Although Schütz’s relationship with the Austrian school of economics was an intimate one, Lavoie and other Austrian scholars have challenged (a) Schütz’s characterization of praxeology as an objective science of subjective phenomena and (b) the ability of Schütz’s phenomenology, which emphasizes the subjective meanings of actors, to really make sense of spontaneous social orders. It is my contention, however, that Schütz can be adequately defended against both these charges. First, for Schütz, the claim that social science is an objective science (...) of subjective phenomena need not imply apodictic apriorism nor solipsism. Second, in spite of his emphasis on subjective meanings, the study of spontaneous social orders need not be difficult to justify. (shrink)

This volume contains six new and fifteen previously published essays -- plus a new introduction -- by Storrs McCall. Some of the essays were written in collaboration with E. J. Lowe of Durham University. The essays discuss controversial topics in logic, action theory, determinism and indeterminism, and the nature of human choice and decision. Some construct a modern up-to-date version of Aristotle's bouleusis, practical deliberation. This process of practical deliberation is shown to be indeterministic but highly controlled and the (...) antithesis of chance. Others deal with the concept of branching four-dimensional space-time, explain non-local influences in quantum mechanics, or reconcile God's omniscience with human free will. The eponymous first essay contains the proof of a fact that in 1931 Kurt Gödel had claimed to be unprovable, namely that the set of arithmetic truths forms a consistent system. (shrink)

In his paper ‘‘Bad luck once again’’ Neil Levy attacks our proof of the consistency of libertarianism by reiterating a time-worn compatibilist complaint.1 This is, that what is not determined must be due to chance. If A has a choice of X or Y, neither X nor Y being causally determined, then if A chooses X it can only be by chance, never for a reason. The only ‘‘reason’’ that could explain the choice of X over Y would have to (...) be a causally sufficient reason, which would rule out A’s having a genuine choice in the first place. Either X is causally necessitated or X is realized by sheer luck. But that these are the only alternatives is untrue. The exercise of deliberative reason opens the way between the Scylla of causal necessitation and the Charybdis of chance, as we shall try to make clear. The central core of Levy’s argument is that any attempt to give a reasons-based explanation of a contrastive fact must fail. A contrastive fact is a fact of the kind ‘‘Jane decides to vacation in Hawaii rather than Colorado,’’ or ‘‘Jane assigns a greater weight to surfing that to white-water rafting.’’ In the last three paragraphs of his paper Levy argues that Jane’s assigning more weight to surfing than to rafting cannot be a reasons-based assignment, because, as he puts it, ‘‘the reasons that would explain the weighting are the weighted reasons themselves.’’ Similarly, prior to making her Hawaii⁄ Colorado decision, Jane has.. (shrink)

A common criticism of free will or origination theories is that if what we do is not the result of an unbroken sequence of causes and effects, then it must to some degree be the product of chance. But in what sense can a chance act be intentional or deliberate, in what sense can it be based on reasons, and in what sense can a person be held responsible for it? If free and responsible action is incompatible with determinism, must (...) it not equally well be incompatible with indeterminism? Professor McCall says no. He argues that a new idea, that of a controlled indeterministic process, resolves a variety of classical dilemmas and opens the way to a new understanding of the relationship between actions, reasons, causes, and responsibility. Does he succeed? All of this, like a related line of argument by Professor McCann to which you can turn, is a long way from what seems to me the continuing arguableness of determinism and the unavoidableness of the proposition that both incompatibilism and compatibilism about freedom are false. But we all need to remember, with Cromwell, in our own bowels if not by those of Christ, that we may be mistaken. I guess that given the proportion of false to true views in the world, we need to remember it is arguable that we are more likely to be mistaken. (shrink)

Relative to any point in time, how many possible futures are there? For example, it may rain tomorrow, or again it may not. So it would appear that relative to today, there are at least two possible futures, one involving rain tomorrow and the other not. Of course only one of these two future states of affairs will take place, and in that sense there is only one actual future, though there may be many possible futures. The only hypothesis under (...) which there is, for every instant in time, only one possible future, is the hypothesis of universal Laplacean determinism, and this hypothesis has had little to recommend it since the advent of quantum physics. Furthermore, although among the many possible futures relative to any given moment in time there is only one which will become actual, no distinguishing mark separates this one from its fellows at the given moment. So it would appear that what confronts the world at each moment in time is an undifferentiated multiplicity of possible futures. But this multiplicity, though at first sight admittedly frightening in its implications, may be put to good philosophical use: as will be seen it yields natural and convincing definitions of the notions of physical necessity and possibility. On the other hand, alternative definitions of these notions are obtainable which do not make use of the manifold of possible futures, and these also will be presented. The paper will be in two parts, the first dealing with the concepts of physical possibility and necessity, and the second presenting a formal calculus of necessary and sufficient conditions in which the physical modalities find their place. (shrink)

Ideology can be understood as a type of cultural system, a set of interrelated meanings that are symbolically mediated through semiotic devices such as metaphors. Ideologies underlie social orders as well as help people make sense of their environment and decide on courses of action. While much has been said about ideology, little has been written on the sources of ideological change beyond pointing to ideological entrepreneurship. Even less has been written on the relationship between violent and disruptive social movements (...) and ideology beyond pointing to the ideological motivations for the movements. We contend that extreme protests are often triggered by an ideological crisis, that is, an intolerable disconnection between the ideology adopted by some group and the current circumstances or, alternatively, an inability of their ideology to make sense of their current situation. Moreover, extreme protests are a form of ideological work, as they are often sources of ideological inspiration, development, and change. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the possible connections between the Virgin Mary, Myra Hindley and Rosemary West. The paper is divided into five sections. In the first, I explore the role of Mary in Christian theology and provide a Christian feminist response to this. In the second, I address some of the theoretical issues involved in studying female serial killers; this includes outlining the role of the media in responding to news stories involving female killers. In the (...) third, I separately address media responses to Myra Hindley and Rosemary West. In the fourth, I explore psychoanalytic perspectives on mothers and mothering. In the conclusion I attempt to bring together and synthesize the significant threads of the paper. (shrink)

This highly original book calls for, and suggests, a new way of considering war and warfare.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Commentary on “Spiritual Experience and Psychopathology”Anthony Storr (bio)Many psychiatrists, including myself, are deeply dissatisfied with current psychiatric taxonomy. Grossly abnormal people like multiple murderers are often deemed sane in law, because they do not happen to exhibit the symptoms of recognized mental illnesses like schizophrenia or manic-depressive psychosis. In contrast, some of those who do exhibit such symptoms, and who therefore risk being labeled psychotic, cannot be considered to (...) be “ill,” and are in fact mentally robust. There is considerable overlap between experiences which psychiatrists call psychotic, and experiences which are generally called spiritual by those who have them.In order to illustrate this overlap, the authors quote three cases of people describing a variety of delusions and hallucinations which would certainly prompt the diagnosis of psychosis—usually some variety of schizophrenia—were it not for the fact that all three claimed that their experiences had been of considerable benefit to them.It is noteworthy that, in each case, the psychotic/spiritual experiences followed a period of stress. The first subject was threatened by legal action; the second had surmounted an episode of depression, but was questioning whether she could continue her career in business; the third was unemployed, in debt, and suspected that he had multiple sclerosis. The first subject developed both grandiose and religious delusions; but the revelations which he claimed were a sign of God’s special grace toward him enabled him to win his law case and set up a charitable institution. The second heard the voice of Jesus summoning her to work for him. She became convinced that she was specially gifted in various parapsychological fields, and became a religious counselor. As the authors point out, “Her experiences, if delusional and hallucinatory, were overwhelmingly positive in their content and fruits.” The third subject also experienced hallucinatory voices which were intensely reassuring, gave him new insight into the nature of reality, and guided his further progress. As a result, he believed that he had such support that “nothing in this world can worry me.” In each case, the psychotic experience proved to be a solution to the subject’s problem, rather than a breakdown ending in admission to a mental hospital. This raises a variety of intellectual problems.The authors suggest that psychotic phenomena may be good or bad, and label the good phenomena “spiritual” and the bad phenomena “pathological.” According to this point of view, psychotic experience need not be considered pathological, especially if consideration is given to the structure of values and beliefs professed by the individual concerned. [End Page 83]I am not happy with this distinction. I entirely agree that psychotic experience may be a solution to a subject’s problems; but whether it is considered spiritual or pathological depends partly upon the nature of the experience, and even more upon the social setting in which it occurs. A grandiose delusion that one is especially selected and addressed by God may cure the depression of someone who has so far considered himself a nonentity if it is accepted by others. In my study of gurus, Feet of Clay (1996), I make the point that a guru seeks disciples because they reinforce his delusions and may, in some instances, keep him out of hospital. Of the three cases described in this paper, the first told “various friends and ministers about them.” The second confided in her priest and was told that her experiences were authentic within their shared Christian belief system. The third did not apparently share his hallucinatory experience with friends; but, when he responded to the invitation to write to the Alister Hardy Research Centre, wrote, “It is fascinating to find I’m not on my own in this. I have naturally queried my own sanity, and generally don’t discuss it....”Medical diagnosis and psychiatric diagnosis are not strictly comparable. If I as a doctor find that X is suffering from diabetes, I can treat X as an isolated entity displaying symptoms and signs of a well-known disease. I cannot do this when X is displaying “psychotic” symptoms; for whether or not those symptoms are regarded as pathological depends upon the social setting in which they... (shrink)

Recent work by Alfred Mele, Romy Jaster and Chandra Sripada recognizes that abilities come in degrees of fallibility. The rough idea is that abilities are often not surefire. They are liable to fail. The more liable an ability is to fail, the more fallible it is. Fallibility is plausibly significant for addiction, responsibility, and normative theorizing. However, we lack an adequate account of what fallibility consists in. This article addresses that problem. Perhaps the most natural approach is to say (roughly) (...) the fallibility of your ability to F is the proportion of scenarios in which you do not F, among those in which you try to F. I argue that this approach (in all plausible versions) is mistaken. I then introduce the notion of an action’s “fragility,” and propose that we use that new notion to understand fallibility. (shrink)

Does one have special obligations to support the political institutions of one’s own country precisely because it is one’s own? In short, does one have political obligations? This book argues for an affirmative answer, construing one’s country as a political society of which one is a member, and a political society as a special type of social group. The obligations in question are not moral requirements derived from general moral principles. They come, rather, from one’s participation in a special kind (...) of commitment: a joint commitment. This theory is referred to as the plural subject theory of political obligation since, by the author’s definition, those who are party to any joint commitment constitute a plural subject of some action in a broad sense of the term. Several alternative theories are compared and contrasted with plural subject theory, with a particular focus on the most famous — actual contract theory — according to which membership in a political society is a matter of participation in an agreement. The book offers plural subject accounts of both social rules and everyday agreements, and includes discussion of political authority and punishment. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In their contribution to the first part of this special issue Craig Bourn and Emily Caddick Bourne claim to have solved a puzzle I put forward in my ‘An Insoluble Problem’. Here I argue that their attempt fails.

In recent years, the free market position has been gaining strength. In this book, Radin provides a nuanced response to its sweeping generalization.

Storrs McCall presents an original philosophical theory of the nature of the universe based on a striking new model of its space- time structure. He shows how his model illuminates a broad range of subjects, including causation, probability, quantum mechanics, identity, and free will, and argues that the fact that the model throws light on such a large number of problems constitutes strong evidence that the universe is as the model portrays it.

The title of this paper may seem to involve a contradiction: my purpose is to show that it does not.Individuals fall into two categories; those which depend for their existence upon the existence of other individuals, and those which do not. In the second category are found such things as shoes, ships, cabbages, kings, and discrete bits of sealing wax. These may be calledindividual substances, and the way in which the existence of a cabbage depends upon water and earth, or (...) in which Descartes says the existence of all things depends upon God, will not be in point here. The individuals of the first category are characterized by a much more obvious kind of dependence. They include the sound of an individual shoe falling on the floor, the sinking of theBismarck, the stupidity of George I, the centre of gravity of a bit of sealing wax. All these are individuals, though they are not individual substances. They are what I shall callabstract individuals, orabstract particulars. (shrink)

This paper argues that in order to understand West Indian economic underdevelopment, the saliency of the informal institutions that emerged during its colonial period and the effect these institutions have had on the emergence of a local entrepreneurial class can not be discounted. British colonial occupation, I contend, gave rise to two persistent informal institutions that have affected development: a belief in the ability and responsibility of government to direct the economy and pessimism regarding the possibility of entrepreneurial success. Relying (...) on Schumpeter’s discussion of the importance of entrepreneurs to economic development and North’s work on informal institutions, I examine how the poverty of entrepreneurs in the region and the cultures of corruption, privilege and intervention that evolved as a result of the region’s colonial experiences have hampered past efforts at development.Cet article soutient qu’afin de comprendre le sous-développement économique des Caraïbes, il est important de ne pas négliger la prédominance des institutions informelles qui ont émergé durant la période coloniale et l’influence que ces institutions ont eue sur l’émergence d’une classe entrepreneuriale locale. L’occupation coloniale britannique, selon l’auteur, a donné naissance à deux institutions informelles persistantes qui ont affecté le développement : une conviction dans la capacité et la responsabilité du gouvernement à diriger l’économie et un pessimisme vis-à-vis de la possibilité de succès entrepreneuriaux. En se fondant sur la théorie Schumpeterienne sur le rôle de l’entrepreneur dans le développement économique et sur les travaux de North concernant les institutions informelles, l’auteur examine comment la rareté des entrepreneurs dans la région et la corruption, les privilèges et les interventions qui ont évolué en résultat des expériences coloniales de la région, ont entravé les efforts de développement dans le passé. (shrink)

This paper raises two problems for plan-expressivism concerning normative judgments about non-corealizable actions: actions which cannot both be performed. First, plan-expressivists associate normative judgment with an attitude which satisfies a corealizability constraint, but this constraint is (in the interpersonal case) unwarranted, and (in the intrapersonal case) warranted only at the price of a contentious normative premise. Ayars (2022) holds that the pair of judgments ‘A should φ’ and ‘B should ψ’ is coherent only if one believes that A can φ (...) while B ψ’s. But this is false. Both Gibbard (2003) and Ayars hold that the pair of judgments ‘A should φ’ and ‘A should ψ’ is coherent only if one believes that A can φ and ψ. But this assumes possibilism. Second, the paper demonstrates, cases involving interpersonal non-corealizability prompt judgments about what multiple agents should do which – contra Gibbard – are not plausibly associated with any planning subject. (shrink)

The thesis of 3D/4D equivalence states that every three-dimensional description of the world is translatable without remainder into a four-dimensional description, and vice versa. In representing an object in 3D or in 4D terms we are giving alternative descriptions of one and the same thing, and debates over whether the ontology of the physical world is "really" 3D or 4D are pointless. The twins paradox is shown to rest, in relativistic 4D geometry, on a reversed law of triangle inequality. But (...) considering the twins as 3D beings who age through time, the paradox implies that time passes at different rates in different reference frames, and therefore that the concept of a single global or Absolute time is unsustainable. (shrink)

Typical agreements can be seen as joint decisions, inherently involving obligations of a distinctive kind. These obligations derive from the joint commitment' that underlies a joint decision. One consequence of this understanding of agreements and their obligations is that coerced agreements are possible and impose obligations. It is not that the parties to an agreement should always conform to it, all things considered. Unless one is released from the agreement, however, one has some reason to conform to it, whatever else (...) is true. In this sense, one is under an obligation to the other parties. The relevance of these points to the issue of political obligation is discussed. (shrink)

The evolution of a single trapped ion exhibiting intermittent fluorescence and dark periods may be described either as a continuous process, using differential rate equations, or discretely, as a Markov process. The latter models the atom as making instantaneous transitions from one energy eigenstate to another, and is open to the objection that superpositions of energy states will form which are not covered by the Markov process. The superposition objection is replied to, and two new mathematical elements, Markov vectors and (...) Markov matrices, are proposed as additions to quantum theory. The paper concludes by attributing the cause of dark periods in the ion's history to instantaneous transitions in the ion itself, rather than to photon detection or other components of measurement. (shrink)

Among other things, this paper considers what so-called collective guilt feelings amount to. If collective guilt feelings are sometimes appropriate, it must be the case that collectives can indeed be guilty. The paper begins with an account of what it is for a collective to intend to do something and to act in light of that intention. An account of collective guilt in terms of membership guilt feelings is found wanting. Finally, a "plural subject" account of collective guilt feelings is (...) articulated, such that they involve a joint commitment to feel guilt as a body. (shrink)

Anthony Storr offers a lucid and objective look at Freud's major theories, evaluating whether they have stood the test of time, and in the process examines Freud himself in light of his own ideas. 'a model exercise in synthesis, and the final essay on the 'appeal' of psychotherapy is especially neat.' -Independent.

Many scholars continue to accord routine action a central role in social theory and defend the continuing relevance of Bourdieu's habitus. Simultaneously, most recognize the importance of reflexivity. In this article, I consider three versions of the effort to render these concepts compatible, which I term "empirical combination," "hybridization," and "ontological and theoretical reconciliation." None of the efforts is ultimately successful in analytical terms. Moreover, I argue on empirical grounds that the relevance of habitus began to decrease toward the end (...) of the 20th century, given major changes in the structures of the advanced capitalist democracies. In these circumstances, habitual forms prove incapable of providing guidelines for people's lives and, thus, make reflexivity imperative. I conclude by arguing that even the reproduction of natal background is a reflexive activity today and that the mode most favorable to producing it—what I call "communicative reflexivity"—is becoming harder to sustain. (shrink)