British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 15, 2007, pp. 561-567. (Author Posting. (c) Taylor & Francis, 2007. It is posted here by permission of Taylor & Francis for personal use, not for redistribution.).

2015 Reprint of 1960 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition. Not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. The "Novum Organum," full original title "Novum Organum Scientiarum" or 'new instrument of science', is a Bacon's landmark work scientific method. First published in 1620, the title is a reference to Aristotle's work "Organon," which was his treatise on logic and syllogism. Bacon outlines a new system of logic he believes to be superior to the old ways of syllogism. This is now known (...) as the Baconian method.For Bacon, finding the essence of a thing was a simple process of reduction, and the use of inductive reasoning. In finding the cause of a 'phenomenal nature' such as heat, one must list all of the situations where heat is found. Then another list should be drawn up, listing situations that are similar to those of the first list except for the lack of heat. A third table lists situations where heat can vary. The 'form nature', or cause, of heat must be that which is common to all instances in the first table, is lacking from all instances of the second table and varies by degree in instances of the third table. Bacon's work was instrumental in the historical development of the scientific method. Includes Bacon's Essay on "Great Instauration," and "Preparative Toward a Material and Experimental History.". (shrink)

This essay examines Maduabuchi Dukor’s perspective on the African conception of man, personal identity and“life-here-after”. This is with a view to showing that although, Dukor’s views represent what obtain among some ethnic nationalities in Africa, this nevertheless does not provide a basis for generalising across the whole of Africa, as there are countless number of ethnic groups in Africa to which Dukor’s general claims may not be applicable. Given the varieties of metaphysical conceptions of man and destiny in Africa which (...) we are yet to fully explore, and given also the inherent contradictions in some of these conceptions, which calls into questioning, the veracity of claims made therein, it will amount to a major logical error to make sweeping generalisations that would be representative of the whole of Africa. Such generalisations would remain a non-holistic, but partial representation of the African conception of man and human destiny. (shrink)

When Whitehead's views of relativity are mentioned, everyone thinks of the views Whitehead published between 1919 and 1924. Concerning these views, C. D. Broad is “depressed”1 that physicists paid so little attention. And Victor Lowe has written:There is a bare possibility that Whitehead's theory of relativity may yet affect the history of science.

This study was designed to test the hypothesis that events such as the Christmas Eve Carol Services at Liverpool Cathedral that include some regular churchgoers (people who attend services most weeks) and much larger numbers of occasional visitors (who may attend church only once or twice a year) make a significant impact on the psychological health and well-being of the participants. Using a repeat-measure design, participants were invited to complete a copy of the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire while they were waiting (...) for the service to begin and then to complete a second copy during a five-minute organ improvisation just before the close of the service. Data provided by 802 participants who completed both copies of the instrument demonstrated a significantly higher score on the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire at time two than at time one, suggesting that attendance at the service had exerted a positive impact on psychological health and well-being. Contribution: Situated within the science of cathedral studies, this article demonstrates by means of a repeated-measure study that cathedrals can make a significant impact on the psychological health and well-being of the wider community served by them. The same well-being measure was completed by 802 participants at the Christmas Eve Carol Services before and after the event, with a significant increase in scores at time two. (shrink)

Although much attention has been given to Jacques Lacan in his rereading of Freud and to French women analysts in their deconstruction of traditional psychoanalysis, little has been available in the US on contemporary male French analysts and their treatment of women. She Speaks/He Listens illustrates the range of thought among some well-known French male psychoanalysts today--from Lacanians to anti-Lacanians to eclectics--with regard to women and sexual difference. Through the interview format, with its possibilities for surprise and spontaneity, the book (...) makes available the thought of Alain Didier-Weill, Bela Grunberger, Patrick Guyomard, Serge Lebovici, Rene Major, Gerard Pommier and Francois Roustang, as well as the internationally famed analyst Otto Kernberg, who gives a fascinating account of the French influences on his work. Other themes addressed include the place of Freud and Lacan in current theory and the relation of feminism to contemporary French male psychoanalysts. (shrink)

Mental healthcare research increasingly focuses the needs of trans people and, in doing so, acknowledges knowledge and epistemic resources developed in trans communities. In this article, we aim to raise awareness of an ethical issue described by Emmalon Davis that may arise in the context of engaging with community knowledge and epistemic resources: the risk of epistemic appropriation. It is composed of two harms (1) a detachment of epistemic resources developed in the originating community and (2) a misdirection of these (...) epistemic resources for epistemic goals of a dominant community. In this article, we map and discuss the ethical concerns in using knowledge originating in trans communities in terms of epistemic appropriation in the context of mental healthcare research. We first argue that misgendering, failing to reference non-academic sources and a lack of attribution in community authorship are forms of epistemicdetachment. Second, we problematize cases of epistemicmisdirectionof trans epistemic resources, focusing on the examples of detransition and transition regret. We discuss harms related to epistemic appropriation in relationship to risks to safety. The article aims to raise awareness about the risk of epistemic appropriation both in researchers engaging with trans knowledge as well as in mental healthcare workers who seek information on trans. (shrink)

This study examines the relationship between the ethical behavior and customer orientation of insurance sales agents engaged in the selling of complex services, e.g. health, life, auto, and property insurance. The effect of ethical and customer-oriented behavior, measured by the SOCO scale (Saxe and Weitz, 1982), on the annual premiums generated by the agents is also investigated. Customeroriented sales agents are found to engage in less unethical behavior than their sales-oriented counterparts. Further, sales-oriented agents are found to perceive greater levels (...) of unethical behavior among their significant others. Alarmingly, higher levels of sales premiums are found among those agents who engage in unethical behavior. (shrink)

The central concern of Knowledge in a Social World is to restore the notion of Truth to the rightful place of glory that it had before the onslaught of those pragmatic, cultural-studying, social constructing, critical legalistic and feministic postmodernists (PoMo’s, for short). As G sees it, these PoMo’s have never put forward any “real” arguments for their veriphobia; and, well, how could they, since their position is committed to the “denial of Truth” and hence committed to denying that there is (...) any such thing as a valid or a sound argument. Instead, according to G, they have artfully inculcated various types of considerations so that a defender of Truth now must swim against the entire flow of academe to even stand a chance of making his or her voice heard. G finds six overlapping currents in this wash of anti-veritas ideas, listing them in his §1.3 and devoting a further section to each of them in turn (§1.4–§1.9). These currents spring up in various later parts of the book for further discussion, but even in these places G refers the reader back to the material in Chapter 1 as refuting them. (Insofar as a current that is not based on any consideration of Truth, validity, or soundness is susceptible of refutation.) I think it is fair to say that G does not really intend that his comments about the anti-veritas ideas will be taken as definitive by the veriphobes, but rather that he believes the strength of his positive account in the rest of the book (which accords Truth a central role) will sway all neutral readers into a belief of the usefulness of Truth in an account of social knowledge. Still, I think many readers…even veriphiles…will find the considerations that G brings against the six currents to be disappointingly short. I want to consider some of the currents in the stream of PoMo ideas. As I said, G’s six currents overlap at various points, and each of the currents has sub-flows. This means that we might put.... (shrink)

In the last ten years or so, talk of “possible worlds” has become decidedly more fashionable from a logical point of view. And here fashion is well-justified: both from a logical and from a metaphysical point of view, the work of Saul Kripke on the concept of a possible world is as challenging as any contributions since the time of Leibniz himself. It is only fair, then, and indirectly flattering, to complain that Kripke is limiting himself as a major philosopher (...) in ways which Leibniz saw to be essential to balanced philosophy. We confine ourselves in this paper to just two crucial dimensions of philosophical depth when it comes to the concept of possible worlds. On the one hand, Leibniz saw the concept as one which raises very usefully many traditional problems of ethics, including those of free will and theodicy. On the other hand, Leibniz saw that questions about possible worlds may call for a radical approach to sane ontology. Such an approach, “revisionary metaphysics,” systematically reinterprets rather than dogmatically regurgitates the convictions of Plain Men and Theoretical Physicists about—to take a favorite example of Kripke’s—this single table’s being made of many distinct molecules. (shrink)

The article suggests that the position ascribed to thrasymachus in book i of plato's "republic" may be confused but need not be self-contradictory. A formal argument is constructed that derives his conclusion from premisses based on things he says, though not always in the language he uses. It is not suggested that plato ascribes this argument to thrasymachus, but only that it is consistent and intelligible in itself and compatible with what thrasymachus does say.

Many problems in environmental ethics are what have been called “global systemic problems,” problems in which what happens in one part of the world affects preservationist efforts elsewhere. Restoration of the Everglades is one such example. If global warming continues, the Everglades may well be flooded within the next quarter to half century and all restoration efforts will be for naught. Yet, the United States government is both pursuing restorationist efforts and withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol on emissions of greenhouse (...) gases. One aspect of global systemic problems concerns whether there are interconnections between the preservationist obligations of the locals and the duties of others. There are three main lines of arguments for concluding that there are, indeed, interconnected obligations in such cases. First, the consequentialist case for imposing duties on locals assumes that others do not have inconsistent consequentialist obligations. In addition, a related consequentialist case can be made that when problems are systemic, others have positive supportive duties. Second, a weak principle of reciprocity supports the interconnectedness of obligations. Insistence that someone has an obligation that benefits you implies the duty not to act to undermine the efforts of that person to fulfill that obligation. Third, a weak principle of fairness—that it is only fair to expect one person to bear the burdens of producinga collective good if others have obligations to do their cooperative part—supports interconnected obligations with regard to global systemic problems. Because all three arguments point to the same conclusion, there is a very strong case for interconnected obligations as part of the solution to global systemic problems—problems that are all too prevalent in our world today. (shrink)

If school districts want to sustain improvements that have been achieved during this period of district transformation, district leaders need to align their district, both vertically and horizontally. Alignment assures that the work of individuals supports their team goals, the work of teams supports their school's goals, the work of schools supports their clusters, and the work of clusters supports the district's strategic direction. This groudbreaking work presents qualitative information about the nature of strategic alignment in school systems and how (...) to create and sustain it. (shrink)

Formation of a Religious Landscape: Shiʿi Higher Learning in Safavid Iran. By Maryam Moazzen. Islamic History and Civilization, vol. 151. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Pp. xiii + 290, illus. $149, €129.