Self, Language, and World: Problems from Kant, Sellars, and Rosenberg Edited by James R. O'Shea and Eric M. Rubenstein Introduction KANT Willem deVries, Kant, Rosenberg, and the Mirror of Philosophy David Landy, The Premise That Even Hume Must Accept LANGUAGE AND MIND William G. Lycan, Rosenberg On Proper Names Douglas Long, Why Life is Necessary for Mind: The Significance of Animate Behavior Dorit Bar-On and Mitchell Green, Lionspeak: Communication, Expression, and Meaning David Rosenthal, The Mind and Its Expression MIND (...) AND KNOWLEDGE Jeffrey Sicha, The Manifest Image: the Sensory and the Mental Bruce Aune, Rosenberg on Knowing Joseph C. Pitt, Sellarsian Antifoundationalism and Scientific Realism Matthew Chrisman, The Aim of Belief and the Goal of Truth: Reflections on Rosenberg James O’Shea, Conceptual Thinking and Nonconceptual Content: A Sellarsian Divide ONTOLOGY Anton Koch, Persons as Mirroring the World Eric M. Rubenstein, Form and Content, Substance and Stuff Ralf Stoecker, On Being a Realist About Death William G. Lycan, Biographical Remarks on Jay F. Rosenberg Scholarly Publications of Jay F. Rosenberg. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In a previous article (O’Shea 2006) I provided a concise overview of the reception of Kant’s philosophy among analytic philosophers during the periods from the ‘early analytic’ reactions to Kant in Frege, Russell, Carnap and others, to the systematic Kant-inspired works in epistemology and metaphysics of C. I. Lewis and P. F. Strawson, in particular. In this chapter I use the recently reinvigorated work of Wilfrid Sellars (1912–1989) in the second half of the twentieth century as the basis for (...) presenting some of the most familiar ‘analytic Kantian’ themes that continue to animate current debates. I also argue that the complex relationships between Sellars’ philosophy and Kant’s thought are often misunderstood. Overall the chapter examines Sellars’ analytic appropriations of Kant in three topic-areas of significant current philosophical debate: (1) conceptual analysis and the structure of human knowledge; (2) laws of nature, the causal modalities, and the pragmatic or relative a priori; and (3) the disputes concerning Kant and nonconceptual content. (shrink)

By coincidence, it seems, the critical vocabulary and concerns that came to be known as postcolonial theory and methodology rose to be a dominant school of inquiry in the Anglo-American academy in the same years that the Soviet Union collapsed (notwithstanding that key theoretical texts by Frantz Fanon and others predated this moment by decades). Yet, oddly, postcolonialist terms were seldom applied to postsocialist and post-Soviet cases until the 2000s, and they have become more broadly utilized in these territories only (...) in the past decade. Further, it must be admitted that few results of these applications of postcolonial tools to postsocialist cases have made much of a mark among broader circles of postcolonial scholars and thinkers. Djagalov's book may help to correct this situation. Rather than work in the mode of “application”—applying a postcolonial framework to yet one more case—Djagalov reconstructs the history of a century of socialist anti-imperialism, as it was expressed in global cultural institutions and networks, and in so doing discovers the ignored or forgotten genealogy that links contemporary postcolonial thought to writers, activists, and theoreticians of the socialist world.Djagalov's book toggles between, on the one hand, chapters of institutional history that chronicle the global cultural institutions (such as the Afro-Asian Writers Association, the Tashkent Film Festival, and the Lotus Prize) that connected the Soviet Union with decolonizing countries and, on the other hand, chapters of synthetic cultural criticism that articulate typological analyses of common narrative forms that circulated in the fiction and film of the socialist world—recurring varieties of “solidarity narratives,” as Djagalov calls them. His work reveals how central the state-socialist political imaginary was for writers and filmmakers ranging from Nâzım Hikmet to Ngūgī wa Thiong'o, and how prominent their itineraries through Soviet institutions and networks were in their biographies. Ngūgī, for instance, finished his 1977 novel Petals of Blood during a residency in the Soviet Writers House in Yalta.In recovering the lost continent of anti-imperial socialist globality that bridged the “second” and “third worlds,” Djagalov has demonstrated not how postcolonial terms can be applied to postsocialist cases but how postcolonial theory and method are themselves postsocialist phenomena. Djagalov does not attempt to rectify the state-socialist prehistory of postcolonial thought with a critique of Soviet imperial habits or of the postcolonial contexts of contemporary Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. At least, though, the challenges of thinking “postcolonial” and “postsocialist” together have now become clearer. From Internationalism to Postcolonialism leaves us with new research problems: what, for example, does it mean to be a postcolony of an anti-imperial empire? (shrink)

Men often make riskier decisions than women across a wide range of real-life behaviors. Whether this sex difference is accentuated, diminished, or stable under stressful conditions is, however, contested in the scientific literature. A critical blind spot lies amid this contestation: Most studies use standardized, laboratory-based, cognitive measures of decision making rather than complex real-life social simulation tasks to assess risk-related behavior. To address this blind spot, we investigated the effects of acute psychosocial stress on risk decision making in men (...) and women using a standardized cognitive measure and a novel task that simulated a real-life social situation. Participants were exposed to either an acute psychosocial stressor or an equivalent control condition. Stressor-exposed participants were further characterized as high- or low-cortisol responders. Results confirmed that the experimental manipulation was effective. On the IGT, participants characterized as low-cortisol responders made significantly riskier decisions than those characterized as high-cortisol responders. Similarly, in the online chatroom, participants characterized as low-cortisol responders were, relative to those in the Non-Stress group, significantly more likely to make risky decisions. Together, these results suggest that at lower levels of cortisol both men and women tend to make riskier decisions in both economic and social spheres. (shrink)

The thought of G. W. F. Hegel has had a deep and lasting influence on a wide range of philosophical, political, religious, aesthetic, cultural and scientific movements. But, despite the far-reaching importance of Hegel's thought, there is often a great deal of confusion about what he actually said or believed. This is an invaluable introduction for philosophical beginners and a useful reference source for more advanced scholars and researchers.

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the limitations of four major critiques of the work of Leavis made by Kevin Harris. It is argued that (1) Leavis's procedure of working with the concrete and particular and (2) the context within which he worked, dominated by the exponents of modernism, are glossed over by Harris so that Leavis's insights are not given due weight. Furthermore, Harris overlooks the significance of an Aristotelian perspective to Leavis's concern for value and thus underestimates literature's (...) role in furthering our understanding of what it is to flourish. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:RECENT SACRAMENTAL THEOLOGY HIS ARTICLE continues and complements an earlier scussion of contemporary sacramental method pubhed in October, 1983, based on a review of eleven books published in English on the sacraments from 1975 to 1983.1 That article dealt specifically with approaches to "contemporary systematic reflection on the Christian sacraments, the relation of sacramental theology to other areas of theology, the impact of liturgical studies on sacramental studies, and (...) aspects of pastoral practice." 2 The final section described the elements that should be included in a contemporary approach to a systematic study of sacraments.3 The present article assesses seven more recent works in English on sacraments in general,4 again from the perspective of method. In this connection the words of Stephen Happel are helpful: [T] he coalescence of historical data on the development of sacraments, emerging consensus on some general frameworks within which to ask sacramental questions, and the need to provide textbooks for those who cannot wade through the jungles of.critical 1 See Kevin W. Irwin, "Recent Sacramental Theology: A Review Discussion," The Thomist 47 (October, 1983) 592-608. 2 Ibid. 592. s Ibid. 605-608 for a summary. 4 The books discussed here are: Bernard Cooke, Sacraments and Sacramentality (Mystic: Twenty-Third Publications, 1983); Gerard Fourez, Sacraments and Passages Celebrating the Tensions of Modern Life (Notre Dame: Ave Maria Press, 1983); Joseph Martos, The Catholic Sacraments, Volume One in Message of the Sacraments series edited by Monika K. Hellwig (Wilmington : Glazier, 1983); David N. Power, Unsearchable Riches: The Symbolic Nature of the Liturgy (New York: Pueblo Publishing Co., 1984) ; John P. Schanz, Introduction to the Sacraments (New York: Pueblo Publishing Co., 1983); James F. White, Sacraments as God's Self Giving: Sacramental Practice ana: Faith (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1983) ; Patricia Smith, Teaching Sacraments (Wilmington: Glazier, 1987). 124 RECENT SACRAMENTAL THEOLOGY Ul5 monographs have begun to produce new general theories of sacramental life. This is a vital move in the postconciliar church. It is as though we feel that we have enough sense of the shifting sands of time to use them in an hourglass to mark our age.5 Each of the books discussed here can be understood to propose a new general theory of sacramental life or a new approach to the systematic study of sacraments. The works by Cooke and Schanz are clearly intended as texts for college courses in sacramental theology. Martos's book offers an interdisciplinary approach to sacraments. James White offers a fresh look at the traditional dictum lex orandi, lex credendi on a level useful for pastors and seminary students. Gerard Fourez approaches sacraments from a social science perspective. David Power deals with symbol in liturgy and the relationship between sacramental study and contemporary culture. Patricia Smith offers a way of dealing with how to teach about sacraments in the contemporary context of evolving sacramental theories. Each book can be understood as an attempt to chart a path through the shifting sands of theological method, liturgical reform and the varying approaches to sacramental theology in the past two decades. Well known for his books Christian Sacraments and Christian Personality (1965) and Ministry to Word and Sacrament (1976), Bernard Cooke presents an.approach in Sacraments and Sacramentality that is grounded in human experience and everyday life. The first six chapters demonstrate how Christian sacraments are grounded in human life; the remaining chapters discuss individual sacraments and sacramental grace. Cooke states that Christian sacraments are "specially significant realities that are meant to transform the reality of the human by somehow bringing persons into closer contact with the.saving action of Jesus" (8). Intent on broadening the notion of sacramentality Cooke writes that his work concerns " the sacramentality of Christians and their everyday 5 From Happel's review of Colman O'Neill's work Sacramental Realism in Worship 58 (May, 1984) 276-77. 126 KEVIN W. IRWIN lives" (4). He clearly succeeds in placing the seven sacraments in this wide framework and in demonstrating the essential relationship between sacraments and human life. Cooke begins his discussion of individual sacraments by arguing that marriage is the basic sacrament (chapter seven). He states that there is " good reason for seeing human friendship as... (shrink)

The book provides a series of approaches to the ancient question of whether and how God is a matter of "experience," or, alternately, to what extent the notion of experience can be true to itself if it does not include God. On the one hand, it seems impossible to experience God: the deity does not offer Himself to sense experience. On the other hand, there have been mystics who have claimed to have encountered God. The essays in this collection seek (...) to explore the topic again, drawing insights from phenomenology, theology, literature, and feminism. Throughout, this stimulating collection maintains a strong connection with concrete rather than abstract approaches to God. The contributors: Michael F. Andrews, Jeffrey Bloechl, John D. Caputo, Kristine Culp, Kevin Hart, Kevin L. Hughes, Jean-Yves Lacoste, Crystal Lucky, Renee McKenzie, Kim Paffenroth, Michael Purcell, Michael J. Scanlon, O.S.A., James K. A. Smith. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Thales of Miletus: The Beginnings of Western Science and PhilosophyKevin RobbPatricia F. O’Grady. Thales of Miletus: The Beginnings of Western Science and Philosophy. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2002. Pp xxii + 310. Paper, $84.95.This book has a consistent thesis: Thales of Miletus was the first Western scientist and philosopher not just for what he began, but for what he himself said (or, as O'Grady believes, wrote). On this view, (...) Thales made significant contributions to metaphysics ("He asked the question: 'What is real?' no less than Plato and Aristotle did," 249), cosmology (on the earth and earthquakes, 87 ff.), astronomy (notably the eclipse, 126 ff.), mathematics (Proclus attributes Euclidean theorems to Thales, 191 ff.), psychology (on psyche) and theology (on "full of the gods," 108 ff.). O'Grady's thesis is that we know enough about Thales' thoughts in these areas (each a treacherous minefield of scholarly dispute, as O'Grady admits) that, after a clarified understanding of "Scientificity and Rationality" (her awkward title for Chapter 11), we can confidently conclude that philosophy and science were well begun by Thales. "I believe I have drawn a clear and detailed picture of a brilliant, veracious, and courageously speculative Greek. I see him as a questioner of almost everything, an investigator of nature...Thales is not the mere shadowy figure of Guthrie's perception. He is a man of substance, a man of distinction and of lasting importance" (251).O'Grady had early noted that W. K. C. Guthrie considered Thales a shadowy figure historically, made all the more so, Guthrie believed, because the legend kept expanding. For example, a sixth-century Thales as the seeker after the material archê, and so the first important physikos, is unknown before fourth-century Aristotle's Metaphysics Alpha, and by the time Euclidean theorems are attributed to Thales the tendency to foist imposing discoveries on famous persons was prevalent.This raises the major issue concerning O'Grady's exhaustively researched book. To what extent can the doxographic sources (the "A" sections of Diels's 1903Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker), be used to interpret the Presocratics, especially if the original wording from a thinker perished (any "B" section quotations). It is clear that in the fourth century nothing in writing from Thales survived for the Lyceum to read and catalogue although its scholars clearly sought it; the repeated legetai ("it is said") of Aristotle in Metaphysics Alpha and elsewhere is decisive. It is his standard way of indicating that no written work on the matter survives to be consulted, but stories or oral accounts do.O'Grady's thesis requires that the "A" section material be exploited fully, especially to present Thales as a philosopher (29-70). Many historians will be unwilling to take the entire journey with her. Some (Harold Cherniss) would balk at the first step. The demand for confirming ipsissima verba (or "B" quotations) to reconstruct the thought of any Presocratic with real confidence (as once proposed by G. S. Kirk) threatens to exclude Thales from histories of philosophy, an unsatisfactory result. Even so, Harold Cherniss proposed that drastic solution in 1935 in his magisterial Aristotle's Criticism of Presocratric Philosophy. Presocratic philosophy, he argued, should begin with Anaximander (375).The heart of Cherniss's numbingly exhaustive argument (400 + pages) was that Aristotle's purpose in surveying his predecessors's views was never historical, but dialectical. His intent was to argue for a fourfold causality (on the grounds only four archai had been turned up by all his predecessors, starting with Thales' material cause), and to fit those predecessors's views into a theory of natural causality as he had finally formulated it in his sophisticated, [End Page 107] largely technical vocabulary. Aristotle's "historical" notices on which all later accounts must depend were, thus, never history; the problem and the solution, along with their language, were Aristotle's alone. If Theophrastus paraphrased what he found in Aristotle (McDiarmid), and if the post-Aristotelian doxographic notices were largely dependent on Theophrastus (so already Diels in 1879, in Doxographi Graeci), then any attempt to extract a philosophical Thales from the later doxographic sources (or Aristotle) is methodologically doomed from... (shrink)

Early Analytic Philosophy: An Inclusive Reader With Commentary contains the most important readings in the development of the analytic tradition in philosophy. Featuring primary source material accompanied by introductions and commentaries, it brings together work by thinkers at the origins of the tradition. Beginning in the 1890s with F.H. Bradley and ending in the 1950s with W.V.O Quine, each chapter includes readings from a particular thinker or movement. Background information and further reading recommendations appear alongside discussion of the main ideas (...) in the readings. Covering well-known figures such as Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and G.E. Moore, this reader also highlights the central role of neglected figures, such as E.E. Constance Jones and her logical writings, and L. Susan Stebbing's work on analysis and scientific discourse. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:SACRAMENTAL THEOLOGY: A METHODOLOGICAL PROPOSAL KEVIN w. IRWIN The Catholic University of America Washington, D.O. HE PAST DEOADE has witnessed the publication of number of English language works on sacraments ealing with general theories of sacramental theology as well as specialized studies of individual sacraments. In the postoonciliar church there is not yet a uniform or universally agreed upon method for the study of sacraments. Still most vecerrt (...) 'Wo11ks indicate significant shifts in method from the post-Tr:identine!legacy o:f treating sacraments priimarily in dogmatic tracts and canon law studies.1 At the s1ame time there has been an increased interest by liturgists and theologians alike in liturgical theology. This includes not only the theologicrul dimensions of what occurs in the liturgy hut 1also (more recently) how the liturgy can serve as a source for theology in geneml as well 1as for the theology of the sacraments.2 Despite this recent writing and evolving thought on the rela1 See, Kevin W. Irwin, "Recent Sacramental Theology: A Review Discus· sion," The Thomist 47 (1983) : 592-608; "Recent Sacramental Theology [Review Discussion II]" The Thomist 52 (1988) : 124-147; "Recent Sacramental Theology III," The Thomist 53 (1989) : 281-313. 2 Among the English language works that have sparked interest in liturgical theology and have shaped part of the contemporary deb-ate about what it includes are those of Aidan Kavanagh, On Liturgical Theology (New York: Pueblo, 1984) and Geoffrey Wainwright, Doxology: The Praise of God in Worship, Doctrine and Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980). For an assessment of these works and other recent writing on liturgical theology see Teresa Berger, "'Doxology,' 'Jubilate,' 'Liturgical Theology ': Zurn Verhaltnis von Liturgie und Theologie: Publikationen aus dem englischsprachen Raum,'' Arohiv fur Liturgiewissensohaft 28 (1986) : 247-255. 311 KEVIN W. IRWIN tionship of liturgy and sacramental theology, what is still lacking is some method for developing a contemporary theology of the sacraments with the liturgy as its foundation. There are many reasons for this lack: shifts in contemporary theological method in general, the nature of the reformed liturgy which invites flexibility and option, and :finally questions of wha;t ought to be factol'ed into a systemat1c study of the sacramental theology and of sacramental life in the postconciliar church. It is the purpose of this article to propose 1a, method for sacramental theology which uses liturgy as its essentia1l foundation and which delineates aspects of sacriamental theology 1that can be based on the liturgy. The article will be divided into ctwo unequal parts, with the :first laying the foundation for the second. The first deals with the general notion of a liturgical theology of the sacraments, with particular 1attention to the postconciliar context for this discussion.3 This foundation leads to the seoond pa:rt which proposes aspects of sacramental theology that are first drnwn from the liturgy and then can he used to understand 1both individual sacraments and sacraments in general hy continual reference to the liturgy. In delineating these aspects of a liturgically grounded sacramental theology, the categories of classical sacramental theology will be respected, in the sense that, despite their deficiencies, systematic treatises on 'Sacraments from the medieval and post-Tr,identine s This is not to suggest that the seminal works of such authors as Cipriano Vagaggini, Theological Dimensions of the Liturgy, trans. Leonard J. Doyle and W. A. Jurgens from the fourth Italian edition (Collegeville: The Litur· gical Press, 1976) and Alexander Schmemann, Introduction to Liturgical Theology, trans. Ashleigh Moorhouse (London: The F'aith Press, 1966), will be ignored. It is to suggest, however, that the recent work on liturgical theology has had to consider the flexibility of postconciliar liturgy as opposed to the fixity of the preconciliar rites. On this as an important factor in the method of doing liturgical theology see P. DeC!erck, "Lex orandi, lex oredendi, sens original et avatars historiq'ues d'un adage equivoque," Questions Liturgiques 59 (1978) : 193-212, and Gerarcl Lukken, "La liturgic comme lieu theologique irremplacable," Questions Liturgiques 56 (1975) : 104-109. SACRAM:ENTAL THEOLOGY 313 periods have left a v:aluable legacy of sacramental theory and prractice.4 The following six aspects of the liturgical experience... (shrink)

A review of deVries' and O'Shea's books, both titled "Wilfrid Sellars". By Jaroslav Peregrin.

Socialist republicans advocate public ownership and control of the means of production in order to achieve the republican goal of a society without endemic domination. While civic republicanism is often attacked for its conservatism, the relatively neglected radical history of the tradition shows how a republican form of socialism provides powerful conceptual resources to critique capitalism for leaving workers and citizens dominated. This analysis supports a programme of public ownership and economic democracy intended to reduce domination in the workplace and (...) wider society. I defend this socialist republicanism from both the Marxist objection that it overlooks the impersonal nature of domination under capitalism and the left-liberal objections that property-owning democracy or worker codetermination are sufficient to suppress dominating relationships. The resulting position identifies the need for more ambitious institutional grounds for republican liberty than is often supposed, while offering us a distinctive emancipatory justification for socialism. (shrink)

The work of the American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars continues to have a significant impact on the contemporary philosophical scene. His writings have influenced major thinkers such as Rorty, McDowell, Brandom, and Dennett, and many of Sellars basic conceptions, such as the logical space of reasons, the myth of the given, and the manifest and scientific images, have become standard philosophical terms. Often, however, recent uses of these terms do not reflect the richness or the true sense of Sellars original ideas. (...) This book gets to the heart of Sellars philosophy and provides students with a comprehensive critical introduction to his lifes work. The book is structured around what Sellars himself regarded as the philosophers overarching task: to achieve a coherent vision of reality that will finally overcome the continuing clashes between the world as common sense takes it to be and the world as science reveals it to be. It provides a clear analysis of Sellars groundbreaking philosophy of mind, his novel theory of consciousness, his defense of scientific realism, and his thoroughgoing naturalism with a normative turn. Providing a lively examination of Sellars work through the central problem of what it means to be a human being in a scientific world, this book will be a valuable resource for all students of philosophy. (shrink)

This article undertakes a republican analysis of power in the workplace and labour market in order to determine whether workers are dominated by employers. Civic republicans usually take domination to be subjection to an arbitrary power to interfere with choice. But when faced with labour disputes over what choices it is normal for workers to make for themselves, these accounts of domination struggle to determine whether employers possess the power to interfere. I propose an alternative capabilitarian conception of domination as (...) the arbitrary power to determine access to capabilities necessary for relationships of equality between citizens. This approach allows us to diagnose domination in the workplace and the labour market but does not capture unfreedom arising from the wider socio-structural position of workers. Thus, I supplement this capabilitarian account of the domination of workers with a structural account of dominating power, which reveals a richer set of conditions under which employers dominate workers. (shrink)

This article develops a civic republican approach to medical ethics. It outlines civic republican concerns about the domination that arises from subjection to an arbitrary power of interference, while suggesting republican remedies to such domination in healthcare. These include proposals for greater review, challenge and pre-authorisation of medical power. It extends this analysis by providing a civic republican account of assistive arbitrary power, showing how it can create similar problems within both formal and informal relationships of care, and offering strategies (...) for tackling it. Two important objections to civic republican medical ethics—that it overvalues independence and political participation in healthcare—are also considered and rebutted. (shrink)

This collection of new essays on the systematic thought and intellectual legacy of the American philosopher Wilfrid Sellars comes at a time when Sellars's influence on contemporary debates about mind, meaning, knowledge, and metaphysics has never been greater. A team of well-known contemporary philosophers who have been strongly influenced by Sellars critically examines the groundbreaking ideas by means of which Sellars sought to integrate our thought, perception, and rational agency within a naturalistic outlook on reality. Topics include Sellars's inferentialist semantics (...) and normative functionalist view of the mind; his attempted reconciliations of internalist and externalist aspects of thought, meaning, and knowledge; his novel nominalist account of abstract entities; and a speculative 'pure process' metaphysics of consciousness. Of particular interest is how this volume exhibits the ongoing fruitful dialogue between philosophers whose work continues to be inspired and informed by Sellars's thought today. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason (1781) remains a landmark work of philosophy and one that most students will encounter at some point in their studies. At nearly seven hundred pages of detailed and complex argument it is a demanding and intimidating read. James O’Shea’s introduction to the Critique seeks to make it less so. Aimed primarily at students coming to the book for the first time, it provides step-by-step analysis in clear, unambiguous prose. The conceptual problems Kant sought to (...) resolve are outlined and his conclusions concerning the nature of human knowledge and the possibility of metaphysics, and the arguments for those conclusions, are explored. Key concepts are explained throughout and the reader is provided with an unrivalled route map through the many and varied parts of the text. In addition, O’Shea’s careful and insightful analysis offers much for more seasoned readers of Kant and his interpretation provides a significant contribution to recent work. -/- “Exhibiting both care and liveliness, the text provides what it set out to offer, namely a readable and philosophically stimulating discussion of a difficult but seminal work. The discussion is genuinely approachable and clear without diminishing the difficulty of the problems it addresses. It provides students with a very helpful basis for understanding Kant’s book.” Graham Bird, Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, University of Manchester. (shrink)

Emerging systems using artificial intelligence (AI) including the complexities of deep learning leading to decision-making outcomes pose challenge, risk alongside opportunities to revolutionize business sectors and thus, human life. Building AI that impact on critical decision-making must be entwined with ethical questioning from the initial conception of design. As academics educating future technologists, we must lead on embedding the importance of ethical thinking for equitable designed systems. Currently, it is unclear across UK Higher Education how widely ethics is taught across (...) programmes of study within computer science disciplines, their importance within the curriculum plus the confidence of academics for its delivery. This paper carries out a survey analysis to identify gaps, measures of engagement, expertise and knowledgebase of topics through both quantitative and qualitative questioning. The survey was distributed to 15 member universities of the Council for Professors and Heads of Computing (CPHC) randomly selected across the UK for which 32 academics engaged in the study. Results show ethics was noted as being important although one-third reported it was not widely embedded across the curriculum. Just less than half of participants schedule the teaching of ethics regularly either across one or several modules. Interestingly, 91% of respondents stated that they have not received any instruction or training and that 62% felt that they require more training on the subject matter. This paper is inspired by wider research from European studies however, this study provides a specific novel focus on a broad range of UK universities, providing comparative analysis and unique findings from the UK perspective. The significance of these findings suggest academics perspectives vary with specific training needs. This demonstrates that this early-stage research requires further exploration of the wider computer science curriculum, sharing of good practice and collaborative working. (shrink)

The idea of ‘the given’ and its alleged problematic status as most famously articulated by Sellars continues to be at the center of heated controversies about foundationalism in epistemology, about ‘conceptualism’ and nonconceptual content in the philosophy of perception, and about the nature of the experiential given in phenomenology and in the cognitive sciences. I argue that the question of just what the myth of the given is supposed to be in the first place is more complex than has typically (...) been supposed in these debates, and that clarification of this prior question has surprising consequences. Foundationalism was only one of Sellars’s targets, and this not only in the familiar sense that the more fundamental issues at stake concern the very ‘objective purport’ or intentionality of our empirical thinking in general. When pushed further still, Sellars’s critique in fact hinged on his diagnoses of implicit framework-relative or ‘categorial’ metaphysical presuppositions he exposes in givenist views. Furthermore, the key to his critique accordingly turns out to rest on implicit assumptions concerning the in principle revisability or replaceability of any such presuppositions, whether ‘innate’ or acquired, and including Sellars’s own. Another key result is that widespread assumptions that Sellars’s famous critique is simply inapplicable or irrelevant to either ‘thin’ nonconceptualist views of the given, since they are ‘non-epistemic’; or alternatively, irrelevant to ‘thick’ conceptualist and phenomenological analyses –both turn out to be mistaken. (shrink)

We investigated binocular rivalry in the twocerebral hemispheres of callosotomized(split-brain) observers. We found that rivalryoccurs for complex stimuli in split-brainobservers, and that it is similar in the twohemispheres. This poses difficulties for twotheories of rivalry: (1) that rivalry occursbecause of switching of activity between thetwo hemispheres, and (2) that rivalry iscontrolled by a structure in the rightfrontoparietal cortex. Instead, similar rivalryfrom the two hemispheres is consistent with atheory that its mechanism is low in the visualsystem, at which each hemisphere conducts (...) asimilar analysis of its half of visual space. (shrink)

Recent proponents of the ‘theory theory’ of mind often trace its roots back to Wilfrid Sellars’ famous ‘myth of Jones’ in his 1956 article, ‘Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind’. Sellars developed an account of the intersubjective basis of our knowledge of the inner mental states of both self and others, an account which included the claim that such knowledge is in some sense theoretical knowledge. This paper examines the nature of this claim in Sellars’ original account and its relationship (...) to more recent debates concerning ‘theory of mind’, in particular the theory theory. A close look reveals that Sellars’ original view embodied several distinctions that would enable more recent theory theorists to accommodate certain phenomenological objections that have been raised against that outlook. At the heart of the philosophical issue is an overlooked complexity involved in Sellars’ account of the ‘theory/observation’ distinction, involving a conception of the distinction that is both independently plausible and a key to the issue in dispute. (shrink)

This article examines the relationship in Kant between transcendental laws and empirical laws (focusing on causal laws), and then brings a particular interpretation of that issue to bear on familiar puzzles concerning the status of the regulative maxims of reason and reflective judgment. It is argued that the 'indeterminate objective validity' possessed by the regulative maxims derives ultimately from strictly constitutive demands of understanding.

In 2013 John McDowell, Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, delivered the Agnes Cuming Lectures that are hosted annually by the School of Philosophy at...

John McDowell’s recent collection of essays, _Having the World in View: Essays on Kant, Hegel, and Sellars_ is a penetrating work that builds upon insights from Kant, Hegel, and Sellars in order to articulate “an idealism that does not diverge from common-sense realism,” a view according to which “thought and the world must be understood together” (p. 143). McDowell argues that the insights from Kant, Hegel, and Sellars should enable us to see that certain perennial philosophical difficulties concerning how thought (...) is related to empirical reality are in fact based on mistaken, noncom- pulsory views about the nature of intentionality in general, and about the relationship between free human rationality and passive sensory intake from the world in particular. In this critical notice I first highlight some central issues that reappear throughout the essays, and then I raise some questions concerning issues both internal to McDowell’s account and in relation to the ways in which his views clash with those of Sellars in particular. (shrink)

The republican ideal of non-domination identifies the capacity for arbitrary interference as a fundamental threat to liberty that can generate fearful uncertainty and servility in those dominated. I argue that republican accounts of domination can provide a powerful analysis of the nature of legal and institutional power that is encountered by people with mental disorders or cognitive disabilities. In doing so, I demonstrate that non-domination is an ideal which is pertinent, distinctive, and desirable in thinking through psychological disability. Finally, I (...) evaluate republican strategies for contesting domination, focusing on the limits of contestatory democracy, and proposing a participatory alternative which better addresses problems of political agency in the mentally disordered and cognitively disabled. (shrink)

This paper offers an interpretation of René Girard’s mimetic theory in light of Hannah Arendt’s account of St Augustine’s philosophy of love. Girard’s mimetic theory crosses many disciplines and has been the main inspiration in his oeuvre over decades. However, its later application and how it purports to demystify culture and point to the truth of the Christian revelation, sits uneasily with his early confessional position. This paper is an attempt to make sense of Girard the Christian thinker, who seeks (...) to explain Christianity without a continuous searching quest for God and ethical orientation in the world. I examine his early theory of desire and how it claims to lead to the conversion of the hero and author of the novel, and how Girard compares the hero’s journey in literary space to the Saint’s journey in spiritual space. In explicating Hannah Arendt’s work entitled Love and Saint Augustine I set out some of the key concepts of Augustine’s philosophy of “love as desire” and highlight a number of contexts in Augustine’s thinking that refocus his philosophy in the direction of memory in response to the commandment to love God, neighbour and self. I go on to examine whether Arendt’s analysis of Augustine might also apply to Girard’s journey with mimetic theory. Finally, I attempt to articulate a context for reading Girard in light of Augustine’s own searching quest for God, one that tries to bring his personal and confessional stance back into his account of mimesis and human origins. (shrink)

Economic liberty is best understood in opposition to economic domination. This article develops a radical republican conception of such domination. In particular, I argue that radical republicanism provides a more satisfactory account of individual economic freedom than the market-friendly liberties of working, transacting, holding, and using championed by Nickel and Tomasi. So too, it avoids the pitfalls of other conceptions of economic liberty which emphasize real freedom, alternatives to immiserating work, or unalienated labor. The resulting theory holds that economic domination (...) occurs when someone’s access to civic capabilities is contingent on the arbitrary economic power of others. Socialist institutions—suitably configured—can deliver on this individual economic freedom, allowing the dominating power of proprietors, shareholders, landlords, and managers to be kept in check, and providing an unconditional minimum that allows individual citizens to be less beholden to others in meeting many of their most fundamental civic needs. Thus, I conclude that socialism can be championed as a politics of individual economic liberty. (shrink)

In the beginning, as they say, was the ‘pragmatic maxim’ of Peirce and James. Peirce’s early formulation of the maxim in “How to Make Our Ideas Clear” ran as follows: Consider what effects, which might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object. (Peirce 1878: 132; cf. Bernstein 2010: 2-3; and O’Shea 2008: 208-13) At its core, pragmatism thus originated as (...) a method for... (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Central Themes in Kant's Conceptual Revolution Frege, Russell, and the Synthetic A Priori The Rise and Fall of the Analytic A Priori and the Idea of a Relativized A Priori Transcendental Arguments and the Resurgence of Kantian Analytic Philosophy.