This book provides a postmodernist critique of philosophy through ecological limitationism and common-sense realism. The authors demonstrate the reality of life, the world and the primacy of practice in relation to the failings of Anglo-American analytic philosophy to meet the challenges of the age.

This work summarizes an already comprehensive field of criticisms of received economics and advanced new ones, particularly with respect to free trade and the industrialisation of economic systems. If global economic and ecological catastrophe is to be avoided, nations and communities must move towards greater self-reliance within the framework of a much less resource-wasteful existence. But to do this will require not merely a cosmetic change in the present socio-economic system, but a change of such magnitude that it dwarfs previous (...) social transformations in human history. This great transformation must occur by conscious human activity and it must occur quickly if human civilizations, and indeed human life itself, is to continue. (shrink)

Beyond Reason and Tolerance argues that to prepare students to engage political, ethnic, and religious differences, higher education must adopt a developmental model for a formative and liberal undergraduate education as a process of growth involving empathy as well as reasoning, values as well as knowledge, and identity as well as competencies.

Schilbach et al. contribute to neuroscience methodology through drawing on insights from the second-person approach. We suggest that they could further contribute to social neuroscience by more fully spelling out the ways in which a second-person approach to the nature and origin of thinking could transform neuroscience.

Many theories of complex cognitive-motor skill learning are built on the notion that basic cognitive processes group actions into easy-to-perform sequences. The present work examines predictions derived from laboratory-based studies of motor chunking and motor preparation using data collected from the real-time strategy video game StarCraft 2. We examined 996,163 action sequences in the telemetry data of 3,317 players across seven levels of skill. As predicted, the latency to the first action is delayed relative to the other actions in the (...) group. Other predictions, inspired by the memory drum theory of Henry and Rogers, received only weak support. (shrink)

Dimensions of character are often overlooked in professional practice at the expense of the development of technical competence and operational efficiency. Drawing on philosophical accounts of virtue ethics and positive psychology, the present work attempts to elevate the role of ‘good’ character in the professional domain. A ‘good’ professional is ideally one that exemplifies dimensions of character informed by sound judgement. A total of 2340 professionals, from five discrete professions, were profiled based on their valuation of qualities pertaining to character (...) and judgement. Profile differences were subsequently examined in the self-reported experience of professional purpose towards a wider societal ‘good’. Analysis of covariance, controlling for stage of career, revealed that professionals valuing character reported higher professional purpose than those overweighting the importance of judgement or valuing neither character nor judgement, F = 7.92, p <.001. No differences were found between the two groups valuing character, irrespective of whether judgement was valued simultaneously. This profiling analysis of entry-level and in-service professionals, based on their holistic character composition, paves the way for fresh philosophical discussion regarding what constitutes a ‘good’ professional and the interplay between character and judgement. The empirical findings may be of substantive value in helping to recognise how the dimensions of character and judgement may impact upon practitioners’ professional purpose. (shrink)

In recent work, Joseph Fishkin has helpfully enriched understandings of equality of opportunity as a feature of distributive justice schemes. One branch of his argument focuses upon the degree to which ‘merit’, as a function of talent and effort, is conceptually and practically vexing for these goals. While Thompson is in general agreement with the direction of Fishkin’s critiques and new offerings, in this article he extends and strengthens Fishkin’s analysis of talent, specifically focusing upon its role as (...) a defensible criterion for access to developmentally useful educational opportunities.Developing an account sympathetic to Fishkin’s contributions, Thompson provides a limited defense of talent as a morally relevant criterion for access to some educational opportunities. Of course, Thompson acknowledges that this relevance is not absolute and, therefore, points towards reasons why talent enjoys only this occasionally relevant status in relation to educational opportunities and what systemic issues ought to be avoided as a result. (shrink)

This will be the best way of explaining ‘Paris is the lover of Helen’, that is, ‘Paris loves, and by that very fact [et eo ipso] Helen is loved’. Here, therefore, two propositions have been brought together and abbreviated as one. Or, ‘Paris is a lover, and by that very fact Helen is a loved one’.

Dedicated to the Memory of Joseph Goguen.

This will be the best way of explaining ‘Paris is the lover of Helen’, that is, ‘Paris loves, and by that very fact [et eo ipso] Helen is loved’. Here, therefore, two propositions have been brought together and abbreviated as one. Or, ‘Paris is a lover, and by that very fact Helen is a loved one’.

The enduring popularity of Star Wars has much to do with its mythic dimensions. However, there are problems with Joseph Campbell's work on myth and George Lucas's use of Campbell's ideas in Star Wars. Both Campbell and Lucas promote a simplistic view that encourages fans to avoid some darker, more unsettling ideas in Star Wars, which may obscure myth's true power. Campbell remains one of the most famous mythologists, but he was by no means the first. Campbell's influence on (...) Star Wars seems obvious, but the details are difficult to determine, partly because Lucas himself gives different accounts of it. Campbell's monomyth leads us to see similarities between tales and, in so doing, overlooks many significant differences. Tensions between mythos and logos date back to ancient Greek philosophers, if not earlier. The mythic structure of Star Wars has immense hidden power, and this power has a dark side. (shrink)

This article will look closely at the performance of tomboy identity in Joan Anim-Addo's collection of poetry Janie, Cricketing Lady, written as a tribute to her mother Jane Joseph, and Margaret Cezair-Thompson's novel The Pirate's Daughter, a fiction about Errol Flynn's ‘outside’ Jamaican daughter, May. It will argue that the ongoing affects of colonialism and patriarchy in the islands of Grenada and Jamaica, respectively, shape the life narratives of Janie and May who express their anger, shame, fear, frustration (...) and desire through their ambiguous gender identity and through their determination to intervene in masculinist traditions, such as cricket, piracy and adventure, traditions that underpin Caribbean his/tories. To understand the way in which affect can be expressed through tomboyism in Caribbean societies, it is necessary to look at colour and class alongside gender in the context of Caribbean creolisation. (shrink)

In four new and nine previously published essays, Joseph Heath provides a compelling new framework for thinking about the moral obligations of economic actors. The "market failures" approach to business ethics that he develops provides the basis for a unified theory of business ethics, corporate law, economic regulation, and the welfare state.

Truth is a pervasive feature of ordinary language, deserving of systematic study, and few theorists of truth have endeavoured to chronicle the tousled conceptual terrain forming the non-philosopher’s ordinary view. Joseph Ulatowski recasts the philosophical treatment of truth in light of historical and recent work in experimental philosophy. He argues that the commonsense view of truth is deeply fragmented along two axes, across different linguistic discourses and among different demographics. Call this endoxic alethic pluralism. To defend this view, four (...) conclusions must be reached: (1) endoxic alethic pluralism should be compatible with how the everyday person uses truth, (2) the common conception of truth should be derivable from empirical data, (3) this descriptive metaphysical project is one aspect of a normative theory of truth, and (4) endoxic alethic pluralism is at least partially immune to challenges facing the ecological method in experimental philosophy and alethic pluralism. (shrink)

The political changes of recent years and the problems of poverty, the environment and nationalism have led to calls for the establishment of a just world order. But what would such a world be like? This book considers the concept of international justice as it has developed in traditional political theory from Hobbes to Marx and in contemporary writing on the subject. It develops a theory of international justice designed to take account of both individual freedom and the differences among (...) communities. (shrink)

The paper offers a new account of the rule of law, revising my previous view, and criticising some alternatives. It focuses on the rule of law's aim to avoid arbitrary government, and on its relation to the essential functions of government. The rule of law requires that government action will manifest an intention to protect and advance the interests of the governed. As such it is almost a necessary condition for the law's ability to meet other moral demands, and it (...) facilitate coordination and cooperation internally and internationally. -/- . (shrink)

Both ways of looking at the history of logic as well as some of the issues that plague contemporary disputes over the nature of logic are illustrated in three recent books. Henry Veatch's Intentional Logic turns to a medieval Aristotelian philosophy as providing the framework for an adequate account of logical subject matter. Ernest Moody's Truth and Consequence in Mediaeval Logic borrows from the technical apparatus of present-day logicians in an endeavor to reassess what was once dismissed as fourteenth century (...) logic-chopping. Benson Mates' Stoic Logic is a similar study in the logic of an earlier period. (shrink)