Ron Giere’s recent book Scientific perspectivism sets out an account of science that attempts to forge a via media between two popular extremes: absolutist, objectivist realism on the one hand, and social constructivism or skeptical anti-realism on the other. The key for Giere is to treat both scientific observation and scientific theories as perspectives, which are limited, partial, contingent, context-, agent- and purpose-dependent, and pluralism-friendly, while nonetheless world-oriented and modestly realist. Giere’s perspectivism bears significant similarity to earlier ideas of Paul (...) Feyerabend and John Dewey. Comparing these to Giere’s work not only uncovers a consilience of ideas, but also can help to fill out Giere’s account in places where it is not fully developed, as well as helping us understand the work of these earlier authors and their continuing relevance to contemporary concerns in philosophy of science.Keywords: Ronald Giere; Paul Feyerabend; John Dewey; Perspectivism; Pragmatism; Pluralism. (shrink)

'The men of culture are the true apostles of equality.' Matthew Arnold's famous series of essays, which were first published in book form under the title Culture and Anarchy in 1869, debate important questions about the nature of culture and society that are as relevant now as they have ever been. Arnold seeks to find out 'what culture really is, what good it can do, what is our own special need of it' in an age of rapid social change (...) and increasing mechanization. He contrasts culture, 'the study of perfection', with anarchy, the mood of unrest and uncertainty that pervaded mid-Victorian England. How can individuals be educated, not indoctrinated, and what is the role of the state in disseminating 'sweetness and light'? This edition reproduces the original book version and enables readers to appreciate its immediate historical context as well as the reasons for its continued importance today, in the face of the challenges of multi-culturalism and post-modernism. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

This chapter presents an overview and discussion of the primary Buddhist virtues within the context of the Buddhist path of moral and spiritual development. Buddhist ethics counsels practitioners to overcome the three poisons of greed, hatred, and ignorance and to cultivate those states and traits of mind (and the actions they motivate) that conduce to the genuine happiness and spiritual freedom of oneself and others. The chapter will discuss the four immeasurable states of loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. It (...) will then discuss the six perfections of generosity, moral discipline, forbearance, vigor, meditation, and wisdom. The chapter will conclude with a discussion of the prospects of a Buddhist virtue ethics. (shrink)

Cappelen and Dever challenge the widely accepted idea that some key aspect of intentional action is essentially indexical. They argue that the classical arguments for this coming from Perry are in fact arguments for a different phenomenon: the opacity of explanatory contexts. I agree with Cappelen and Dever that what Perry says about the ineliminability of indexical terms from explanations of intentional action fails to amount to an argument for this indexicality being essential. But this should not lead us to (...) be sceptics. In this paper, I present a different argument for the essential indexicality of intentional actions. The key premise of this argument is that intentions themselves are essentially indexical. I provide evidence for this premise and defend it against potential criticism. I also show how the essential indexicality of intentions can be used to vindicate Perry's original claims about the essential indexicality of certain beliefs and desires. (shrink)

_Kant and Applied Ethics_ makes an important contribution to Kant scholarship, illuminating the vital moral parameters of key ethical debates. Offers a critical analysis of Kant’s ethics, interrogating the theoretical bases of his theory and evaluating their strengths and weaknesses Examines the controversies surrounding the most important ethical discussions taking place today, including abortion, the death penalty, and same-sex marriage Joins innovative thinkers in contemporary Kantian scholarship, including Christine Korsgaard, Allen Wood, and Barbara Herman, in taking Kant’s philosophy in new (...) and interesting directions Clarifies Kant’s legacy for applied ethics, helping us to understand how these debates have been structured historically and providing us with the philosophical tools to address them. (shrink)

Aims: The experience of a compromised sense of ‘self’, termed ego-dissolution, is a key feature of the psychedelic experience and acute psychosis. This study aimed to validate the Ego-Dissolution Inventory (EDI), a new 8-item self-report scale designed to measure ego-dissolution. Additionally, we aimed to investigate the specificity of the relationship between psychedelics and ego-dissolution. Method: Sixteen items relating to altered ego-consciousness were included in an internet questionnaire; 8 relating to the experience of ego-dissolution (comprising the EDI), and 8 relating to (...) the antithetical experience of increased self-assuredness. Items were rated using a visual analogue scale. Participants answered the questionnaire for experiences with classical psychedelic drugs, cocaine or alcohol. They also answered the 7 questions from the Mystical Experiences Questionnaire (MEQ) relating to the experience of unity with one’s surroundings. Results: 691 participants completed the questionnaire, providing data for 1828 drug experiences (1043 psychedelics. 377 cocaine. 408 alcohol). Exploratory factor analysis demonstrated that the 8 EDI items loaded exclusively onto a single common factor, which was orthogonal to a second factor comprised of the items relating to increased self-assuredness (rho= -.110), demonstrating discriminant validity. The EDI correlated strongly with our measure of unitive experience (rho =.735), demonstrating convergent validity. EDI internal consistency was excellent (Cronbach’s alpha 0.93). Three analyses confirmed the specificity of ego-dissolution for experiences occasioned by psychedelic drugs. Firstly, EDI score correlated with drug-dose for psychedelic drugs (rho=.371), but not for cocaine (rho=.115) or alcohol (rho=-0.055). Secondly, the linear regression line relating the subjective intensity of the experience to EDI was significantly steeper for psychedelics (unstandardized B coefficient= 0.701) compared with cocaine (0.135) or alcohol (0.144). Finally, a binary support vector machine classifier identified experiences occasioned by psychedelic drugs vs. cocaine or alcohol with over 85% accuracy using ratings of ego-dissolution and ego-inflation alone. Conclusions: Our results demonstrate the psychometric structure, internal consistency and construct validity of the EDI. Moreover, we demonstrate the close relationship between ego-dissolution and the psychedelic experience. The EDI will facilitate the study of the neuronal correlates of ego-dissolution, which is relevant for psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy and our understanding of psychosis. (shrink)

The past 25 years have seen a rapid growth of knowledge about brain mechanisms involved in visual mental imagery. These advances have largely been made independently of the long history of philosophical – and even psychological – reckoning with imagery and its parent concept ‘imagination’. We suggest that the view from these empirical findings can be widened by an appreciation of imagination’s intellectual history, and we seek to show how that history both created the conditions for – and presents challenges (...) to – the scientific endeavor. We focus on the neuroscientific literature’s most commonly used task – imagining a concrete object – and, after sketching what is known of the neurobiological mechanisms involved, we examine the same basic act of imagining from the perspective of several key positions in the history of philosophy and psychology. We present positions that, firstly, contextualize and inform the neuroscientific account, and secondly, pose conceptual and methodological challenges to the scientific analysis of imagery. We conclude by reflecting on the intellectual history of visualization in the light of contemporary science, and the extent to which such science may resolve long-standing theoretical debates. (shrink)

Sounds and Perception brings together original essays on auditory perception and the nature of sounds - an emerging area of interest in the philosophy of mind and perception, and in the metaphysics of sensible qualities. The essays discuss a wide range of issues, including the nature of sound, the spatial aspects of auditory experience, hearing silence, musical experience, and the perception of speech; a substantial introduction by the editors serves to contextualise the essays and make connections between them. The collection (...) serves both as an introduction to the nature of auditory perception and as the definitive resource for coverage of the main questions that constitute the philosophy of sounds and audition. (shrink)

This paper examines the prospects of a prima facie attractive response to Fantl and McGrath’s argument for pragmatic encroachment. The response concedes that if one knows a proposition to be true then that proposition is warranted enough for one to have it as a reason for action. But it denies pragmatic encroachment, insofar as it denies that whether one knows a proposition to be true can vary with the practical stakes, holding fixed strength of warrant. This paper explores two ways (...) to allow knowledge-reason links without pragmatic encroachment, both of which appeal to defeat. The first appeals to defeaters of reasons. If you know the bank is open tomorrow, what you know is available as a reason, but it may be defeated by considerations concerning the stakes. The second appeals to defeaters which do not defeat reasons but which nonetheless do something similar: they make the action recommended by those reasons vicious. In a high stakes case performing the “risky” action would be vicious even if it is justified in the sense of being supported by undefeated reasons. What is defeated is a virtue-based epistemic status rather than reasons or justification. I argue that neither proposal halts the march from a knowledge-reason link to pragmatic encroachment. (shrink)

Cosmopolitan education aims to transmit cosmopolitan forms of life in order to participate morally in the world community. The primary characteristics of this cosmopolitan education are its acceptance of the shared humanity of all persons as a fact of human existence and as a motivating guide for human interaction, and the requirement of democratic inclusion in deliberations of the governance of those interactions, including morality. Such an education in cosmopolitan morality requires means that befit its core components. This paper contrasts (...) the concepts of strict and moderate cosmopolitanism, empirical and deliberative morality, and structural and dispositional cosmopolitanism to show that the moderate, inclusive and deliberative processes of deliberative dispositional cosmopolitanism are more suited to cosmopolitan education in morality than strong, empirical-focused structural cosmopolitan efforts. Though strong, structural and empirically based forms may be more likely to guarantee preferred outcomes in the learning of specific morals or the implementation of institutional norms, they are also more likely to run afoul of the core components of cosmopolitanism because they will privilege outcomes over processes, and are thus more likely to be less inclusive and more coercive. In contrast, and even though they are less certain to guarantee preferred moral outcomes or actions, moderate, deliberative dispositional forms of cosmopolitan education embody the morality they seek to inform, and are more likely to find sustained internalised support over time. (shrink)

The story of the rise and fall of pragmatism is sometimes called the eclipse narrative. This paper addresses a specific version of this narrative that the logical empiricists arrived in North America in the 1930s and within 30 years had supplanted the pragmatists as the dominant philosophy there. Philosophers such as Alan Richardson and Cheryl Misak have challenged this view by emphasizing the similarities between these two movements. While both seem to admit that there is a distinction between the two (...) when it comes to values, I point out that the issue of values feeds into all aspects of pragmatist thinking, and so despite what seems on the surface to be agreements between the two movements, they were still quite different in all areas of their thinking. I challenge the degree of similarities by arguing that there were some sharp distinctions between the two movements, with the most important being the fact-value distinction and its impact on how each conceived of the term “practical.” I close by addressing how these distinctions should affect how we conceive of the eclipse narrative. (shrink)

This paper builds upon, but substantially revises, John Harsanyi's concept of ‘extended preferences’. An individual ‘history’ is a possible life that some person (a subject) might lead. Harsanyi supposes that a given spectator, formulating her ethical preferences, can rank histories by empathetic projection: putting herself ‘in the shoes’ of various subjects. Harsanyi then suggests that interpersonal comparisons be derived from the utility function representing spectators’ (supposedly common) ranking of history lotteries. Unfortunately, Harsanyi's proposal has various flaws, including some that have (...) hitherto escaped scholarly attention. In particular, it ignores the limits of personal identity. If the subject has welfare-relevant attributes that the spectator cannot acquire without changing who she is, full empathetic identification of the latter with the former becomes impossible. This paper proposes instead to usesympathyas the attitude on a spectator's part that allows us to make sense of her extended preferences. Sympathy – an attitude of care and concern – is a psychological state quite different from empathy. We should also allow for hetereogeneity in spectators’ extended preferences. Interpersonal comparisons emerge from a plurality of sympathetic spectators, not (as per Harsanyi) from a common empathetic ranking. (shrink)

Current theoretical account of judgment has a difficult time saying anything positive about the experience of judging and, when they do offer positive accounts, they seem to overlook much that we know about the capacity already in our daily lives. Following the work of Martin Heidegger and Hubert Dreyfus, this article provides a phenomenological consideration of the structure of judging that considers judgment not as an intellectual act, but as a comportment. The article proceeds in two parts. The first offers (...) a brief consideration of the assumptions of intellectualist accounts and shows why, ultimately, they may be unable to bring judging into focus. The second section offers a phenomenological account of judging. The argument of section two is that deliberate judgment is a continuation of the structure of judgment understood as comportment and, in turn, that intellectualist accounts come onto the scene too late. (shrink)

Several philosophers (e.g., Ehring (Nous (Detroit, Mich.) 30:461–480, 1996 ); Funkhouser (Nous (Detroit, Mich.) 40:548–569, 2006 ); Walter (Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37:217–244, 2007 ) have argued that there are metaphysical differences between the determinable-determinate relation and the realization relation between mental and physical properties. Others have challenged this claim (e.g., Wilson (Philosophical Studies, 2009 ). In this paper, I argue that there are indeed such differences and propose a “mechanistic” account of realization that elucidates why these differences hold. This (...) account of realization incorporates two distinct roles that mechanisms play in the realization of mental (and other special science) properties which are implicit, but undeveloped, in the literature—what I call “constitutive” and “integrative” mechanisms. I then use these two notions of mechanism to clarify some debates about the relations between realization, multiple realizability, and irreducibility. (shrink)

Research that involves the creation of animals with human-derived parts opens the door to potentially valuable scientific and therapeutic advances, yet invokes unsettling moral questions. Critics and champions alike stand to gain from clear identification and careful consideration of the strongest ethical objections to this research. A prevailing objection argues that crossing the human/nonhuman species boundary introduces inexorable moral confusion (IMC) that warrants a restriction to this research on precautionary grounds. Though this objection may capture the intuitions of many who (...) find this research unsettling, it relies on mistaken views of both biology and moral standing, ultimately distorting the morally relevant facts. We critically examine IMC, identify mistaken essentialist assumptions, and reframe ethical concerns. The upshot is a stronger line of objection that encourages a more inclusive and productive ethical discourse. (shrink)

It is quite likely that parents will soon be able to use genetic engineering to select the sex of their child by directly manipulating the sex of an embryo. Some might think that this method would be a more ethical method of sex selection than present technologies such as preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) because, unlike PGD, it does not need to create and destroy “wrong gendered” embryos. This paper argues that those who object to present technologies on the grounds that (...) the embryo is a person are unlikely to be persuaded by this proposal, though for different reasons. (shrink)

: This article argues that conceptions of community after Dewey despair of an institutional means of recovering individuality, which is the central problem of democracy. They so despair, I contend, because of their politicized view of the individual. I first briefly consider the contrast between Dewey and contemporary proceduralists and civic republicans, before turning to my central discussion: C. Wright Mills, whose critique indicates a historical watershed for Dewey's view of community. Ultimately, despair of a Deweyan sense of community issues (...) in a contemporary stalemate between what I identify as the political "activist" and "apathist.". (shrink)

A concise introduction to the Christian theology of salvation in light of the contributions of Thomas Aquinas. In the study, Matthew Levering identifies six important aspects of soteriology, each of which corresponds to an individual chapter in the book. Levering focuses on: human history understood in light of the divine law and covenants; Jesus the Incarnate Son of God and Messiah of Israel; Jesus' cross; transformation in the image of God; the Mystical Body of Christ into which all human (...) beings are called; and eternal life. (shrink)

Arguments figure prominently in our practices of reason-giving. For example, we use them to advance reasons for their conclusions in order to justify believing something, to explain why we believe something, and to persuade others to believe something. Intuitively, using arguments in these ways requires a certain degree of self-reflection. In this paper, I ask: what cognitive requirements are there for using an argument to advance reasons for its conclusion? Towards a partial response, the paper’s central thesis is that in (...) order to so use an argument one must believe the associated inference claim to the effect that the premises collectively are reasons that support the conclusion. I then argue against making it a further cognitive requirement that one be aware of one’s justification for believing such an inference claim. This thesis provides a rationale for the typical informal-logic textbook characterization of argument and motivates a constraint on adequate accounts of what are referred to as inference claims in the informal logic and argumentation literatures. (shrink)

I have argued elsewhere that children have a moral right to be loved. Mhairi Cowden challenges my arguments. Among other things, Cowden believes that children do not need to be loved. In this paper, I explain why Cowden’s arguments fail and offer additional evidence for why children need to be loved.

While many political theorists have focused on the question of whether states have a duty to grant citizenship to noncitizens, this article examines the issues associated with the state’s withdrawal of citizenship. Denationalization powers have recently emerged as a controversial political issue in a number of liberal states, making their ethical scrutiny important. I begin by considering the historical practice of banishment and how denationalization power emerged and became consolidated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the first (...) half of the twentieth century. I then discuss the nature of liberal objections to the power. My focus next shifts to the United Kingdom’s Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act of 2002, which attempted to create a “liberal” denationalization power. In the final section of the article, I discuss whether the Act successfully addresses liberal concerns and in so doing shed light on the possibility of reconciling liberal principles with conditional citizenship. (shrink)

Postcolonial science studies entails ostensibly contradictory critical and empirical commitments. Science studies scholars influenced by Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers embrace forms of realist, radical empiricism, while postcolonial studies scholars influenced by Jacques Derrida trace the limits of the knowable. This essay takes their common use of the term cosmopolitics as an unexpected point of departure for reconciling Derrida’s program with Stengers’s and Latour’s. I read Derrida’s critique of hospitality and Stengers’s and Latour’s ontological politics as necessary complements for conceiving (...) a care-oriented subalternist cosmopolitics, a process of composing common worlds that remains attentive to the limits of representation. (shrink)

This article addresses the issue of professionalization in the life sciences during the second half of the nineteenth century through a survey of British entomological periodicals. It is generally accepted that this period saw the rise of professional practitioners and the emergence of biology (as opposed to the older mode of natural history). However, recent scholarship has increasingly shown that this narrative elides the more complex processes at work in shaping scientific communities from the 1850s to the turn of the (...) century. This article adds to such scholarship by examining the ways in which the editors of four entomological periodicals from across this time frame attempted to shape the communities of their readership, and in particular focuses upon the apparent divide between ‘mere collectors’ and ‘entomologists’ as expressed within these journals. Crucially, the article argues that non-professional practitioners were active in defining their own distinct identities and thereby claiming scientific authority. Alongside the periodicals, the article makes use of the correspondence archive of the entomologist and periodical editor Henry Tibbats Stainton (1822–1892), which has hitherto not been subject to sustained analysis by historians. (shrink)