic teleologies must incorrectly endorse intuitively unjustified beliefs as justified in such cases. This paper defends epistemic teleology on two fronts. First, I argue that the problems of tradeoffs and self-promotion do not affect minimally plausible epistemic teleologies. Second, I rehearse some of what I take to be the main reasons to prefer epistemic teleology to alternative views. A theme that develops along the way is that plausible teleologies evaluate belief-forming methods by appeal to their promotion of epistemic goals, but they evaluate individual beliefs by appeal to their causal histories. That is the feature that enables them to avoid tradeoff problems, without abandoning teleology and without resorting to ad hoc epicycles. (shrink)

Given a choice between two sealed envelopes, one of which contains twice as much money as the other (and in any case some), you don't know which contains the larger sum and so choose one at random. You are then given the option of taking the other envelope instead. Is it rational to do so? Surely not. but a specious line of reasoning suggests otherwise.

This article studies the debate between the Neoplatonist philosophers Simplicius and John Philoponus on the question of the eternity of the world. The first part consists in a historical introduction situating their debate within the context of the conflict between Christians and Pagan in the Byzantine Empire of the first half of the sixth century. Particular attention is paid to the attitudes of these two thinkers to Aristotle's attempted proofs of the eternity of motion and time in Physics 8.1. The (...) second part traces the origins, structure and function of a particular argument used by Philoponus to argue for the world's creation within time. Philoponus takes advantage of a tension inherent in Aristotle's theory of motion, between his standard view that all motion and change is continuous and takes place in time, and his occasional admission that at least some kinds of motion and change are instantaneous. For Philoponus, God's creation of the world is precisely such an instantaneous change: it is not a motion on the part of the Creator, but is analogous to the activation of a state, which is timeless and implies no change on the part of the agent. The various transformations of this doctrine at the hands of Peripatetic, Neoplatonic, and Islamic commentators are studied, as is Philoponus' use of it in his debate against Proclus. (shrink)

This article provides the first detailed account of Mark Hovell’s The Chartist Movement, focusing on the overall achievement of the work as published in 1918, contemporary reactions to the circumstances of its production, and the ways in which Hovell’s research cemented twentieth-century dominant narratives around the rise and fall of Chartism. The article also offers a counterfactual evaluation of Hovell’s manuscript, focusing on the probable direction of his vision of Chartism, and suggesting how the work completed by Hovell might have (...) looked compared with the version eventually produced by Tout. (shrink)

What do you know when you know what a sentence means? According to some theories, understanding a sentence is, in part, knowing its truth-conditions. Dorit Bar-On, Claire Horisk, and William Lycan have defended such theories on the grounds of an “epistemic determination argument”. That argument turns on the ideas that understanding a sentence, along with knowledge of the non-linguistic facts, suffices to know its truth-value, and that being able to determine a sentence’s truth-value given knowledge of the non-linguistic facts is (...) knowing its truth-conditions. I argue that the EDA withstands the objections recently raised by Daniel Cohnitz and Jaan Kangilaski, but fails for other reasons. It equivocates between a fine-grained and a coarse grained conception of “facts.”. (shrink)

Extract from Hofstadter's revew in Bulletin of American Mathematical Society : http://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1980-02-02/S0273-0979-1980-14752-7/S0273-0979-1980-14752-7.pdf -/- "Aaron Sloman is a man who is convinced that most philosophers and many other students of mind are in dire need of being convinced that there has been a revolution in that field happening right under their noses, and that they had better quickly inform themselves. The revolution is called "Artificial Intelligence" (Al)-and Sloman attempts to impart to others the "enlighten- ment" which he clearly regrets not (...) having experienced earlier himself. Being somewhat of a convert, Sloman is a zealous campaigner for his point of view. Now a Reader in Cognitive Science at Sussex, he began his academic career in more orthodox philosophy and, by exposure to linguistics and AI, came to feel that all approaches to mind which ignore AI are missing the boat. I agree with him, and I am glad that he has written this provocative book. The tone of Sloman's book can be gotten across by this quotation (p. 5): "I am prepared to go so far as to say that within a few years, if there remain any philosophers who are not familiar with some of the main developments in artificial intelligence, it will be fair to accuse them of professional incom- petence, and that to teach courses in philosophy of mind, epistemology, aesthetics, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, ethics, metaphysics, and other main areas of philosophy, without discussing the relevant aspects of artificial intelligence will be as irresponsible as giving a degree course in physics which includes no quantum theory." -/- (The author now regrets the extreme polemical tone of the book.). (shrink)

Alethic pluralists often claim that truth is not only relevant to normative evaluations, but inherently normative. I raise a problem for such versions of pluralism, based on the dual phenomena of “blindspots” and “brightspots.” If truth is inherently a kind of fitness for belief, then all true propositions should be fit for belief, and no false ones should be. Blindspots, however, are true propositions that can’t be the content of true beliefs. I argue that they aren’t fit for belief. Similarly, (...) brightspots are false propositions that can’t be the contents of false beliefs. They are fit for belief. I also consider some moves alethic pluralists might make to avoid the problem. (shrink)

Organizational leaders face environmental challenges and pressures that put them under ethical risk. Navigating this ethical risk is demanding given the dynamics of contemporary organizations. Traditional models of ethical decision-making (EDM) are an inadequate framework for understanding how leaders respond to ethical dilemmas under conditions of uncertainty and equivocality. Sensemaking models more accurately illustrate leader EDM and account for individual, social, and environmental constraints. Using the sensemaking approach as a foundation, previous EDM models are revised and extended to comprise a (...) conceptual model of leader EDM. Moreover, the underlying factors in the model are highlighted—constraints and strategies. Four trainable, compensatory strategies (emotion regulation, self-reflection, forecasting, and information integration) are proposed and described that aid leaders in navigating ethical dilemmas in organizations. Empirical examinations demonstrate that tactical application of the strategies may aid leaders in making sense of complex and ambiguous ethical dilemmas and promote ethical behavior. Compensatory tactics such as these should be central to organizational ethics initiatives at the leader level. (shrink)

This paper suggests the utility of studying unconscious cognition from a selectionist perspective, specifically as outlined by theory and research in the field of behavior analysis. Currently, issues surrounding the complexity of the unconscious cognitive behaviors, the number of variables involved, and the multidirectional influences of these variables, are of utmost concern to theories of mind and behavior. Unanswered questions about these factors leave us without the ability to predict outcomes in an individual case or adequately manipulate variables in order (...) to alter outcomes. Multiple examples of current work by behavior analysts are suggested as potentially fruitful ways of addressing some of these concerns. (shrink)

. The high degree of specialization in society and compartmentalization in education have resulted in increasing difficulty in communicating across different fields of study. I propose that these gaps in communication across disciplines must be addressed to ensure a fruitful ongoing science-and-religion dialogue.

As is usually the case with what I work on, I read some stuff I liked. I 1 read an article on comics by Greg Hayman and Henry Pratt and some work on 2 videogames,GrantTavinor’sreallyexcellentworkonthattopic. Ifoundthematerial interesting and I thought I had something to say about it. That’s what usually motivates me and that’s what did in these cases. With comics, my interest in the medium played a big role. I was a child collector of Marvel. I got turned on (...) to independent and alternative comics about ten years ago by a good friend who’s a successful comics artist and that played a role in my writing about comics. (shrink)

Dans un fragment de son commentaire perdu sur les Catégories d’Aristote, adressé à Gédalios et transmis par Simplicius dans son propre Commentaire surles Catégories, Porphyre évoque la distinction, à première vue énigmatique, entre les termes techniques grecs huparxis et hupostasis. On avance dans laprésente contribution que des passages tirés d’une source inattendue – le De Incarnatione du moine Théodore de Raithu – peuvent illuminerle sens de ce texte porphyrien. Ce résultat fournit l’occasion de quelques réflexions sur l’influence de Porphyre sur (...) la pensée patristique. (shrink)

Némésius, évêque d’Émèse en Syrie (aujourd’hui Homs) vers la fin du ive et le début du ve siècle après J.-C., ne nous a laissé qu’un seul ouvrage, le De natura hominis. Parfois salué comme le « premier traité d’anthropologie chrétienne », ce livre occupe une place à part dans la tradition patristique. En effet, au lieu de tenter de réfuter les théories « païennes », c’est-à-dire relevant de la philosophie grecque, concernant la nature de l’homme, l’auteur y récupère très largement (...) une tendanc... (shrink)

One of his six introductions to philosophy, widely used by students in Alexandria, Ammonius' lecture on Porphyry was recorded in writing by his students in the commentary translated here. Along with five other types of introductions (three of which are translated in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle volume Elias and David: Introductions to Philosophy with Olympiodorus: Introduction to Logic) it made Greek philosophy more accessible to other cultures. These introductions became standard in Ammonius' school and included a popular set of (...) five or more definitions of philosophy, some of them drawn from commentaries on quite different works. Ammonius' lecture expounded the most celebrated and discussed previous introduction written by Porphyry 200 years earlier, which was devoted to five main technical terms of Aristotle's logic. Ammonius was sympathetic to Porphyry because they both sought to harmonise the views of Plato and Aristotle with each other, arguing in different ways that the two philosophers did not disagree about the nature of universals. Porphyry's introduction was a hugely influential work for centuries after its composition, and this commentary by Ammonius served to maintain its position at the centre of later schools of philosophy. This English translation of Ammonius' work is the latest volume in the Ancient Commentators on Aristotle series and makes this philosophical work accessible to a modern readership. The translation is accompanied by an introduction, comprehensive commentary notes, bibliography, glossary of translated terms and a subject index. (shrink)

In 1969 Stanley Cavell's Must We Mean What We Say? revolutionized philosophy of ordinary language, aesthetics, ethics, tragedy, literature, music, art criticism, and modernism. This volume of new essays offers a multi-faceted exploration of Cavell's first and most important book, fifty years after its publication. The key subjects which animate Cavell's book are explored in detail: ordinary language, aesthetics, modernism, skepticism, forms of life, philosophy and literature, tragedy and the self, the questions of voice and audience, jazz and sound, Wittgenstein, (...) Austin, Beckett, Kierkegaard, Shakespeare. The essays make Cavell's complex style and sometimes difficult thought accessible to a new generation of students and scholars. They offer a way into Cavell's unique philosophical voice, conveying its seminal importance as an intellectual intervention in American thought and culture, and showing how its philosophical radicality remains of lasting significance for contemporary philosophy, American philosophy, literary studies, and cultural studies. (shrink)

This contribution continues the comparison between ancient and modern beliefs on scientific cosmology which began in a previous article in this Journal. I begin with a brief survey of contemporary theories on Big Bang cosmology, followed by a study of the cosmological theories of the Presocratic thinker Pherecydes of Syros. The second part of my paper studies the ramifications of the basic Platonic principle that bonum est diffusivum sui. I begin by studying the vicissitudes of this theory in the Patristic (...) thought of Origen, the Arians, and Athanasius. Following Willy Theiler, I suggest that similarities between the views of Origen and the Neoplatonist philosopher Porphyry of Tyre may be traceable to Plotinus' teacher Ammonius Saccas. Finally, following Endress, I study the way the Arabic translation of some propositions from Proclus' Elements of Theology were accompanied by interpolated glosses derived from the Christian Neoplatonist John Philoponus, which were designed to make Proclus' thought more acceptable to a creationist, Monotheistic belief system such as Islam. Philoponus' theories of instantaneous creation were taken up, thanks to al-Kindi, by the Neoplatonica Arabica, whence they exerted an important influence on the development of Islamic thought. An Appendix of texts with translation and bibliography completes the article. (shrink)

This essay is on the concept of global democracy. We discuss the historical development of the concept of democracy and the material bases for the possible emergence of a democratic and collectively rational global commonwealth in the future. We confront the problem of contested meanings of democracy, the roots of the modern concept in the European Enlightenment, the problem of Eurocentrism in the formulation of a global philosophy of democracy, the relationship between capitalist globalization and antisystemic movements and the need (...) for globalization from below. (shrink)

This introductory chapter of Philosophy as a Way of Life: Ancients and Moderns — Essays in Honor of Pierre Hadot talks about the life of Pierre Hadot. The author's memories of his close friendship with Pierre Hadot are presented. In the 1970s, Hadot began to accord more and more importance to the idea of spiritual exercises, that is, philosophical practices intended to transform the practitioner's way of looking at the world and consequently his or her way of being. These exercises, (...) involving not just the intellect or reason, but all of a human being's faculties, including emotion and imagination, had the same goal as all ancient philosophy: reducing human suffering and increasing happiness, by teaching people to detach themselves from their particular, egocentric, individualistic viewpoints and become aware of their belonging, as integral component parts, to the Whole constituted by the entire cosmos. (shrink)

Studies the threefold hierarchy of certainty, from its origins in Mahāyāna Buddhism, through Islam, to 17th century China. This tripartite scheme may be traced back to the ancient Buddhist scheme of the threefold wisdom as systematized by Vasubandhu of Gandhāra in the 4th-5th centuries CE. Following the advent of Islam in the 8th century, it was combined with Qur'anic notions of certainty. Initially taken up by early Islamic mystics such as Sahl al-Tustarī and al-Ḥākim al-Tirmiḏī, the notion of yaqīn was (...) gradually systematized into the three-level hierarchy of “knowledge or science of certainly”, “essence” of certainty, and “truth or reality of certainty”, a hierarchy that bears a distinct resemblance to the Buddhist threefold path of wisdom as discussed by Marc-Henri Deroche. Half a millennium later, this threefold hierarchy of levels of certainty, remotely inspired by Buddhism and integrated into the philosophical Sufism of Ibn ʿArabī and his Persian disciple Jāmī, this complex of ideas may have resurfaced in 17th century China. (shrink)

Studies the doctrine of providence of the Neoplatonic philosopher Porphyry of Tyre. Following a survey of Hellenistic theories of fate and providence, the doctrine of destiny ex hupotheseos, developed on the basis of Plato’s dialogues, is examined : according to it, our acts are free, but their consequences are necessary. As an integral part of Middle Platonic philosophy, this theory was probably transmitted to Late Antiquity by Porphyry. We then move on to examine Porphyry’s treatise On what depends on us, (...) which contains an interpretation of Plato’s Myth of Er, and develops the doctrine of the twofold choice of lives. Nemesius and Proclus react, each in his own way, against the individualism of Porphyry’s approach. In conclusion, the theory of fate and providence in Boethius’ Consolation of Philosophy is briefly examined. (shrink)

World society has been emerging on a global scale, but the old world-system of multiple cultures continues to exist at the same time that a global culture is in formation. In this article the author discusses the relations among these forms of integration in the contemporary system, the coming dark age of deglobalization, and the potential for the eventual emergence of a collectively rational and democratic global commonwealth.

Single‐stranded DNA binding proteins have been known for some time to be crucial in many DNA metabolic reactions in both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. Despite a wealth of studies on these proteins we still do not understand their biochemical mechanism of action. Recent studies of the Escherichia coli single stranded DNA binding protein (SSB) are beginning to provide some insight into how this and similar proteins might function.

To understand the Muslim world it is essential to see it in a transnational context that is informed by its heterogeneity, power contestations, and continuous change. To understand human rights' foundations and origins it is essential to grapple with its legal, political, normative, and institutional groundings, and bear in mind its ongoing reconfigurations and global impacts. Each of these tasks is illustrated by how movements for the rights of women and sexual minorities have come to impact on the transnational Muslim (...) world and international human rights. This article explores each element within these complementary themes as a way of framing how and why the international human rights regime increasingly intersects with the Muslim world in a way that underpins challenges to authoritarian politics and the monolithic constructs of politics and society on which authoritarianism thrives. (shrink)

How to handle vagueness? One way is to introduce the machinery of acceptable sharpenings, and reinterpret truth as truth-in-all-sharpenings or truth-in-some-sharpenings. A major selling point has been the conservativism of the resulting systems with respect to classical theoremhood and inference. Supervaluationism and subvaluationism possess interesting formal symmetries, a fact that has been used to argue for the subvaluationist approach. However, the philosophical motivation behind each is a different matter. Subvaluationism comes with a standard story that is difficult to sign up (...) to. In this paper, I make use of a variant of Putnam’s well-known idea of linguistic deference, and some results in voting theory, to answer this criticism of subvaluationism. The acceptability intuitions of each member of a linguistic community amount to their voting for one or more acceptable sharpenings, with truth then characterised as truth-in-a--sufficiency-of-sharpenings. This produces a family of logical systems that are close relations of subvaluationism, share its conservatism results, yet have stronger philosophical foundations in the workings of externalist content. (shrink)