William James and the Reinstatement of the Vague. By William Joseph Gavin. Anti‐foundationalism Old and New. Edited by Tom Rockmore and Beth Singer.

Preface.--Novius organum.--The world as habit.--Cosmogony.--Vertebrate evolution.--On phyletic affinities.--The difficulties of evolution.--"Extruding the subject."--Affection and conation.--The illusion of immediate experience.--The biogenic psychoses.--The social psychosis.--The nature of man.

This collection of essays highlights the influence of Swedish visionary Emanuel Swedenborg on art, spirituality, and culture. Opening with an essay by Spanish-language writer and metaphysician Jorge Luis Borges, from which the collection draws its name, the volume includes a description of Swedenborg's influence on Fyodor Dosteovsky by Czleslaw Mloscz; a look at Swedenborg from a mystical perspective from Wilson Van Dusen; the transcendentalist connection with Ralph Waldo Emerson in an essay by Eugene Taylor; and Buddhist scholar D. T. Suzuki's (...) describes similarities between Swedenborg's philosophy and Buddhism. Essays by Kathleen Raine on Swedenborg's poetic influence and Colin Wilson on the psychological perspective on Swedenborg's visions round out the collection. (shrink)

Like the first edition, the second edition of _Readings in the Philosophy of Religion_ covers topics in a point-counterpoint manner, specifically designed to foster deep reflection. Unique to this collection is the section on the divine attributes. The book’s focus is on issues of fundamental human concern—God’s suffering, hell, prayer, feminist theology, and religious pluralism. All of these are shown, in a lengthy introduction, to relate to the standard issues in philosophical theology—omnipotence, omniscience, immutability, goodness, and eternity. For this second (...) edition, each major section ends with an extended reflection by a philosopher who shows how to think through the issues raised in the preceding essays. Also included are a new section on the ontological argument with classical discussions by Anselm and Gaunilo, along with a new essay by Laura Garcia; a new section on religious language; new essays on the free will defense, theodicies, and feminist theology; and a new version of the cosmological argument that does not rely on the principle of sufficient reason. (shrink)

The marketing of health care services raises the prospect that an ethic of strangers will govern relations between providers and patients. A fiduciary model that emphasizes honesty and public accountability, as well as the patient's good and avoiding unnecessary services, can keep marketing consistent with the ethical tradition of medicine.

Lawrence Kohlberg's Approach to Moral Education presents what the late Lawrence Kohlberg regarded as the definitive statement of his educational theory. Addressing the sociology and social psychology of schooling, the authors propose that school culture become the center of moral education and research. They discuss how schools can develop as just and cohesive communities by involving students in democracy, and they focus on the moral decisions teachers and students face as they democratically resolve problems. As the authors put (...) it: "...we propose an educational renewal of our democratic society.... We have attempted to establish schools that do more than just teach about democratic citizenship, that are themselves democratic societies.". (shrink)

_Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory _features pairs of newly commissioned essays by some of the leading theorists working in the field today. Brings together fresh debates on the most controversial issues in moral theory Questions include: Are moral requirements derived from reason? How demanding is morality? Are virtues the proper starting point for moral theorizing? Lively debate format sharply defines the issues, and paves the way for further discussion. Will serve as an accessible introduction to the major topics in contemporary (...) moral theory, while also capturing the imagination of professional philosophers. (shrink)

Public health ethics, like the field of public health it addresses, traditionally has focused more on practice and particular cases than on theory, with the result that some concepts, methods, and boundaries remain largely undefined. This paper attempts to provide a rough conceptual map of the terrain of public health ethics. We begin by briefly defining public health and identifying general features of the field that are particularly relevant for a discussion of public health ethics.Public health is primarily concerned with (...) the health of the entire population, rather than the health of individuals. Its features include an emphasis on the promotion of health and the prevention of disease and disability; the collection and use of epidemiological data, population surveillance, and other forms of empirical quantitative assessment; a recognition of the multidimensional nature of the determinants of health; and a focus on the complex interactions of many factors—biological, behavioral, social, and environmental—in developing effective interventions. (shrink)

Naturalism admits of no single, simple definition (usually depending on the naturalist's commitment to science). After distinguishing ontological or metaphysic naturalism from methodological naturalism, I discuss the historical development of ontological naturalism, as well as arguments for or against naturalism. I then take moral goodness and badness as a case study of the problems and prospects for ontological naturalism.

Developing a Center for Teaching Excellence: A Case Study Using the Integrated Readiness Matrix builds on the 2015 text, Integrating Pedagogy and Technology: Improving Teaching and Learning in Higher Education with a focus on teaching in higher education. Developing a Center for Teaching Excellence is premised on our contention in the first book that, while individual faculty members can independently begin to use the IRM to improve their pedagogical and technological skills in their content areas, an organizational structure is needed (...) to sustain ongoing improvement. In addition, while the first book provided a primer on learning theory as it relates to pedagogy, Developing a Center for Teaching Excellence plumbs this topic more deeply from the perspective of the college instructor. Further, the second book is dedicated to demonstrating how the IRM can be institutionalized as the foundation for providing the structure and support to faculty and how they can help shape centers for teaching excellence by becoming more familiar with relevant learning theories and related pedagogical and technological approaches. (shrink)

The West has long had an ambivalent attitude toward the philosophical traditions of the East. Voltaire claimed that the East is the civilization "to which the West owes everything", yet C.S. Peirce was contemptuous of the "monstrous mysticism of the East". And despite the current trend toward globalizations, there is still a reluctance to take seriously the intellectual inheritance of South and East Asia. Oriental Enlightenment challenges this Eurocentric prejudice. J. J. Clarke examines the role played by the ideas of (...) Confucianism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism in the intellectual life of the West and how these ideas, far more than exotic distractions, or even instruments of colonial domination, have been the means towards serious self-questioning and self-renewal, used to dispute and even to undermine Western orthodoxies. (shrink)

My dissertation aims to spell out the implications of moral relativism for political justice. The first part develops and defends a kind of moral relativism I call "Speaker Relativism". According to this view, moral expressions are indexicals; their content depends on the moral system of the speaker. I defend Speaker Relativism from some prominent objections, and provide an argument in favor of the view. ;The second part investigates the question of how, given relativism, citizens might establish public and mutually acceptable (...) principles serving to justify their society's basic institutions. I examine and criticize accounts of justice offered by theorists in the democratic and liberal traditions. I then propose a pragmatic conception of justice, Hobbesian in structure, but purged of Hobbes' bleak picture of human nature and inadequate moral psychology. ;The final chapter delimits the scope of the relativist's solution to the problem of justice, and considers the appropriate attitude for a relativist to adopt toward societies or groups whose deepest moral convictions differ importantly from our own. I explore the issue of cultural and personal autonomy, and conclude on a suitably relativist note. (shrink)

The extent of the consensus among scientists on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) has the potential to influence public opinion and the attitude of political leaders and thus matters greatly to society. The history of science demonstrates that if we wish to judge the level of a scientific consensus and whether the consensus position is likely to be correct, the only reliable source is the peer-reviewed literature. During 2013 and 2014, only 4 of 69,406 authors of peer-reviewed articles on global warming, (...) 0.0058% or 1 in 17,352, rejected AGW. Thus, the consensus on AGW among publishing scientists is above 99.99%, verging on unanimity. The U.S. House of Representatives holds 40 times as many global warming rejecters as are found among the authors of scientific articles. The peer-reviewed literature contains no convincing evidence against AGW. (shrink)

Scholarship on Kant's practical philosophy has often overlooked its reception in the early days of post-Kantian philosophy and German Idealism. This volume of new essays illuminates that reception and how it informed the development of practical philosophy between Kant and Hegel. The essays discuss, in addition to Kant, Hegel and Fichte, relatively little-known thinkers such as Pistorius, Ulrich, Maimon, Erhard, E. Reimarus, Reinhold, Jacobi, F. Schlegel, Humboldt, Dalberg, Gentz, Rehberg, and Möser. Issues discussed include the empty formalism objection, the separation (...) between right and morality, freedom and determinism, nihilism, the right to revolution, ideology, and the limits of the liberal state. Taken together, the essays provide an historically informed and philosophically nuanced picture of the development of post-Kantian practical philosophy. (shrink)

The title of this volume -- Logic, God and Metaphysics -- is carefully chosen and, at the same time, descriptive of its main focus. In the twentieth century, the interests of most philosophers and theologians have fallen into only one of the three areas indicated -- logic, god or metaphysics. Since much of Anglo-American philosophy in this century has been analytic and antimetaphysical because of the influence of positivism, there have been few attempts at continuing metaphysical inquiry. In the early (...) part of the century, the logical atomists combined logic and metaphysics by arguing that the structure of reality is mirrored isomorphically in the structure of a formal, logically perfect, truth-functional language, but their effort was short-lived. Alfred North Whitehead and process philosophers have focused upon god and metaphysics but usually by adopting terminology and distinctions which are unique to certain systems -- making rigorous, logical analysis difficult or impossible. The papers included in this volume are illustrative of the application of careful, rigorous logical analysis to do critical philosophy of religion and what has been called constructive metaphysics. (shrink)

Arendt’s theoretical influence is generally traced to Heidegger and experientially to the traumatic events that occurred in Europe during the Second World War. Here, we suggest that Arendt’s conception of politics may be usefully enriched via a proto-anthropic principle found in Augustine and adopted by Arendt throughout her writings. By appealing to this anthropic principle; that without a spectator there could be no world; a profound connection is made between the ‘cosmic jackpot’ of life in the universe and the uniquely (...) human activity that takes place in the political realm. By making this connection we suggest that solutions present themselves to a central puzzle arising in Arendt’s thought: namely, what it is that people actually do in the political realm. The first solution directly addresses the issue of content: what people talk about in Arendt’s public space. The second addresses the importance of ‘maintaining’ a space of appearances. The third considers the effect of participating in and observing the public domain. Consequently, we conclude that, for Arendt, action is nothing less than the activity of ‘world-making.’. (shrink)

In this paper I provide an interpretation of Hegel’s account of ‘recognition’ (Anerkennung) in the 1802-3 System of Ethical Life as a critique of Fichte’s account of recognition in the 1796-7 Foundations of Natural Right. In the first three sections of the paper I argue that Fichte’s account of recognition in the domain of right is not concerned with recognition as a moral attitude. I then turn, in section four, to a discussion of Hegel’s critique and transformation of Fichte’s conception (...) of recognition. Hegel’s transformation consists, I argue, in the claim that a comprehensive account of recognition in the domain of right must be concerned with recognition as a moral attitude. (shrink)

Research and engineering in the quantum domain involve long chains of activity involving theory development, hypothesis formation, experimentation, device prototyping, device testing, and many more. At each stage multiple paths become possible, and of the paths pursued, the majority will lead nowhere. Our quantum metascience approach provides a strategy which enables all stakeholders to gain an overview of those developments along these tracks, that are relevant to their specific concerns. It provides a controlled vocabulary, built out of terms that are (...) designed to be maximally comprehensible to all groups of stakeholders and across all the sub-fields of the quantum domain. (shrink)

Throughout the history of science, novel ideas that diverge from mainstream thought have often been met with condemnation, derision, and ad hominem attacks. These reactions have sometimes led to the premature rejection of such ideas, only for them to be later revived and even accepted as the prevailing paradigm. While robust debate is essential in science, the use of derogatory language is unethical, for it discourages research on existing hypotheses, deters funders, corrupts the scientific record, and delays or prevents the (...) advancement of science. In this article, I discuss the case of unethical language repeatedly used against proponents of the hypothesis that an extraterrestrial impact event triggered the Younger Dryas cool period. (shrink)

Ranging from the ancient world to the recent past, and drawing on non-European traditions of thought, this study voices current concerns about the natural world and discusses the relationship of human beings to their environment.

Eleven leading philosophers, including Basil Mitchell, Mortimer Adler, Alvin Plantinga, Nicholas Wolterstorff and Richard Swinburne, describe why they have embraced Christian belief and offer fascinating insights into their individual spiritual journeys.

Peer review has long been regarded as the gold standard of scientific publication, essential to the integrity of science itself. But, as any publishing scientist knows, peer review has its downside, including long delays and reviewer bias. Until the coming of the Internet, there appeared to be no alternative. Now, articles appear online as preprints almost immediately upon submission. But they lack peer review and thus their scientific standing can be questioned. Post-publication discussion platforms such as PubPeer have proven useful, (...) but are no substitute for pre-publication peer review. Nevertheless, some may be tempted to believe that peer review can now be done without. This article challenges that view by analyzing a recent, non-peer-reviewed article in Skeptical Enquirer, a magazine published by the Committee for Skeptical Enquiry (CSI). The article, “Sodom Meteor Strike Claims Should Be Taken With a Pillar of Salt,” casts doubt on one of the most widely read scientific articles of the last decade and provides a stern warning of the cost of abandoning peer review. (shrink)