On November 4, 2008, during his concession speech to President-Elect Barack Obama, Senator John McCain transformed Obama's victory into his theodicy by claiming that the election "proved" that the country had progressed from its days organizing social life around racial exclusion. McCain's speech exemplifies a paradox of "American" progress: black bodies ascending to social heights previously prevented through a particularly pernicious brand of white American antiblack racism, upon whose backs U.S. global financial and military dominance was built, become evidence (...) for justifying American exceptionalism. One tragic irony of American history is that since at least emancipation, "black... (shrink)

The Heirs of Plato is the first full study of the various directions in philosophy taken by Plato's followers in the first seventy years after his death in 347 BC - the period generally known as 'The Old Academy', unjustly neglected by historians of philosophy. Lucid and accessible, John Dillon's book provides an introductory chapter on the school itself, and a summary of Plato's philosophical heritage, before looking at each of the school heads and other chief characters, exploring both (...) what holds them together and what sets them apart. (shrink)

Philosophers have recently revived the study of the ancient Greek topics of virtue and the virtues—justice, honesty, temperance, friendship, courage, and so on as qualities of mind and character belonging to individual people. But one issue at the center of Greek moral theory seems to have dropped out of consideration. This is the question of the unity of virtue, the unity of the virtues. Must anyone who has one of these qualities have others of them as well, indeed all of (...) them—all the ones that really do deserve to be counted as virtues? Even further, is there really no set of distinct and separate virtuous qualities at all, but at bottom only a single one—so that the person who has this single condition of “virtue” is entitled also to the further descriptions “honest” and “well-controlled” and “just” and “friendly” and “courageous” and “fostering” and “supportive,” and so on, as distinguishable aspects or immediate effects of his unitary “virtue”? (shrink)

The fragments of Iamblichus' commentaries on Plato's dialogues (Sophist, Phaedo, Phaedrus and Timaeus). Greek text with English translation and notes.

As it is currently understood, the notion of autonomy, both as something that belongs to human beings and human nature, as such, and also as the source or basis of morality , is bound up inextricably with the philosophy of Kant. The term “autonomy” itself derives from classical Greek, where it was applied primarily or even exclusively in a political context, to civic communities possessing independent legislative and self-governing authority. The term was taken up again in Renaissance and early modern (...) times with similar political applications, but was applied also in ecclesiastical disputes about the independence of reformed churches from the former authority in religious matters of the church of the Roman popes. Kant's innovation consisted in conceiving of individual rational persons, as such, as lawgivers or legislators to themselves, and to all rational beings , for their individual modes of behavior. For Kant, rational beings possess a power of legislating for themselves individually, according to which they each set their own personal ends and subject that selection, and their pursuit of the ends in question, to a universal principle, which is expressed in Kant's categorical imperative. The categorical imperative requires that one set one's own ends only within a framework that would warrant acceptance by all other such beings. (shrink)

Thinking with images -- Aesthetics without theory -- The Baroque and Bacon's popes -- Chance meeting with Duane Michals -- Étant donnés, Marcel Duchamp -- Le Mépris or Contempt, a film by Jean-Luc Godard.

Ever since Darwin, scholars have noted that cultural entities such as languages, laws and theories seem to evolve through variation, selection and replication. These essays consider whether this comparison is just a metaphor.

Epistemic Indirect Realism is the position that justification for contingent propositions about the extra-mental world requires an inference based on a subjective, experiential mental state. One objection against EIR is that it runs contrary to common sense and practice; in essence, ordinary people do not form beliefs about things in the external world on the basis of experiential mental states. This objection implies EIR is contrary to ordinary experience, impractical, and leads to scepticism. In this paper, I will defend EIR (...) against this objection by distinguishing EIR based on conceptual awareness and non-conceptual awareness. In particular, I will argue that direct acquaintance provides sufficient awareness that can explain how ordinary folks are capable of forming justified beliefs about the external world in a way consistent with EIR. Overall, I present a framework for showing that EIR can satisfy ordinary epistemic practices without betraying human nature or over-intellectualizing the required epistemic standards for possessing a justified belief. (shrink)

The Sophists, who rose to prominence in democratic Athens during the mid-fifth century b.c., understood the art of rhetoric and the importance of being able to transform effective reasoning into persuasive public speaking. Their inquiries-into the gods, the origins of religion, and whether virtue can be taught-influenced the next generation of classical philosophers and formed the foundations of the European prose style and formal oratory. In this new translation each chapter is organized around the work of one character, including Gorgias, (...) Prodicus, Protagoras, and Antiphon, among others. (shrink)

While there is no shortage of philosophical literature discussing knowledge by acquaintance, there is a surprising dearth of work about theories of epistemic justification based on direct acquaintance. This paper explores a basic framework for a thoroughly general account of epistemic justification by acquaintance. I argue that this approach to epistemic justification satisfies two importance aspects of justification. After sketching how the acquaintance approach can meet both objective and subjective aspects for epistemic justification, I will outline how this general account (...) of justification by acquaintance can be applied to the analysis of justification for many types of beliefs. Finally, some of the objections to the acquaintance approach will be considered and answered. (shrink)

The essays in this book offer an in-depth exploration of value theory. Portions examine the theoretical foundations of values and valuation exploring the rational groundwork for judgments. Other aspects, appealing to value distinctions of inherent, intrinsic, and instrumental, bring to light matters of aesthetic, social political, ethical, and ontological issues.

Petrides et al. (2016) provide a comprehensive overview of research findings relating to trait emotional intelligence. The bulk of findings indicate that trait emotional intelligence is of benefit in a variety of realms, including clinical, health, social, educational, and organizational. Trait emotional intelligence has generally been studied as a quality of individuals. Conceptualizing and studying trait emotional intelligence at a systems level extends the construct and creates a foundation for additional applications and benefits. Systems can include couples, groups, societies, and (...) human–artificial intelligence interaction. (shrink)

It is argued that in beginning ``being and nothingness'' with the absolute ontological distinction between the for-itself (pure nothingness) and the in-itself (pure being), sartre makes it impossible to understand how the phenomenological account of experience which comes later in the work could be correct. attention is paid almost entirely to the critique of sartre implicit in the chapter of merleau-ponty's ``phenomenology of perception'' titled 'the cogito'. merleau-ponty's divergence from sartre is seen to center around his critique of sartre on (...) the nature of the in-itself, the world, and the pre-reflective 'cogito'. (shrink)

I argue that the dispute between two leading theories of interpretation of legal texts, textual originalism and textual evolutionism, depends on the false presupposition that changes in the way a word is used necessarily require a change in the word’s meaning. Semantic externalism goes a long way towards reconciling these views by showing how a word’s semantic properties can be stable over time, even through vicissitudes of usage. I argue that temporal externalism can account for even more semantic stability, however. (...) Temporal externalism is the theory that the content of an utterance at time t may be determined by developments in linguistic usage subsequent to t. If this semantic theory is correct, then the originalist and evolutionist positions effectively collapse. Originalism is correct in that the original meaning of the text is the meaning that is binding on jurists, but evolutionism is vindicated, as it is the current practices and standards that determine the meaning the text now has, and has always had. Objections to temporal externalism, and to its application to the interpretation of legal texts, are considered and addressed. (shrink)

Tversky and Koehler's support theory attempts to explain why probability judgments are affected by the manner in which formally similar events are described. Support theory suggests that as the explicitness of a description increases, an event will be judged to be more likely. In the present experiment, experienced decision-makers from large, international accounting firms were given case-specific information about an audit client and asked to provide a series of judgments regarding the perceived likelihood of events. Unpacking a hypothesis into four (...) formally equivalent hypotheses more than doubled its perceived likelihood. These results are largely consistent with support theory, extending its generalizability to applied contexts involving business professionals. Further, the paper finds that task-specific factors, a previously untested area, can also affect support theory interpretations. (shrink)

There is a question over whether or not Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations (1776), contended that the rich devise structures of authority (especially civil government) to protect their wealth. At issue is whether significant, private wealth can exist prior to forms of authority. Smith seems to me not to have thought so. It is true that he asserts that, "antecedent to any civil institutions", superiority of fortune can "give some men superiority over the greater part of their brethren" (...) (p.670). However, I argue that there is strong reason not to take the word "antecedent" here in a temporal sense. In numerous and important examples Smith depicts the relationship between wealth and authority as non-empirical (or at least not simply empirical). This connection flows naturally from Smith's epoch-making redefinition of wealth as the productive capacity which a society can command within its given social and political framework. Appreciating this point leads one to see Smith as developing an early form of historical materialism. (shrink)

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

The authors use social science methodology to determine whether a doctrinal shift—from an objectivist view of criminality in the common law to a subjectivist view in modem criminal codes—is consistent with lay intuitions of the principles of justice. Commentators have suggested that lay perceptions of criminality have shifted in a way reflected in the doctrinal change, but the study results suggest a more nuanced conclusion: that the modern lay view agrees with the subjectivist view of modern codes in defining the (...) minimum requirements of criminality, but prefers the common law's objectivist view of grading the punishment deserved. The authors argue that there is practical value in having criminal law track shared community intuitions of the proper rules for assigning liability and punishment. For that reason, the study results support the often criticized subjectivist view of modern codes in setting the minimum requirements of liability, but disapprove of the modern codes' shift away from the common law's objectivist view of grading. (shrink)

The HIPAA Rules continue to support and bolster the importance of protecting the privacy and security of patients' protected health information. The HIPAA training requirements are at the cornerstone of meaningful implementation and provide a ripe opportunity for critical education.

In response to the recent resurgence of idealism among a cluster of Christian theologians and philosophers, this article raises a difficulty for Christians to be idealists. Unlike traditional accounts of Christianity that must explain why God permits or allows evil, idealists face a different and more difficult problem—namely why does God willfully and directly produce experiences of evil. Because the metaphysics of idealism requires God to produce experiences of evil directly and willfully, it is difficult to reconcile it with the (...) essential goodness of God. The existence of matter, therefore, may play an important role in maintaining God’s innocence while allowing creatures to exercise free will. (shrink)

The continued global economic success of authoritarian China seems to underscore the need to review the reasons why democracy occurs in different societies. For decades, many believed that a growin...

The SIMPOL Solution, spearheaded by the Simultaneous Policy (SIMPOL) Organization, gives voters around the world a new way to pressure their leaders to address global problems ranging from climate change to mass immigration and gross income disparities. Blending politics and psychology, The SIMPOL Solution shows how through simultaneous action--through cooperation--we can overcome the problems we face today and our children will face tomorrow.The authors argue that the chief barrier to tackling pressing international issues is a vicious circle of destructive global (...) competition, in which nations, corporations, and citizens are helplessly caught. Our current economic system--which rewards corporations and nations that offer the greatest profits no matter what the social costs--has the effect of hollowing out national politics and encouraging either voter apathy or populism championed by the Far Right.The good news is that it doesn't take masses of people to break this vicious circle and initiate lasting change. In fact, key transitions in human history were initiated by small numbers of activists. Already endorsed by leading policy-makers, visionaries, and public figures, this exciting book offers everyone a way to become a part of this important worldwide movement for change. (shrink)

In their trenchant panoramic overview – ranging from antiquity to the present-day – John and Anna Rist write with authority and ennui about nothing less than the loss of the foundational culture of the West. The authors characterize this culture as the 'original tradition', viewing its erosion as one which has led to anxiety about the entire value of Western thought. The causes of the disintegration are discussed with an intensity rare in academe. Critics of modernity ordinarily concentrate on (...) the Enlightenment and the book certainly offers deep analysis of Enlightenment thought. But it goes further. Thus the cruelty of modern totalitarianism is now depicted as in the spirit of the French Revolution and its implacable hostility to a vanished primordial heritage, while scientism, bureaucracy and consumerism appear as the only rivals to a threatening nihilism. The book argues that Western thought has created a set of conflicting moral and spiritual customs: to the detriment of coherence, in individual minds as in society and culture. (shrink)

Pylyshyn defends a distinction between early visual perception and cognitive processing. But exactly where should the line between vision and cognition be drawn? Our research on object identification suggests that the construction of an object's visual description is isolated from contextually derived expectations. Moreover, the matching of constructed descriptions to stored descriptions appears to be similarly isolated.

For students and the general reader, this is the best English translation of the entire 'Laws' available. I give several examples of important lines that are translated well in this edition, but I take issue with the translation of some other lines and with part of Schofield's introduction on grounds that these parts do not reveal Plato's political and cosmic holism as clearly as they could have.