Based on an analysis of the reports of twenty-eight national-level public commission inquiries into events involving ethno-national violence—drawn from five national contexts and arrayed over the course of the twentieth century—this article demonstrates the strikingly transnational character of these investigatory bodies’ attempts to authoritatively explain episodes of collective violence and to thereby restore governing legitimacy in the wake of violent crises. One of four distinct “logics,” or core explanatory frameworks, each associated with a particular mode of “racial power,” characterized a (...) diverse cross-national pool of violence commission reports during defined periods of the twentieth century. In revealing globally encompassing logics to what has often been framed as a national or case-specific phenomenon, the author shows how global ideational currents compose a key dimension of national political dynamics. (shrink)

Brings together and interprets previously hard-to-find texts, new translations and passages detailing the interplay between philosophy and psychopathology.

Much of classical Hindu thought has centered on the question of self: what is it, how does it relate to various features of the world, and how may we benefit by realizing its depths? Attempting to gain a conceptual foothold on selfhood, Hindu thinkers commonly suggest that its distinctive feature is consciousness (caitanya). Well-worn metaphors compare the self to light as its awareness illumines the world of knowable objects. Consciousness becomes a touchstone to recognize the presence of a self. A (...) rock is insentient, void of consciousness, and purely an object. Selves, however, are loci of awareness and thus subjects. Some schools, most notably classical Sāṁkhya and Advaita Vedānta, take this approach to its furthest conclusion: consciousness is not only unique to the self, but is the fundamental feature of selfhood. Other putative features of the self—feelings, memories, moral responsibility, and importantly, agency (kartṛtva)—are taken to be the impositions of insentient matter (prakṛti) or symptoms of primordial illusion (avidyā). Against this position, Nyāya defends a more robust notion of selfhood, placing qualities like desire, aversion, volition, and moral responsibility alongside cognition as the self’s distinctive qualities. These various aspects of selfhood come together neatly when we consider agency. An agent performs intentional actions under her volition, which is triggered by her own cognitive and affective states. Her volitional acts further generate moral consequences which she must bear, and which are, in the Indian context, embodied in the form of karmic merit and demerit. For Nyāya, agency is, therefore, a special expression of the self’s different capacities and potentialities, which coherently binds them together. Nyāya’s view is an important contribution to Indian theories of self as it is a counterpoint to what we may call exclusively cognitive accounts of selfhood in other influential Hindu schools, as noted above. The first half of this paper will consider Nyāya’s conception of agency in relation to selfhood. The second half will discuss Nyāya’s arguments with other Hindu schools—specifically Sāṁkhya—in support of the thesis that the self must be an agent as well as a knower. (shrink)

Vatsyayana's Commentary on the Nyaya-sutra is one of classical India's most important philosophical works. This Guide offers both a map and interpretation of this challenging canonical text, suitable for any student or novice reader. Treating them as a single hybrid text, the Nyaya-sutra with Vatsyayana's commentary systematizes in skeletal form centuries of ancient Indian philosophical developments concerning logic, epistemology, and dialectics, while also defending a realist categorial metaphysics. It offers a number of epistemological and methodological insights that inform intellectual inquiry (...) in the Subcontinent for over a millennium. Vatsyayana's Commentary also provides sophisticated arguments for distinct positions in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and value theory that stand amongst the best contributions to world philosophy. This guide, accessible to students and researchers not familiar with classical Indian philosophy, provides a distilled, accessible understanding of the major scholarly, historical, and philosophical issues that inform the Commentary, while unpacking its philosophical content such that it speaks to modern readers. It also illustrates the way that the Commentary may serve as a lens through which to view the formative period of classical Indian philosophy. (shrink)

Belief in conspiracy theories is typically considered irrational, and as a consequence of this, conspiracy theorists––those who dare believe some conspiracy theory––have been charged with a variety of epistemic or psychological failings. Yet recent philosophical work has challenged the view that belief in conspiracy theories should be considered as typically irrational. By performing an intra-group analysis of those people we call “conspiracy theorists”, we find that the problematic traits commonly ascribed to the general group of conspiracy theorists turn out to (...) be merely a set of stereotypical behaviours and thought patterns associated with a purported subset of that group. If we understand that the supposed prob- lem of belief in conspiracy theories is centred on the beliefs of this purported sub- set––the conspiracists––then we can reconcile the recent philosophical contribu- tions to the wider academic debate on the rationality of belief in conspiracy theories. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Seductiveness of Virtue: Abraham Joshua Heschel and John Paul II on Morality and Personal Fulfillment by John J. FitzgeraldMatthew R. PetrusekThe Seductiveness of Virtue: Abraham Joshua Heschel and John Paul II on Morality and Personal Fulfillment John J. Fitzgerald new york: bloomsbury t&t clark, 2017. 240 pp. $114The Seductiveness of Virtue offers a close study of the twentieth-century Polish-American rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and the first Polish (...) pope, St. John Paul II, on the relationship between being good and being happy. Overall the book advances the conversation on the meaning and continued relevance of virtue in contemporary ethics, though its eagerness to build bridges across competing religious and philosophical traditions opens the argument to both methodological and substantive criticisms. [End Page 206]Fitzgerald divides the book into an introduction and four chapters. Chapter 1, "The Meaning of Our Question," establishes the definitions of concepts that Fitzgerald addresses throughout the rest his argument, including "happiness," "meaning," "freedom," "personal fulfillment," "good and evil," and "doing." Fitzgerald locates each term within the theologies of Heschel and John Paul II and provides his own definitions. Chapter 2, "Heschel and the 'Joys of Mitsvah,'" enters more deeply into Heschel's theology, arguing that, despite some ambiguity about whether morality will always lead to personal fulfillment, Heschel establishes a firm theological and practical connection between following the law (mitzvah) and being happy. Chapter 3, "John Paul II and the Good We Must Do to Have Eternal Life," engages in a similar analysis of John Paul's thought (including his writings before becoming pope) and, despite using different theological categories (chief among them "Christ"), arrives at a similar conclusion: there is a necessary connection between being good and being happy. Chapter 4, which also functions as a conclusion, places the comparison between Heschel and John Paul into a wider comparative context, examining how their respective conclusions on morality and the good relate to insights from other contemporary perspectives, including the Dalai Lama, Peter Singer, and present-day "positive psychology." Fitzgerald concludes by offering five reasons why it is important to continue, in his words, an "interworldview" and "interdisciplinary" dialogue on how virtue relates to happiness.The book is richly sourced—containing 199 footnotes, bibliography, and detailed index—and serves as a good addition to the libraries of those working on John Paul II, Abraham Heschel, virtue theory, or comparative ethics more broadly. Yet its breadth on the comparative front also highlights its vulnerabilities, particularly on the question of what defines the relationship between virtue and happiness from a normative perspective. While providing lucid descriptive accounts of different conceptions of God and the good, for example, Fitzgerald acknowledges near the book's conclusion, "whether one finds [any] author persuasive will depend in large part on one's prior conclusions about the existence and nature of God and the afterlife" (184) and notes that this topic "cannot be resolved or even explored here" (185). However, these "prior conclusions" themselves are ultimately most meaningful for answering the book's central question.This reticence to engage in meta-ethical questions also leads the text to a problematic epistemological and ethical equalizing of each perspective, one that allows Fitzgerald to claim, for example, "while there is much common ground between Heschel, John Paul II, and [Peter] Singer on the relationship between morality and fulfillment, there are also key differences" (174). Here Fitzgerald understates the contrast: one of the "key" differences between Singer's utilitarian materialism and John Paul II's gospel of life is that Singer's position could serve as a paradigmatic representation of the "culture of death" [End Page 207] that John Paul spent his papacy resisting. Thus, while providing an excellent analysis of each thinker individually, the book's argument would benefit from establishing a firmer and more transparent standard for evaluating ethical claims across traditions.Matthew R. PetrusekLoyola Marymount UniversityCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In the literature on conspiracy theories, the least contentious part of the academic discourse would appear to be what we mean by a “conspiracy”: a secretive plot between two or more people toward some end. Yet what, exactly, is the connection between something being a conspiracy and it being secret? Is it possible to conspire without also engaging in secretive behavior? To dissect the role of secrecy in con- spiracies – and thus contribute to the larger debate on the epistemology (...) of conspir- acy theories – we dene the concepts of “conspiracy,” “conspirator,” and “secret,” and argue that while conspirators might typically be thought to commit to keeping secrets once their conspiracy is underway, the idea that conspiracies are necessarily secretive to start with is not as obvious as previously thought. (shrink)

The concept of modernity is fraught with contestation, a wedge that divides people, practices, institutions, and beliefs. This chasm is particularly pronounced for traditional institutions like the...

We support the goal to integrate models of culture and cognition. However, we are not convinced that the free energy principle and Thinking Through Other Minds will be useful in achieving it. There are long traditions of modeling both cultural evolution and cognition. Demonstrating that FEP or TTOM can integrate these models will require a bit more math.

Original value -- Value incrementalism -- A normative proposal -- Valuing development -- The many faces of value -- Direct and indirect moral considerability -- Affirming moral theories -- Ethical vegetarianism? -- The possibility of an environmental ethic -- Racism and moral perfectionism -- The bankruptcy of moral relativism.

This paper explicates Simone de Beauvoir’s concept of “decline” in ageing and assesses both its plausibility and its ethical and political promise. Though I maintain that the concept is largely plausible, and that it helps us to envision social justice for the aged, I also note certain limitations, and these lead me to suggest philosophical and ethical caution as to its range of application. Briefly, both in theory and in practice, Beauvoir appears to questionably conflate the decline of the phenomenological (...) subject with that of a younger adult version of the psychological self or structure of the personality. Through examinations of Beauvoir’s account of dementia and her paternalism towards her dying mother and the declining Jean-Paul Sartre, I suggest how her concept of decline may fall short, but also how her rich phenomenological descriptions point the way to a pluralistic approach to ageing as a social justice issue. (shrink)

We question the generalizability of Glover's model because it fails to distinguish between different forms of planning. The highly controlled experimental situations on which this model is based, do not reflect some important factors that contribute to planning. We discuss several classes of action that seem to imply distinct planning mechanisms, questioning Glover's postulation of a single “planning system.”.

Conspiracy theories are a popular topic of conversation in everyday life but are often frowned upon in academic discussions. Looking at the recent spate of philosophical interest in conspiracy theories, The Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories looks at whether the assumption that belief in conspiracy theories is typically irrational is well founded. -/- The Philosophy of Conspiracy Theories is aimed at both the philosopher and the non-philosopher. It is a qualified defence of belief in conspiracy theories: belief in conspiracy theories can (...) be rational in some circumstances. It covers such issues as: who might be considered a qualified conspiracy theorist; how do we analyse claims of disinformation; is our reliance on official theories a good reason to be suspicious of rival conspiracy theories; and what should we do when official theories and conspiracy theories are in conflict? -/- Matthew Dentith is a New Zealand-based philosopher whose research includes analyses of why we have grounds to be suspicious of official theories, the reliability of the transmission of rumours, and the role of trust in the acceptance of theories. (shrink)

Conspiracy theories are typically thought to be examples of irrational beliefs, and thus unlikely to be warranted. However, recent work in Philosophy has challenged the claim that belief in conspiracy theories is irrational, showing that in a range of cases, belief in conspiracy theories is warranted. However, it is still often said that conspiracy theories are unlikely relative to non-conspiratorial explanations which account for the same phenomena. However, such arguments turn out to rest upon how we define what gets counted (...) both as a ‘conspiracy’ and a ‘conspiracy theory’, and such arguments rest upon shaky assumptions. It turns out that it is not clear that conspiracy theories are prima facie unlikely, and so the claim that such theories do not typically appear in our accounts of the best explanations for particular kinds of events needs to be reevaluated. (shrink)

Even if war, terrorism, and other acts of political violence are inherently wrong, in so radically imperfect a world as our own there remains a need, as Virginia Held suggests, to evaluate such acts so as to distinguish between degrees of their unjustifiability. This essay proposes a notion of deliberative democracy as one criterion for such a comparative evaluation. Expanding on an analysis of the psychologically terrorizing impact of violence borrowed from Hannah Arendt, I suggest that it is principally this (...) that makes for the special wrongness of terrorism, though that by itself does not show that it is never necessary.An effort to distinguish clearly the superiority of states over non-state actors in this regard proves futile, so I conclude that there is no automatic legitimacy to be gained by either sort. It follows that we should weigh an act of political violence on its own demerits irrespective of whether it is done by a state or by a group in opposition to states, and further that we should resist the propagandistic labeling of non-state violence as “evil” or “terroristic,” where such terms beg the question of its relative merits, in context, vis-à-vis state violence. (shrink)

Experimental research shows that human sentence processing uses information from different levels of linguistic analysis, for example, lexical and syntactic preferences as well as semantic plausibility. Existing computational models of human sentence processing, however, have focused primarily on lexico‐syntactic factors. Those models that do account for semantic plausibility effects lack a general model of human plausibility intuitions at the sentence level. Within a probabilistic framework, we propose a wide‐coverage model that both assigns thematic roles to verb–argument pairs and determines a (...) preferred interpretation by evaluating the plausibility of the resulting (verb, role, argument) triples. The model is trained on a corpus of role‐annotated language data. We also present a transparent integration of the semantic model with an incremental probabilistic parser. We demonstrate that both the semantic plausibility model and the combined syntax/semantics model predict judgment and reading time data from the experimental literature. (shrink)

The contributors to this volume argue that whilst there is a commonplace superstition conspiracy theories are examples of bad beliefs (and that the kind of people who believe conspiracy theories are typically irrational), many conspiracy theories are rational to believe: the members of the Dewey Commission were right to say that the Moscow Trials of the 1930s were a sham; Woodward and Bernstein were correct to think that Nixon was complicit in the conspiracy to deny any wrongdoing in the Watergate (...) Hotel break in; and if we either accept the terrorist events of 9/11 were committed by Al-Qaeda, or that the Bush Administration was responsible, then it seems we are endorsing some theory about a conspiracy to commit an act of terror on American soil. As such, there is no reason to reject conspiracy theories sui generis. This volume challenges the prima facie that conspiracy theories are irrational beliefs, arguing that we should treat conspiracy theories and the phenomena of conspiracy theories seriously. It presents fresh perspectives from the wider philosophical, sociological and psychological community on what is becoming an issue of increasing relevance in our time. (shrink)

This is a select annotated bibliography of literature on the famous Six Systems of orthodox Hindu philosophy.

Previous findings indicate that negative arousal enhances bottom-up attention biases favouring perceptual salient stimuli over less salient stimuli. The current study tests whether those effects were driven by emotional arousal or by negative valence by comparing how well participants could identify visually presented letters after hearing either a negative arousing, positive arousing or neutral sound. On each trial, some letters were presented in a high contrast font and some in a low contrast font, creating a set of targets that differed (...) in perceptual salience. Sounds rated as more emotionally arousing led to more identification of highly salient letters but not of less salient letters, whereas sounds’ valence ratings did not impact salience biases. Thus, arousal, rather than valence, is a key factor enhancing visual processing of perceptually salient targets. (shrink)

The empirical support for the shared circuits model (SCM) is mixed. We review recent results from our own lab and others supporting a central claim of SCM that mirroring occurs at multiple levels of representation. By contrast, the model is silent as to why human infants are capable of showing imitative behaviours mediated by a mirror system. This limitation is a problem with formal models that address neither the neural correlates nor the behavioural evidence directly.

This paper explores Levinas’s Carnets de captivité and Écrits sur la captivité in light of Badiou’s category of ‘antiphilosophy’. We make four movements: firstly, a description of what antiphilosophy is; secondly, an explanation of why the category of antiphilosophy is important to a reading of Levinas; thirdly, an exposition of the antiphilosophical elements of the Carnets and Écrits on captivity; and fourthly, we situate our reading of the notebooks within the larger context of Levinas’s post-captivity work.

Schuklenk and van de Vathorst's paper is a very welcome addition to the literature on the assisted dying debate and will be of great interest to clinicians working in the field of mental health.1 Many psychiatrists will have had patients who have asked them to allow them to die, to desist in their efforts to prevent their suicide, and one of us has had personal experience, outside of professional life, of being asked to aid in someone's attempt to end their (...) life in the context of an episode of mood disorder. The person with depression asking professionals, friends and family members to aid them in ending their life is a very real phenomenon. In their discussion, Schuklenk and van de Vathorst's paper uses two principles that we endorse and add weight to their argument: namely, the reality of suffering in depression and the parity of mental and physical illness. Indeed, the case Schuklenk and van de Vathorst make is a strong one and our commentary will focus on the premise of the argument around choosing death and some empirical clarification about competence in depression and the nature of treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and its prognosis. The conceptual concern we wish to discuss in relation to assisted dying, endorsed by the state and legislature, is not linked to any moral or religious concern, or even on grounds related to ‘slippery slope’ or ‘abuse’ arguments. Rather the worry is how one could operationalise decisions around assisted dying as based on competence and capacity and view such decisions as rational. I think this concern is not limited to depressive illness, but to all decisions regarding choosing non-existence. Schuklenk and van de Vathorst offer the following useful criteria to regulate assisted suicide:1. (shrink)

The papers included in the thesis, and summarized in this covering document, were selected, in discussion with my supervisor, Dr. Roessler, from papers I have published in the philosophy of psychiatry. In parallel to this philosophical work, I have worked clinically as a psychiatrist and academically as a research psychiatrist. My clinical work has largely been working with Early Intervention Services, both in South London and in Coventry and Warwickshire, and this work has been acting as a psychiatrist in clinical (...) teams who work with young people who may either be at risk of developing a psychotic illness, or are in the earliest stages of such an illness. My empirical work has been in the same clinical group and has used functional neuroimaging and cognitive neuropsychology to characterize those at risk of psychosis and to chart the onset of psychosis and the formation of delusions. As required by the university guidelines, a full list of publications, both empirical and philosophical, is detailed in appendix 1. The papers included in the thesis hence parallel many of these clinical and empirical interests: papers 2 and 4, in particular, examine the role neuroimaging may play in studying delusions and relate the prodromal phase of psychosis to both the neurodevelopmental and continuum models of psychosis. Paper 3 is one of two papers written with Lisa Bortolotti drawing on Richard Moran’s work and examining delusions. Paper 1 is perhaps the paper least connected to my empirical and clinical work as has a wider focus and tries to examine what mental illnesses are and to begin to describe a position Lisa Bortolotti and I later expanded on and referred to as ‘psychological realism’, with Paper 2 being a case example of this account being applied to a particular area of psychopathology, namely delusions. The papers form a progression with Paper 1 outlining a general conception of mental disorder, Paper 2 being a case study of this approach specifically in the area of delusion. Paper 3 takes the example of thought insertion and develops ideas from Paper 2 that reason giving is a crucial feature that helps highlight what is pathological about certain experiences. Paper 4 brings together the philosophical concerns regarding a wholly neuroscientific conception of psychopathology, and how this is of clinical and scientific relevance when we use psychopathology to demarcate the various stages of psychotic experience and illness. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Legal Self–Help on Private Property in Classical AthensMatthew R. ChristA remarkable feature of litigation in classical Athens was the high degree of responsibility private citizens bore for initiating, conducting, and executing the judgments of legal actions.1 In the absence of a public prosecutor or an active police force, Athenians engaged in a level of legal self–help that would shock most modern Westerners. While Athenians strongly preferred private to public (...) initiative in legal matters, aspects of legal self–help troubled even them. I focus here on contemporary tensions surrounding the use of legal self–help on private property, whether carried out by the master (kurios) of a household defending his realm or by outsiders crossing onto others' property under the authority of the city's laws. Legal self–help of either sort raised questions for Athenians concerning the boundaries, both spatial and conceptual, between private and public spheres. In particular, to what extent did a household and its property, including land and home—all of which could be subsumed by the word oikos—constitute an inviolable state within the state?2Discussion in these pages explores the legal regulation of self– help on private property and the social attitudes toward private space that determined how, and even whether, legal rules were enforced by courts. We begin with evidence that the Athenians granted considerable license to a kurios to exercise legal self–help in defense of his oikos. We may then consider how the authority granted by the city to outsiders exercising legal self–help to cross the boundaries of this private realm represented a problematic challenge to the ideal that the oikos should be inviolable under the democracy.Legal Self–Help in Defense of the OikosIn classical Athens, as in many societies, a man was permitted to defend his home from intruders, even up to the point of exercising lethal force.3 This license of a kurios to use force in his own realm, which scholars sometimes describe as his "Hausgewalt," was not formally articulated as a right in Athens.4 Its reasonable exercise was, however, consistent with both legal regulation and community norms.Although Athens' laws did not, as far as we know, specifically address defense of the home from intruders, they allowed the use of lethal self–help in two circumstances, theft and moicheia, that could well involve incursion upon a man's property (cf. Lys. 1.36). In the case of theft, one law stated, "If a man should steal anything whatsoever at night, it is permitted that his victim in pursuit, kill him, wound him, or lead him by apagōgē to the Eleven if he wish" (Dem. 24.113). According to another law, "If one kills immediately in defense of one's property a man carrying or leading it away by force and unjustly, he is killed with impunity" (Dem. 23.60). Although both laws could apply outside, as well as within, the boundaries of a man's property, MacDowell is probably right that the first law would apply especially to housebreakers, "who would not necessarily use force and so would not be covered by the second law."5An Athenian might also legally kill an intruder caught in illicit sexual relations (moicheia) with one of his female dependents: "If a man should kill another... in intercourse with his wife, mother, sister, daughter, or concubine kept for procreation of legitimate children, he shall not go into exile as a manslayer on that account" (Dem. 23.53; cf. [Arist.] Ath. Pol. 57.3; Lys. 1.30).6 Although this law, like the laws permitting the killing of a thief, did not limit the exercise of this license to the bounds of the home, a man was most likely to discover and take [End Page 522] vengeance on a moichos here. If he did not wish to kill a moichos caught in his home, he could restrain and even abuse and humiliate him until receiving recompense or promise of it.7 This license to restrain even a citizen in one's home for an indeterminate length of time constituted a striking exception to the general rule under the democracy that imprisonment of... (shrink)

This philosophical dialogue explores some of the barriers to an adequate definition of general health, encompassing physical, social, and mental/emotional well-being. Many of the putative obstacles to such a definition—concerns about subjectivity, cultural difference, marginal cases, etc.—prove to be chimerical once the characters take seriously the Peircean insight that truth-claims methodologically grounded in people’s lives, experiences, and conversations need not be apodictic to be useful. Drawing on Canguilhem and others, the characters critically discuss a proposed definition of health: a dynamic (...) equilibrium by which a human being thrives in relation to its situation. Although they do not manage to resolve all of this definition’s difficulties, or all of their differences, their interaction in some ways models the ongoing task of inquiry. (shrink)

Health professionals are involved in humanitarian assistance and development work in many regions of the world. They participate in primary health care, immunization campaigns, clinic- and hospital-based care, rehabilitation and feeding programs. In the course of this work, clinicians are frequently exposed to complex ethical issues. This paper examines how health workers experience ethics in the course of humanitarian assistance and development work. A qualitative study was conducted to consider this question. Five core themes emerged from the data, including: tension (...) between respecting local customs and imposing values; obstacles to providing adequate care; differing understandings of health and illness; questions of identity for health workers; and issues of trust and distrust. Recommendations are made for organizational strategies that could help aid agencies support and equip their staff as they respond to ethical issues. (shrink)

Recent studies of Nyäya’s account of testimony have illustrated its anticipation of contemporary testimonial antireductionism, the position that testimony cannot be reduced to a more fundamental means of knowledge like inference or perception. This paper discusses another relevant but less discussed anticipation of current debate, involving the status of speaker belief in testimonial exchange. Is a speaker’s veridical apprehension of the content of his utterance a necessary condition on testimonial exchange? This was a source of much disputation among Indian epistemologists, (...) particularly Naiyäyikas (adherents of the Nyäya, or “Logic” school) and Mimamsakas(adherents of the Mimamsa, or “Exegete” school). (shrink)

Nathanson asks how we can properly understand terrorism such that it is always unjustified, and does not thereby preclude justified warfare. By means of a novel ruleutilitarian argument bolstering the inviolability of noncombatants, he hopes to have crafted such an understanding. While praising Nathanson’s rigor and originality, this paper questions the moral-theoretic completeness of his procedure, and then raises challenges from two directions: an argument for the justifiability of terrorism in certain circumstances, and an argument against the justifiability of warfare (...) under any circumstances. The first challenge can probably be met by the argumentative resources of the book; it is possible that the second cannot, though perhaps it unfairly asks the author to go beyond the scope of the project. (shrink)