Ancient and medieval dialecticians: the lengthening shadow of Plato.--Traveller on the royal way: Martin Luther on simul justus et peccator.--Musician in the concert of God's joy: Jacob Boehme on ground and unground.--Prodigy between finite and infinite: Pascal's dialectic of grandeur and misery.--Thinker of the thoughts of God: Hegel and the dialectic of movement.--Venturer at the brinks: Kierkegaard and the dialectic of the suffering self.--Walker on the narrow ridge: Karl Barth and the dialectic of the human and divine.--Bridge-builder beyond the boundaries: (...) Tillich's dialectic of estrangement and reconciliation.--Wanderer in the forest: Heidegger on the being of beings.--Man suspended in mid-air: Rudolph Bultmann on the believer as free for the future.--Struggler under the twofold verdict of God: Werner Elert and the dialectic of law and gospel.--Epilog.--Selected bibliography (p. 159). (shrink)

No contemporary philosopher has argued more consistenily or more convincingly for a God of becoming than Charles Hartshorne. Boehme looms largein the historical background of his dipolar theology: both classical theism, which sees God as supreme actuality and most strictly absolute, and pantheism, whichsees in God only supreme potentiality and universal relativity, are correlated in his panentheism. The ultimate contraries are united in the divine relativity,where eternal permanence and temporal process are both preserved in a tension that, logically, precedes them.Hartshorne (...) has been reluctant to develop relationships to earlier and "simpler" representatives of his type of philosophical theology. Berdyaev, on the other hand, is ready to acknowledge Boehme as the real founder of his own philosophy of freedom. The affinity between the two stands out sharply when they explore the problem of evil, tragedy within divinity, or the Unground as Nothingness which gives rise to Something and the entire theogonic process. Berdyaev sees Boehme as one of the rare thinkers who broke with the optimistic rationalism of Western thought to construct a more spiritual philosophy of tragedy.Heidegger's revolt against Western ontology and Christian theology has certain affinities to Boehme's thought. We may point to but one aspect here, the central basic question of metaphysics, which is foolishness to Christian theology: "Why is there any being at all and not rather nothing?" This question and Heidegger's "Nothingness" have obvious connections with Boehme's question and his "Nichts." For both. Nothingness is a primordial and fundamental working. It is found in Being itself rather than outside it. It gives rise through primordial discord to Being. To be sure, Heidegger develops his dialectic far beyond anything suggested by Boehme when he interprets his Dasein as suspended in dread over das Nichts. But Heidegger's profoundly dialectical conception of Being has obvious relations to the non-Being of Boehme: Nothingness or nihilation is present in all beings and is the essence of Being itself. It is the dynamic power of Being thai gives rise to Being. Self-negation is always present in the coming-into-presence of Being. For both Boehme and Heidegger Nothingness is required for the "letting-be" of beings, for the un-concealment of Being. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) has caused shortages of life-sustaining medical resources, and future waves of the virus may cause further scarcity. The Yale New Haven Health System developed a triage protocol to allocate scarce medical resources during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the primary goal of saving the most lives possible, and a secondary goal of making triage assessments and decisions consistent, transparent, and fair. We outline the process of developing the protocol, summarize the protocol, and discuss the major ethical challenges (...) encountered, along with our answers to the challenges. These challenges include (1) the role of age and chronic comorbidities; (2) evaluating children and pregnant patients; (3) racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in health; (4) prioritization of healthcare workers; and (5) balancing clinical judgment versus protocolized assessments.We conclude with a review of the limitations of our protocol and the lessons learned. We hope that a robust public discussion of such protocols and the ethical challenges they raise will result in the fairest possible processes, less need for triage, and more lives saved during future waves of the pandemic and similar public health emergencies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Role of Malebranche in Ernest Renan's Philosophical Development BENJAMIN ROUNTREE RENANHASBEENCALLEDwith some justification the "Malebranche du dix-neuvi~me si~cle." 1 In his praise of the seventeenth-century philosopher, Renan was unconciously inclined to call attention to the similarities between himself and Malebranche by pointing out qualities which they were apt to share. A thinker as sinuous as Renan was bound to appreciate the power of subtle reasoning in (...) such a work as the admirable Recherche de la V~rit6. In a certain sense Renan is even the heir of a spirit to which Malebranche gave fresh impetus. Like Malebranche, he inveighed against pedants, dilettantes, and idolators of antiquity; he turned his back on tradition to favor modem thought over ancient, and placed his faith in a world governed by knowledge and reason in which progress and human perfectibility promise man happiness. In his basic optimism, in his belief that man is capable of knowing truth, in his somewhat pantheistic mysticism, Renan joins hands with Malebranche across the eighteenth century. How well did Renan know Malebranche? What did he think of him? Did his opinion of him undergo any evolution? To find the answers to these questions one must go back to about 1840, when Renan, a.t seventeen, began his study of Malebranche. By the time he was twenty, Renan, under the guidance of M. Gosselin, who little suspected how great a contribution Malebranche would make to Renan's decision to leave the Church, was reading the philosopher with enthusiastic regularity. Indeed, the Oratorian had become "l'objet perp6tuel" of his reflections, he tells us. The speculative terminology of the Entretiens sur la M6taphysique and the M6ditations chrgtiennes echoed through his class compositions and notebooks. His ideas on the general action of Providence in the universe were already similar to those of this philosopher, who, "illustre" and "saint," soon became for him a kind of spiritual hero, a hero whose exemplary intellectual zeal drew Renan instinctively ever more deeply into the contemplative life, into.the fervent and determined quest for "Truth." This "penseur hardi" was destined to excite Renan's own paradoxical mind as "le plus beau r~veur et le plus terrible logicien" ever to exist.~ 1L. L~vy-Bruhl, "La Religion de Renan," Journal de psychologie normale et pathologique (A~pril,1923), p. 344. Ernest Renan, Souvenirs d'en]ance et de ieunesse, in Les Oeuvres completes d'Ernest Renan (Paris: Calmann=L~vy, 1947), II, 843-846. All future references to Renan will be made from this edition unless otherwise specified. See also Lewis F. Mott, Ernest Renan (New York: D. Appleton, 1921), pp. 15-16; Jean Pommier, Renan (Paris: Perrin, 1923), p. 37; La Jeunesse clSricale d'Ernest Renan (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1933), p. 138; "Les Lectures de Renan au sSminaire,"La Revue d'histoire litt6raire de la France (1934), p. 93. [47] 48 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY For a moment Malebranche, like Pascal, even helped delay Renan's loss of faith. The attempt of a Christian to satisfy the intelligence through vigorous application of Cartesian rationalism to theology and science fascinated the young student in 1843 as he read the Conversations chr~tiennes and the Recherche de la Vdritd. He eagerly believed that reason leads one to knowledge of God, that the search for Truth is the search for God. Thus, equating the Diety to Truth and retaining his belief in a providence evident in immutable natural law, Renan continued to accept the Catholic dogma, the Bible and revealed truth in a "general sense," as he says in his Souvenirs. After Renan's first soul-shattering year of philosophy Malebranche still stood alongside Pascal and Bossuet as a model of piety, as a "grand esprit," a profound intelligence capable of remaining genuinely Christian, a powerful thinker "qui dit sa messe route sa vie." a He appeared as one solution to Renan's own growing spiritual problem, for Malebranche's example seemed a way of retaining intellectual independence without leaving the Church. Here was a priest, Renan thought, who, in a time of steadily increasing ecclesiastical authority, had been able to live "peacefully" even as a member of a religious congregation without... (shrink)

Anyone taking a class in Modern Philosophy will learn that one of the most important issues in 17th and 18th Century philosophy was the debate between rationalists and empiricists. In 2005, Matthias Steup and Ernest Sosa edited a book entitled Contemporary Debates In Epistemology, which includes a chapter entitled ‘Is There A Priori Knowledge?’. In this chapter, Laurence BonJour defends rationalism and Michael Devitt defends empiricism. So, this philosophical debate has been going on for four centuries, and it still (...) has not been settled. This is the kind of thing that gets philosophy a bad reputation. If a dispute can continue for four centuries without resolution, that is surely an indication that nobody knows how to tell a good answer from a bad one. In this article I want to consider why the debate is unresolved after so much time. (shrink)

How should we understand good philosophical inquiry? Ernest Sosa has argued that the key to answering this question lies with virtue-based epistemology. According to virtue-based epistemology, competences are prior to epistemic justification. More precisely, a subject is justified in having some type of belief only because she could have a belief of that type by exercising her competences. Virtue epistemology is well positioned to explain why, in forming false philosophical beliefs, agents are often less rational than it is possible (...) to be. False philosophical beliefs are often unjustified—and the agent is thereby less rational for having them—precisely because these beliefs could not be formed by exercising competences. But, virtue epistemology is not well positioned to explain why, in failing to form some true philosophical beliefs, agents are less rational than it is possible to be. In cases where agents fall short by failing to believe philosophical truths, the problem is not that they believe things they shouldn’t, but that they lack beliefs they ought to have. We argue that Timothy Williamson's recent critique of the a priori/a posteriori distinction falls prey to similar problem cases. Williamson fails to see that a type of belief might be a priori justified if and only if, even without any special confirming experiences, agents fall short by failing to have this type of belief. We conclude that there are types of beliefs that are deeply a priori justified for any agent regardless of what epistemic competences the agent has. However, we also point out that this view has a problem of its own: it appears to make the acquisition of a priori knowledge too easy. We end by suggesting that a move back towards virtue-based epistemology is necessary. But in order for this move to be effective, epistemic competences will have to be understood very differently than in the reliabilist tradition. (shrink)

This volume, first published in 1954, is one of three presenting the correspondence of David Hume. It collects letters from 1737 to 1776 which do not appear in J. Y. T. Greig's two volumes of 1932, and offers a rich picture of the man and his age. The correspondents include such famous thinkers as Adam Smith, James Boswell, and Benjamin Franklin.

Hypocrisy is widely thought to be morally objectionable in a way that undermines the hypocrite’s moral standing to blame others. To wit, we seem to intuitively accept the “Nonhypocrisy Condition:” R has the standing to blame S for some violation of a moral norm N only if R’s blaming S is not hypocritical. This claim has been the subject of intensifying philosophical investigation in recent years. However, we can only understand why hypocrisy is morally objectionable and has an effect on (...) standing to blame if we can correctly characterize hypocrisy itself. Unfortunately, some recent discussions fail to do this, which fatally undermines subsequent arguments concerning the effect of hypocrisy on the standing to blame. This paper’s central aim is to develop and defend a better account of hypocrisy. The hope is that with such an account in hand, we can explain and perhaps justify our moral aversion to hypocrisy in general as well as the Nonhypocrisy Condition in particular. (shrink)

Reductive representationalist theories of consciousness are yet to produce a satisfying account of pain’s affective component, the part that makes it painful. The paramount problem here is that that there seems to be no suitable candidate for what affective experience represents. This article suggests that affective experience represents the Darwinian fitness effects of events. I argue that, because of affective experience’s close association with motivation, natural selection will work to bring affect into covariance with the average fitness effects of types (...) of event, and that this covariance makes fitness effects a promising candidate for what affect represents. I also argue that this account is to be preferred to Cutter and Tye’s recent proposal that affect represents harmfulness, and answer an objection that Aydede and Fulkerson recently offered against representational accounts of affect. (shrink)

Manipulation arguments aim to show that compatibilism is false. Usually, they aim to undermine compatibilism by first eliciting the intuition that a manipulated agent is not morally responsible. Patrick Todd's (2012) Moral Standing Manipulation Argument instead aims to first elicit the intuition that a manipulator cannot blame her victim. Todd then argues that the best explanation for why a manipulator cannot blame her victim is that incompatibilism is true. In this paper, I present three lines of defence against this argument (...) for those who agree a manipulator cannot blame her victim. (shrink)

Many people believe the global economy is unjust, but they don't know what to do about it. What responsibilities do American consumers have to workers in China making their iPhones? Should they still buy clothes made in Bangladesh's sweatshops? Offering an overview of how neoliberalism orients us to the world, Benjamin L. McKean shows the practical shortcomings of neoliberal approaches to the world and develops an alternative way of thinking and acting guided by a compelling new account of freedom. (...) Disorienting Neoliberalism offers a framework for understanding the politics of the global economy and shows how we can act in solidarity to promote justice. (shrink)

This book offers an up-to-date overview of the research on philosophy of mathematics education, one of the most important and relevant areas of theory. The contributions analyse, question, challenge, and critique the claims of mathematics education practice, policy, theory and research, offering ways forward for new and better solutions. The book poses basic questions, including: What are our aims of teaching and learning mathematics? What is mathematics anyway? How is mathematics related to society in the 21st century? How do students (...) learn mathematics? What have we learnt about mathematics teaching? Applied philosophy can help to answer these and other fundamental questions, and only through an in-depth analysis can the practice of the teaching and learning of mathematics be improved. The book addresses important themes, such as critical mathematics education, the traditional role of mathematics in schools during the current unprecedented political, social, and environmental crises, and the way in which the teaching and learning of mathematics can better serve social justice and make the world a better place for the future. (shrink)

One of the central aims of Susanne Mantel’s book "Determined by Reasons" (2018) is to reject the idea that normative and motivating reasons can be identical. In her own words, Mantel denies the “Identity Thesis”, according to which “when an agent acts for a normative reason N, there is a motivating reason M of that agent such that M is identical with N” (Mantel 2018, 93). In this comment, I offer a simple argument for the Identity Thesis: (1) When an (...) agent acts for a normative reason N, there is a reason M for which that agent acts such that M is identical with N. (2) A reason for which someone acts is a motivating reason. (3) Therefore, when an agent acts for a normative reason N, there is a motivating reason M of that agent such that M is identical with N. Premise (1) is trivial, and premise (2) is true by a common definition of the term ‘motivating reason’, according to which a motivating reason is just a reason that is acted upon. I call this the operative notion of a motivating reason. Mantel does not address this operative notion, even though it is widely used in the literature, especially among proponents of the Identity Thesis. I argue that Mantel does not succeed in rejecting the Identity Thesis as long as she does not show that the operative notion of a motivating reason is flawed. (shrink)

Some people are multi-billionaires; others die because they are too poor to afford food or medications. In many countries, people are denied rights to free speech, to participate in political life, or to pursue a career, because of their gender, religion, race or other factors, while their fellow citizens enjoy these rights. In many societies, what best predicts your future income, or whether you will attend college, is your parents’ income. -/- To many, these facts seem unjust. Others disagree: even (...) if these facts are regrettable, they aren’t issues of justice. A successful theory of justice must explain why clear injustices are unjust and help us resolve current disputes. -/- John Rawls (1921-2002) was a Harvard philosopher best known for his A Theory of Justice (1971), which attempted to define a just society. Nearly every contemporary scholarly discussion of justice references A Theory of Justice. This essay reviews its main themes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 (2002) 126-127 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Natural Law Theories in the Early Enlightenment T. J. Hochstrasser. Natural Law Theories in the Early Enlightenment. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii + 246. Cloth, $54.95. In a worthy addition to Cambridge's Ideas in Context series, T. J. Hochstrasser undertakes an excavation. His aim is to provide a description, and to (...) demonstrate the importance within the German Frühaufklärung, of a largely forgotten philosophical approach: eclecticism. Hochstrasser argues that the triumph of Wolffian rationalism in the Protestant universities in the middle of the eighteenth century occluded the importance of eclecticism for Kant, who in turn occluded it for everyone afterward. But the price of forgetting eclecticism is high. Not only are we left with no account--or a skewed account--of the development of German thought from the first stirrings of the Enlightenment to the emergence of the Critical philosophy, but our understanding of the development of the historiography of philosophy is badly compromised. For among their many accomplishments--in natural jurisprudence, in university reform--the eclectics were the first critical historians of philosophy, their distinctive genres being historically aware treatises on natural law and Whig histories of natural jurisprudence. Hochstrasser's study traces the development of eclecticism, from the work of its founders, Samuel Pufendorf and Christian Thomasius, through a devolution in the hands of Thomasius's later disciples, to the eventual oblivion in the middle of the eighteenth century. This review will focus on the beginning of this narrative, as Pufendorf is the leading figure in the book.Eclecticism began with Pufendorf's attempt, in his mature work on natural law, to reconcile his conflicting inheritances from Grotius and Hobbes without simply endorsing the work of either. He was impressed both by Grotius's explanation of the law of nations in terms of human sociability--but also by Hobbes's criticisms of Grotius, rooted in the latter's analysis of the state of nature. At the same time, he wished to reject Grotius's method of induction from sociological observation and Hobbes's minimally constrained voluntarism. Contributing further to his perplexity was his increasing disaffection from the geometric approach he had adopted in his Elementa Jurisprudentiae Universalis.The way out of this impasse, Hochstrasser contends, was revealed to Pufendorf in correspondence with Hermann Conring, the leading constitutional lawyer of his time, and Johann Böcler, Grotius's most erudite commentator. Böcler chastised Pufendorf for his neglect of history, and both of Pufendorf's correspondents pointed out his need for some non-Hobbesian criterion by which he could validate his first principles, whatever they turned out to be. Stung particularly by Böcler's remarks, Pufendorf returned to the Stoics and there discovered a via media between Hobbes's pessimism and Grotius's optimism: a synthesis anticipating Kant's doctrine of "unsocial sociability." For the purposes of Hochstrasser's study, the key aspects of Pufendorf's solution are these: first, it avoids mere voluntarism; second, it does this by means of a moral epistemology that sharply distinguishes natural law [End Page 126] from moral theology; finally, the validating criterion for Pufendorf's first principles is located in critical appropriation of the history of moral philosophy. These were to be hallmarks of Pufendorf's school.On the first and second points, Hochstrasser seems to me substantively correct, though I think he misunderstands the nature of Pufendorf's escape from mere voluntarism and thereby underplays the religious dimensions of Pufendorf's theory. Among recent Anglo-American commentators on Pufendorf, only Robert Adams has in my view properly construed Pufendorf's thought: that it involves a command theory of obligation proper, but posits the natural advantageousness of some hierarchies as a buttress against mere voluntarism. Hochstrasser is thus right to insist, against Leibniz, that Pufendorf's account of obligation is coherent. But he is wrong to suggest that "there was nothing in Pufendorf's theory... to oblige him to introduce fear of punishment by a superior... " (105). He is... (shrink)

This essential reference is a handy guide to the often confusing world of cultural theory. Its entries provide accessible introductions to the key cultural theorists of the 19th and 20th centuries, their central concepts and main arguments, and their major works and formative influences. An extensive introduction sets these figures in their appropriate intellectual and historical contexts, and the explanation for each thinker offers links to other seminal minds in the study of culture, as well as a guide to further (...) reading. (shrink)

Although entrepreneurial success is usually attributed to astute financial management in the growth of economic capital, entrepreneurs may also utilize additional sources of inner guidance, creating both tangible and intangible value. This article framed one such source as spiritual capitalism, the juxtaposition of personal spirituality and marketplace dynamics. The soul's currency, or love, is characterized as a manifestation of flow in the entrepreneurial start-up process, which elicits spiritual congruence, harmonious relationships and personal fulfilment. Personal experiences as a Wall Street investment (...) banker and entrepreneur are discussed in exploring methods of leveraging inner guidance and appropriately pursuing material abundance. Participants discussed the demarcation between traditional and spiritual entrepreneurship, and exercises demonstrated how to: identify and value spiritual assets, create spiritual capital, mitigate inhibitors to flow, and harness inner guidance. (shrink)

Though much philosophical and theological debate centres on various aspects of religious life, the very definition of a religious life in any given tradition is often unclear. This paper focuses on Christianity and asks, what does it mean to be a Christian? Kierkegaard‟s authorship offers an insightful conception of Christian being. An ontological account of being in „correct relation‟ and an ethical imperative to imitate Christ and love one‟s neighbour constitute Kierkegaard‟s idea of what it means to be a Christian. (...) This paper will also discuss whether Kierkegaard over-emphasises the individual aspect of religious life at the expense of the communal aspect. What will be affirmed throughout is that Kierkegaard‟s ontological and ethical conception of Christian being illuminates the issue today as it did for 19th century Danish religion. (shrink)

Benjamin Barber is one of America's preeminent political theorists. He has been a significant voice in the continuing debate about the nature and role of democracy in the contemporary world. A Passion for Democracy collects twenty of his most important writings on American democracy. Together they refine his distinctive position in democratic theory. Barber's conception of "strong democracy" contrasts with traditional concepts of "liberal democracy," especially in its emphasis on citizen participation in central issues of public debate. These essays (...) critique the "thin representation" of liberal democracy and buttress the arguments presented in Barber's twelve books, most recently in his well-received Jihad vs. McWorld: How Globalism and Tribalism Are Re-shaping the World. In these pieces, Barber argues for participatory democracy without dependence on abstract metaphysical foundations, and he stresses the relationship among democracy and civil society, civic education, and culture. A Passion for Democracy is divided into four sections. In the first, "American Theory: Democracy, Liberalism, and Rights," Barber addresses issues of ongoing relevance to today's debates about the roots of participatory democracy, including individualism vs. community, the importance of consent, and the irrelevance of Marxism. Essays in the second section, "American Practice: Leadership, Citizenship, and Censorship" provide a "strong democracy" critique of American democratic practice. "Education for Democracy: Civic Education, Service, and Citizenship" applies Barber's theories to three related topics and includes his much-discussed essay "America Skips School." The final section, "Democracy and Technology: Endless Frontier or End of Democracy?" provides glimpses into a future that technology alone cannot secure for democracy. In his preface, Barber writes: "In these essays... I have been hard on my country. Like most ardent democrats, I want more for it than it has achieved, despite the fact that it has achieved more than most people have dared to want." This wide-ranging collection displays not only his passion for democracy, but also his unique perspective on issues of abiding importance for the democratic process. (shrink)

At the heart of Rik Peels’s Responsible Belief: A Theory in Ethics and Epistemology is the idea that responsibility for belief ought to be understood on the model of responsibility for states of affairs that are subject to our influence but not under our intentional control, or what he calls derivative responsibility. In this article, I argue that reflection on the nature and scope of derivative responsibility reveals important lacunae in Peels’s account of responsible belief and his account of responsibility (...) for belief. (shrink)

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Various causal details of the genetic process of translation have been singled out to account for its privileged status as a ‘code'. We explicate the biological uses of coding talk by characterizing a class of special causal processes in which topological properties are the causally relevant ones. This class contains both the process of translation and communication theoretic coding processes as special cases. We propose a formalism in terms of graphs for expressing our theory of biological codes and discuss its (...) utility in understanding biological systems. *Received May 2007; revised May 2008. †To contact the authors, please write to: Department of Philosophy, Baker Hall 135, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213; e-mail: [email protected] or [email protected]. (shrink)