Elselijn Kingma argues that, in cases of mammalian placental pregnancy, the foster (roughly, the post-implantation embryo/foetus) is part of the gravida (the pregnant organism). But she does not consider the possibility of proper overlap. I show that this generates a number of serious problems for her argument and trace the oversight to a quite general issue within the literature on biological individuality. Doing so provides an opportunity to pull apart and clarify the relations between some importantly distinct questions concerning organismality (...) and organismic parthood, and to identify the implications that this has for those who want to draw on this literature when making metaphysical or mereological arguments. (shrink)

Thought experiments invite us to evaluate philosophical theses by making judgements about hypothetical cases. When the judgements and the theses conflict, it is often the latter that are rejected. But what is the nature of the judgements such that they are able to play this role? I answer this question by arguing that typical judgements about thought experiments are in fact judgements of normal counterfactual sufficiency. I begin by focusing on Anna-Sara Malmgren’s defence of the claim that typical judgements about (...) thought experiments are mere possibility judgements. This view is shown to fail for two closely related reasons: it cannot account for the incorrectness of certain misjudgements, and it cannot account for the inconsistency of certain pairs of conflicting judgements. This prompts a reconsideration of Timothy Williamson’s alternative proposal, according to which typical judgements about thought experiments are counterfactual in nature. I show that taking such judgements to concern what would normally hold in instances of the relevant hypothetical scenarios avoids the objections that have been pressed against this kind of view. I then consider some other potential objections, but argue that they provide no grounds for doubt. (shrink)

According to animalism, each of us is numerically identical to a human animal. Disunity cases—cases in which a human animal lacks some form of mental unity—are often thought to pose a problem for animalism. Tim Bayne (2010) has recently offered some novel arguments against animalism based on one particular disunity case, namely Cerberus: a single animal with two heads, each housing its own stream of consciousness. I show that Bayne's arguments are flawed, and that animalism is capable of handling the (...) case. (shrink)

Lampert and Waldrop have recently presented a puzzle about moral responsibility and logical truth, in which they derive a contradiction from three apparently plausible principles: (A) no one is responsible for any logical truth; (B) if no one is responsible for something, then no one is responsible for what it strictly implies; and (C) someone is responsible for something. They argue that, in response, we must give up (B)—a principle that plays a key role in arguments for incompatibilism. In this (...) paper, I argue that this response is mistaken, and that the lesson to be drawn lies elsewhere. For the puzzle also rests on a conception of logical truth according to which there are contingent logical truths. And, given this conception, (A) is false—for reasons independent of (B). So the import here concerns, not a connection between responsibility and the debate over incompatibilism, but a connection between responsibility and the debate over the correct conception of logical truth: one can hold on to (A), or hold on to the relevant conception of logical truth, but not both. (shrink)

A number of philosophers claim that reflection on the subjective or phenomenal character of conscious experience reveals the universal involvement of a certain feature—‘for-me-ness’, or ‘mine-ness’, or ‘a sense of mine-ness’—whose presence is often overlooked or denied. The first half of this chapter canvasses several possible interpretations of these phrases, identifies some ways in which their use tends to be problematically equivocal, and ends with a clear and minimal statement of what the feature is supposed to be. The second half (...) questions some of the grounds on which the universality of this feature has been upheld in recent analytic work, addressing both a cluster of explanatory motivations (appealing to immunity to error though misidentification, epistemic asymmetry, and ease of judgment or reportability) and a more direct descriptive or conceptual case for this view. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt's and Charlotte Delbo's writings about the Holocaust trouble our preconceptions about those who do evil and those who suffer evil. Their jarring terms “banal evil” and “useless knowledge” point to limitations and temptations facing scholars of evil. While Arendt helps us to resist the temptation to mythologize evil, Delbo helps us to resist the temptation to domesticate suffering.

A DEFENSE OF MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE IN THE FACE OF THE SKEPTICAL ATTACKS OF CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHERS. MACGREGOR SUGGESTS THAT OFF ONE EDGE OF ORDINARY CONSCIOUSNESS IS THE UNCONSCIOUS OF PSYCHOANALYSIS, AND OFF THE OPPOSITE EDGE IS MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE. JUST AS ONE GETS TO ONE’S UNCONSCIOUS ONLY UNDER SPECIAL CONDITIONS, SO ONE GETS TO MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE ONLY UNDER SPECIAL CONDITIONS--THE CONDITIONS OF INTENSE DOUBT AND DESPAIR OR WHAT MACGREGOR CALLS THE "SKEPTICAL EDGE." (BP).

PART ONE OF THIS BOOK IS INTENDED AS AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION ON THE UNDERGRADUATE LEVEL. THE AUTHOR HAS SUPPLIED THE BEGINNER WITH A HELPFUL GLOSSARY OF TERMS AND A BIBLIOGRAPHY. IN PART TWO, "GOD AS KENOTIC BEING," IS AN ORIGINAL CONTRIBUTION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION. AS THIS PART’S TITLE SUGGESTS, IT CONCERNS THE NATURE AND EXTENT TO WHICH GOD EMPTIED HIMSELF INTO JESUS AND THE RELATION OF THE INFINITE GOD TO THE FINITE MAN. (STAFF).

In his 2022 article ‘A puzzle about the fixity of the past’, Lampert argues that standard views concerning knowledge and the semantics of ‘actually’ conflict with a widely held principle concerning the fixity of the past. I show that his attempt to establish the conflict fails, as it rests on the implicit assumption that a past mental state or utterance involving a modal indexical must have the same content across worlds with a shared past, when in fact it must, given (...) its character, differ in content. (shrink)

At the beginning of the fifth century there was a change in the style of clothing worn by Athenian men.1 When Thucydides speaks of it,2 he first describes how the Greeks of ancient times used to carry weapons in everyday life, just as the barbarians of his own day still did. The Athenians were the first to lay weapons aside and to take up a relaxed and more luxurious way of life.

with John Roth and Jennifer Geddes; nominated for the National Jewish Book Award for non-fiction for 2009.

Question and quotation marks tend to proliferate in articles which ask whether Homer can provide any historical information about early Greek society. In this article ‘Homeric’ society will refer to the society which is portrayed in the Iliad and the Odyssey. ‘The World of Odysseus’ will refer to the recension of ‘Homeric’ society which appears in M. I. Finley's book of that name. Finley claims that ‘The World of Odysseus’ is a faithful account of ‘Homeric’ society and that the latter (...) is a literary portrait of a real society that existed in Greece some time during the dark ages. As a result of Finley's influential book, ‘The World of Odysseus’, or something very like it, has found its way into most of the history books generally available in the classroom. In this article I wish to reconsider ‘Homeric’ society and to question the propriety of identifying it with either ‘The World of Odysseus’ or any real society. (shrink)

Reflected in the more than three thousand entries in this reference work is the rigorous professional training and the maturity of a lifetime of learning by an eminent scholar. Through judicious selection, Professor MacGregor has produced an essential and highly accessible reference book While no dictionary can pretend to cover every conceivable aspect within its field, the scope of this one makes it a unique desk companion for students at every level of religious studies. In addition to its extensive presentation (...) of religious and philosophical ideas of the Judeo-Christian heritage, the Dictionary of Religion and Philosophy also treats vast numbers of concepts that span philosophical and religious ideas from Egyptian and Indian antiquity to the Bogomils and the Druze, from the Zoroastrians to contemporary movements as diverse as scientology and the Rastafarians, from Neoplatonism to the Vienna circle, from the varieties of Buddhism to the schisms in Islam, from bioethical questions in ancient India to contemporary American discussions on euthanasia. All told, this is the most expansive one-volume desk reference work available for religious studies. Extensive bibliographies, organized by subject at the end of the book further its value as a reference work. (shrink)

Barlassina and Del Prete argue that the past can change, on the basis that there is no other explanation for the truth values of certain claims involving the past-tense predicate ‘won the Tour de France in 2000’. To establish this, they argue that no contextualist account of this predicate will be able to explain these truth values. I show that their argument straightforwardly fails. Not only does a tweak to the contextualist account they consider suffice to explain these truth values, (...) there is in fact an even simpler and more plausible non-contextualist account that can do the same work. Put simply: there is no puzzle of the changing past. (shrink)

Recruiting patients to participate in health research is challenging, and most studies struggle. Failure to recruit can jeopardise the quality of research, and threatens efforts to improve healthcare. Despite this, recruitment materials tend to be conservatively designed and unimaginative. One reason for this is ethical concerns regarding the risk of coercion and offence posed by recruitment materials. The OXTEXT research programme gave patients a leading role in the design of new recruitment materials, in an area where stigma and discrimination make (...) ethical risks particularly acute. We discovered that our patient-designed recruitment materials were much bolder than usual, and they put the existing ethical boundaries to the test. The materials were effective and well liked – patients regarded them as neither unacceptable nor coercive. This suggests we may need to rethink the ethics of recruitment to research such that we permit more creative recruitment materials. In addition, it suggests a new role for patient input into research as designers of recruitment materials. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The technological revolution has created enormous opportunities for the provision of affordable, accessible, and flexible mental healthcare. Yet it also creates complexities and ethical challenges. While some of these challenges may be similar to face-to-face care, their nuance in the online milieu is different, as relationships, identities and boundaries in this setting are fluid, and there is an absence of physical presence. In this paper we consider the specific ethical complexities involved in the provision of a social networking intervention (...) for depression and problematic alcohol use involving providers and peers. We present a case in which clinicians encountered a participant who repeatedly expressed suicidal thoughts in this online forum, and reflect on how this situation was managed. In analyzing this case, we use relational ethics—which proposes that interpersonal relationships are the fulcrum for ethical decision-making and action—together with actor-network theory—which highlights the power of technology to transform and mediate social and ethical relationships. Our analysis demonstrates the need to move beyond human-centric approaches, to recognize the role of both human and non-human actors in shaping moral decisions and behavior in the provision of e-mental healthcare. (shrink)

In this comment, I highlight similarities between Russia’s contemporary political system and other post-Cold War dictatorships. Most modern dictatorships hold semi-competitive elections. That is, regime officials face competition in elections, but playing fields are tilted so as to leave little suspense about who will win. I suggest that semi-competitive elections and the encouragement of litigation by citizens against local and regional officials, as described by Thornhill and Smirnova, have similar functions from the dictator’s point of view. They help the ruling (...) elite with monitoring and controlling local officials whose behavior might otherwise alienate citizens enough to threaten the dictatorial elite with overthrow. Thus the real benefits citizens receive from the increased use of the courts to resolve disputes and electoral competition among politicians are counterbalanced by the contribution these institutions make to the prolongation of dictatorship. (shrink)

FOR women, it is supposed to trigger one of the most intense orgasms imaginable, with waves of pleasure spreading out across the whole body. If the "G spot orgasm" seems semi-mythical, however, that's because there has been scant evidence of its existence. Now for the first time gynaecological scans have revealed clear anatomical differences between women who claim to experience vaginal orgasms involving a G spot and those who don't. It might mean that there is a G spot, after all. (...) What's more, a simple test could tell you if it's time to give up the hunt, or if your partner just needs to try harder. (shrink)