This essay explores the ways in which the idiosyncratic onto-theogony of Friedrich Schelling's 1815 version of The Ages of the World anticipates Gilles Deleuze’s equally idiosyncratic interpretation of Friedrich Nietzsche’s doctrine of eternal recurrence. As I argue, Schelling’s work presents a sophisticated theory of being and time, a complex account of the genesis of actuality from within a differentiated transcendental field, and a reworking of the doctrine of Ideas, all of which together project a conception of reality as eternal recurrence (...) strikingly similar to the one Deleuze draws out of Nietzsche’s scant and elliptical writings on the subject. (shrink)

This presidential address to the Society for Business Ethics argues that business ethics rests upon the mistaken assumption thatteaching and research in the field ought to aim at the incorporation of ethics into managerial decision making. An alternative to this Moral Manager Model is a Moral Market Model, in which the aim is to develop markets that produce ethical outcomes. The differencesbetween the two models are discussed with reference to the themes of responsibility, participation, and relationships.

As a subject of inquiry, laws of nature exist in the overlap between metaphysics and the philosophy of science. Over the past three decades, this area of study has become increasingly central to the philosophy of science. It also has relevance to a variety of topics in metaphysics, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, and epistemology. Readings on Laws of Nature is the first anthology to offer a contemporary history of the problem of laws. The book is organized around three (...) key issues: the matter of distinguishing laws from mere correlations, questions concerning inductive reasoning and laws, and the consideration of whether there are any true laws in science. Designed for class use, the anthology covers a remarkably broad range of views and concerns, and consists exclusively of articles that have proved highly influential in the field. Readings on Laws of Nature will also serve as a valuable research and reference tool for philosophers who do not specialize in the subject, but who have occasion to examine concepts relating to the laws of nature in their own work. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill is one of the greatest thinkers of the nineteenth century. But does he have anything to teach us today? His deep concern for freedom of the individual is thought by some to be outdated and inadequate to the cultural and religious complexities of twenty first century life. In this succinct and shrewd book, John Skorupski argues that Mill is a profound and inspiring social and political thinker from whom we still have much to learn. He (...) reflects on Mill's central arguments in his most famous works, including _Utilitarianism_ and _On Liberty_, and traces their implications for democratic politics. With the use of topical and controversial examples, including privacy, religious intolerance, and freedom of speech, he makes Mill's concerns our own at a time when what liberalism means, and why it matters, is once again in dispute. He concludes that Mill's place in the pantheon of 'great thinkers' rests not only on his specific political and social doctrines, but above all on his steadfastly generous and liberal vision of human beings, their relations to one another, and what makes life worth living. (shrink)

David Marr's three-level method for completely understanding a cognitive system and the importance he attaches to the computational level are so familiar as to scarcely need repeating. Fewer seem to recognize that Marr defends his famous method by criticizing the “reductionistic approach.” This sets up a more interesting relationship between Marr and reductionism than is usually acknowledged. I argue that Marr was correct in his criticism of the reductionists of his time—they were only describing, not explaining. But a careful metascientific (...) account of reductionistic neuroscience over the past two decades reveals that Marr's criticisms no longer have force. Contemporary neuroscience now explains cognition directly, although in a fashion—causal-mechanistically—quite different than Marr recommended. So while Marr was correct to reject the reductionism of his day and offer an alternative method for genuinely explaining cognition, contemporary cognitive scientists now owe us a new defense of Marr's famous method and the advantages of its explanations over the type now pursued successfully in current reductionist neuroscience. There are familiar reasons for thinking that this debt will not be paid easily. (shrink)

What role does language play during attention allocation in perceiving and remembering events? We recorded adults‟ eye movements as they studied animated motion events for a later recognition task. We compared native speakers of two languages that use different means of expressing motion (Greek and English). In Experiment 1, eye movements revealed that, when event encoding was made difficult by requiring a concurrent task that did not involve language (tapping), participants spent extra time studying what their language treats as the (...) details of the event. This „linguistic encoding‟ effect was eliminated both when event encoding was made easier (no concurrent task) and when the concurrent task required the use of language (counting aloud). In Experiment 2, under conditions of a delayed concurrent task of counting aloud, participants used language covertly just prior to engaging in the additional task. Together, the results indicate that language can be optionally recruited for encoding events, especially under conditions of high cognitive load. Yet, these effects are malleable and flexible and do not appear to shape core biases in event perception and memory. (shrink)

This book presents reverse mathematics to a general mathematical audience for the first time. Reverse mathematics is a new field that answers some old questions. In the two thousand years that mathematicians have been deriving theorems from axioms, it has often been asked: which axioms are needed to prove a given theorem? Only in the last two hundred years have some of these questions been answered, and only in the last forty years has a systematic approach been developed. In Reverse (...) Mathematics, John Stillwell gives a representative view of this field, emphasizing basic analysis--finding the "right axioms" to prove fundamental theorems--and giving a novel approach to logic. Stillwell introduces reverse mathematics historically, describing the two developments that made reverse mathematics possible, both involving the idea of arithmetization. The first was the nineteenth-century project of arithmetizing analysis, which aimed to define all concepts of analysis in terms of natural numbers and sets of natural numbers. The second was the twentieth-century arithmetization of logic and computation. Thus arithmetic in some sense underlies analysis, logic, and computation. Reverse mathematics exploits this insight by viewing analysis as arithmetic extended by axioms about the existence of infinite sets. Remarkably, only a small number of axioms are needed for reverse mathematics, and, for each basic theorem of analysis, Stillwell finds the "right axiom" to prove it. By using a minimum of mathematical logic in a well-motivated way, Reverse Mathematics will engage advanced undergraduates and all mathematicians interested in the foundations of mathematics. (shrink)

The Surfactant, Positive Pressure, and Oxygenation Randomized Trial (SUPPORT) has been the focal point of many different criticisms regarding the ethics of the study ever since publication of the trial's findings in 2010 and 2012. In this article, we focus on a concern that the technical design and implementation details of the study were ethically flawed. While the federal Office Human Research Protections focused on the consent form, rather than on the study design and implementation, OHRP's critiques of the consent (...) form reveal views about the study design and implementation that we believe are fundamentally flawed. These criticisms about the design and implementation of SUPPORT, if generalized, become relevant concerns about these aspects of many comparative effectiveness research studies.Our analytical approach will be to use SUPPORT as a prime example of comparative effectiveness research and show why it challenges some prevailing assumptions about the riskiness of research. We will address five aspects of the study design and implementation: 1) randomization, 2) treatment by protocol, 3) choice of endpoints, 4) lack of a “standard care” control group, and 5) the use of altered oximeters. Examining these aspects will allow us to answer two specific central questions. The first is a methodological question with ethical implications: was the study designed in such a way as to answer the primary study question? The second question is whether the study design added or decreased risk to the babies enrolled in the study compared to babies who were not in the study. (shrink)

We develop a general framework for forcing with coherent adequate sets on [Formula: see text] as side conditions, where [Formula: see text] is a cardinal of uncountable cofinality. We describe a class of forcing posets which we call coherent adequate type forcings. The main theorem of the paper is that any coherent adequate type forcing preserves CH. We show that there exists a forcing poset for adding a club subset of [Formula: see text] with finite conditions while preserving CH, solving (...) a problem of Friedman [Forcing with finite conditions, in Set Theory: Centre de Recerca Matemática, Barcelona, 2003–2004, Trends in Mathematics, pp. 285–295.]. (shrink)

This introduction to the philosophy of social psychological science repudiates traditional empiricist and hermeneutical accounts, advancing instead a realist philosophy that stresses the social dimensions of mind and action.

This book addresses one of the fundamental topics in philosophy: the relation between appearance and reality. John Yolton draws on a rich combination of historical and contemporary material, ranging from the early modern period to present-day debates, to examine this central philosophical preoccupation, which he presents in terms of distinctions between phenomena and causes, causes and meaning, and persons and man. He explores in detail how Locke, Berkeley and Hume talk of appearances and their relation to reality, and offers (...) illuminating connections and comparisons with the work of contemporary philosophers such as Paul Churchland and John McDowell. He concludes by offering his own proposal for a 'realism of appearances', which incorporates elements of both Humean and Kantian thinking. His important study will be of interest to a wide range of readers in the history of philosophy, the history of ideas, and contemporary philosophy of mind, epistemology and metaphysics. (shrink)

Commentators on John Broome's Tanner Lecture. The Tanner Lectures are a collection of educational and scientific discussions relating to human values. Conducted by leaders in their fields, the lectures are presented at prestigious educational facilities around the world.

This essay is based on a lecture delivered at the 2002 IRAS Star Island conference, the theme of which was “Is Nature Enough? The Thirst for Transcendence.” I had been asked to represent the position of those who would answer No to the question. I thought it would stimulate discussion if I presented my side of the debate in a somewhat provocative manner rather than use a more ponderous approach that would argue each point in a meticulous and protracted fashion. (...) Here I lay out a theological position that finds naturalism wanting in three ways: in terms of human spiritual needs, in terms of the mind's need for deep explanation, and in terms of the perennial human search for truth. Again, the style of presentation, like that of the original lecture, prohibits the kind of philosophical development that an adequate answer to each of the issues requires. The purpose is that of evoking discussion on a most important question. (shrink)

In [5], examples of incomplete sentences are given with maximal models in more than one cardinality. The question was raised whether one can find similar examples of complete sentences. In this paper, we give examples of complete ‐sentences with maximal models in more than one cardinality. From (homogeneous) characterizability of κ we construct sentences with maximal models in κ and in one of and more. Indeed, consistently we find sentences with maximal models in uncountably many distinct cardinalities.

Based on the author's thesis, University of Sussex, 1978. Includes index. Bibliography: p. 221-228.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) 107-108 [Access article in PDF] Sixth International Conference of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies John Berthrong Boston University The society's sixth international conference, held 5-12 August 2000, was an exceptionally successful event for the five hundred plus participants. In great measure the success was due to the conference's scenic and user-friendly location at the Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma,Washington, and to the untiring work of (...) Professor Paul Ingram and his staff. The spirit of Mount Rainier towered over the whole event, reminding us that both Buddhism and Christianity have a stake in global healing.One of the most enjoyable aspects of the conference was how well the various panels, presentations, plenary programs, and workshops matched the announced theme of the conference. Although I cannot speak for all the participants, in my extensive sampling of the events, care was given in addressing the question of global healing from a diverse set of spiritual perspectives and academic disciplines.Whether you attended the section on meditation or the erudite papers on orthodoxy, the presenters strove to show how their work could be understood as a way to promote global healing.Nowhere was this attention to the theme of the conference more clearly demonstrated than in the evening plenaries. I confess that I am not a fan of evening meetings. However, in each case the various panels presented their analysis as a gift to the larger mosaic of the conference. The evenings began with Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne and Dr. Cecil Murray addressing nonviolent struggle for economic justice. This was followed by presentations on the Earth Charter; gender, justice, and oppression in Buddhism and Christianity; and consumerism and ecology. I would also be remiss if I did not note that we were treated to wonderful musical performances not only at the opening and closing ceremonies but during all the other plenaries as well.One of the most noteworthy features of the work of the society over the last two decades has been its conviction that erudite scholarship and the actual profession and practice of religion are not mutually exclusive. Furthermore, the society was founded on the belief that dialogue between Buddhists and Christians is a good thing in and of itself. The workshop on the interior dialogue of meditation was a gentle refutation to those in the academic world who maintain that only analysis of isolated religious practices or texts makes any sense. The society has always urged its members to bring their practices as well as their ideas to the dialogical encounter. [End Page 107]Music played a moving role in the life of the conference. The plenary sessions took place in the magnificent new music center at PLU, wherein resides a huge concert organ.We were literally moved by the organ's powerful rendition of the classic works of the Western religious musical tradition. Matching the organ was the gentle call of the shakuhachi. An organ and a shakuhachi may seem mismatched in theory and performance--much less sheer volume for the bamboo flute--but they blended into a symphony of shared sacred music.Having praised the thematic attentiveness, musical brilliance, and spiritual depth of the conference, I must likewise highlight the academic integrity of the papers. Many of the professorial types mentioned over and over again how pleased they were with the thoughtfulness of the academic presentations. Here we need not only to thank the authors but also the conference planning committee for its ability to select the best representatives of erudite, informed, and engaged models of academic scholarship. Those who were not present will simply have to wait for many of these fine papers to be published in various scholarly journals. Another helpful detail was the conference bookstore, which stocked many of the recent publications of the participants.The only criticism I heard during the whole conference was that it was, alas, a bit too long. In this busy world it is difficult for most people to block out a whole week for one conference. I mention this only in... (shrink)

In order to defend the regress argument for foundationalism against Post’s objection that relevant forms of inferential justification are not transitive, Lydia McGrew and Timothy McGrew define a relation E of positive evidence, which, they contend, has the following features: It is a necessary condition for any inferential justification; it is transitive and irreflexive; and it enables both a strengthened regress argument proof against Post’s objection and an argument that nothing can ever appear in its own justificational ancestry. In reply, (...) we construct in their own terms both a counterexample to the would-be transitivity of E, and a related objection to their never-in-its-own-ancestry argument. We also rebut their rejection of certain counterexamples to the would-be transitivity of some forms of inferential justification. By doing so, and by questioning their transitivity claim for E, we aim to further the project of undermining the circularity arguments advanced by a zoo of skeptics, relativists, antirealists and internalists against realism and externalism. (shrink)

This paper examines whether or not senior corporate executives are morally responsible for disasters which result from corporate activities. The discussion is limited to the case in which the information needed to prevent the disaster is present within the corporation, but fails to reach senior executives. The failure of information to reach executives is usually a result of negative information blockage, a phenomenon caused by the differing roles of constraints and goals within corporations. Executives should be held professionally responsible not (...) only for trying to prevent negative information blockage, but for succeeding. It is concluded that executives are professionally responsible for fulfilling their moral obligation to prevent disasters. (shrink)

Volume 2. The second of three volumes of essays that engage Japanese philosophers as intercultural thinkers, this collection critically probes seminal works for their historical significance and contemporary relevance. It shows how the relational ethics of Watsuji Tetsurō serves as a resource for new conceptions of trust, dignity, and human rights; how forgiveness empowers the repentance and the sense of responsibility advocated by Tanabe Hajime, and how Kuki Shūzō’s philosophy of contingency puts a fortuitous twist on normative ethics. The author (...) also re-examines the controversy about Kyoto School wartime writings so as to uncover the covert side of today’s empires, and reflects on the hidden consequences of seeing nature as the non-human world. Underlying these investigations is a consistent style that interrogates philosophers for what lies undisclosed and that exposes decisive questions that arise between us and them. (shrink)

Una nuova traduzione di "An Essay Concerning Toleration" di John Locke.

Owens, John F It is about sixty years since Frederick Copleston was required by the ecclesiastical censor to insert 'some unambiguous condemnation of Nietzsche' into a new edition of his 'Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher of Culture.' Copleston thought the work 'disfigured' as a result, sensing perhaps that the addition would reinforce crude misunderstandings of his subject. He was aware of something that probably passed the ecclesiastical censor by, that whatever is to be said of Nietzsche's relation to Christianity, it is (...) not straightforward. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:WHAT VOEGELIN MISSED IN THE GOSPEL John J. Ranieri Seton Hall University Violence and order are the themes that structure Voegelin's work. From the early writings composed in response to the emergence of National Socialism to the closing years ofhis life in which he confessed to a "perhaps misplaced sensitivity towards murder"1 as the primary catalyst for his philosophical pursuits, Voegelin is preoccupied with the relationship between the (...) good of order and the violence that can both undermine and preserve that order. His theory of consciousness, his philosophy of history, and his "new science ofpolitics" form a complementary whole when understood as expressions of his lifelong concern to find ways to guard against social and political chaos. This preoccupation with order makes Voegelin especially wary of any social, political, or religious movements which, in his view, contribute to the dissolution ofsocial stability. It is in this context that his uneasy relationship with the Bible must be understood. While acknowledging the importance of the Jewish and Christian scriptures in the historical unfolding of the differentiation ofthe divine Beyond, Voegelin also maintains that many of the forces of disorder in modern society have been generated within their orbit.2 The dazzling intensity ofthe encounter with the biblical God can lead to dissatisfaction with life in this world, resulting in reactions of either withdrawal from the surrounding culture or the more immediately de- '"Autobiographical Statement at Age 82" in 77¡e Beginning and the Beyond: Papersfrom the Gadamer and Voegelin Conferences (117). 2See Order and History, vol. 1, Israel and Revelation (xii-xiv); Order and History, vol. 4, The Ecumenic Age (20, 27); "The Gospel and Culture," in The Collected Works ofEric Voegelin,vo\. 12, Published Essays, 1966-1985(200-210). 126John J. Ranieri structive alternative of trying, by whatever means necessary, to bring a recalcitrant society into conformity with the divine perfection. As revelation of the "God beyond the gods" the Old and New Testaments are unsurpassable expressions ofthe transcendent source of order. At the same time, they are the seedbeds in which social upheaval easily germinates. As generators of both order and disorder, few biblical books have been as influential as the four gospels. It is Voegelin's treatment ofthese texts that will be my concern here. The ambiguity ofVoegelin's relationship to the gospels is reflected in the twofold meaning ofthe word "missed" in the title ofthis essay. In the first place, the word can be understood as referring to Voegelin's critique ofthe gospels; to speak ofwhat Voegelin "missed" in this sense is to focus on that which he finds lacking in them (yet wishes were there). My primary interest, however, is on the meaning ofthe word as indicating that which Voegelin fails to understand about the gospels. The two meanings are related; for it is in Voegelin's criticism of the gospels that we can detect the manner in which he misunderstands them. In order to make this clear, it is necessary to say something about his evaluation and critique; only then will it be possible to raise relevant questions about his approach. After summarizing Voegelin's perspective on the gospels, I introduce the thought of René Girard as possible counterpoint. This is followed by a comparison of Voegelin and Girard with regard to their understanding ofthe gospel texts. A concluding section offers reflections on Voegelin's evaluation ofthe gospels. I realize that there is little to be gained from finding fault with a thinker for not doing what it was never his intention to do in the first place. At times, some of Voegelin's Christian critics succumb to this tendency when they berate him for what they consider to be his failure to satisfy the litmus test of Christian orthodoxy.3 Apart from the difficulty of defining Christian orthodoxy, these kinds of charges overlook the fact that Voegelin does not consider himself to be a Christian theologian, and that his "concern with 3 Of course, the question as to whether Voegelin's philosophy is adequate as a foundation for Christian theology may be an important one for the theologian to consider. But Voegelin does not see himself as providing such a foundation. For critics... (shrink)

Many seek to play the lottery by crossing boxes at random across their card. But do they really choose their numbers at random? As John Haigh here explains, probably not. And, surprisingly, that is likely to affect how much they win. If you play the lottery and want to win big, then read on….

This paper explores a familiar skeptical problematic and considers some strategies for responding to it. Section 1 reconstructs and disambiguates the skeptical problematic, distinguishing between some importantly different lines of skeptical reasoning. Section 2 distinguishes two kinds of anti-skeptical strategy. “Cooperative strategies” accept the conditions on knowledge that are laid down by a target skeptical argument, and argue that those conditions can be satisfied in a relevant domain. “Critical strategies” respond to a skeptical argument by rejecting some condition on knowledge (...) that the argument supposes. It is argued that critical strategies readily present themselves against the skeptical problematic once it is disambiguated as in Section 1. Section 3 looks at an interesting anti-skeptical strategy from Ram Neta and Duncan Pritchard on behalf of John McDowell. Here I argue that, initial appearances to the contrary, no plausible cooperative strategy is available to the internalist. (shrink)

The Dispute Settlement Reports of the World Trade Organization (WTO) include Panel and Appellate Body reports, as well as arbitration awards, in disputes concerning the rights and obligations of WTO members under the provisions of the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization. These are the WTO authorized and paginated reports in English. An essential addition to the library of all practising and academic trade lawyers, and needed by students worldwide taking courses in international economic or trade law. Among others, (...) DSR 2007: I reports on United States – Measures Relating to Zeroing and Sunset Reviews. (shrink)

Much of what you thought you knew about the universe and its expansion may be wrong. That expansion appears to be speeding up rather than slowing E = mc 2). down. This column is about recent astronomical evidence for a positive cosmological constant, suggesting that space itself has mass-energy..

Do we have any obligations to our political society? If so, how should they be understood and explained? Political philosophers since Socrates have grappled with these questions, and have reached a diverse range of conclusions.