Scholars of color have been instrumental in advancing nursing knowledge development but find limited spaces where one can authentically share their philosophical perspective. Although there is a call for antiracism in nursing and making way for more diverse and inclusive theories and philosophies, our voices remain at the margins of nursing theory and philosophy. In nursing philosophy, there continues to be a lack of racial diversity in those who are given the platform to share their scholarship. Five nurse scholars of (...) color attended the International Nursing Philosophy Conference in August 2022. We established a collective system of support by sharing our experiences as researchers, scholars, and educators with each other. The theory of emancipatory nursing praxis informed this process. In this dialogue, we reflected on what it is like to present at and attend predominantly white nursing conferences. We shared our experiences of how we exist as nurse scholars, our philosophical views, and our thoughts on how we create spaces where scholars of color can feel welcomed and acknowledged for their contributions to advancing nursing knowledge. (shrink)

Badcock, and Nesse and Lloyd, have argued that there are important points of agreement between Freud's theory of the mind and a theory of mind suggested by adaptive reasoning. Buller, on the other hand, draws attention to the need to avoid confusing an adaptive rationale with an unconscious motivation. The present paper attempts to indicate what role adaptive reasoning might have to play in justifying psychoanalytic claims. First, it is argued that psychoanalytic claims cannot be justified by the clinical experience (...) of psychoanalysts alone. It is urged that, to avoid interpretative proliferation, it is necessary to base interpretation on some theory which is external to psychoanalysis. Next, Buller's reservations about using adaptive reasoning to justify claims about a personal unconscious, are summarized. Then an argument for the existence of a personal unconscious, is offered, based on experimental evidence from Gur and Sackeim. Then it is argued that adaptive reasoning, though it cannot itself provide evidence for the existence of any psychological mechanism, can valuably guide the search for such evidence. It is argued that such an approach has borne fruit, both in biology generally and specifically in psychology. Finally, it is argued that psychoanalysis is important enough to justify such a research project. (shrink)

You can't be convicted of a crime without a guilty act and a guilty mind." A lawyer might dress the same idea up in Latin: "You can't be convicted of a crime without actus reus and mens rea." Things like that are often said, but what do people mean when they say them? Guilty Acts, Guilty Minds proposes an understanding of mens rea and actus reus as limits on the authority of a state, and in particular the authority of a (...) democratic state, to ascribe guilt through positive law to those accused of crime. Actus reus and mens rea are necessary conditions, among others, for the legitimacy, as distinct from the justice, of state punishment. The actus reus requirement disables a democratic state from using its authority, on the one hand, to ascribe guilt to those who didn't realize they were committing a crime, provided they lacked the capacity to realize they were committing a crime; and on the other, to ascribe guilt to those who realized they were committing a crime, but who lacked the capacity to conform their conduct to the requirements of law. The mens rea requirement disables a democratic state from using its authority, on the one hand, to ascribe guilt to those who didn't realize they were committing a crime, provided their ignorance manifested no lack of law-abiding concern for the law and its ends, and on the other, to ascribe guilt to those who realized they were committing a crime, but whose failure to conform to the law nonetheless manifested no lack of law-abiding concern for the law and its ends. (shrink)

A healthy, growing field such as the philosophy of biology deserves to have a variety of different points of entry for students, instructors, and non-specialist academics who want to learn about the field. Among the many new books that introduce this dynamic area of research, Garvey's Philosophy of Biology may provide the most compact and accessible survey of the field. After explaining Darwin's theory of evolution, he offers four chapters about contemporary issues in evolutionary theory. The middle chapters concern (...) key concepts in biology: innateness, function, and species. The final four chapters examine how evolutionary biology might influence our perspectives on epistemology, ethics, religion, and human nature.Acquaintances occasionally ask me to recommend a book that introduces the field in layman's terms. Until recently, I didn't have a good answer. The standard textbooks by Sober and Sterelny & Griffiths are good for classroom use but are too demanding for casual reading. Thus, I was intrigued when the jacket blurb described Garvey's book as ‘suitable …. (shrink)

Evolutionary Psychology has a bigger problem with free will than it acknowledges, argues Brian Garvey.

This major new series in the philosophy of science aims to provide a new generation of textbooks for the subject. The series will not only offer fresh treatments of core topics in the theory and methodology of scientific knowledge, but also introductions to newer areas of the discipline. Furthermore, the series will cover topics in current science that raise significant foundational issues both for scientific theory and for philosophy more generally. Biology raises distinct questions of its own not only for (...) philosophy of science, but for metaphysics, epistemology and ethics. This comprehensive new textbook for a rapidly growing field of study provides students new to the subject with an up-to-date presentation of the key philosophical issues. Care is taken throughout to keep the technicalities accessible to the non-biologist but without sacrificing the philosophical subtleties. The first part of the book covers the philosophical challenges posed by evolution and evolutionary biology, beginning with Darwin's central argument in the Origin of the Species. Individual chapters cover natural selection, the selfish gene, alternative units of selection, developmental systems theory, adaptionism and issues in macroevolution. The second part of the book examines philosophical questions arising in connection with biological traits, function, nature and nurture, and biological kinds. The third part of the book examines metaphysical questions, biology's relation with the traditional concerns of philosophy of science, and how evolution has been introduced into epistemological debates. The final part considers the relevance of biology to questions about ethics, religion and human nature. (shrink)

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If it’s correct to think that the West does wrong by doing nothing despite having the room to reduce emissions and the capacity to do so, then it’s correct to think that we’re doing wrong too, in our everyday lives. Your emissions might be as much as 20 times more than others in the world; you might be doing as much as 20 times the damage to the planet compared to other people. The bulbs are not enough.

This short review examines the work of four Canadian scholars addressing a variety of questions about criminal responsibility. The essays under review are a small part of a recent collection of essays entitled “Rethinking Criminal Law Theory: New Canadian Perspectives in the Philosophy of Domestic, Transnational, and International Criminal Law.”.

This book is a philosophico-theological treatise on love, coming from the stream of thought formed by the confluence of scholastic thought and modern phenomenological and personalist philosophy. The author, Fr Cowburn, is an Australian, whose thought has been moulded mainly by his studies at Innsbruck under Rahner and Coreth. His work owes nothing to linguistic philosophy.

. Book Reviews. International Journal of Philosophical Studies: Vol. 9, No. 4, pp. 543-562.

The Story of Philosophy is a brand new and highly ambitious survey of the thinkers and ideas that have perplexed humanity from time immemorial. Accessible writing, brilliant scholarship and over 150 colour illustrations combine to form a richly informative and highly entertaining work of narrative history. Starting with the most important figures in the Greek era, including Thales of Miletus - often referred to as the first philosopher - Pythagoras and Plato, the story continues with the great religious thinkers of (...) medieval Europe such as Augustine, Aquinas and Maimonides, key players of the Enlightenment such as Descartes, Hobbes and Voltaire, their successors in the Romantic era such as Marx and Nietzsche, and concluding with a survey of 20th and 21st century philosophy. (shrink)

The exercise of synchronic self-control is the way in which an actor can attempt to bring a desire into alignment with his better judgement at the moment and during the interval of time over which, but for the exercise of such self-control, the desire would become the actor’s preponderant desire, which the actor would then translate into an act contrary to his better judgment. The moral psychology of an actor who fails to achieve such self-control can be analyzed in two (...) ways. One way is meant to be consistent with compatibilist metaphysics; the other with libertarian metaphysics. The implications of these analyses for the criminal law are complicated, but perhaps the most important is this: the criminal law should in principle recognize a partial excuse for an actor who exercises synchronic self-control but who gives up his effort because he believes that he can no longer continue to resist. His effort to achieve self-control thus fails, and he ends up translating into action the very desire he set out to control. (shrink)

This research demonstrates that interpersonal emotion regulation—attempts to manage others’ feelings—influences consumer perceptions during sales and service interactions impacting brand trust and loyalty. Building on previous research linking interpersonal emotion regulation to improved outcomes between people, across five experiments, we demonstrate that antecedent-focused interpersonal emotion regulation strategies result in enhanced brand loyalty and brand trust compared to response-focused interpersonal emotion regulation strategies. Analysis of mediation models reveals this effect is explained by changes in the consumer’s emotions, which in turn influence (...) evaluations of the service interaction and subsequently impacts brand outcomes. We identify reactance as a moderator of this effect, such that customers with low reactance to interpersonal regulation attempts exhibit more favorable brand trust and loyalty evaluations. Further, we demonstrate that the visibility of interpersonal emotion regulation represents an important boundary condition. These findings support the process model of interpersonal emotion regulation and generate important insights for both theory and practice. (shrink)

Atheists often admit that there is no positive evidence for atheism. Many argue that there is nonetheless a prima facie argument, which I will refer to as the ‘teapot argument’. They liken agnosticism to remaining neutral on the existence of a teapot in outer space. The present paper argues that this analogy fails, for the person who denies such a teapot can agree with the person who affirms it regarding every other feature of the world, which is not the case (...) with the atheist vis-a-vis the theist. The atheist is committed to there being an alternative explanation of why the universe exists and is the way it is. Moreover, the analogy relies on assumptions about the prior plausibility of atheism. Hence, the teapot argument fails. (shrink)

There has been much controversy over whether the claims of evolutionary psychologists, if true, imply that we humans are significantly less free than has traditionally been thought. This in turn gives rise to the concern that excuses are being given to philanderers and other ne’er-do-wells for their behaviour. Evolutionary psychologists themselves often respond to this concern by claiming that it presupposes that they believe in genetic determinism, which they do not. Philosophers, such as Janet Radcliffe Richards in Human Nature after (...) Darwin, respond by appealing to compatibilist accounts of free will. The thought is that whether or not our behaviour is caused by evolved mental mechanisms, has no bearing on whether or not it is free. The present paper takes issue with this use of compatibilist arguments. Compatibilist accounts of free will do not just say that an action can be determined and still free; they also distinguish between situations where we are free and ones where we are not. The latter includes not just situations of external coercion, but also situations where there are internal obstacles such as compulsion, addiction or self-deception. While not attempting to outline a full account of what it is to be free, this paper will outline one set of conditions which are sufficient for our freedom to be said to be restricted – conditions which are shared by situations of addiction, self-deception, etc. But a central pillar of evolutionary psychology is that the mind consists wholly or largely of modules whose operation is mandatory. The outputs of these modules are often characterised as desires or goals. It will be argued that this implies internal obstacles to free will that are relevantly similar to the obstacles of addiction, self-deception, etc. It is ultimately a scientific question, and hence outside the scope of this paper, whether the relevant evolutionary-psychological claims are true or not. However, they are central to the discipline, and this paper will argue that if they are true that has negative consequences for how free we are. Hence, the view that evolutionary psychology implies that we are less free than has traditionally been thought is not without foundation. (shrink)

Wordsmiths and Warriors explores the heritage of English through the places in Britain that shaped it. It unites the warriors, whose invasions transformed the language, with the poets, scholars, reformers, and others who helped create its character. David and Hilary Crystal drove thousands of miles to locations throughout Britain, David providing the descriptions, Hilary the full-colour photographs. Their book reflects the language's history starting with Anglo-Saxon arrivals and ending in London with apps for grammar. In between lie encounters with (...) places associated with Chaucer, Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Wycliffe, Tyndale, Johnson, Murray, and numerous others. Among its many joys are the unexpected discoveries the authors make at every stage of their epic journey. (shrink)

Is technology neutral, a neutral means to whatever ends we have in mind, or is it, instead, somehow imbued with moral and political value, a kind of autonomous force which brings about its own ends? How should we think about the moral dimension of mundane technology, in particular, what is the right way to use it?

Can the intellect or the intellectual faculty be its own object of thought, or can it not think or apprehend itself? This book explores the ancient treatments of the question of self-intellection - an important theme in ancient epistemology and of considerable interest to later philosophical thought. The manner in which the ancients dealt with the intellect apprehending itself, took them into both the metaphysical and epistemological domains with reflections on questions of thinking, identity and causality. Ian Crystal traces (...) the origins from which the concept of self-intellection springs, by examining Plato's account of the epistemic subject and the emergence of self-intellection through the Aristotelian account, before the final part of the book explores the problem of how the intellect apprehends itself, and its resolution including Plotinus' reformulation and the dilemma raised by Sextus Empiricus. Crystal concludes that Plotinus recasts the metaphysical structures of Plato and Aristotle in such a way that he casts the concept of self-intellection in an entirely new light and offers a solution to the problem. (shrink)

Prevention focus is a self-regulatory orientation that serves the need for security, and promotion focus is a self-regulatory orientation that serves the need for growth. From mid-March to early April 2020, did people judge prevention focus to be more useful than promotion focus for responding to COVID-19? Our study tested and showed support for this hypothesis with 401 American and Canadian participants, who we sampled in 100-person waves on the first four Thursdays of the pandemic. For this study, we developed (...) a new measure of the judged usefulness of promotion and prevention focus. Additionally, results showed that the judged usefulness of promotion and prevention focus related positively to support of the psychological needs for autonomy and relatedness, respectively, in responding to COVID-19. Exploratory analyses showed that day-to-day differences in autonomy, competence, and relatedness support and in promotion and prevention focus tended to be small, which is notable given the large-scale changes to social distancing, employment, and media coverage of the virus during this time. Our research could be useful for crafting persuasive advocacy and narrative communications that encourage social distancing to protect others about whom people care most. (shrink)

A child sees all the things God has made, but wants to see God in person.