Benner, Erica. Machiavelli’s Ethics. Princeton, 2009. 527p bibl index afp; ISBN 9780691141763, $75.00; ISBN 9780691141770 pbk, $35.00.

Reviewed in CHOICE, April 2010

This major new study of Machiavelli’s moral and political philosophy by Benner (Yale) argues that most readings of Machiavelli suffer from a failure to appreciate his debt to Greek sources, particularly the Socratic tradition of moral and political philosophy. Benner argues that when read in the light of his Greek sources, Machiavelli appears as much less the immoralist or (...) sophist he often is taken for and instead as a serious moral philosopher very much concerned with the republican ideals of justice and the rule of law. The author does not ignore Machiavelli’s more infamous dicta, but argues that a careful reading shows that they are expressions of views he ultimately rejects. Particularly noteworthy here is her careful attention to Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories.
Benner’s reading of Machiavelli is far too complex and subtle for such a brief summary. Her research is meticulous and her arguments finely honed. This important contribution to both Machiavelli studies and the history of political philosophy will be indispensable for scholars.
Summing Up: Highly recommended. Graduate students and faculty/researchers. — B. T. Harding

Endorsements:

"Machiavelli's Ethics is a superb scholarly book. Erica Benner does truly impressive work in analyzing Machiavelli's views on the most fundamental ethical issues--including necessity and virtue, justice and injustice, and ends and means. She shows, with very solid evidence, that Machiavelli did in fact worry a lot about justice and that he put it at the core of his republican theory."--Maurizio Viroli, author of Niccolò's Smile: A Biography of Machiavelli

"Machiavelli's Ethics is excellent--learned, subtle, highly original, and a constant pleasure to read. And, since it is really a study of Machiavelli's thought in its entirety, it is also the first book of its kind. Its originality lies in taking seriously the claim by some sixteenth- and seventeenth-century readers--notably Bacon, Spinoza, and Alberico Gentili--that Machiavelli was essentially a moral and political philosopher. Erica Benner does a brilliant job of resurrecting this neglected Machiavelli."--Giulia Sissa, University of California, Los Angeles


About the book, from the publisher:
Machiavelli's Ethics challenges the most entrenched understandings of Machiavelli, arguing that he was a moral and political philosopher who consistently favored the rule of law over that of men, that he had a coherent theory of justice, and that he did not defend the "Machiavellian" maxim that the ends justify the means. By carefully reconstructing the principled foundations of his political theory, Erica Benner gives the most complete account yet of Machiavelli's thought. She argues that his difficult and puzzling style of writing owes far more to ancient Greek sources than is usually recognized, as does his chief aim: to teach readers not how to produce deceptive political appearances and rhetoric, but how to see through them. Drawing on a close reading of Greek authors--including Thucydides, Xenophon, Plato, and Plutarch--Benner identifies a powerful and neglected key to understanding Machiavelli.

This important new interpretation is based on the most comprehensive study of Machiavelli's writings to date, including a detailed examination of all of his major works: The Prince, The Discourses, The Art of War, and Florentine Histories. It helps explain why readers such as Bacon and Rousseau could see Machiavelli as a fellow moral philosopher, and how they could view The Prince as an ethical and republican text. By identifying a rigorous structure of principles behind Machiavelli's historical examples, the book should also open up fresh debates about his relationship to later philosophers, including Rousseau, Hobbes, and Kant.
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What is History For? is a timely publication that examines the purpose and point of historical studies. Recent debates on the role of the humanities and the ongoing impact of poststructuralist thought on the very nature of historical enquiry, have rendered the question "what is history for?" of utmost importance. Charting the development of historical studies, Beverley Southgate examines the various uses to which history has been put. While history has often supposedly been studied "for its own sake," (...) class='Hi'>Southgate argues that this seemingly innocent approach masks an inherent conservatism and exposes the ways in which history, has, sometimes deliberately, sometimes inadvertently, been used for socio-political purposes. With traditional notions of truth and historical representation now under question, it has become vital to rethink the function of history and renegotiate its uses for the post-modern age. History in the 21st century, Southgate proposes, should adopt a morally therapeutic role that seeks to advance human happiness. This fascinating historicisation of the study of history is unique in its focus on the future of the subject as well as its past. What is History For? provides compulsive reading for the general reader and students alike. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.1 (2000) 97-114 [Access article in PDF] Blackloism and Tradition: From Theological Certainty to Historiographical Doubt Beverley C. Southgate * Introduction "Pyrrho himself never advanced any Principle of Scepticism beyond this," complained John Tillotson at the height of the seventeenth-century "rule of faith" debates; 1 and John Sergeant, as Catholic champion and the object of his charge, must have noted the irony. (...) For Tillotson was not unreasonable in concluding that his adversary's theological arguments had the effect of increasing the very uncertainty which they were designed to combat. Sergeant's attempts to overcome scepticism in theology were actually destined to exacerbate the problem of scepticism in relation to historiography.John Sergeant (1623-1707) was an English secular priest and, more specifically, a member of that notorious faction of Catholics known as "Blackloists," followers of Thomas White (1593-1676), alias Blacklo. 2 White produced some forty works on theology, natural philosophy, and political theory; he was known as an eminent philosopher in his own day and has more recently been restored to wider interest following the publication of Hobbes's lengthy critique of his cosmological treatise De Mundo. Sergeant has remained best known for his advocacy of the Catholic position in the "rule of faith" debates, but he was also a prolific writer on philosophy and, as a late Aristotelian, took issue with such "modernists" as Descartes and Locke. 3 Sergeant was widely recognized as White's [End Page 97] intellectual disciple, and it will be convenient here to consider their thought together. 4 Both devoted much of their time and energy (in Sergeant's words) to "beating down scepticism" or, as White had earlier called it, the "contagion of Pyrrhonism"; and both would have been horrified to think that they had actually contributed to any extension of skeptical philosophy. 5Blackloist concerns with the refutation of skeptically induced uncertainty had obvious implications for their contributions to the "rule of faith" debates and to their attempted establishment of one single and certain ground of religious belief. During the latter half of the seventeenth century Protestants and Catholics expended a considerable amount of intellectual and emotional energy in advocating their respective routes to that level of religious certainty which would assure salvation. While the former expressed confidence in the reliability of the scriptures' literary record, the latter counter-claimed that they alone enjoyed a faith that was reliably grounded in an unbroken tradition deriving from Christ himself.Thomas White highlights these issues in his additions to the "corrected and enlarged" 1654 edition of William Rushworth's Dialogues, in which he laments the fragmenting effects of the Reformation. White argues that because they no longer enjoy "one rule among them all" Protestants resort to their various individual principles; and although all appeal ultimately to the authority of the Bible, they each have only their own "private conceit" by which to resolve any ambiguities in the scriptural record. The extraction of religious tenets then becomes effectively a matter of mere guesswork; the whole Bible might as well be replaced by the Koran. Something far more authoritative, White insists, is needed to overcome theological uncertainty--"this dangerous Cockatrice, Incertitude"; 6 and it is precisely such firmly based and wholly reliable authority that he and Sergeant strove to provide. [End Page 98]In this context, however, theology became intimately interrelated with historiography. Some of the difficulties attendant on the Protestant recourse to the Bible were no doubt specific to the Bible itself, but others related more generally to the validity of any historical record, and it is some of the wider historiographical implications of theological debate that I shall examine in this paper. By arguing against the skeptics and pragmatic Protestants while simultaneously insisting on their own variety of absolute theological certainty based on reliable historical tradition, the Blackloists actually contributed to the development of that form of historiographical uncertainty which culminated in what, by the end of the century, came to be known as "Historical Pyrrhonism." 7 The Scriptures: Linguistic and Literary Problems "For since the... (shrink)

For twenty-five years, Troy Southgate has been a leading figure in radical politics, and he is currently one of the leading exponents of the English New Right. This anthology is a selection of his best essays, interviews, stories and poems. Through an analysis of both historical and contemporary events, he calls for an abandonment of the traditional Left/Right dichotomy and the creation of autonomous communities outside the prevailing order which can uphold and preserve traditional values. Also offered are Troy's (...) practical suggestions for how this might be put into practice, as well as his in-depth analysis of Julius Evola's Men Among the Ruins, which originally appeared in the Russian Pravda Online. This book has much to offer everyone of a revolutionary disposition. 'Troy's ideals are for power to return to local communities and their chosen leaders, firmly rooted in time-tested principles of honour, labour and responsibility. From this vantage point, it is clear that it is the forces of international capitalism which are the true heirs of the totalitarian movements, and not those such as Troy who are merely seeking a secure island upon which to ride out the coming deluge when it all falls apart... Therefore, one who wants to become active in the arena of radical politics owes it to himself to become familiar with Troy's writings. In doing so, he will avoid many of the problems and pitfalls that plague all would-be radical movements.' --John Morgan, from the Introduction. (shrink)

This article seeks to establish that the social sciences have an important contribution to make to the study of ethics. The discussion is framed around three questions: (i) what theoretical work can the social sciences contribute to the understanding of ethics? (ii) what empirical work can the social sciences contribute to the understanding of ethics? And (iii) how does this theoretical and empirical work combine, to enhance the understanding of how ethics, as a field of analysis and debate, is socially (...) constituted and situated? Through these questions the argument goes beyond the now commonly cited objection to the over‐simplistic division between normative and descriptive ethics (that assigns the social sciences the ‘handmaiden’ role of simply providing the ‘facts’). In extending this argument, this article seeks to establish, more firmly and in more detail, that: (a) the social sciences have a longstanding theoretical interest analysing the role that a concern with ethics plays in explanations of social change, social organisation and social action; (b) the explanations that are based on the empirical investigations conducted by social scientists exemplify the interplay of epistemological and methodological analyses so that our understanding of particular substantive issues is extended beyond the conventional questions raised by ethicists, and (c) through this combination of theoretical and empirical work, social scientists go beyond the specific ethical questions of particular practices to enquire further into the social processes that lie behind the very designation of certain matters as being ‘ethical issues’. (shrink)

The decline of empathy among health professional students, highlighted in the literature on health education, is a concern for medical educators. The evidence suggests that empathy decline is likely to stem more from structural problems in the healthcare system rather than from individual deficits of empathy. In this paper, we argue that a focus on direct empathy development is not effective and possibly detrimental to justice-oriented aims. Drawing on critical and narrative theory, we propose an interpersonal approach to enhance empathic (...) capacities that is centered on constructive and transformative interactions which integrates the participatory arts and involves both patients and health professional students. We describe and evaluate a program where patients and students create collaborative, original songs. Interviews and a focus group revealed interactional processes summarized in four themes: reciprocal relationships, interactions in the community, joint goal, and varied collaboration. There was a significant enhancement of positive attitudes about care post-program amongst health professional students. The interpersonal approach may be a preliminary framework for the medical humanities to shift away from a focus on direct empathy development and further towards participatory, co-creative, and justice-oriented approaches to enhance health and thereby empathic capabilities. (shrink)

Southgate draws on ideas within history, philosophy, literature, psychology, and theology to explore two traditions: contentment with our situation as it is, and the aspiration to transcend it. He discusses the possibility ofescape from intellectual constraints, and advocates a positive 'duty of discontent', and its implications.

Identity criteria are powerful tools for the metaphysician. They tell us when items are identical or distinct. Some varieties of identity criteria also try to explain in virtue of what items are identical or distinct. This Element has two objectives: to discuss formulations of identity criteria and to take a closer look at one notorious criterion of object identity, Leibniz's Law. The first section concerns the form of identity criteria. The second section concerns the better-regarded half of Leibniz's Law, the (...) indiscernibility of identicals. The third section turns to the more controversial half of Leibniz's Law, the identity of indiscernibles. The author considers alternatives to Leibniz's Law as well as the possibility that there are no adequate identity criteria to be found. (shrink)

This paper offers a metaphysical explanation of the identity and distinctness of concrete objects. It is tempting to try to distinguish concrete objects on the basis of their possessing different qualitative features, where qualitative features are ones that do not involve identity. Yet, this criterion for object identity faces counterexamples: distinct objects can share all of their qualitative features. This paper suggests that in order to distinguish concrete objects we need to look not only at which properties and relations objects (...) instantiate but also how they instantiate these properties and relations. I propose that objects are identical when they stand in certain qualitative relations in virtue of their existence. And concrete objects are distinct when they do not stand in the same kinds of relations to one another in virtue of their existence. (shrink)

This fully revised and updated edition of God, Humanity and the Cosmos is an essential companion to the field, with exercises for the student, a comprehensive bibliography, and suggestions for further reading.

This is the text of the 2022 Boyle Lecture. After some acknowledgements, it introduces the theological problem of the suffering of nonhuman creatures in the natural world as described by evolutionary science. It sets aside the neo-Cartesian objection that this suffering should not be considered real. The lecture then considers, and initially rejects, theodicies based on some form of fall event. An account is offered based on the premise that Darwinian evolution was the only way God could have given rise (...) to a biological world containing the sorts of values we observe. Although this remains the preferred basis for an evolutionary theodicy, consideration is finally given to the extent to which certain phenomena, such as parasitism, cancers, and viral infections, might be thought to exhibit a resistance to the divine will. The tentative suggestion is made that this resistance might derive from temptation by spiritual powers, thus incorporating into an overall only-way account an element of angelic fallenness. (shrink)

El presente texto acompaña la traducción de los apuntes de Walter Benjamin sobre la literatura de la Rusia Soviética hacia finales de la década de 1920. En este sentido, se intentará reponer el contexto de producción de estos apuntes con el fin de proponer una lectura que recorra aquellos rasgos de la incipiente cultura soviética que suscitaron estas impresiones en el pensador alemán.

After acknowledging Wim Drees’s excellent contribution to the science-religion debate, this essay considers three ‘beyonds’ unhelpful to a response to the climate emergency. These are ‘beyond as sudden destruction’, stemming from an over-reliance on the apocalyptic texts of the New Testament; ‘beyond as up’, focussing on the release of the immortal soul from the material world; and ‘beyond time’, addressing the cosmological predictions of the ultimate end of the universe through God’s transformation of creation. The essay proposes in contrast that (...) the same event in the present can be viewed through four parallel lenses, of which eschatology is one. It draws on proposals from Drees’s Beyond the Big Bang and the detemporalised eschatology of Kathryn Tanner to propose an eschatology of the present moment, informed by divine judgment and longing, and the human vocation to respond to that judgment and longing with parallel longing, and with both action and consolation. (shrink)

History: what & Why? is a highly accessible introductory survey of historians' views about the nature and purpose of their subject. It offers a historical perspective and clear guide to contemporary debates about the nature and purpose of history and a discussion of the traditional model of history as an account of the past "as it was". It assesses the challenges to orthodox views and examines the impact of Marxism, feminism and post-colonialism on the study of history.

This chapter contains sections titled: Postmodernism's Challenge Responses to the Postmodern Challenge Continuing Crisis of Incompatibilities Conclusion Bibliography Further Reading.

We offer a general definition of interpretation based on a naturalized teleology. The definition tests and extends the biosemiotic paradigm by seeking to provide a philosophically robust resource for investigating the possible role of semiosis (processes of representation and interpretation) in biological systems. We show that our definition provides a way of understanding various possible kinds of misinterpretation, illustrate the definition using examples at the cellular and subcellular level, and test the definition by applying it to a potential counterexample. We (...) explain how we propose to use the definition as a way of asking new questions about what distinguishes life from non-life and of formulating testable hypotheses within the field of origin-of-life research. If the definition leads to fruitful new empirical approaches to the scientific problem of the origin of life, it will help to establish biosemiotics as a legitimate philosophical approach in theoretical biology and will thereby support a theological appropriation of the biosemiotic perspective as the basis of a new theology of nature. (shrink)

Our aim in this article is to bring some clarity to the clinical ethics expertise debate by critiquing and replacing the taxonomy offered by the Core Competencies report. The orienting question for our taxonomy is: Can clinical ethicists offer justified, normative recommendations for active patient cases? Views that answer “no” are characterized as a “negative” view of clinical ethics expertise and are further differentiated based on (a) why they think ethicists cannot give justified normative recommendations and (b) what they think (...) ethicists can offer, if they cannot offer recommendations. Views that answer “yes” to the orienting question are characterized as a “positive” view of clinical ethics expertise. Positive views are distinguished according to four additional questions. First (P1), how are those recommendations generated? Second (P2), what is the nature of the recommendations? Third (P3), we ask, how are the recommendations justified? And finally (P4), how are the recommendations communicated? (shrink)

Postmodernism has significantly affected the theory and practice of history. It has induced fears about the future of historical study, but has also offered liberation from certain modernist constraints. This original and thought-provoking study looks at the context of postmodernist thought in general cultural terms as well as in relation to history. Postmodernism in History traces philosophical precursors of postmodernism and identifies the roots of current concerns. Beverley Southgate describes the core constituents of postmodernism and provides a lucid and (...) profound analysis of the current state of the debate. His main concern is to counter `pomophobia' and to assert a positive future for historical study in a postmodern world. Postmodernism in History is a valuable guide to some of the most complex questions in historical theory for students and teachers alike. (shrink)

A number of significant contributions in the last four decades show that non-normal modal logics can be fruitfully employed in several applied fields. Well-known domains are epistemic logic, deontic logic, and systems capturing different aspects of action and agency such as the modal logic of agency, concurrent propositional dynamic logic, game logic, and coalition logic. Semantics for such logics are traditionally based on neighbourhood models. However, other model-theoretic semantics can be used for this purpose. Here, we systematically study multi-relational structures, (...) whose investigation is still relatively underdeveloped. After a brief introduction to two different versions of multi-relational semantics – which we call strong and weak multi-relational semantics – we proceed to study several modal schemata. Special attention is paid to the schemata CON and D. Finally we offer completeness proofs for several systems using both strong and weak semantic tools: The proofs thus cover both classical system.. (shrink)

Humeans and anti-Humeans agree that laws of nature should explain scientifically particular matters of fact. One objection to Humean accounts of laws contends that Humean laws cannot explain particular matters of fact because their explanations are harmfully circular. This article distinguishes between metaphysical and semantic characterizations of the circularity and argues for a new semantic version of the circularity objection. The new formulation suggests that Humean explanations are harmfully circular because the content of the sentences being explained is part of (...) the content of the sentences doing the explaining. I describe the nature of partial content and demonstrate how this account of partial content renders Humean explanations ineffective while sparing anti-Humean explanations from the same fate. 1Introduction2Standard Formulations of the Circularity Charge3Humean Responses4Semantic Characterizations of the Circularity Worry 4.1Hempel and Oppenheim’s semantic circularity concern4.2A new version of the semantic circularity charge4.3Partial content as a guide to circularity5Humean Responses to the Semantic Circularity Charge 5.1Smuggling in metaphysics through the back door?5.2Do anti-Humean laws fare any better?5.3The over-generalization concern6ConclusionAppendix. (shrink)

Two experiments are reported that employed think-aloud methods to test predictions concerning relevance effects and rationalisation processes derivable from Evans' (1996) heuristic-analytic theory of the selection task. Evans' account proposes that card selections are triggered by relevance-determining heuristics, with analytic processing serving merely to rationalise heuristically cued decisions. As such, selected cards should be associated with more references to both their facing and their hidden sides than rejected cards, which are not subjected to analytic rationalisation. Experiment 1 used a standard (...) selection-task paradigm, with negative components permuted through abstract conditional rules. Support was found for all heuristic-analytic predictions. This evidence was shown to be robust in Experiment 2, where "select - don't select" decisions were enforced for all cards. Both experiments also clarify the role played by secondary heuristics in cueing the consideration of hidden card values during rationalisation. We suggest that whilst Evans' heuristic-analytic model and Oaksford and Chater's (e.g., 2003) optimal data selection model can provide compelling accounts of our protocol findings, the mental models theory fares less well as an explanation of our full dataset. (shrink)

It has become increasingly common to endorse and implement anonymous grading as a way of promoting fairness or equality of opportunity in the classroom. The American Philosophical Association currently recommends anonymous grading, as do the Canadian Philosophical Association, the British Philosophical Association, the Society for Women in Philosophy, and Minorities and Philosophy. Despite its increasing prevalence, the practice has received surprisingly little attention in applied ethics. This paper begins filling this gap. I start by clarifying the ‘Standard Argument’ from fairness (...) or equality of opportunity for anonymous grading. I then argue that the Standard Argument fails to support current models for anonymous grading. The issue: current models for anonymous grading are practically self-undermining if the aim is to reduce violations of equality of opportunity or fairness. So, if we want to address bias in grading because we care about equality of opportunity or fairness, we need to change how we do it. (shrink)

Although personal attributes have gained recognition as an important area of effective corporate governance, scholarship has largely overlooked the value and implications of individual virtue in governance practice. We explore how authenticity—a personal and morally significant virtue—affects the primary monitoring and strategy functions of the board of directors as well as core processes concerning director selection, cultivation, and enactment by the board. While the predominant focus in corporate governance research has been on structural factors that influence firm financial outcomes, this (...) paper shifts attention to the role of authenticity and its relationship to individual board member qualities and collective board activities. We explore how authenticity has the potential to influence board dynamics and decision making and to enhance transparency and accountability. (shrink)

Identity and distinctness facts are ones like “The Eiffel Tower is identical to the Eiffel Tower,” and “The Eiffel Tower is distinct from the Louvre.” This paper concerns one question in the metaphysics of identity: Are identity and distinctness facts metaphysically fundamental or are they nonfundamental? I provide an overview of answers to this question.

At the conclusion of their 1968 report, the Harvard Ad Hoc Committee argued that “responsible medical opinion” was ready to accept severe and permanent neurologic injury as a new criterion for deat...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 9.2 (2002) 189-191 [Access article in PDF] Listening, Acting, and the Quest for AlternativesA Response to Charland and Bracken Erica Lilleleht The challenge is not to replace one certitude... with another but to cultivate an attention to the conditions under which things become 'evident,'... ceasing to be objects of our attention and therefore seeming fixed, necessary, and unchangeable. (Rabinow on Foucault 1997, p. XIX) (...) I do not know whether it must be said today that the critical task still entails faith in Enlightenment; I continue to think that this task requires work on our limits, that is, a patient labor giving form to our impatience for liberty. (Foucault 1997, p. 319) IN RESPONDING TO MY PAPER, Bracken and Charland raise a number of interesting points. Through discussing Tuke's York Retreat (Charland) and Foucault's "regimes of truth" (Bracken), the character of moral treatment, the value of a Foucauldian analysis, the importance of listening (as well as its limits), and the necessity of taking action are all raised as important issues when considering the history and current status of psychiatry. In my response, I shall focus on the latter two issues, namely, the possibility of listening and the necessity of action. I will make the argument that although action can, and often should, follow listening, having action as its necessary (and immediate) goal brings with it a set of pressures and practices that can render both experiences difficult, if not impossible.First, let me share my understanding of Bracken and Charland's main theses and arguments. For Patrick Bracken, the main purpose of any critique, but particularly a critique of current psychiatric practice, is to present readers with a new way of listening and understanding. It should, to paraphrase Bracken, open things up for deeper analysis. The Foucault he is listening to, then, is a man in whose "hands history becomes philosophy". This transformation is important because as it occurs new "discursive spaces" open up, thereby presenting readers of his work with new voices (e.g., patients, less-than-famous psychiatrists, priests). This incursion of the new does not necessarily, however, invalidate the old. Bracken substantiates this by making the important point that Foucault did not simply reject Enlightenment reason (an old and highly persistent voice), but rather "challenged the idea that we have to choose to be for or against" it. Bracken further points out that listening to these voices, [End Page 189] old or new, is never a completely "clean" practice. In Bracken's words, "there is no neutral, asocial or apolitical vantage point from [which] we can judge the validity of one position over the other." This means that in listening to the "other" (as patient, friend, argument, or psychiatric practice) we must maintain a kind of double consciousness, one in which we attend to this other voice while at the same time being aware that neither of us are speaking from within a neutral, clean space (devoid of political, social, and/or cultural pressures or implications). Maintaining this kind of awareness is difficult for obvious reasons. In mental health practice and for Bracken, however, this difficulty can be worthwhile if it results in formerly silent participants having "their voice heard in debates about service development and the nature of progress."Although I doubt Louis Charland would disagree with the idea that listening is important, he does take the function of critique one step further. Specifically for Charland, critiques of psychiatric practice, past and particularly present, should result in the identification of alternative solutions. Failing to do so can indicate that the critique "borders on a lack of depth." If one extends this assertion about my analysis to Foucault's own work, we find that Charland is not alone. For example, Hoy, in his introduction to his edited Foucault: A Critical Reader (1992), states that "Foucault's continued refusal to specify either a prescription or a prognosis for social illnesses he diagnoses suggests to some readers that genealogy is as unserious and irresponsible as archeology" (p. 7). This point emerges... (shrink)

I explore proposals for stating identity criteria in terms of ground. I also address considerations for and against taking identity and distinctness facts to be ungrounded.

Evidence-based medicine has beendefined as the conscientious and judicious useof current best evidence in making clinicaldecisions. This paper will attempt to explicatethe terms ``conscientious'''' and ``judicious''''within the evidence-based medicine definition.It will be argued that ``conscientious'''' and``judicious'''' represent virtue terms derived fromvirtue ethics and virtue epistemology. Theidentification of explicit virtue components inthe definition and therefore conception ofevidence-based medicine presents an importantstarting point in the connection between virtuetheories and medicine itself. In addition, aunification of virtue theories andevidence-based medicine will illustrate theneed for (...) future research in order to combinethe fields of virtue-based approaches andclinical practice. (shrink)

I discuss Bennett's characterization of the "more fundamental than" relation.

I defend the following argument in this paper. Premise 1: Laws of nature are intrinsic to the universe. Premise 2: Humeanism maintains that laws of nature are extrinsic to the universe. Conclusion: Humeanism is false. This argument is inspired by John Hawthorne’s (2004) argument in “Why Humeans are out of their Minds”. My argument differs from his; Hawthorne focuses on Humean views of causation and how they interact with judgments about consciousness. He thinks Humeans are forced to treat certain mental (...) properties (insofar as they involve causal features) as extrinsic to conscious minds. I do not discuss causation or consciousness here. I focus on Humean accounts of laws. I argue that Humean laws are extrinsic to the entire universe. As such, Humeans are not just out of their minds; they are out of this world. I aim to show that premises 1 and 2 are well-supported and that denying either of them comes at a cost. Nevertheless, Humeans may prefer to reject 1 or 2 rather than give up Humeanism. Even if the Humean takes one of these routes, the argument above has philosophical import: it shows that Humeanism involves surprising commitments. (shrink)

'When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me?' - Michel de Montaigne. Why do we live with pets? Is there something more to our relationship with them than simply companionship? What is it we look for in our pets and what does this say about us as human beings? In this fascinating book, Erica Fudge explores the nature of this most complex of relationships and the (...) difficulties of knowing what it is that one is living with when one chooses to share a home with an animal. Fudge argues that our capacity for compassion and ability to live alongside others is evident in our relationships with our pets, those paradoxical creatures who give us a sense of comfort and security while simultaneously troubling the categories human and animal. For what is a pet if it isn't a fully-fledged member of the human family? This book proposes that by crossing over these boundaries pets help construct who it is we think we are. Drawing on the works of modern writers, such as J. M. Coetzee, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and Jacques Derrida, Fudge shows how pets have been used to think with and to undermine our easy conceptions of human, animal and home. Indeed, "Pets" shows our obsession with domestic animals that reveals many of the paradoxes, contra - dictions and ambiguities of life. Living with pets provides thought-provoking perspectives on our notions of possession and mastery, mutuality and cohabitation, love and dominance. We might think of pets as simply happy, loved additions to human homes but as this captivating book reveals perhaps it is the pets that make the home and without pets perhaps we might not be the humans we think we are. For anyone who has ever wondered, like Montaigne, what their cat is thinking, it will be illuminating reading. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated stressors have impacted the daily lives and sleeping patterns of many individuals, including university students. Dreams may provide insight into how the mind processes changing realities; dreams not only allow consolidation of new information, but may give the opportunity to creatively “play out” low-risk, hypothetical threat simulations. While there are studies that analyze dreams in high-stress situations, little is known of how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted dreams of university students. The aim of this (...) study was to explore how the dream content of students was affected during the university COVID-19 lockdown period (March–July, 2020). Using online survey methods, we analyzed dream recall content (n= 71) using the Hall-Van de Castle dream coding system and Fisher's exact tests for sex comparisons. Preliminary results indicate that female students experienced more nightmares as compared to male students. Dream analysis found that, relative to normative American College Student (ACS) samples generated pre-COVID-19, women were more likely to experience aggressive interactions in their dream content, including increased physical aggression. Results indicate that university students did experience changes in dream content due to the pandemic lockdown period, with women disproportionally affected. These findings can aid universities in developing support programs for students by bringing forth an understanding of students' concerns and anxieties as they process the “new normal” of social distancing. (shrink)

This essay explores a call for non-action in certain ancient Chinese texts that, contrary to expectation, implicitly upholds definitions of action that are comparable to Western understandings of the term. The call for non-action in ancient Chinese texts differs significantly, however, from what Western theorists usually define as legitimate, agent-led action through its negation of viewing means-end calculations as the basis of action. Closer analysis of such formulations on non-action reveal that that there is room for a broader definition in (...) action theory of what constitutes a coherent, unified, creative agent. (shrink)

Abstract This paper presents an evaluation of the role and function of discourse analysis in relation to claims that it promotes critical interventions within psychology. Discourse analysis challenges the function, truth claims and methodological adequacy of psychological practices, through attending to difference, resistance, relativism and reflexivity. However, these features pose theoretical and conceptual difficulties, particularly if a theoretically motivated position is attributed to the framework itself, rather than the ways it has been taken up and used. I explore how these (...) issues are played out in the arenas of (a) research practice, (b) teaching discourse analysis, and (c) everyday discursive clashes. As with other approaches that have generated methodological innovations, discourse analysis can work to support, rather than challenge, mainstream psychological practices. In order to maintain the fruitful dynamic of discourse analysis, therefore, we should acknowledge the political concerns that motivate our analysis, rather than regard them as a property of the approach itself. (shrink)

"The United States today is a suburban nation that thinks of race as an urban issue, and often assumes that it has been largely solved,” write the editors of this groundbreaking and passionately argued book. They show that the locus of racial and ethnic transformation is now clearly suburban and illustrate patterns of demographic change in the suburbs with a series of rich case studies. The book concludes by considering what kinds of strategies school officials and community leaders can pursue (...) at all levels to improve opportunities for suburban low-income students and students of color, and what ways address the challenges associated with demographic change. (shrink)