An introductory exploration on the nature of emotions, and examination of some of the critical issues surrounding the emotional life of God as they relate to happiness, empathy, love, and moral judgments. Covering the different criteria used in the debate between impassibility and passibility, readers can begin to think about which emotions can be predicated of God and which cannot.

Many statistical problems, including some of the most important for physical applications, have long been regarded as underdetermined from the standpoint of a strict frequency definition of probability; yet they may appear wellposed or even overdetermined by the principles of maximum entropy and transformation groups. Furthermore, the distributions found by these methods turn out to have a definite frequency correspondence; the distribution obtained by invariance under a transformation group is by far the most likely to be observed experimentally, in the (...) sense that it requires by far the least “skill.” These properties are illustrated by analyzing the famous Bertrand paradox. On the viewpoint advocated here, Bertrand's problem turns out to be well posed after all, and the unique solution has been verified experimentally. We conclude that probability theory has a wider range of useful applications than would be supposed from the standpoint of the usual frequency definitions. (shrink)

There has long been interest in identifying and studying ‘‘successful psychopaths.” This study sampled psychologists with an interest in law, attorneys, and clinical psychology professors to obtain descriptions of individuals considered to be psychopaths who were also successful in their endeavors. The results showed a consistent description across professions and convergence with descriptions of traditional psychopathy, though the successful psychopathy profile had higher scores on conscientiousness, as measured within the five-factor model (FFM). These results are useful in documenting the existence (...) of successful psychopathy, demonstrating the potential benefit of informant methodology, and providing an FFM description that distinguishes successful psychopaths from unsuccessful psychopaths studied more routinely within prison settings. (shrink)

This book takes stock of the strides made to date in African philosophy. Authors focus on four important aspects of African philosophy: the history, methodological debates, substantive issues in the field, and direction for the future. By collating this anthology, Edwin E. Etieyibo excavates both current and primordial knowledge in African philosophy, enhancing the development of this growing field.

This paper provides an interpretation of the Routley-Meyer semantics for a weak negation-free relevant logic using Israel and Perry's theory of information. In particular, Routley and Meyer's ternary accessibility relation is given an interpretation in information-theoretic terms.

Divine temporality is all the rage in certain theological circles today. Some even suggesting that the doctrine of the Trinity entails divine temporality. While I find this claim a bit strong, I do think that divine temporality can be quite useful for developing a robust model of the Trinity. However, not everyone agrees with this. Paul Helm has offered an objection to the so-called Oxford school of divine temporality based on the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. He has argued that (...) this form of divine temporality entails Arianism. In other words, divine temporality suffers from an inadequate doctrine of the Trinity. In this paper I shall first articulate the so-called Oxford school of divine temporality. From there I shall develop some of the Oxford school’s theological benefits that help flesh out the doctrine of the Trinity, and assuage the charge of Arianism. Then I shall offer an examination and refutation of the Arian charge to divine temporality in order to show that the divine temporalist can maintain a robust Trinitarian theology. (shrink)

I argue that there is no fallacy of argument from authority. I first show the weakness of the case for there being such a fallacy: text-book presentations are confused, alleged examples are not genuinely exemplary, reasons given for its alleged fallaciousness are not convincing. Then I analyse arguing from authority as a complex speech act. Rejecting the popular but unjustified category of the "part-time fallacy", I show that bad arguments which appeal to authority are defective through breach of some felicity (...) condition on argument as a speech act, not through employing a bad principle of inference. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Non‐Sequiturs are Bad The Real Use of Premises Implication From Proof Theory to Semantics Adding Conjunction The Problem of Disjunction Routley and Meyer's Ternary Relation Rules for Disjunction The Semantics of Negation Rules for Negation Disjunctive Syllogism Logics Stronger than R Logics Weaker than R Relevant Logics and Natural Language Conditionals Theory of Properties Summary.

This chapter examines Peter Markie's book, “Descartes Gambit,” Edwin Curley's work titled “Descartes Against the Skeptics” and the exchange of criticisms between the two works. The “gambit” Markie refers to in his title is Descartes' attempt to deduce a metaphysical theory of the self from premises about his knowledge of himself. The epistemological premises are that “I am certain that I think”, that “I am certain that I exist”, and that “I am uncertain that I have a body.” The (...) metaphysical theory of the self derived from these premises is, roughly, that I am a thinking, nonextended substance capable of existing apart from its body. Markie maintains that Descartes himself held that these metaphysical conclusions could be deduced from these epistemological premises without establishing God's existence and veracity. The point of contention between the two works is on the definition and relationship of three species of Cartesian certainty— psychological, moral, and metaphysical. (shrink)

Becoming-animal in Franz Kafka has functioned as a conceptual inkblot test, read in practically opposite ways by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari on the one hand and animal studies on the other. The concept is introduced in Kafka: Towards a Minor Literature, a text with no particular interest in displacing anthropocentrism. On the contrary, Deleuze and Guattari saw Kafka as an affirmatively anthropocentric writer who needed to have done with animals in order complete his anti-fascist accelerationist project. Yet ecocritical readers (...) of Deleuze and Guattari have nevertheless found in becoming-animal a weapon against anthropocentrism. While Deleuze and Guattari attempt to purify Kafka of animality, animal studies for its part purifies both Kafka and Kafka of anti-fascism. The roots of this strange conceptual chiasmus lie in the manner in which the opposition nature-techne is thought and a certain shared Heidegerrian inheritance. A reading of Kafka’s The Castle focusing on a horse-drawn sleigh provides resources for a concept of animal machine that would ruin the opposition between becoming-animal and machinic assemblage (nature-techne) that governs Kafka and blocks access to crucial resources for countering fascism and anthropocentrism. (shrink)

William Hasker and I have a friendly disagreement over the doctrine of the Trinity. We both reject classical theistic attributes like divine timelessness and divine simplicity. Instead, we affirm that God is temporal and unified. Further, we reject so-called Latin models of the Trinity, and prefer social models of the Trinity. Where we disagree is over the doctrine of the processions of the Trinitarian persons. In this essay, I articulate some problems for the doctrine of the processions.

Sam Lebens offers an intriguing set of arguments from theism to idealism. In this paper, I shall focus on the argument from perfect rationality to Hassidic Idealism. I will offer a critical analysis of this argument and draw out a series of conflicts between Hassidic Idealism and divine freedom, the divine ideas, and creation ex nihilo.

This short essay provides some historical notes helpful for understanding what Polanyi first called “rules of rightness” in his 1954 University of Chicago series of lecturess.

This essay is an obituary notice for Charles S. McCoy, who introduced many to Polanyi’s ideas and made creative use of Polanyi’in his scholarship.

These reflections summarize major themes in Marjorie Grene’s A Philosophical Testament. I also highlight Grene’s comments on her many years of work with Polanyi and try to draw out some connections between Grene’s thought and that of Polanyi.

I here introduce a set of essays on William H. Poteat by quoting in full a 1968 letter from Poteat to Marjorie Grene. Poteat articulates reasons he cannot collaborate with Grene in editing the volume of Polanyi essays that was eventually published as Knowing and Being: Essays by Michael Polanyi in 1969.

This paper uses an atomistic ontology of universals, individuals, and facts to provide a semantics for ramified type theory. It is shown that with some natural constraints on the sort of universals and facts admitted into a model, the axiom of reducibility is made valid.

This essay discusses Polanyi sideas about the “comprehensive entity.” It shows how Polanyi’s philosophical perspective emphasizes comprehension. It outlines Polanyi’s careful approach to ontological questions and shows how Marjorie Grene and to some degree Polanyi linked the theory of tacit knowing to ideas in Continental philosophy about being-in-the-world. It suggests that Polanyi’s post-critical philosophical realism, like Peirce srealistn, is more akin to medieval realism than contelnporary discussions.

This memorial essay surveys the achievements of Marjorie Grene as a historian of philosophy and a philosopher of biology. It analyzes the way in which Grene’s account of persons and knowledge developes in relation to her work in succession on the thought of Michael Polanyi, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and the ecological psychology of James J. and Eleanor Gibson.