Despite shared philosophical beliefs about the primacy of action, its interdependence with thought, and the importance of future practical consequences, the classical pragmatists James and Dewey may be contrasted.1 Attention is often drawn to the fact that James emphasized the individual, while Dewey’s tendencies were toward the social. In this regard Dewey, more than James, resembles the school’s founder. But Peirce was more interested in applying the pragmatic maxim to “intellectual concepts” (CP 5.467), appropriate for the laboratory mind of one (...) “saturated, through and through, with the spirit of the physical sciences” (CP 1.3). For Dewey, however, moral problems are central. The humanist element in his thought.. (shrink)

Everyone wants to be virtuous, but recent psychological investigations suggest that this may not be possible. Mark Alfano challenges this theory and asks, not whether character is empirically adequate, but what characters human beings could have and develop. Although psychology suggests that most people do not have robust character traits such as courage, honesty and open-mindedness, Alfano argues that we have reason to attribute these virtues to people because such attributions function as self-fulfilling prophecies - children become more studious (...) if they are told that they are hard-working and adults become more generous if they are told that they are generous. He argues that we should think of virtue and character as social constructs: there is no such thing as virtue without social reinforcement. His original and provocative book will interest a wide range of readers in contemporary ethics, epistemology, moral psychology and empirically informed philosophy. (shrink)

The comment reflects on Reece’s presentation of different schools of interpretation of De Anima in light of some broader Peripatetic views. The connection between substance, life, and intellect is seen as undergirding the core of Aristotle’s study of nature, particularly insofar as the unmoved mover provides the final cause of the universe as a whole. This connection is discussed at both the cosmic and individual level, noting the differences in interpretation between Theophrastus and Themistius.

This article surveys the difficulties in establishing determinism for classical physics within the context of several distinct foundational approaches to the discipline. It explains that such problems commonly emerge due to a deeper problem of ‘missing physics'. The Problems of Formalism Norton's Example Three Species of Classical Mechanics 3.1 Mass point physics 3.2 The physics of perfect constraints 3.3 Continuum mechanics Conclusion CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this?

How to begin? -- How many? -- How? -- Why? -- What? -- So? -- Nu? -- Where? -- When? -- Isn't it? -- Thralls? -- Huh? -- Is it lucky? -- Brooklyn? -- Who? -- What does Freud want? -- Should I? -- Do I dare ? -- Where are you going? -- What do we hate about children?

In response to physicians who refuse to provide medical services that are contrary to their ethical and/or religious beliefs, it is sometimes asserted that anyone who is not willing to provide legally and professionally permitted medical services should choose another profession. This article critically examines the underlying assumption that conscientious objection is incompatible with a physician’s professional obligations (the “incompatibility thesis”). Several accounts of the professional obligations of physicians are explored: general ethical theories (consequentialism, contractarianism, and rights-based theories), internal morality (...) (essentialist and non-essentialist conceptions), reciprocal justice, social contract, and promising. It is argued that none of these accounts of a physician’s professional obligations unequivocally supports the incompatibility thesis. (shrink)

According to Pettit, an account of freedom in terms of rational control fails to suffice, for he argues that such an account lacks the resources to rule out coerced actions as unfree. The crucial feature of a coerced action is that it leaves the agent with a choice to make, an apparently rational choice to make. To the extent that it does this, it would seem to leave the agent as free as he would be in any other case where (...) there is a choice to be made. However, we do not consider actions that are coerced to be on a par with actions that are not coerced, that are performed freely as we might say. We do not hold agents similarly responsible in the two sorts of cases. So it would seem that the rational control account fails, for it appears to fail to vindicate this differential practice. In this paper, I defend the rational control account. I outline two ways in which proponents of a rational control model, broadly understood, can respond to this criticism. (shrink)

Reflecting on his scientific career toward the end of his life, the French-educated medical researcher René Dubos presented his flowering as an ecological thinker as a story of linear progression—the inevitable product of the intellectual seeds planted in his youth. But how much store should we set by Dubos’s account of his ecological journey? Resisting retrospective biographical readings, this paper seeks to relate the development of Dubos’s ecological ideas to his experimental practices and his career as a laboratory researcher. In (...) particular, I focus on Dubos’s studies of tuberculosis at the Rockefeller Institute in the period 1944–1956—studies which began with an inquiry into the tubercle bacillus and the physiochemical determinants of virulence, but which soon encompassed a wider investigation of the influence of environmental forces and host–parasite interactions on susceptibility and resistance to infection in animal models. At the same time, through a close reading of Dubos’s scientific papers and correspondence, I show how he both drew on and distinguished his ecological ideas from those of other medical researchers such as Theobald Smith, Frank Macfarlane Burnet, and Frank Fenner. However, whereas Burnet and Fenner tended to view ecological interactions at the level of populations, Dubos focused on the interface of hosts and parasites in the physiological environments of individuals. The result was that although Dubos never fully engaged with the science of ecology, he was able to incorporate ecological ideas into his thought and practices, and relate them to his holistic views on health and the natural harmony of man and his environment. (shrink)

Vaccine refusers often seem motivated by disgust, and they invoke ideas of purity, contamination and sanctity. Unfortunately, the emotion of disgust and its companion ideas are not directly responsive to the probabilistic and statistical evidence of research science. It follows that increased efforts to promulgate the results of vaccine science are not likely to contribute to increased rates of vaccination among persons who refuse vaccines because of the ‘ethics of sanctity’. Furthermore, the fact that disgust-based vaccine refusal is not monolithic (...) – vaccine refusers manifest disgust at different objects and invoke different ideas about purity and contamination – further complicates public health efforts to increase vaccination rates. (shrink)

When tennis fan Jane Bronstein attended the 1995 U.S. Open she probably knew there was a remote chance her image would end up on television screens around the world. But she surely did not know she was at risk of becoming the object of worldwide attention on the David Letterman Show. As it happened, Letterman spotted an unflattering clip from the U.S. Open showing a heavyset Bronstein with peach juice dripping down her chin. Not only did he show the footage (...) six times that fall, but he ridiculed her on his “Top 10 List,” calling her a “seductive temptress,” even paying to put the clip on the Sony Jumbotron electronic billboard at Time Square. Ms. Bronstein sued David Letterman’s production company under New York civil rights law for violating her privacy. (shrink)

Paul Zanker has put together a fascinating comparative study of the history of the visual image of the intellectual in Greco-Roman Antiquity. His focus is on the image of intellectuals as a class within a particular society and the changes in those images that distinguish how the intellectual and his or her role is perceived and defined from one era to another.

Chapter The Method of Conceptual Analysis To say that this investigation is situated within the stream of the tradition of analytic philosophy is less ...

This work elucidates elements of Leibniz's theodicy which are non-teleological. Rather than ignoring the personal dimensions of suffering, as some have charged, Leibniz actually recognizes the threat that the problem of innocent suffering presents for a perfectly good God. His theodicy goes beyond the global greater-good defense of the best possible world argument in several ways. He appeals to personal greater-goods to justify some instances of suffering, but he also invokes deontological principles in his retributive justice arguments, his response to (...) the author of sin problem, and his constraint against damnation of infants. However, an evidential version of the problem of horrible suffering of innocents would still threaten his theodicy. This problem persists due to Leibniz's rejection of theological voluntarism in favor of a unified system of ethics for God and rational creatures. Finally, Leibniz's rejection of quietism provides an important resource for a response to suffering. His theodicy thus implies a moral activism whereby the good for each rational creature is bound up with the general good of others in the amelioration of the world. (shrink)

The authors of Crime and Culpability hold a subjectivist theory of criminal culpability according to which the core concept in culpability is subjective recklessness, negligence is not culpable, and it is irrelevant to culpability whether or not a criminal act results in harm. I argue against these three theses and criticize the authors' views on the structure of criminal law, criminal defences, criminal attempts, and codification.

Fodor’s asymmetric-dependence theory of content is probably the best known and most developed causal or informational theory of mental content. Many writers have attempted to provide counterexamples to Fodor’s theory. In this paper, I offer a more fundamental critique. I begin by attacking Fodor’s view of the dialectical situation. Fodor’s theory is cast in terms of laws covering the occurrence of an individual thinker’s mental symbols. I show that, contrary to Fodor’s view, we cannot restrict consideration to hypothetical cases in (...) which his conditions for content are satisfied, but must consider whether the relevant laws exhibit the specified asymmetric-dependence relations in actual cases. My central argument is that the laws that the theory requires do not in fact exhibit the appropriate asymmetric-dependence relations. I show that, in general, part of the mechanism for the crucial, supposedly content-determining law for a mental symbol is not shared by the mechanisms for the other laws covering the occurrence of the same mental symbol. As a result, the former law can be eliminated (by eliminating the non-overlapping part of the mechanism) without eliminating the latter laws. The latter laws do not asymmetrically depend on the former law. (shrink)

Robert M. Adams has recently and controversially discussed the question whether Leibniz’s conception of God was ever Spinozistic. His affirmative answer has been opposed by Christia Mercer but supported by the present author. In this paper the debate is briefly sketched as a preliminary to the presentation of a new middle position, one that incorporates elements of both of the opposing interpretations. Along the way, the paper discusses Leibniz’s interesting treatment of God as the one and the all, as both (...) the unity and the multiplicity in the world, and as the key to universal harmony. (shrink)

Whilst natural scientists have forged close links with industry, economists—in their capacity as consultants—with private enterprise, and psychologists with the burgeoning market for counselling services, philosophers have shown little eagerness to “ply their trade” in any commercial form whatsoever. Indeed, the very juxtaposition of concepts like “philosophy,” “money,” and “the marketplace” may already have raised eyebrows or induced mocking smirks. The image of this unworldly species assuming a commercial role comparable in scope or nature to that of practitioners of other (...) disciplines is scarcely imaginable. Thus, the peculiar nature of philosophy—its “subject matter,” “method,” or “corpus of knowledge”—provides one reason for prima facie scepticism. The advent of philosophical counselling in both Europe and America during the last decade may well shake such scepticism. It is primarily with this development that the authors in this volume of Philosophy in the Contemporary World deal. (shrink)

The film The Matrix is a riproaring adventure. Its plot owes a great deal to Descartes.

It is true that international institutions do not command the primary loyalty among the peoples of the world that would allow them the opportunity to legislate in favor of social justice. They do, however, command strong political backing from the most important political actors in world politics — namely, states. In addition, virtually all international organizations integrate nongovernmental organizations into their deliberative processes. Present globalization trends are increasing economic disparities between and within countries, but most regimes do provide poorer states (...) with special provisions that can be used to protect their economic interests. Also, some have clearly benefited from economic openness. In the long term, it will be surprising if states do not address the problem of growing economic gaps through international regimes, although the likely adequacy of their responses is open to question. (shrink)

This book is a collection of twelve new essays on the topic of Kant's account of citizenship, the first book-length text on this topic. It features an international cast of leading scholars who specialize in Kant's ethics, philosophy of religion and political philosophy. The contributors connect Kant's philosophy with contemporary issues concerning citizenship, including the moral grounds of citizenship rights, the relation between citizenship, human rights and dignity, civic virtues, citizenship in the ethical commonwealth, in particular the moral function of (...) religious rituals, the link between ethical duties and faith, and the relation between religious freedom and political power, democratic participation, the legitimacy of international courts, just war theory, cosmopolitanism, and the contemporary relevance of a Kantian account of citizenship. The topic is of interest given some of the currently urgent citizenship-related challenges that we are facing today. Kant's account of justice stipulates that, in a fair and peaceful world, the legal framework that establishes rights and obligations should be effective at national, international and cosmopolitan levels. Kant's legal and political philosophy also features the unique combination of a realistic appraisal of the human condition and powerful normative recommendations concerning action and principles of ethics and law. Together with Kant's emphasis on the requirement of consistency, the approaches discussed in the volume are better able to orient thinking and guide action for currently urgent ethical, legal, political and social problems. Kantian Citizenship will appeal to scholars and graduate students working on Kant's legal and political philosophy, as well as scholars from other fields who are interested in legal philosophy and the politics of citizenship. (shrink)

This paper shows that a VP in English is only a VP at the outset of a derivation, and that VP-preposing in English is in fact preposing of the internal arguments of the verb, followed by remnant movement of the original VP. Therefore, English looks much more like German (Muller (1998)), than it appears at first glance The evidence for the non-constituency of the verb and its original arguments in preposed position comes from its solution to what has been termed (...) Pesetsky’s Paradox, in that an object of a preposed VP can bind into an adverbial at the end of a sentence. The paradox results from the incompatibility of the phenomenon with the conjunction of two assumptions: (i) binding requires c-command; (ii) only constituents move.. Assumption (i) requires the object to be higher than the adverbial, but the preposing of the verb and object to the exclusion of the adverbial would then require that a non-constituent (the verb and object) prepose. (shrink)

The relationship between faith and reason is multifaceted. Faith transcends reason in that it is more than reason alone can contain or fully guarantee, yet it is neither unreasonable nor something to which reason is irrelevant--and reason says some pretty fine things about it! This volume updates nine previously published articles on faith and reason by a Christian philosopher who has been studying these matters for two decades, alongside one new essay and a philosophical dialogue. These articles explain and integrate (...) key ideas on faith and reason, including Alvin Plantinga's account of how Christian belief can be knowledge even without evidence; defenses of faith from Augustine and William James; accounts of empirical evidence for faith from different world religions; the distinction between faith and sight in the New Testament; the structure of the evidence for the authority of the Bible; the idea that faith transcends reason because some articles of faith are beyond human comprehension, even if we have evidence that they are true; and the nature of faith as a total commitment beyond what the evidence alone can guarantee. (shrink)