Are extreme beliefs constitutive of echo chambers, or only typically caused by them? Or are many echo chambers unproblematic, amplifying relatively benign beliefs? This paper details the conceptual relations between echo chambers and extreme beliefs, showing how different conceptual choice-points in how we understand both echo chambers and extreme beliefs affects how we should evaluate, study, and engage with echo chambering groups. We also explore how our theories of extreme beliefs and echo chambers shape social scientific research and contribute in (...) a practical way when treating these phenomena, focusing on examples of climate change scepticism. (shrink)

Given their large number of adherents, and the land and property they own, religious communities have been identified as groups that could have an influence on achieving carbon net-zero. The theological views held by religious communities relating to ecological matters – their “ecotheological values” – play an important role in motivating their environmental concern and action. But which ecotheological ideas are most, and which are least, efficacious in this respect? This paper presents findings salient to this question from a recent (...) survey (n = 319) conducted amongst Christian activists and advocates concerned with climate change. It reports on which ecotheological ideas are most widely and firmly held amongst samples from six Christian environmental activist and advocacy groups in the UK, and discusses the extent to which these ideas are either continuous with mainstream Christian theology, or indicate innovative theological thinking. We find examples of both: some mainstream views are popular, and some are unpopular, amongst our sample, whilst some innovative and newer ideas are becoming more popular, whilst others are resisted. These results will be useful in seeking to promote a greater pro-environmental stance within Christian communities more widely. (shrink)

It is sometimes claimed that faith is a virtue. To what extent faith is a virtue depends on what faith is. One construal of faith, which has been popular in both recent and historical work on faith, is that faith is a matter of taking oneself to have been spoken to by God and of trusting this purported divine testimony. In this paper, I argue that when faith is understood in this way, for faith to be virtuous then it must (...) be accompanied by intellectual humility. I defend this view by showing how someone ought to respond to purported divine testimony if her faith is to be intellectually humble, and how, if it fails in this respect, it will instead be accompanied by the vices of either servility or arrogance. (shrink)

Wayne Myrvold (2003) has captured an important feature of unified theories, and he has done so in Bayesian terms. What is not clear is whether the virtue of such unification is most clearly understood in terms of Bayesian confirmation. I argue that the virtue of such unification is better understood in terms of other truth-related virtues such as predictive accuracy.

The aesthetics of nature has over the last few decades become an intense focus of philosophical reflection, as it has been ever more widely recognised that it is not a mere appendage to the aesthetics of art. Everyone delights in the beauty of flowers, and some are thrilled by the immensity of mountains or of the night sky. But what is involved in serious aesthetic appreciation of the natural world? Malcolm Budd presents four interlinked studies in the aesthetics of (...) nature, approaching the subject from a variety of angles. As well as developing Budd's own original ideas, the book provides a comprehensive treatment of Kant's classic aesthetics of nature, and an encyclopaedic critical survey of recent literature on the subject. (shrink)

This chapter examines four solutions to the problem of many models, and finds some fault or limitation with all of them except the last. The first is the naïve empiricist view that best model is the one that best fits the data. The second is based on Popper’s falsificationism. The third approach is to compare models on the basis of some kind of trade off between fit and simplicity. The fourth is the most powerful: Cross validation testing.

When you don’t believe a speaker’s testimony for reasons that call into question the speaker’s credibility, it seems that this is an insult against the speaker. There also appears to be moral reasons that count in favour of refraining from insulting someone. When taken together, these two plausible claims entail that we have a moral reason to refrain from insulting speakers with our lack of belief, and hence, sometimes, a moral reason to believe the testimony of speakers. Reasons for belief (...) arising from non-epistemic sources are controversial, and it’s often argued that it’s impossible to base a belief on non-epistemic reasons. However, I will show that even if it is possible to base a belief on non-epistemic reasons, in the case of testimonial insult, for many or most cases, the moral reasons for belief don’t need to be the basis of our doxastic response. This is because there are, in many or most cases, either sufficient epistemic reasons for belief, or sufficient moral reasons for action that guide our response to testimony. Reasons from testimonial insult, in many cases, simply lead to overdetermination. Even if there are such moral reasons for belief, they are therefore practically unnecessary in many cases. There are, though, some cases in which they play an important role in guiding belief. This perhaps surprising conclusion is one unexplored way to defend epistemic over pragmatic reasons for belief. (shrink)

Of this batch of books 1 the one I found most compelling reading was Sarah Waterlow's Nature, Change and Agency . This work is an intense meditative commentary on the most important portions of the Physics; it probes beneath the text of Aristotle's loosely organized treatise to exhibit its deep structure. Waterlow attempts to show how Aristotle's apparently independent and self-contained discussions in Books I, II, III-IV and VIII all rest on a single notion, viz. that the world consists of (...) natural substances, understood as things engaged each in a unitary pattern of change whose source and determining plan is within themselves. (shrink)

In a previous study the author proposed that the third edition of Leviathan was produced not long before 1702 . An alternative view, dating the edition to 1670 and suggesting that it incorporated corrections by Hobbes, was put forward by the late Karl Schuhmann; it was based on both typographical and textual evidence. This article considers Schuhmann's arguments and finds them unconvincing. It also adduces some new evidence , on the basis of which it proposes that this edition was produced (...) in the period 1695-1702, probably by the printer John Darby. (shrink)

This article examines the relation between education, voting and representation, and, in particular, the argument that more highly educated people should have more votes, as they should be better at judging important political decisions. In the past this issue attracted the attention of great thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle, Newman and Mill. In the UK there is also a practical precedent, rarely recalled today, where for centuries university graduates had their own representatives in Parliament. There are also some interesting contemporary (...) arguments on the topic put forward in favour of an epistocracy (as some call it) by social scientists, but not educators. It seems that most educators would not now dare to suggest that the more highly educated might be given more votes, largely on the grounds of equity. (shrink)

Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy, written in Latin around 525 A.D., was to become one of the most influential literary texts of the Middle Ages. The Old English prose translation and adaptation which was produced around 900 and claims to be by King Alfred was one of the earliest signs of its importance and use, and the subsequent rewriting of parts as verse show an interest in rivalling the literary shape of the Latin original. The many changes and additions have much (...) to tell us about Anglo-Saxon interests and scholarship in the Alfredian period. This new edition is the first to present the second prose-and-verse version of the Old English text, and allows it to be read alongside the original prose version, for which this is the first edition for over a century, and the introduction and commentary reveal much about the history of the text and its composition. The edition contains critical texts of both versions; a translation; a full introduction examining the manuscripts, the composition of the prose text and of the subsequent verse, the language, the authorship and date of the two versions, the relationship to other texts of the period and later uses of it, and the nature and purpose of the work; a detailed commentary exploring the relationship to the Latin text and to the early medieval commentary tradition; textual notes; and a glossary. (shrink)

Responding to widespread interest within cultural studies and social inquiry, this book addresses the question 'what is a mathematical concept?' using a variety of vanguard theories in the humanities and posthumanities. Tapping historical, philosophical, sociological and psychological perspectives, each chapter explores the question of how mathematics comes to matter. Of interest to scholars across the usual disciplinary divides, this book tracks mathematics as a cultural activity, drawing connections with empirical practice. Unlike other books in this area, it is highly interdisciplinary, (...) devoted to exploring the ontology of mathematics as it plays out in different contexts. This book will appeal to scholars who are interested in particular mathematical habits - creative diagramming, structural mappings, material agency, interdisciplinary coverings - that shed light on both mathematics and other disciplines. Chapters are also relevant to social sciences and humanities scholars, as each offers philosophical insight into mathematics and how we might live mathematically. (shrink)

November 1936 PREFACE THIS book is, in slightly revised form, a dis sertation presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Yale University.

Wonderful Things: A History of Egyptology, vol. 3: From 1914 to the Twenty-First Century. By Jason Thompson. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2018. Pp. xvii + 598.

In an era of information overload, our need to learn how to critically evaluate the growing flood of information has never been greater. Critical Reflection showcases the role of reason in a world saturated by media-enhanced persuasion and complex scientific and technological jargon.Drawing from the classic philosophical texts, this engaging textbook on the art of analyzing arguments is also relevant to today's undergraduates in its use of real-life examples and exercises drawn mainly from media and politics. Malcolm Murray and (...) Nebojsa Kujundzic cover the standard subjects in a one-semester course on critical thinking, offering ways to analyze arguments. (shrink)

This book offers an interdisciplinary analysis of the social practice of taste in the wake of Pierre Bourdieu¿s sociology of taste. For the first time, this book unites sociologists and other social scientists with artists and curators, art theorists and art educators, and art, design and cultural historians who engage with the practice of taste as it relates to encounters with art, cultural institutions and the practices of everyday life, in national and transnational contexts. The volume is divided into four (...) sections. The first section on ¿Taste and art¿, shows how art practice was drawn into the sphere of ¿good taste¿, contrasting this with a post-conceptualist critique that offers a challenge to the social functions of good taste through an encounter with art. The next section on ¿Taste making and the museum¿ examines the challenges and changing social, political and organisational dynamics propelling museums beyond the terms of a supposedly universal institution and language of taste. The third section of the book, ¿Taste after Bourdieu in Japan¿ offers a case study of the challenges to the cross-cultural transmission and local reproduction of ¿good taste¿, exemplified by the complex cultural context of Japan. The final section on ¿Taste, the home and everyday life¿ juxtaposes the analysis of the reproduction of inequality and alienation through taste, with arguments on how the legacy of ideas of ¿good taste¿ have extended the possibilities of experience and sharpened our consciousness of identity. As the first book to bring together arts practitioners and theorists with sociologists and other social scientists to examine the legacy and continuing validity of Pierre Bourdieu¿s sociology of taste, this publication engages with the opportunities and problems involved in understanding the social value and the cultural dispositions of taste ¿after Bourdieu¿. It does so at a moment when the practice of taste is being radically changed by the global expansion of cultural choices, and the emergence of deploying impersonal algorithms as solutions to cultural and creative decision-making. (shrink)

En faisant usage des intuitions de la philosophie de la science, l'étude compare les voies d'approches en recherche néotestamentaire et en philologie classique. La recherche néotestamentaire a mis en oeuvre une certaine méthode qui était en vogue en philologie classique durant le 19ème siècle, mais qui fut finalement rejetée par la plupart des philologues classiques. Il s'agit d'une méthode sceptique plutôt que critique, car elle rend toute prétention à la connaissance problématique ou même impossible. Son origine dernière se trouve dans (...) la méthode du doute systématique proposée par Descartes. Telle qu'elle est pratiquée aujourd'hui, cependant, la méthode sceptique est semblable à la philosophie de la science suggérée par le cercle de Vienne en les années 1920, mais que les héritiers de cette école regardent aujourd'hui comme trop simpliste. Des exemples concrets, tirés de la pratique courante de la recherche, montrent comment une méthode sobrement critique peut trouver place dans les études du Nouveau Testament, à condition seulement que les dangers de la méthode sceptique soient clairement aperçus. (shrink)

Retinoids are low molecular weight, lipophilic derivatives of vitamin A which have a profound effect upon the development of a diverse array of animals. Here, I review these effects on Invertebrates: a colonial hydroid, a colonial ascidian, and Vertebrates: the regenerating amphibian limb, the developing chick limb bud, the regenerating amphibian tail, the anteroposterior axis of the early embryo, the developing chick embryo skin. There is a striking uniformity of effect of retinoids on pattern formation when applied to these diverse (...) organisms. The majority react by being posteriorized in their development, although additional effects can also be seen. Several hypotheses which can explain these results are discussed along with the deduction that they lead to: retinoids may be components of a universal developmental mechanism or they may simply act in a similar way to alter a universal developmental mechanism. In either case the experimental analysis of retinoid effects on development has important implications for the evolution of developmental mechanisms. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes is one of the most important figures in the history of European thought. Although interest in his life and work has grown enomrously in recent years, this is the first complete edition of his correspondence. The texts of the letters are richly supplemented with explanatory notes and full biographical and bibliographical information. This landmark publication sheds new light in abundance on the intellectual life of a major thinker.

Mining companies in Australia are increasingly required to interact with Indigenous groups as stakeholders following Native Title legislation in the early 1990s. A study of five mining companies in Australia reveals that they now undertake a range of programs involving Indigenous communities, to assist with access to land, and to enhance their public profile. However, most of these initiatives emanate from carefully quarantined sections of mining companies. Drawing upon cross-cultural and diversity research in particular, this paper contends that only initiatives (...) that strive towards power sharing with Indigenous groups and strategies for broadening the organizational interface with Indigenous groups, will contribute to more ethical practices in mining and other companies. (shrink)