A brief reference article on cultural relativism.

Now back in print, and in paperback, these two classic volumes illustrate the scope and quality of Royce'sthought, providing the most comprehensive selection ofhis writings currently available. They offer a detailedpresentation of the viable relationship Royce forgedbetween the local experience of community and thedemands of a philosophical and scientific vision ofthe human situation.The selections reprinted here are basic to any understandingof Royce's thought and its pressing relevanceto contemporary cultural, moral, and religious issues.

This volume is devoted entirely to exploring the role of animals in the thought of Immanuel Kant. Leading scholars address questions regarding the possibility of objective representation and intentionality in animals, the role of animals in Kant's scientific picture of nature, the status of our moral responsibilities to animals' welfare, and more.

There have been periodic claims that evolutionary biology needs urgent reform, and this article tries to account for the volume and persistence of this discontent. It is argued that a few inescapable properties of the field make it prone to criticisms of predictable kinds, whether or not the criticisms have any merit. For example, the variety of living things and the complexity of evolution make it easy to generate data that seem revolutionary, and lead to disappointment with existing explanatory frameworks. (...) It is then argued that special discontent stems from misunderstandings and dislike of one well-known but atypical research programme: the study of adaptive function, in the tradition of behavioural ecology. To achieve its goals, this research needs distinct tools, often including imaginary agency, and a partial description of the evolutionary process. This invites mistaken charges of narrowness and oversimplification, and these chime with anxieties about human agency and overall purpose. The article ends by discussing several ways in which calls to reform evolutionary biology actively hinder progress in the field. (shrink)

The 1990s saw a revival of interest in Kierkegaard's thought, affecting the fields of theology, social theory, and literary and cultural criticism. The resulting discussions have done much to discredit the earlier misreadings of Kierkegaard's works.

Collagen is the most abundant vertebrate protein and forms a stable fibrous architecture in connective tissues, such as bone, cartilage, skin and tendon. Much recent research has been directed towards an understanding of the molecular and cellular mechanisms involved in the synthesis and degradation of collagen, because a change in the normal balance, or an increased destruction of collagen, can cause loss of function of specialized tissues. This short review attempts to summarize present knowledge about the proteolytic destruction of collagen (...) and the exciting new work on the factors that are emerging as important controlling agents. An understanding of the regulatory processes is yielding some important clues regarding the levels at which they can fail in pathological conditions and we speculate about evolving strategies for preventing uncontrolled resorption. (shrink)

Intentionally or not, our clinical practice is informed by our philosophical premises. A subtle misunderstanding can have frequent, though insidious, implications in day-to-day clinical encounters....

While there has been much work on cosmological arguments, novel objections will be presented against the modern day rendition of the Kalām cosmological argument as standardly articulated by William Lane Craig. The conclusion is reached that this cosmological argument and several of its variants do not lead us to believe that there is inevitably a supernatural cause to the universe. Moreover, a conditional argument for atheism will be presented in light of the Big Bang Theory.

Francis Hutcheson's objections to psychological egoism usually appeal to experience or introspection. However, at least one of them is theological: It includes premises of a religious kind, such as that God rewards the virtuous. This objection invites interpretive and philosophical questions, some of which may seem to highlight errors or shortcomings on Hutcheson's part. Also, to answer the questions is to point out important features of Hutcheson's objection and its intellectual context. And nowhere in the scholarship on Hutcheson do we (...) find these questions addressed. This paper addresses them. A fact that emerges is that the apparent errors or shortcomings the questions may highlight are just that – apparent errors or shortcomings; in reality they are nothing of the kind. (shrink)

Abstract“NOISE” is a term we are using to describe a complex and distressing aspect of the bodily and cognitive experience of many very ill psychiatric patients. By “noise,” we mean an internally experienced state of crowding and confusion created by a variety of stimuli, the quantity, intensity and unpredictability of which make it difficult for individuals so afflicted to tolerate and organize their experience. Attempts to do so may only add to confusion and psychotic phenomena.

In the Apology, Plato’s Socrates asserts: “And if I say that the greatest good of a man is daily to converse about virtue, and all that concerning which you hear me examining myself and others, and that the life which is unexamined is not worth living—that you are still less likely to believe”. The unexamined life is not worth living. This is the mantra of Western philosophy. The unexamined life—a life that is not self-examining—is not worth living. The temple at (...) Delphi advises, “Know thyself,” as well as, “Nothing too much,” and, “Give a pledge, and trouble is at hand.” And the Delphic oracle proclaimed that Socrates was the wisest of all men—Socrates, who knew himself well enough to... (shrink)

The rift which has long divided the philosophical world into opposed schools-the "Continental" school owing its origins to the phenomenology of Husserl and the "analytic" school derived from Frege-is finally closing.

_A major theoretical statement by a distinguished political scholar explains why a policy of liberal hegemony is doomed to fail_ In this major statement, the renowned international-relations scholar John Mearsheimer argues that liberal hegemony, the foreign policy pursued by the United States since the Cold War ended, is doomed to fail. It makes far more sense, he maintains, for Washington to adopt a more restrained foreign policy based on a sound understanding of how nationalism and realism constrain great powers (...) abroad. It is widely believed in the West that the United States should spread liberal democracy across the world, foster an open international economy, and build institutions. This policy of remaking the world in America’s image is supposed to protect human rights, promote peace, and make the world safe for democracy. But this is not what has happened. Instead, the United States has ended up as a highly militarized state fighting wars that undermine peace, harm human rights, and threaten liberal values at home. Mearsheimer tells us why this has happened. (shrink)

This paper approaches the intentional structure of the emotions by considering three claims about that structure. The paper departs from the Brentanian and Husserlian ‘priority of presentation claim’. The PPC comprises two theses: intentional feelings and emotions are founded on presenting acts and intentional feelings and emotions are directed specifically to the value-attributes of the presented objects. The paper then considers two challenges to this claim: the equiprimordial claim and the priority of feeling claim. The EC asserts that the presentational (...) and affective dimensions of intentional feelings and emotions are equiprimordial. I respond to this challenge to the PPC by revising it, claiming instead that the founding relations exist between the presentational and affective senses in an experience whose presenting and affective aspects are equiprimordial. The PFC grants priority to the affective, a grant which presupposes the independence of the affective from the presentational. I argue that the PFC is mistaken, and that the revision of the PPC can handle the examples on which the PFC is based. (shrink)

This paper distinguishes between two senses of the term “ phenomenology ”: a narrow sense and a broader sense. It claims, with particular reference to the moral sphere, that the narrow meaning of moral phenomenology cannot stand alone, that is, that moral phenomenology in the narrow sense entails moral intentionality. The paper proceeds by examining different examples of the axiological and volitional experiences of both virtuous and dutiful agents, and it notes the correlation between the phenomenal and intentional differences belonging (...) to these experiences. The paper concludes with some reflections on how the focus on the broader sense of “ phenomenology ” serves to provide a more precise sense of what we might mean by “ moral phenomenology.”. (shrink)

Farmers markets can offer solutions to several of the biggest problems besetting the US food system: fair prices to farmers; healthy, fresh food for consumers; direct contacts between consumers and farmers; food for food deserts; support for local economies. Awareness of these benefits led us to study the farmers markets of Greater Cincinnati. Markets grew rapidly in the early 1980s, peaked in 2012, and declined 17% by 2018. Sixty-one percent of the markets that started since 1970 have closed. Two types (...) of markets exist: farmer-focused markets, with farmer vendors, and consumer-focused markets, with farmers and specialist vendors. Detailed information about market management shows that managers, the majority of whom are volunteers or underpaid, have insufficient resources to be sustainable. Market decline is often blamed on an oversupply of markets, but other factors are involved: the inability of market personnel and customers to cross class and racial boundaries; the encroachment of online retailers; a scarcity of farmers; market manager failures. Individual markets need to form coalitions and gain sufficient resources from governments or private funders to employ specialists who can assist managers, expand the consumer base, and design promotion campaigns that effectively promote farmers markets in the changing retail food landscape. (shrink)