James Highland; Transformative Katharsis: The Significance of Theophrastus's Botanical Works for Interpretations of Dramatic Catharsis, The Journal of Aesthetic.

The idea that an adequate semantics of ordinary language calls for some theory of events has sparked considerable debate among linguists and philosophers. On the one hand, so many linguistic phenomena appear to be explained if (and, according to some authors, only if) we make room for logical forms in which reference to or quantification over events is explicitly featured. Examples include nominalization, adverbial modification, tense and aspect, plurals, and singular causal statements. On the other hand, a number of deep (...) philosophical questions arise as soon as we take events into consideration. Are events entities of a kind? What are their identity and individuation criteria? How does semantic theorizing depend on such metaphysical issues? The aim of this book is to address such issues in some depth, with emphasis precisely on the interplay between linguistic applications and philosophical implications. Contributors: N. Asher, P. M. Bertinetto, J. Brandl, D. Delfitto, R. Eckardt, J. Higginbotham, A. Lenci, T. Parsons, A. ter Meulen, H. Verkuyl. A comprehensive introductory essay (pp. 3-47) is included. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that journalists who report on tragedies need to avoid two extremes in reader reaction: a state of titillation, as well as a state of revulsion, with regard to the facts of the story. Either reaction distances the reader from experiencing the full reality of the tragic event. I suggest the benefit of studying Aristotle’s writings. In his Poetics and Rhetoric, Aristotle not only describes states of mind which the tragic dramatist takes care to avoid, but (...) he also describes how such authors avoided these extremes. Reporters are not dramatists, but if reporters can apply Aristotle’s understanding of good tragic drama to their reporting, they can better avoid extremes in reader reaction which turn readers away from the full reality of disasters and atrocities, and thereby help them better cope with news that is often profoundly disturbing. (shrink)

I argue that there is a great deal in common between a Daoist sage and a contemporary moderator of deliberative dialogues. The most fundamental similarity is harmonious interaction of people facing the challenges of contemporary life. As they encourage and facilitate community action, the actions of the moderator of deliberative dialogue exemplify noncoercive action, wuwei, in the way such dialogue is eventually structured and in the ways the moderator acts to help all participants realize some common ground from which they (...) may take action. The paper gives an example of wuwei that is not located in some agrarian, golden age of the past, but in contemporary, deliberative dialogue. It looks to discussion of wuwei in the Daodejing for further insight in how deliberative dialogue may be cultivated and facilitated. And it looks to deliberative dialogue for further insight into how wuwei can be understood when applied to contemporary community activities. (shrink)

SummaryThe Gainj of highland Papua New Guinea do not use contraception but have a total fertility rate of only 4·3 live births per woman, one of the lowest ever recorded in a natural fertility setting. From an analysis of cross-sectional demographic and endocrinological data, the causes of low reproductive output have been identified in women of this population as: late menarche and marriage, a long interval between marriage and first birth, a high probability of widowhood at later reproductive ages, (...) low effective fecundability and prolonged lactational amenorrhoea. These are combined with near-universal marriage, a low prevalence of primary sterility and a pattern of onset of secondary sterility similar to that found in other populations. Of all the factors limiting fertility, by far the most important are those involved in birth spacing, especially lactational amenorrhoea. (shrink)

Abstract:This study links Homeric and Machiavellian outlooks in Henry James's The Ambassadors. We first relate Lambert Strether's embassy seeking Chad's return to Woollett to what Alexander Pope famously designated the "Embassy to Achilles," i.e., the Achaean effort to induce Achilles's return to battle. Achilles impassionedly rejects the embassy's hypocrisy; he will not be bought. We then find Chad Newsome conspiratorially excluding Strether from the family fortune via intended marriage to Mrs. Newsome. Contrary to Achilles's forthrightness (...) and integrity, Chad and his Parisian circle adopt a post-Machiavellian ethos of deceit as the norm. (shrink)

SummaryThe effects of infant suckling patterns on the post-partum resumption of ovulation and on birth-spacing are investigated among the Gainj of highland New Guinea. Based on hormonal evidence, the median duration of lactational anovulation is 20·4 months, accounting for about 75% of the median interval between live birth and next successful conception. Throughout lactation, suckling episodes are short and frequent, the interval changing slowly over time, from 24 minutes in newborns to 80 minutes in 3-year olds. Maternal serum prolactin (...) concentrations decline in parallel with the changes in suckling patterns, approaching the level observed in non-nursing women by about 24 months post-partum. A path analysis indicates that the interval between suckling episodes is the principal determinant of maternal prolactin concentration, with time since parturition affecting prolactin secretion only in so far as it affects suckling frequency. The extremely prolonged contraceptive effect of breast-feeding in this population thus appears to be due to a slow decline in suckling frequency with time since parturition and absence of a decline over time in hypothalamic–pituitary responsiveness to the suckling stimulus. (shrink)

In the years around 1900 one of the most significant practical consequences of new styles of bacteriological thought and practice was the development of preventive vaccines and therapeutic sera. Historical scholarship has highlighted how approaches rooted in the laboratory methods of Robert Koch, Louis Pasteur and their collaborators were transformed in local contexts and applied in diverse ways to enable more effective disease identification, prevention and treatment. Amongst these, the anti-anthrax serum developed by the Italian physician Achille Sclavo (1861–1930) has (...) received little to no attention from historians. This article positions Sclavo's serum as a neglected but significant presence in British microbiology, which achieved widespread uptake amidst a wave of optimism, despite prolonged uncertainty about its mechanism of action and dosage. After being introduced to Britain in 1904 by the enterprising first medical inspector of factories Thomas Morison Legge, within a matter of months the serum became regarded by medical practitioners as an effective treatment of cutaneous anthrax, though access to ‘fresh’ serum and the necessary speedy diagnosis remained problematic. Like the disease anthrax itself, discussion of ‘Sclavo's serum’ was out of all proportion to the relatively low number of cases, reflecting a deep-seated fascination with the wider possibilities afforded by effective serum therapy. (shrink)

Ekphrasis has been a popular topic in recent years among scholars of both classical and later literature. The latter have been particularly interested in the modern definition of ekphrasis as a description of artwork and the development of global definitions and theories. Ancient ekphrasis, however, was much broader in scope. By examining Hephaestus' automaton handmaids and the shield of Achilles in the Iliad, along with the Pandora stories in the works of Hesiod, we can illustrate the nature and character (...) of ancient ekphrasis in ways that call into question modern theories and demonstrate the vibrancy and complexity of even its earliest examples in Greek literature. (shrink)

When culture makes itself at home in motion, where does an anthropologist stand? In a follow-up to The Predicament of Culture, one of the defining books for anthropology in the last decade, James Clifford takes the proper measure: a moving picture of a world that doesn't stand still, that reveals itself en route, in the airport lounge and the parking lot as much as in the marketplace and the museum. In this collage of essays, meditations, poems, and travel reports, (...) Clifford takes travel and its difficult companion, translation, as openings into a complex modernity. He contemplates a world ever more connected yet not homogeneous, a global history proceeding from the fraught legacies of exploration, colonization, capitalist expansion, immigration, labor mobility, and tourism. Ranging from Highland New Guinea to northern California, from Vancouver to London, he probes current approaches to the interpretation and display of non-Western arts and cultures. Wherever people and things cross paths and where institutional forces work to discipline unruly encounters, Clifford's concern is with struggles to displace stereotypes, to recognize divergent histories, to sustain "postcolonial" and "tribal" identities in contexts of domination and globalization. Travel, diaspora, border crossing, self-location, the making of homes away from home: these are transcultural predicaments for the late twentieth century. The map that might account for them, the history of an entangled modernity, emerges here as an unfinished series of paths and negotiations, leading in many directions while returning again and again to the struggles and arts of cultural encounter, the impossible, inescapable tasks of translation. (shrink)

In his article ‘A Nonce-word in the Iliad’ Maurice Pope argues against the usual modern interpretation of παναώριος, a Homeric παξ λεγόμενον applied by Achilles to himself at Il. 24.540, sc. ‘of all-untimely fate’, ‘doomed to die young’, and the like. The same is also the interpretation of the scholium παντελς ωρον ποθανούμενον, whilst Herodian and Eustathius, respectively with κατ πάντα ωρον and πάντ ωρον, do no more than paraphrase the force of παν- in the compound. Pope tries to (...) establish instead the suitability of the meaning ‘out of season’, i.e. in what Achilles does or fails to do in general. His case rests on the ground of what is appropriate to or required by the context, since, as he himself shows, the word in itself can, on the analogy of closely related forms, notably the adjective ωρος, bear the meaning usually attributed to it, provided the context contains sufficient indication of a reference to death. Accordingly, the validity of his argument depends on his assessment of this context. Pope recognises that throughout the last part of the Iliad, at least starting from the conversation between Achilles and his mother at 18.70ff., Achilles is fully aware of the nearness and unavoidability of his own death, and that ‘from this point on Homer exploits the atmosphere of impending doom’. But after citing several passages in which the approach of Achilles' death is mentioned, Pope continues as follows. (shrink)

There are three things to be noticed with regard to κoυoευ Λευκíφφη άυoιλoμέυωυ τωυ the hiatus; the fact that in every other place where Achilles Tatius uses άκoω with the genitive of the source of the sound and an appended participle the participle always belongs to a verb of speaking used literally ; ςιαλεγoμέυωυ 2.26.1.15; φoτυιωμέυης 6.15.4.28; φoκπρωoμέυoυ 7.11.1.6) or metaphorically ; 2.23.6.11–12 τòυ ψóφoυ άκoσας άυoιγoμέυωυ τωυ υυρωυ.

From beginning to end, the poem is literally made up of relations…[that] constitute a method of contemplation and criticism, a way of inviting the reader to think in terms of one thing in terms of another. Consider, for example, Odysseus' trip to Chryse in book 1, a passage I never read without surprise: in this tense and heavily charged world, in which everything seems to have been put into potentially violent contention, why are we given this slow and deliberate journey, (...) so heavily formulaic in texture? The answer is that this is a ritual of reconciliation, a kind of healing, which will receive its most ample performance at the great movement in book 24 when Achilles and Priam share their sorrows. A movement begins here that will run throughout the poem.It is by such an art of arrangement, by placing one thing against another, that Homer criticizes the world of book 1 with which he began; not, as we expect of a writer today, by elaborating competitive languages of motives and value but by ordering his materials into patterns of experience that teach the reader something different from anything the material itself seems to say.1 In a way the poem, as a whole thus has the form of argument; not, of course, argument in the ratiocinative sense of a thesis supported by propositions, from which it can be said to proceed by the rules of logic or the laws of probability, but argument as an activity of critical engagement, a definition of resources and a testing of limits, that results in the creation of a new position taken by the writer and offered to the reader. An argument goes on in the text, but its method is closer to that of music than debate.· 1. Cf. Cedric H. Whitman, Homer and the Heroic Tradition chap. 6, for another view of the ways that formula and image combine.James B. White is a professor in the law school, the college, and the committee on the ancient Mediterranean world at the University of Chicago. He is the author of The Legal Imagination, Constitutional Criminal Procedure, and a book on rhetoric and culture, from which the present article is drawn. (shrink)

Abstract:This paper is an analysis of Plato's use of the embassy to Achilles in Homer's Iliad book 9 as a literary template for Crito's mission to persuade Socrates to escape from prison in Athens. Plato's purpose is to elevate the nature of a hero by contrasting the impulsive, impetuous, mercurial temper of Achilles with the steady, thoughtful, deliberative, calmly rational argument of Socrates. Plato shows, in a volley fired at the poet, how the philosopher is more meaningfully heroic (...) than the warrior, for where the warrior aims selfishly at securing his own honor, the philosopher aims at political virtue. (shrink)

If, as Hegel claims, all philosophy is idealism, then defining his philosophy in these terms makes his idealism a metaphilosophy. This most obvious fact about his definition is the most overlooked. It is the key to a definitive, comprehensive and clear-cut interpretation of Hegel’s idealism. If Hegel defines all philosophy as idealism and thus his own idealism as a metaphilosophy, then his own idealism must be both the same as the old philosophies in this respect and also different in the (...) sense that it embodies self-conscious awareness. Hegel divides philosophy into pre-reflective, pre-speculative, unconscious idealism and his own reflective, speculative, thus self-conscious, absolute idealism. Missing this obvious fact is the Achilles’ heel of Stern’s non-mentalistic interpretation in the only other in-depth study of this topic, the object of this article’s critique. If Hegel’s idealism is a metaphilosophy, then it is a radical mentalistic ontology of mind and its thoughts. (shrink)

Only rarely does life imitate art in the starkness and directness of its message. When that message is a tragic one the effect becomes indelible. Such was the impact on Peru of the events of Uchuraccay, a small village located in its central highlands. Peru’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission called it “an emblematic referent of the violence and pain in the collective memory of the country” (TRC, 121). [i] In the twenty-year turmoil that engulfed Peru at the end of the (...) last century, 69280 violent deaths were recorded. What makes Uchuraccay emblematic of this carnage is not just its own destruction; it is the web of misunderstandings that entangled the participants. On January 23, 1983, eight journalists from Lima were caught in this web. Mistaken for terrorists, they and their guide were attacked by the natives of the village. Remarkably, one of the journalists left a photographic record of their slaughter. There also exists a photograph of the bodies of the journalists after they were exhumed a few days later. In it, their eyeless sockets are clearly evident.[ii] When I saw the photo in Lima, it reminded me of the moment in Greek tragedy that is called “recognition.” This is the point when the veil of illusion is stripped from the characters. The most striking example of this is Oedipus’ appearance after he has blinded himself. In his eyeless state, the audience recognizes his previous blindness to his unnatural condition. This moment of recognition is a public exhibition. It is a disclosure of the way things actually were during the events depicted. In what follows, I am going to take this final image of the journalists as a disclosure of the communal blindness that engulfed Peru. My aim is to relate this blindness to the violence that was its tragic correlate. (shrink)

Central African highland farmers' perceptions of common bean disease were investigated using both phytopathology and anthropological techniques. Farmers rarely mentioned diseases as production constraints in formal questionnaires. More participatory research showed farmers often related disease symptoms to the effects of rain and soil depletion for fungal diseases, or to varietal traits for bean common mosaic virus. Rain or moisture is divided into numerous forms through which it can damage plants, both physically and through putrefaction. Most conditions associated with putrefaction (...) appear to be linked to pathogens. Farmers have an understanding of plant health closely related to their concept of human health. In plants, this understanding is based on the prior state of plant health. Conceptually, local disease management strategies are based on prevention by managing the conditions that promote good plant health rather than by treating disease symptoms. Intervention strategies that build on local knowledge are encouraged. (shrink)

Physical and biological measurements might display range values extending towards infinite. The occurrence of infinity in equations, such as the black hole singularities, is a troublesome issue that causes many theories to break down when assessing extreme events. Different methods, such as re-normalization, have been proposed to avoid detrimental infinity. Here a novel technique is proposed, based on geometrical considerations and the Alexander Horned sphere, that permits to undermine infinity in physical and biophysical equations. In this unconventional approach, a continuous (...) monodimensional line becomes an assembly of countless bidimensional lines that superimpose in quantifiable knots and bifurcations. In other words, we may state that Achilles leaves the straight line and overtakes the turtle. (shrink)

The organizers of the 1992 Highlands Institute seminar were kind enough to invite me to comment as a neo-pragmatist on John E. Smith's keynote paper "Experience, God, and Classical American Philosophy." It is my pleasure to do so. I read portions of both GOD AND EXPERIENCE and THE ANALOGY OF EXPERIENCE when they were published. I was impressed then, and continue to be impressed, with Professor Smith's intellectually responsible and powerful defense of Christianity, carried out, as it was, in a (...) philosophical environment where that was not the most popular thing to do. More recently, in preparation for this event, I have profited from reading THE SPIRIT OF AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY, particularly the chapters on James and Dewey. And, I can only second his presidential call in "The New Need for a Recovery of Philosophy" for a live-and-let-live attitude amongst the cacophonous multitude of those of us who call ourselves "philosophers.". (shrink)

Some philosophers have tried to establish a connection between the normativity of instrumental rationality and the paradox presented by Lewis Carroll in his 1895 paper “What the Tortoise Said to Achilles.” I here examine and argue against accounts of this connection presented by Peter Railton and James Dreier before presenting my own account and discussing its implications for instrumentalism (the view that all there is to practical rationality is instrumental rationality). In my view, the potential for a Carroll-style (...) regress just shows us that since instrumental rationality involves a higher-order commitment to combine our willing an end with our taking the necessary means, it therefore cannot, on pain of regress, itself be added as a conjunct to one of the elements to be combined. This view does not support instrumentalism. (shrink)

Sheila Davaney’s Pragmatic Historicism provides yet another opportunity for us to discuss disagreements between two kinds of pragmatism. One, which I espouse, is a non-metaphysical pragmatism. It is rooted in James’s and Dewey’s appropriation of Darwinian biology for philosophical purposes and, more recently, Donald Davidson’s philosophy of language. Richard Rorty is its most influential contemporary spokesman. The other is a metaphysical pragmatism. It is rooted in James’s radical empiricism and Whitehead’s process philosophy. In the Highlands Institute, William Dean (...) and now Davaney, among others, advocate versions of metaphysical pragmatism. (shrink)

This work argues that philosophy is not just useful, but vital, for thinking coherently about priorities in health policy and public policy.

The problems and the keys to their solutions -- Ontology of artworks -- Copyright and its limits -- Token appropriation -- Pattern appropriation -- Appropriation of artistic elements.

This is a new edition of "A Problem in Greek Ethics," originally published in London in 1901 for "private circulation." Part of the project Immortal Literature Series of classic literature, this is a new edition of the classic work published in 1901-not a facsimile reprint. Obvious typographical errors have been carefully corrected and the entire text has been reset and redesigned by Pen House Editions to enhance readability, while respecting the original edition."A Problem in Greek Ethics" is an account of (...) sexuality between men in all its forms, with Greek culture as a backdrop. Perhaps the best description of "A Problem in Greek Ethics" is this one in "Queer Religion" (Praeger, 2012, edited by Donald L. Boisvert and Jay Emerson Johnson, pp. 180-181): "Published at the turn of the century, 'A Problem in Greek Ethics' is a systematic and well-documented exposition of the role of homosexuality in the different historical periods of ancient Greek society. Throughout most of his work, Symonds prefers to use the term 'paiderastia' to 'homosexuality,' the latter a term he only uses in rare instances. Nevertheless, 'paiderastia,' in Symonds's work, amounts to a broad concept of homosexuality rather than to our current concept of pederasty. Whitman and his work are never mentioned by Symonds in 'A Problem in Greek Ethics,' but the conceptual connection had already been made explicit in Walt Whitman: 'A Study' eight years earlier. In the introductory lines to 'A Problem in Greek Ethics,' the reader is alerted that ancient Greece offers a unique example in history of 'a great and highly developed race not only tolerating homosexual passions, but deeming them of spiritual value, and attempting to use them for the benefit of society.' According to Symonds, while homosexual relations were not prominent in the so-called heroic age of Greece, it was nevertheless the love of Achilles for Patroclus, as narrated by Homer, that conferred in a later age of Greek history an almost religious sanction to the martial form of paiderastia. This episode in the Iliad inspired in later generations an ideal of manly love, which he describes as 'a powerful and masculine emotion, in which effeminacy had no part, and which by no means excluded the ordinary sexual feelings.' To which he adds that the tie created by these relationships was 'both more spiritual and more energetic [than] that which bound man to woman.' While Homer knew not about homosexuality, very early in Greek history paiderastia became a national institution giving rise, according to Symonds, to a distinction between a noble, spiritual, form of masculine passion, which he calls "heroic love," and a base and sensual one, which he identifies as 'vulgar love.'"About the Author: John Addington Symonds was born in Bristol, England, in 1840. He was an English poet, an author of several works, and a literary critic. In 1873 he wrote "A Problem in Greek Ethics," which discussed homosexuality between men. He printed ten copies in 1883, before effectively publishing the book in 1901. He was also known for his work on the Renaissance, as well as for his translations and biographies. He wrote "Our Life in the Swiss Highlands" (1891), biographies of Philip Sidney (1886), Ben Jonson (1886) and Michelangelo (1893), several volumes of poetry and essays, and a translation of the "Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini" (1887). John Addington Symonds died in Rome in 1893. In 1896, Havelock Ellis published, in German, prepared with the collaboration of Dr. Hans Kurella, "Das konträre Geschlechtsgefühl" (Leipzig, by Georg H. Wigand's Verlag), later revised and published by Ellis as "Sexual Inversion"-the first medical text in English about homosexuality, which he had co-authored with Symonds, and which would become a part of Ellis's six-volume "Studies in the Psychology of Sex.". (shrink)

In this paper, I review recent attempts by experimental philosophers and psychologists to study folk metaethics empirically and discuss some of the difficulties that researchers face when trying to construct the right kind of research materials and interpreting the results that they obtain. At first glance, the findings obtained so far do not look good for the thesis that people are everywhere moral realists about every moral issue. However, because of difficulties in interpreting these results, I argue that better research (...) is needed to move the debate forward. (shrink)

Explores the theories of democratic individualism articulated in the works of the American transcendentalist writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, pragmatic philosophers William James and John Dewey, and African-American novelist and essayist Ralph Ellison.

James O. Young seeks to explain why we value music so highly. He draws on the latest psychological research to argue that music is expressive of emotion by resembling human expressive behaviour. The representation of emotion in music gives it the capacity to provide psychological insight--and it is this which explains a good deal of its value.

Abstract:Disturbing cases continue to be published of patients declared brain dead who later were found to have a few intact brain functions. We address the reasons for the mismatch between the whole-brain criterion and brain death tests, and suggest solutions. Many of the cases result from diagnostic errors in brain death determination. Others probably result from a tiny amount of residual blood flow to the brain despite intracranial circulatory arrest. Strategies to lessen the mismatch include improving brain death determination training (...) for physicians, mandating a test showing complete intracranial circulatory arrest, or revising the whole-brain criterion. (shrink)

This study examines the influence of ethics instruction, religiosity, and intelligence on cheating behavior. A sample of 230 upper level, undergraduate business students had the opportunity to increase their chances of winning money in an experimental situation by falsely reporting their task performance. In general, the results indicate that students who attended worship services more frequently were less likely to cheat than those who attended worship services less frequently, but that students who had taken a course in business ethics were (...) no less likely to cheat than students who had not taken such a course. However, the results do indicate that the extent to which taking a business ethics course influenced cheating behavior was moderated by the religiosity and intelligence of the individual student. In particular, while students who were highly religious were unlikely to cheat whether or not they had taken a business ethics course, students who were not highly religious demonstrated less cheating if they had taken a business ethics course. In addition, the extent of cheating among highly intelligent students was significantly reduced if such students had taken a course in business ethics. Likewise, individuals who were highly intelligent displayed significantly less cheating if they were also highly religious. The implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

In a rare opportunity, the authors gathered data from two matched health care providers managed by an insurance company where auditors had discovered theft by employees in one of the matched organizations. Data were gathered about the organizations' ethical work climates (EWCs). Analysis revealed statistically significant differences in EWCs across the two organizations. As predicted, the organization with the morally preferred EWCs did not have theft. Both macro- and micro-organizational influences are explored to explain these differences, along with implications for (...) practitioners and academic research. This is the first study to suggest that a priori EWCs can be useful in predicting observable behavior. (shrink)

A selection of 25 papers from a June 1995 conference in Highlands, North Carolina. Rorty himself presents the keynote address, Religious Faith, Intellectual Responsibility, and Romance, which will be published in the forthcoming Cambridge Companion to William James. Other topics include a paleopragmatic philosophy of the history of philosophy, the pragmatic secularization of theology, a hiatus in the liberal pragmatic view of culture and religion, and listening to indigenous peoples and neo-pagans. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., (...) Portland, OR. (shrink)

Almost all of us would agree that the experience of art is deeply rewarding. Why this is the case remains a puzzle; nor does it explain why many of us find works of art much more important than other sources of pleasure. Art and Knowledge argues that the experience of art is so rewarding because it can be an important source of knowledge about ourselves and our relation to each other and to the world. The view that art is a (...) source of knowledge can be traced as far back as Aristotle and Horace. Artists as various as Tasso, Sidney, Henry James and Mendelssohn have believed that art contributes to knowledge. As attractive as this view may be, it has never been satisfactorily defended, either by artists or philosophers. Art and Knowledge reflects on the essence of art and argues that it ought to provide insight as well as pleasure. It argues that all the arts, including music, are importantly representational. This kind of representation is fundamentally different from that found in the sciences, but it can provide insights as important and profound as available from the sciences. Once we recognise that works of art can contribute to knowledge we can avoid thorough relativism about aesthetic value and we can be in a position to evaluate the avant-garde art of the past 100 years. Art and Knowledge is an exceptionally clear and interesting, as well as controversial, exploration of what art is and why it is valuable. It will be of interest to all philosophers of art, artists and art critics. (shrink)

Among the more significant developments of the twentieth century, the widespread attention given to 'rights issues' must surely justify ranking it somewhere near the top. Never before has the issue of rights attracted such a wide audience or stirred so much controversy. Until very recently 'rights' were traditionally recognized as attributable only to humans. Today, we increasingly are hearing a call to extend 'rights' to the nonhuman animal and, on occasion, to the environment. In this book, James B. Reichmann, (...) S.J., undertakes an investigation of the metaethical grounds of 'rights' theory, with special focus on the controversial issue of whether creatures other than humans can and should be considered true subjects of 'rights.' He contends that before assigning rights to this or that individual or group, whether human or not, we need to be very clear about what it is we are assigning, to whom, and why. The book argues forcefully that the various recent efforts to build a case supporting animal and environmental 'rights' fail in their quest, and that any such effort resting on a Darwinian evolutionary base is likewise condemned to fail. In furtherance of this claim the author first investigates life phenomena, followed by a detailed comparative study of knowing, communicating and doing, as these are observed in the human and the nonhuman animal. This in turn is followed by an overview of diverse views advanced by contemporary environmental ethicists and animal 'rights' advocates, including Peter Singer, Tom Regan, J. Baird Callicott, Laura Westra, and Don E. Marietta, Jr. Representative though doubtless provocative conclusions drawn from this study include the claims that: (1) Classic Darwinian theory provides no admissable premise from which to derive a theory of inherent, inalienable rights. (2) No satisfactory explanation of the origin of rights and obligation can derive save from within the context of natural law theory. (3) The human person alone unqualifiedly possesses rights. (4) The view that vegetarianism is an ethical mandate is neither compatible with the Christian world view, nor philosophically sound. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: James B. Reichmann, S.J., is professor emeritus of philosophy at Seattle University where he continues to teach. (shrink)

Kripke is famous for holding that when the identity sign is flanked by proper names or natural kind terms, then the result is necessary if true. His conclusion is supported by the idea that proper names and natural kinds terms are rigid designators. To explore the cogency of Kripke’s position, this paper takes on two interlocking projects in the formulation of the semantics for quantified modal logic (QML). Project 1. Define ‘rigidity’ in a way that is faithful to Kripke’s intentions, (...) and for which evidence for the rigidity of proper names and natural kind terms is forthcoming. Project 2. Given a candidate definition of rigidity produced in Project 1, find a well-motivated semantics for QML that validates the claim that ‘t is identical to s’ is necessary if true when terms t and s are rigid in that sense. It is surprisingly difficult to succeed at both projects. Three different definitions for ‘rigidity’ are explored here along with a variety of corresponding QMLs. The few QMLs that survive Project 2 are very different from ones Kripke developed in his seminal paper “Semantic Considerations in Modal Logic”. Furthermore, there are serious costs whichever solution we attempt. (shrink)

Journal of Religious Ethics, Volume 49, Issue 4, Page 768-792, December 2021.

An ambitious new model of experimentation that will reorient our understanding of the key features of experimental practice. What is experimental knowledge, and how do we get it? While there is general agreement that experiment is a crucial source of scientific knowledge, how experiment generates that knowledge is far more contentious. In this book, philosopher of science James Mattingly explains how experiments function. Specifically, he discusses what it is about experimental practice that transforms observations of what may be very (...) localized, particular, isolated systems into what may be global, general, integrated empirical knowledge. Mattingly argues that the purpose of experimentation is the same as the purpose of any other knowledge-generating enterprise—to change the state of information of the knower. This trivial-seeming point has a non-trivial consequence: to understand a knowledge-generating enterprise, we should follow the flow of information. Therefore, the account of experimental knowledge Mattingly provides is based on understanding how information flows in experiments: what facilitates that flow, what hinders it, and what characteristics allow it to flow from system to system, into the heads of researchers, and finally into our store of scientific knowledge. (shrink)

Among the old and new controversies over brain death, none is more fundamental than whether brain death is equivalent to the biological phenomenon of human death. Here, I defend this equivalency by offering a brief conceptual justification for this view of brain death, a subject that Andrew Huang and I recently analyzed elsewhere in greater detail. My defense of the concept of brain death has evolved since Bernard Gert, Charles Culver, and I first addressed it in 1981, a development that (...) paralleled advances in intensive care unit treatment. The century‐old concept of the organism as a whole provides the fundamental justification for the equivalency of brain death and human death. In our technological age, in which increasing numbers of components and systems of an organism can be kept alive, and for longer intervals, the permanent cessation of functioning of the organism as a whole is the phenomenon that best corresponds to its death. (shrink)

This is a study of the central questions of explanation in the social sciences, and a defence of 'holism' against 'individualism'. In the first half of the book Susan James sets out very clearly the philosophical background to this controversy. She locates its source not at the analytical level at which most of the debate is usually conducted but at a more fundamental, moral level, in different conceptions of the human individual. In the second half of the book she (...) examines critically three case studies of holistic approaches - Althusser, Poulantzas and the Annales historians - and progressively refines our sense of the strengths and deficiencies of their programmes. She ends by arguing for a form of concessive holism, which offers some accommodation to liberal conceptions of individual autonomy but continues to emphasise the explanatory importance of social regularities and environments. (shrink)