If the decades of the forties through the sixties were dominated by discussion of Hempel's “covering law“ explication of explanation, that of the seventies was preoccupied with Salmon's “statistical relevance” conception, which emerged as the principal alternative to Hempel's enormously influential account. Readers of Wesley C. Salmon's Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World, therefore, ought to find it refreshing to discover that its author has not remained content with a facile defense of his previous investigations; on the (...) contrary, Salmon offers an original account of different kinds of explications, advances additional criticisms of various alternative theories, and elaborates a novel “two-tiered“ analysis of explanation that tacitly depends upon a “two-tiered” account of homogeneity. Indeed, if the considerations that follow are correct, Salmon has not merely refined his statistical relevance account but has actually abandoned it in favor of a “causal/mechanistic“ construction. This striking development suggests that the theory of explanation is likely to remain as lively an arena of debate in the eighties as it has been in the past. (shrink)

The book uses Zen Buddhism as the opening wedge for an extraordinarily wide-ranging exploration of consciousness.

This paper is about the similarity between the appreciation of a piece of art, such as a cherished music album, and the loving appreciation of a person whom one knows well. In philosophical discussion about the rationality of love, the Qualities View (QV) says that love can be justified by reference to the qualities of the beloved. I argue that the oft-rehearsed trading-up objection fails to undermine the QV. The problems typically identified by the objection arise from the idea that (...) love-worthy qualities could be coarse-grained, when in fact they must be fine-grained. The analogy with appreciation of aesthetic qualities helps to draw out this point. Once the fine-grained nature of love-worthy qualities is properly understood, it is clear that critics of the QV cannot rely on the trading-up objection to motivate its rejection. Moreover, the paper’s core argument helps to illuminate the persistently aesthetic nature of interpersonal affections. (shrink)

A lineage of prominent philosophers who have discussed the second-person relation can be regarded as advancing structural accounts. They posit that the second-person relation effects one transformative change to the structure of practical reasoning. In this paper, I criticise this orthodoxy and offer an alternative, substantive account. That is, I argue that entering into second-personal relations with others does indeed affect one's practical reasoning, but it does this not by altering the structure of one's agential thought, but by changing what (...) reasons can become available. The importance of second-personal thought for action is heterogenous. Second-person relations make possible the emergence of a wide variety of different kinds of practical reasons: creating some, revealing others. Recognising this diminishes the appeal of the traditional, structural accounts of the practical significance of such second-personal relations. Moving away from structural accounts facilitates a more thorough understanding of the intersubjective form of action. (shrink)

This sequel to the widely read Zen and the Brain continues James Austin's explorations into the key interrelationships between Zen Buddhism and brain research. In Zen-Brain Reflections, Austin, a clinical neurologist, researcher, and Zen practitioner, examines the evolving psychological processes and brain changes associated with the path of long-range meditative training. Austin draws not only on the latest neuroscience research and new neuroimaging studies but also on Zen literature and his personal experience with alternate states of consciousness.Zen-Brain Reflections takes (...) up where the earlier book left off. It addresses such questions as: how do placebos and acupuncture change the brain? Can neuroimaging studies localize the sites where our notions of self arise? How can the latest brain imaging methods monitor meditators more effectively? How do long years of meditative training plus brief enlightened states produce pivotal transformations in the physiology of the brain? In many chapters testable hypotheses suggest ways to correlate normal brain functions and meditative training with the phenomena of extraordinary states of consciousness.After briefly introducing the topic of Zen and describing recent research into meditation, Austin reviews the latest studies on the amygdala, frontotemporal interactions, and paralimbic extensions of the limbic system. He then explores different states of consciousness, both the early superficial absorptions and the later, major "peak experiences." This discussion begins with the states called kensho and satori and includes a fresh analysis of their several different expressions of "oneness." He points beyond the still more advanced states toward that rare ongoing stage of enlightenment that is manifest as "sage wisdom."Finally, with reference to a delayed "moonlight" phase of kensho, Austin envisions novel links between migraines and metaphors, moonlight and mysticism. The Zen perspective on the self and consciousness is an ancient one. Readers will discover how relevant Zen is to the neurosciences, and how each field can illuminate the other. (shrink)

Russia's struggle to find its new identity in the aftermath of Communism's collapse is analogous to America's historical experience of drawing on religious and cultural roots in moving toward democracy.

We applaud the spirit of MacNeilage's attempts to better explain the evolution and cortical control of speech by drawing on the vast literature in nonhuman primate neurobiology. However, he oversimplifies motor cortical fields and their known individual functions to such an extent that he undermines the value of his effort. In particular, MacNeilage has lumped together the functional characteristics across multiple mesial and lateral motor cortex fields, inadvertantly creating two hypothetical centers that simply may not exist.

In his Posterior Analytics Aristotle confronted a problem that threatened his vision of scientific knowledge as an axiomatic system: if scientific knowledge is demonstrative in character, and if the axioms of a science cannot themselves be demonstrated, then the most basic of all scientific principles will remain unknown. In the famous concluding chapter of this work (II 19), he claimed to solve this problem by distinguishing two kinds of knowledge: we cannot have epistêmê of the first principles, but we can (...) have nous of them. This ‘solution’ has struck many students of his thought as hopelessly ad hoc and unpersuasive. And nowhere is Aristotle less persuasive than when he appeals to a faculty of intuition or a priori insight which arrives on the scene precisely when it is most needed. I defend Aristotle’s account by showing how nous is not properly characterized as a faculty of intuition which operates independently of sense experience. Rather, nous is a kind of knowledge that is available to us whenever our mind advances from the perception of particular individuals to grasp the relevant universal concept or general principle. (shrink)

This sequel to the widely read Zen and the Brain continues James Austin's explorations into the key interrelationships between Zen Buddhism and brain research. In Zen-Brain Reflections, Austin, a clinical neurologist, researcher, and Zen practitioner, examines the evolving psychological processes and brain changes associated with the path of long-range meditative training. Austin draws not only on the latest neuroscience research and new neuroimaging studies but also on Zen literature and his personal experience with alternate states of consciousness.Zen-Brain Reflections takes (...) up where the earlier book left off. It addresses such questions as: how do placebos and acupuncture change the brain? Can neuroimaging studies localize the sites where our notions of self arise? How can the latest brain imaging methods monitor meditators more effectively? How do long years of meditative training plus brief enlightened states produce pivotal transformations in the physiology of the brain? In many chapters testable hypotheses suggest ways to correlate normal brain functions and meditative training with the phenomena of extraordinary states of consciousness.After briefly introducing the topic of Zen and describing recent research into meditation, Austin reviews the latest studies on the amygdala, frontotemporal interactions, and paralimbic extensions of the limbic system. He then explores different states of consciousness, both the early superficial absorptions and the later, major "peak experiences." This discussion begins with the states called kensho and satori and includes a fresh analysis of their several different expressions of "oneness." He points beyond the still more advanced states toward that rare ongoing stage of enlightenment that is manifest as "sage wisdom."Finally, with reference to a delayed "moonlight" phase of kensho, Austin envisions novel links between migraines and metaphors, moonlight and mysticism. The Zen perspective on the self and consciousness is an ancient one. Readers will discover how relevant Zen is to the neurosciences, and how each field can illuminate the other. (shrink)

The Bible in the Middle Ages, much like the Bible today, consisted for the laity not of a set of texts within a canon but of those stories which, partly because of their liturgical significance and partly because of their picturesque and memorable qualities, formed a provisional “Bible” in the popular imagination. Even relatively devout and educated moderns may be surprised by what is, and what is not, biblical. The medieval popular Bible took shape within an encyclopedic tradition largely responsible (...) for the variety of materials now associated with the Bible. Prior to and even after full-scale Reformation translations, biblical material was disseminated in the vernaculars through sermons, homilies, commentaries, universal histories, picture Bibles, the drama, and a large corpus of biblical paraphrases. Each of those literary forms owes debts to the others, but a significant influence on them all, and especially those produced in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century France and England, is Peter Comestor's Historia scholastica. (shrink)

In book Zeta of the Metaphysics and elsewhere Aristotle appears to commit himself to the following propositions: (1) No universal can be substance; (2) Form is a universal; and (3) Form is that which is most truly substance. These propositions appear to constitute an inconsistent triad lying at the heart of Aristotle’s ontology. A number of attempts have been made to rescue Aristotle from the charge of inconsistency. Some have claimed that Aristotle did not subscribe to (1), but only to (...) the proposition that nothing predicated universally can be substance. Others hold that, contrary to (2), form is not a universal but peculiar to each individual. Still others argue that the sense of ‘substance’ in which the species form is a substance is not the sense in which no universal is substance. I argue that none of these attempts to rescue Aristotle from the charge of inconsistency is ultimately defensible. (shrink)

The standard interpretation of the imitation game is defended over the rival gender interpretation though it is noted that Turing himself proposed several variations of his imitation game. The Turing test is then justified as an inductive test not as an operational definition as commonly suggested. Turing's famous prediction about his test being passed at the 70% level is disconfirmed by the results of the Loebner 2000 contest and the absence of any serious Turing test competitors from AI on the (...) horizon. But, reports of the death of the Turing test and AI are premature. AI continues to flourish and the test continues to play an important philosophical role in AI. Intelligence attribution, methodological, and visionary arguments are given in defense of a continuing role for the Turing test. With regard to Turing's predictions one is disconfirmed, one is confirmed, but another is still outstanding. (shrink)

An approach to inference to the best explanation integrating a Popperianconception of natural laws together with a modified Hempelian account of explanation, one the one hand, and Hacking's law of likelihood (in its nomicguise), on the other, which provides a robust abductivist model of sciencethat appears to overcome the obstacles that confront its inductivist,deductivist, and hypothetico-deductivist alternatives.This philosophy of scienceclarifies and illuminates some fundamental aspects of ontology and epistemology, especially concerning the relations between frequencies and propensities. Among the most important (...) elements of this conception is thecentral role of degrees of nomic expectability in explanation, prediction,and inference, for which this investigation provides a theoretical defense. (shrink)

It is common for people to be sensitive to aesthetic qualities in one another’s speech. We allow the loveliness or unloveliness of a person’s voice to make impressions on us. What is more, it is also common to allow those aesthetic impressions to affect how we are inclined to feel about the speaker. We form attitudes of liking, trusting, disliking or distrusting partly in virtue of the aesthetic qualities of a person’s speech. In this paper I ask whether such attitudes (...) could ever be legitimate. This is a microcosm of the broader issue of whether people’s aesthetic qualities in general can justify the interpersonal valuing-attitudes that they so often cause. I draw from recent discussions of body aesthetics to articulate a pair of challenges. One challenge says that aesthetic judgements of speech are reliant on unjustifiable prejudices. The other holds that a person’s aesthetic qualities are irrelevant to whether they should be liked. Against these challenges I argue that some speech can bear aesthetic qualities which are not reliant on prejudice and which are relevant to whether the speaker should be liked. I develop this argument through an analysis of the concept of lyricism. (shrink)

This paper pursues the question, To what extent does the propensity approach to probability contribute to plausible solutions to various anomalies which occur in quantum mechanics? The position I shall defend is that of the three interpretations — the frequency, the subjective, and the propensity — only the third accommodates the possibility, in principle, of providing a realistic interpretation of ontic indeterminism. If these considerations are correct, then they lend support to Popper's contention that the propensity construction tends to remove (...) (at least some of) the mystery from quantum phenomena. (shrink)

Taking Brian Cantwell Smith’s study, “Limits of Correctness in Computers,” as its point of departure, this article explores the role of models in computer science. Smith identifies two kinds of models that play an important role, where specifications are models of problems and programs are models of possible solutions. Both presuppose the existence of conceptualizations as ways of conceiving the world “in certain delimited ways.” But high-level programming languages also function as models of virtual (or abstract) machines, while low-level programming (...) languages function as models of causal (or physical) machines. The resulting account suggests that sets of models embedded within models are indispensable for computer programming. (shrink)

We need to clarify at least four aspects of selfhood if we are to reach a better understanding of consciousness in general, and of its alternate states. First, how did we develop our self-centred psychophysiology? Second, can the four familiar lobes of the brain alone serve, if only as preliminary landmarks of convenience, to help understand the functions of our many self-referent networks? Third, what could cause one's former sense of self to vanish from the mental field during an extraordinary (...) state of consciousness? Fourth, when a person's physical and psychic self do drop off briefly, how has conscious experience then been transformed? In particular, what happens to that subject's personal sense of time? Our many-sided self arose in widely distributed brain networks. Since infancy, these self-oriented circuits have been over-conditioned by limbic biases. Selfhood then seems to have evolved along lines suggesting at least in shorthand the operations of a kind of ‘I-Me-Mine’ complex. But what happens when this egocentric triad briefly dissolves? Novel states of consciousness emerge. Two personally-observed states are discussed: insight-wisdom ; internal absorption. How do these two states differ phenomenologically? The physiological processes briefly suggested here emphasize shifts in deeper systems, and pivotal roles for thalamo-cortical interactions in the front and back of the brain. (shrink)

Commonly accepted dictates of morality clash with the a priori laws of free economic competition. These divergent directives — that stem from the essence of their sources and cannot be changed or negated without altering their sources — contradict each other and so set up conflicts of the most fundamental kind in men's psyches (or souls). In addition, this clash of moralities implies a most serious question respecting real freedom under a system of so-called free-enterprise. For, if in order to (...) thrive, we must perform actions that at the same time violate our own moral self respect, we cannot call ourselves free. (shrink)

In a countable, recursively saturated model of Peano Arithmetic, an interstice is a maximal convex set which does not contain any definable elements. The interstices are partitioned into intersticial gaps in a way that generalizes the partition of the unbounded interstice into gaps. Continuing work of Bamber and Kotlarski [1], we investigate extensions of Kotlarski's Moving Gaps Lemma to the moving of intersticial gaps.

Let ℳ be a countable, recursively saturated model of Peano Arithmetic, and let Aut be its automorphism group considered as a topological group with the pointwise stabilizers of finite sets being the basic open subgroups. Kaye proved that the closed normal subgroups are precisely the obvious ones, namely the stabilizers of invariant cuts. A proof of Kaye's theorem is given here which, although based on his proof, is different enough to yield consequences not obtainable from Kaye's proof.

Collective memory can make and break political culture around the world. Representations and reinterpretations of the past intersect with actions that shape the future. A nation's political culture emerges from complex layers of institutional and individual responses to historical events. Society changes and is changed by these layers of memory over time. Understanding them gives us insight into where we are today. Encompassing examples from colonization and decolonization, revolving around the critical junctures of the world wars, this book illustrates how (...) collective memory is produced and organized, through commemoration, through monuments, and through individuals sharing stories. Using concrete examples from around the world, James H. Liu shows how different disciplines can come together through shared concepts like narratives and generational memories to provide mutually enriching perspectives on how political culture is made, and how it changes. (shrink)

Second-person relations are relations between individuals knowingly engaged in interaction with one another. These are the social contexts within which it is appropriate for one to think of and address another as ‘you’. This dissertation explores the practical consequences for agents of relating to others in this fashion. A critical analysis is offered of Stephen Darwall’s theory of moral obligations in terms of demands that can be addressed from the perspective of a second-person. On the basis of the criticisms raised, (...) a broader conception of ‘second-personal reasons’ is advanced according to which there are a variety of species of practical reasons that are essentially grounded in second-person relations between agents, besides moral obligations. A paradigm case of such a species is the reasons that are presented in requests, and one chapter of this work is devoted to explaining this power people often grant to others: to intentionally create new, discretionary reasons for them. Drawing from several historical antecedents – particularly Martin Buber, Simone Weil and Emmanuel Levinas – the analysis of second-personal reasons is extended to include a discussion of the proper object of agapic love, and a discussion of the possible significance that face-to-face encounters may have for moral epistemology. (shrink)

I argue that these inconsistencies in wording and practice reflect the existence of two distinct Aristotelian views of inquiry, one peculiar to the Posterior Analytics and the other put forward in the Physics and practiced in the Physics and in other treatises. Although the two views overlap to some degree (e.g. both regard a rudimentary understanding of the subject as an essential first stage), the view of the syllogism as the workhorse of scientific investigation and the related view of inquiry (...) as a search for the ‘missing middle terms’ turn out to be ideas peculiar to the Analytics. Conversely, the techniques of analysis and differentiation highlighted in the Physics account receive only cursory attention in the Analytics. However, when we consider the character of Aristotle’s own inquiries, on both scientific and philosophical topics, it becomes clear that it is the Physics rather than the Posterior Analytics that gives us Aristotle’s considered view the path to knowledge. (shrink)

The ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas is typically associated with a punishing conception of responsibility rather than freedom. In this chapter, our aim is to explore Levinas’s often overlooked theory of freedom. Specifically, we compare Levinas’s account of freedom to the Kantian (and Fichtean) idea of freedom as autonomy and the Hegelian idea of freedom as relational. Based on these comparisons, we suggest that Levinas offers a distinctive conception of freedom—“finite freedom.” In contrast to Kantian autonomy, finite freedom constitutively involves (...) standing in certain social relations with others. And in contrast to Hegelian relational freedom, the social relations involved in finite freedom are not defined by mutual recognition, but by feelings of separation and even antagonism. Along the way, we promote a reading Levinas’s Totality and Infinity as a Hegel-style story of Bildung (development), and show how, on Levinas’s view, freedom can develop or mature in the life of the individual. (shrink)

Why the paradigm of the world-class university is an implausible dream for most institutions of higher education Universities have become major actors on the global stage. Yet, as they strive to be "world-class," institutions of higher education are shifting away from their core missions of cultivating democratic citizenship, fostering critical thinking, and safeguarding academic freedom. In the contest to raise their national and global profiles, universities are embracing a new form of utilitarianism, one that favors market power over academic values. (...) In this book, James Mittelman explains why the world-class university is an implausible dream for most institutions and proposes viable alternatives that can help universities thrive in today's competitive global environment. Mittelman traces how the scale, reach, and impact of higher-education institutions expanded exponentially in the post-World War II era, and how the market-led educational model became widespread. Drawing on his own groundbreaking fieldwork, he offers three case studies--the United States, which exemplifies market-oriented educational globalization; Finland, representative of the strong public sphere; and Uganda, a postcolonial country with a historically public but now increasingly private university system. Mittelman shows that the "world-class" paradigm is untenable for all but a small group of wealthy, research-intensive universities, primarily in the global North. Nevertheless, institutions without substantial material resources and in far different contexts continue to aspire to world-class stature. An urgent wake-up call, Implausible Dream argues that universities are repurposing at the peril of their high principles and recommends structural reforms that are more practical than the unrealistic worldwide measures of excellence prevalent today. (shrink)

Fix a countable nonstandard model M of Peano arithmetic. Even with some rather severe restrictions placed on the types of minimal cofinal extensions N≻M that are allowed, we still find that there are 2ℵ0 possible theories of (N,M) for such N’s.

Significant structural, developmental, and financial constraints exist in Scottish soccer that may predicate a different approach to talent identification and development. To our knowledge, no published reports exist evaluating the prevalence of the relative age effect in Scottish soccer players. Consequently, the aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of the RAE among varied playing levels and ages of male Scottish youth soccer players. Birthdates of male youth players from U10 to U17 age groups and from playing levels: (...) “Amateur”, “Development”, and “Performance”, alongside a group of male Scottish senior professional players were recorded and categorized into quartiles and semesters from the start of the selection year. Birthdates were analyzed for: each playing level and each age group irrespective of playing level. For the varied playing levels examined, an RAE was evident in “Development” and “Performance” playing levels only at youth level. When examining each age group, an RAE was observed in U12–U17 players only. While there was a slight asymmetry favoring Q1 born senior professional players, the RAE was not present within this group of our sample. Results from our study suggest that a bias in selecting individuals born earlier in the selection year may exist within male soccer academy structures, but not at amateur level. The asymmetry favoring chronologically older players at youth but not professional level questions the efficacy of this conscious bias within male Scottish soccer players. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.1 (2002) 125-142 [Access article in PDF] Hölderlin's Poetic Self-consciousness James H. Donelan Nur ihren Gesang sollt' ich vergessen, nur diese Seelentöne sollten nimmer wiederkehren in meinen unaufhörlichen Träumen. I should forget only her song, only these notes of the soul should never return in my unending dreams. Hölderlin, Hyperion I FOR MANY YEARS, Friedrich Hölderlin has occupied a crucial position in both literary and (...) philosophical history. Well-known literary theorists, such as Walter Benjamin, Peter Szondi, and Paul de Man, have described him as the poet who made the transition from German Classicism to Romanticism. Several major philosophers, including Dieter Henrich and Manfred Frank, claim that Hölderlin's insights into Kantian and Fichtean metaphysics were vital to Schelling's and Hegel's far more famous accounts of subjectivity. Either contribution alone would make Hölderlin an important figure in intellectual history; it is almost miraculous that he managed both, especially when one considers the brevity of his career, a span of only ten or twelve productive years.What accounts for this remarkable dual achievement? Historical accident and tremendous talent give us only a partial answer. Hölderlin was fortunate to have Hegel and Schelling as close friends at the Tübinger Stift, and to move to Jena precisely when it had become a center for new thinking in both literary and philosophical circles. He had enormous ability both for ancient Greek and poetic meter, allowing him to benefit from his predecessors and his contemporaries [End Page 125] in remarkable ways. However, his parallel accomplishments in philosophy and poetry are linked by more than just happenstance and genius. In my view, they represent the continuous development of a solution to a single problem, that of self-consciousness, realized in poetic form through an idea of music. For Hölderlin, making the transition from philosopher to poet required him to establish a connection between Idealist theories of self-consciousness and the material world. To meet this challenge, he constituted himself as a self-conscious poet through both theoretical and actual poetic creations, and constituted a musical-poetic voice, or Gesang, within his poetry as a means of joining the abstractions of philosophy with the concrete voice of the poet.The background of this transformation lies in the complex history of the idea of self-consciousness, or subjectivity. In the early Idealist accounts of self-consciousness of Kant and Fichte, the subject recognizes its existence by juxtaposing itself with an object. However, the nature of this object, and the connection between the abstract, theoretical construction of the subject and the actual, practical experience of the conscious self posed a problem that neither philosopher solved definitively. For Kant, self-consciousness emerges from a pre-reflective sense of the self's existence as the subject of different experiences of phenomena over time; self-consciousness therefore arises from a deduction of empirical experience. However, this formulation contains a surprisingly belated and unmotivated version of the self, with no clear account of its origin.Fichte answered the question about the origin of the self by stating that the self posits itself through its opposition to a material object, a non-self he calls the Nicht-ich, and becomes self-conscious by differentiating the Ich from the Nicht-ich and declaring "I am I." Fichte's explanation of self-consciousness as an act rather than an entity nevertheless relies on a kind of solipsism and still does not sufficiently address the ultimate cause of the process. The Ich that declares its own existence must distinguish itself from the Nicht-ich somehow; the relation between the two terms presupposes a subject that already possesses sensory apprehension to create the distinction between Ich and Nicht-ich necessary for the initial positing of the self.Either explicitly or implicitly, both Kant's and Fichte's versions of subjectivity rely on the category of the aesthetic, defined as the experience of precognitive sensation in general, to mediate the encounter between subject and object. Kant later expanded his inquiry [End Page 126] into... (shrink)

At the heart of Levinas’s work is the apparently simple idea that through the encounter with another person, we are forced to give up our self-concern and take heed of the ethical relation between us. But, while simple on the surface, when one tries to characterize it in more detail, it can be hard to fit together the various ways in which Levinas talks about this relation and to identify precisely what he took its normative structure to be, as this (...) is described in a number of apparently different ways, that are not obviously compatible or equivalent, such as “command,” “call,” “summons,” “demand,” and so on. In this chapter, we intend to focus on these different characterizations and show what makes them different while also endeavoring to find a way in which Levinas’s conception may nonetheless be fitted together into a coherent account of the face-to-face encounter that is at the heart of his ethics. We will begin by considering the different normative terms used to characterize the encounter in that text and show how they are conceptually distinct from one another; we will then offer a way to read Levinas’s position to nonetheless show how these different normative relations can be fitted together into a stable position. (shrink)

Genetic explanations of religious belief, such as Freud’s analysis of theism as ‘a neurotic relic’, pose a problem for theists: how far do such explanations establish the irrationality of religious belief? I argue that genetic analyses of belief suffer from a number of limitations. Showing that some reason-irrelevant factor or factors were sufficient to produce conviction on some occasion would not establish that they were necessary in every case of religious conviction. Showing that reason-irrelevant factors were both necessary and sufficient (...) to produce conviction would not establish that reason-relevant factors were entirely absent. And showing that reason-relevant factors played no role in the adoption of the belief would not establish that they were absent in its continued retention. I conclude that we will profitably investigate the plausibility of religious beliefs by attending to the reasons that can be given for or against them rather than by speculating about their causes. (shrink)

Hempel was one of the most influential philosophers of science in the 20th century, along with Thomas Kuhn and Sir Karl Popper. His work defined the central problems of the field and its proper methods of investigation. By presenting an analytical and historical introduction and a comprehensive bibliography together with a selection of many of Carl G. Hempel's most important studies, this volume provides an ideal opportunity for students and scholars to appreciate the enduring contributions of one of the most (...) important philosophers of science of the 20th century. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to provide a systematic appraisal of the covering law and statistical relevance theories of statistical explanation advanced by Carl G. Hempel and by Wesley C. Salmon, respectively. The analysis is intended to show that the difference between these accounts is inprinciple analogous to the distinction between truth and confirmation, where Hempel's analysis applies to what is taken to be the case and Salmon's analysis applies to what is the case. Specifically, it is argued (a) (...) that statistical explanations exhibit the nomic expectability of their explanandum events, which in some cases may be strong but in other cases will not be; (b) that the statistical relevance criterion is more fundamental than the requirement of maximal specificity and should therefore displace it; and, (c) that if statistical explanations are to be envisioned as inductive arguments at all, then only in a qualified sense since, in particular, the requirement of high inductive probability between explanans and explanandum must be abandoned. (shrink)

Arthur Danto claims that knowing that S is not a property of some individual knower M but a relation between M and some object O in the world, where O is what makes S true. For if knowledge were a property of M it would be possible to determine whether M knew simply by examining M, which is typically not the case (i.e. unless S happens to be about M). I argue that Danto errs in: (1) claiming that we can (...) determine whether or not some assertion S is true only by observing the truth conditions for S; (2) claiming that we cannot determine whether s is true by examining M; and (3) claiming that since the statement that M knows that S ‘says something about both M and the world’ it must assert a relation between M and the world. (shrink)

Adolf Reinach (1883-1917) is most often remembered for his role as a teacher of phenomenology or as a philosopher of law, yet the range of subjects covered in his surviving published and unpublished works is diverse. As scholars such as Kimberley Baltzer-Jaray have argued, Reinach's contributions to philosophy, and in particular his influence on the early phenomena logical movement, have been underestimated in the past. It is of both historical and philosophical importance, therefore, to identify and recognise the contributions that (...) Reinach made across the many fields his works touch upon, including that of ethics. This thesis argues that Reinach made a number of significant contributions towards the development of early phenomenological ethics, and although his works contain neither a complete nor a comprehensive systematic theory of ethics, this is no reason to overlook or dismiss the importance of his work in this field . The thesis demonstrates that Reinach's works on ethics were original; that they influenced other early phenomenologists in the development of their ethical theories; and, ultimately, that they were and remain valuable additions to the field, discussing value-theory, the problem ofnormativity, motivation, freedom and responsibility, and more. This thesis comprises two parts. Part one examines and assesses Reinach's contribution against his immediate philosophical background incorporating a discussion of how Reinach's works on ethics fit into his body of work as well in relation to other contemporary philosophers (e.g., Brentano, Husserl, Scheler, Stein) who advanced the development of early phenomenological ethics. To support the interpretation, part two of the thesis contains appendices of three relevant extracts from Reinach 's published and unpublished works, translated for the first time into English (with original German text supplied). These translations are also intended to be ofvalue in making Reinach's works on ethics more accessible to English-speaking scholarship in the future. (shrink)

A theorem of Enayat's concerning models of ZFC which had been proved using several different additional set-theoretical hypotheses is shown here to be absolute.

A. E. Taylor states the widely held view that Plato’s Euthyphro posed a question which figured prominently in later ethical controversies: “It amounts to asking whether acts of piety, or more generally virtuous acts, derive their character of being right from the mere fact of being commanded or are commanded because they are antecedently intrinsically right.” I argue against this characterization of the Euthyphro. The argument Socrates deploys against Euthyphro’s third and most serious definition of holiness or piety (to hosion) (...) is not the opening round in the debate over divine command theory nor is a discussion of the nature of holiness ipso facto an exercise in ethical theory. (shrink)

Keith Lehrer has put forward an argument for skepticism which trades on the possibility that a group of creatures in another galaxy (Googols) may be rendering our beliefs about reality largely false (this is ‘Lehrer’s Skeptical Hypothesis’). Since there are no arguments against the Lehrer-Googol hypothesis, it cannot be rejected as unjustified. But since we can be completely justified in believing that p only when hypotheses which conflict with our belief are unjustified, we cannot be completely justified in believing that (...) p. Hence, we can never know that p. I argue that Lehrer’s argument fails in so far as believers on both sides of a question may be completely justified in their beliefs. Since this is so, one can be completely justified in believing p, and thereby know that p, even when an opposing view is itself completely justified. (shrink)

No theory of a partially ordered set of finite width has the independence property, generalizing Poizat's corresponding result for linearly ordered sets. In fact, a question of Poizat concerning linearly ordered sets is answered by showing, moreover, that no theory of a partially ordered set of finite width has the multi-order property. It then follows that a distributive lattice is not finite-dimensional $\operatorname{iff}$ its theory has the independence property $\operatorname{iff}$ its theory has the multi-order property.

My purpose here is to elaborate the reasons I maintain that Salmon has not been completely successful in reporting the history of work on explanation. The most important limitation of his account is that it does not emphasize the critical necessity to embrace a suitable conception of probability in the development of the theory of probabilistic explanation.

John Locke's subtle and influential defense of religious toleration as argued in his seminal _Letter Concerning Toleration_ appears in this edition as introduced by one of our most distinguished political theorists and historians of political thought.

This festschrift collects a number of insightful essays by a group of accomplished Christian scholars, all of who have either worked with or studied under Hendrik Hart during his 35-year tenure as Senior Member in Systematic Philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto, Canada.