We argue that indeterminate probabilities are not only rationally permissible for a Bayesian agent, but they may even be rationally required . Our first argument begins by assuming a version of interpretivism: your mental state is the set of probability and utility functions that rationalize your behavioral dispositions as well as possible. This set may consist of multiple probability functions. Then according to interpretivism, this makes it the case that your credal state is indeterminate. Our second argument begins with our (...) describing a world that plausibly has indeterminate chances. Rationality requires a certain alignment of your credences with corresponding hypotheses about the chances. Thus, if you hypothesize the chances to be indeterminate, your will inherit their indeterminacy in your corresponding credences. Our third argument is motivated by a dilemma. Epistemic rationality requires you to stay open-minded about contingent matters about which your evidence has not definitively legislated. Practical rationality requires you to be able to act decisively at least sometimes. These requirements can conflict with each other-for thanks to your open-mindedness, some of your options may have undefined expected utility, and if you are choosing among them, decision theory has no advice to give you. Such an option is playing Nover and Hájek’s Pasadena Game , and indeed any option for which there is a positive probability of playing the Pasadena Game. You can serve both masters, epistemic rationality and practical rationality, with an indeterminate credence to the prospect of playing the Pasadena game. You serve epistemic rationality by making your upper probability positive-it ensures that you are open-minded. You serve practical rationality by making your lower probability 0-it provides guidance to your decision-making. No sharp credence could do both. (shrink)

Late in 1990, the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at Illinois Institute of Technology (lIT) received a grant of more than $200,000 from the National Science Foundation to try a campus-wide approach to integrating professional ethics into its technical curriculum.! Enough has now been accomplished to draw some tentative conclusions. I am the grant's principal investigator. In this paper, I shall describe what we at lIT did, what we learned, and what others, especially philosophers, can learn (...) from us. We set out to develop an approach that others could profitably adopt. I believe that we succeeded. (shrink)

In spite of a powerful tradition, more than two thousand years old, that in a valid argument the premises must be relevant to the conclusion, twentieth-century logicians neglected the concept of relevance until the publication of Volume I of this monumental work. Since that time relevance logic has achieved an important place in the field of philosophy: Volume II of Entailment brings to a conclusion a powerful and authoritative presentation of the subject by most of the top people working in (...) the area. Originally the aim of Volume II was simply to cover certain topics not treated in the first volume--quantification, for example--or to extend the coverage of certain topics, such as semantics. However, because of the technical progress that has occurred since the publication of the first volume, Volume II now includes other material. The book contains the work of Alasdair Urquhart, who has shown that the principal sentential systems of relevance logic are undecidable, and of Kit Fine, who has demonstrated that, although the first-order systems are incomplete with respect to the conjectured constant domain semantics, they are still complete with respect to a semantics based on "arbitrary objects." Also presented is important work by the other contributing authors, who are Daniel Cohen, Steven Giambrone, Dorothy L. Grover, Anil Gupta, Glen Helman, Errol P. Martin, Michael A. McRobbie, and Stuart Shapiro. Robert G. Wolf's bibliography of 3000 items is a valuable addition to the volume. (shrink)

Most philosophers agree that beliefs and perceptions represent the world to us and that a particular belief or perception is sometimes distinct from another particular belief or perception because what they represent is different; for example, one thing that distinguishes the belief that snow is white from the belief that grass is green is that the former represents snow while the latter represents grass. However, most philosophers of mind hold that a particular belief or perception is sometimes distinct from another (...) particular belief or perception because of how they represent. Indeed, though few philosophers explicitly recognize a distinction between what something represents and how it represents, the view that there is more to belief and perception than what they represent is about as close to philosophical orthodoxy as anything is. In this dissertation, I give a substantive account the relevant notion of representation and the distinction between what something represents and how it represents. I also bring out this hidden orthodoxy and argue that it is mistaken. Contrary to the orthodoxy, I defend the view that belief and perception present a single class of mental phenomena marked by their representational nature and that any mental difference between any two members of the class must be a difference in what they represent. (shrink)

The article presents an original needs-based partial theory of human injustice and shows its relationship to existing theories of human need and human liberation. The theory is based on an original typology of three social structural sources of human injustice, a partial theorization of the mechanisms of human injustice, and a needs-based theorization of the nature of human injustice, as experienced by individuals. The article makes a sociological contribution to normative social theory by clarifying the relationship of human injustice to (...) human needs, human rights, and human liberation. The theory contends that human injustice is produced when oppression, mechanistic dehumanization, and exploitation create systematic inequality in opportunities to address human needs, leading to wrongful need deprivation and the resulting serious harm. In one longer sentence, this needs-based partial theory of the sources, mechanisms, and nature of human injustice contends that three distinct social systemic sources—oppression, mechanistic dehumanization, and exploitation—produce unique and/or overlapping social mechanisms, which create systematic inequality in opportunities to address universal human needs in culturally specific ways, thus producing the nature of the human injustice theorized here: wrongfully unmet needs and serious harm. (shrink)

Karl Jaspers' phenomenology remains important today, not solely because of its continuing influence in some areas of psychiatry, but because, if fully understood, it can provide a method and set of concepts for making new progress in the science of psychopathology. In order to understand this method and set of concepts, it helps to recognize the significant influence that Edmund Husserl's early work, Logical investigations, exercised on Jaspers' formulation of them. We trace the Husserlian influence while clarifying the main components (...) of Jaspers' method. Jaspers adopted Husserl's notions of intuition, description, and presuppositionlessness, transforming them when necessary in order to serve the investigations of the psychopathologist. Jaspers also took over from Wilhelm Dilthey and others the tools of understanding (Verstehen) and self-transposal. The Diltheyian procedures were integrated into the Husserlian ones to produce a method that enables psychiatrists to define the basic kinds of psychopathological mental states. (shrink)

First, this collection seeks to examine exactly what Levinass writings mean for both Jews and Christians. Second, it takes a snapshot of the current state of Jewish-Christian dialogue, using Levinas as the rationale for the discussion. Three generations of Levinas scholars are represented. Contributors: Leora Batnitzky, Jeffrey Bloechl, Richard A. Cohen, Paul Franks, Robert Gibbs, Kevin Hart, Dana Hollander, Robyn Horner, Jeffrey L. Kosky, Jean-Luc Marion, Michael Purcell, Michael A. Signer, Merold Westphal, Elliott R. Wolfson, Edith Wyschogrod.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 8.4 (2001) 327-329 [Access article in PDF] Husserlian Comments on Blankenburg's "Psychopathology of Common Sense" Osborne P. Wiggins, Michael Alan Schwartz, and Jean Naudin In this essay, Wolfgang Blankenburg sketches his influential view that some of the disturbances of schizophrenia in particular can be interpreted as a pathology of common sense. We think it important at the outset, however, to avoid possible misunderstandings (...) of Blankenburg's point. It is perhaps unfortunate that this point is expressed by use of the phrase, "common sense." As Blankenburg's own essay shows, even among the learned, "common sense" has no definite or univocal meaning. Therefore, it is entirely possible to find many people who, under some conception of "common sense," appear to lack common sense and yet should not be deemed schizophrenic. Consequently, it is probably best to avoid the ambiguous phrase "common sense" altogether and seek to comprehend Blankenburg's point in other terms. That is precisely what we shall attempt here. We do endorse Blankenburg's view. Moreover, we shall pursue his suggestions that a Husserlian phenomenology of our experience of the life-world may provide the basis for developing the kind of psychopathology he seeks. Our ultimate aim, however, is for this phrase "common sense" to vanish into the Husserlian phenomenology we offer, so that all the other meanings of common sense will not threaten Blankenburg's position with misunderstandings.Our comments must remain a mere sketch. Since, however, Husserl's phenomenology is not well known, we shall have to devote some time to outlining those features of it that we deem relevant here.For Husserl, every mental process is an awareness of something. In his terminology, it is "intentional." No mental process occurs in isolation, however. It rather occurs within a concatenation of many other mental processes. Some of these co-occurring mental processes intend the same object; they intend other aspects of the object. For example, a woman may be aware of the color of a dress she is considering wearing. Hence, one process in her mental life is (visually) aware of the brown color. But another process in her mental life may be intending it as a "party dress." And yet another process in her mental life may be (tactually) intending the texture of the cloth. Because all of these mental processes (and many others) intend the same object, namely, the dress, Husserl says that they are synthesized with one another. "Synthesis," then, connotes a multiplicity of mental processes united with one another through intending the same object.Now Husserl believed that it is because the many processes occurring in our mental lives [End Page 327] synthetically intend the many objects we encounter that we experience ourselves as inhabiting a world of objects. If these syntheses failed to occur, we would not experience the world or ourselves as parts of this world. These syntheses make it possible for us to experience objects and events as related to one another in the manifold spatial, causal, temporal, social, political, religious, and other relationships that we do in fact experience. Husserl thus contends that our mental lives "constitute" the world for us. Mental life can accordingly be viewed as "world-constituting." Mental life is thus the condition for the possibility of there being a world of objects for us, to modify Kant's phrase. Husserl thought his notion of world-constituting consciousness sufficiently similar to Kant's for him to appropriate the latter philosopher's concept of "transcendental." Husserl also then spoke of "transcendental consciousness" and the study of this consciousness as "transcendental philosophy."Husserl made many distinctions among kinds of mental processes and their correlative objects. We shall here explicate only one such distinction. Mental processes must be distinguished as those that are actively generated by an ego and those that are not produced by an ego. The latter kind of mental process occurs automatically or, as Husserl writes, "passively." Husserl calls the first kind of mental process "active." Having mentioned him, however, we should also briefly characterize the "ego... (shrink)

This article investigates some of the various ways in which theorists have used Machiavelli (and more specifically The Prince) in a business and management context and suggests that the two most common approaches, the use of metaphor and the use of analogy, are both flawed. Metaphor often relies on a reading of Machiavelli that cannot be sustained, whereas analogy takes Machiavelli too far out of historical context. This article discusses how business and management can more usefully incorporate Machiavelli’s ideas by (...) placing them within a tradition of discourse, along the lines of Lockyer’s historical method. We outline three potential discourses: those of humanism; of guides to leadership; and of power. In so doing the article suggests that historical texts (in particular Machiavelli) can prove useful to students and practitioners of business and management. (shrink)

Why should the work of the ancient and the medievals, so far as it relates to nature, still be of interest and an inspiration to us now? The contributions to this enlightening volume explore and uncover contemporary scholarship's debt to the classical and medieval past. Thinking About the Environment synthesizes religious thought and environmental theory to trace a trajectory from Mesopotamian mythology and classical and Hellenistic Greek, through classical Latin writers, to medieval Christian views of the natural world and our (...) relationship with it. The work also offers medieval Arabic and Jewish views on humanity's inseparability from nature. The volume concludes with a study of the breakdown between science and value in contemporary ecological thought. Thinking About the Environment will be a invaluable source book for those seeking to address environmental ethics from a historical perspective. (shrink)

D. C. Stove's analysis of Popper's theory of scientific statements is vitiated by at least three errors, all of which stem from a crucial omission: that whilst Popper's theory of scientific statements is a theory of statements in science, Stove's restrictive analysis ignores the context of the statements and proceeds as though they were related to each other by nothing more than the logic of propositions, i.e. they appear in Stove's analysis as atomistic, as distinct from scientific statements.

This year's volume of collected papers in the Current Legal Problems series provides in-depth analyses some important developments which have taken place in recent months. Public law has witnessed much activity both in the courts and in Parliament during the last twelve months and this is reflected in three essays which examine different aspects of human rights, equality, and the right to privacy. In the wake of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice, two lengthy essays deal with evidence in police (...) investigations and the concept of due process and pre-trial criminal justice. (shrink)

The most prevalent approach to understanding recreation experiences in resource management has been a motivational research program that views satisfaction as an appropriate indicator of experience quality. This research explores a different approach to studying the quality of recreation experiences. Rather than viewing recreation experiences as a linear sequence of events beginning with expectations and ending with outcomes that are then cognitively compared to determine experience quality, this alternative approach views recreation as an emergent experience motivated by the not very (...) well-defined goal of acquiring stories that ultimately enrich one's life. Further, it assumes that the nature of human experience is best characterized by situated freedom in which the environment sets boundaries that constrain the nature of the experience, but that within those boundaries recreationists are free to experience the world in unique and variable ways. Therefore this alternative approach seeks a more context specific description of the setting/experience relationship that is intended to complement more general management frameworks (e.g., the Recreation Opportunity Spectrum) developed in conjunction with the motivational research program. (shrink)

Motivated by a desire to narrate and contextualize the deluge of "French theory," After the Deluege showcases recent work by today's brightest scholars of French intellectual history that historicizes key debates, figures, and turning points in the postwar era of French thought.

This article seeks to bring a focus to the significance of trade and finance in corporate governance outcomes. It explores the theoretical and historical link between micro-economic-level firm structure and macro-economic institutions such as trade and finance. The more open the economy, it argues, the more difficult it is in the long run to sustain an insider model. It then argues that changes in interdependent aspects of macro-economic policy in the UK and the US—primarily trade liberalization and the end of (...) capital controls—combined with the presence of developed capital markets and a self-regulatory ethos, allowed institutional investors to refocus the market-level rules on shareholders despite the managerial bias of their legal systems, and enabled the emergence of the outsider shareholder-oriented systems present there today. The article then argues that core insider systems such as those in Germany and France operated with different financing arrangements which meant that they were less susceptible to immediate change. However, in the long run global economic conditions have continued to push shareholder-oriented norms on insider systems. The article concludes that if these conditions persist, then governments will lose, or may indeed already have lost, sovereignty with regard to choice of corporate governance system. (shrink)

Environmental pragmatists such as Ben Minteer and Bryan Norton have argued that there is an anti-democratic strain to be found in the work of some nonanthropocentrists. I examine three possible sources of the pragmatists’ concern: the claim that nonanthropocentrists know the political truth, the claim that those who disagree with their basic principle should be excluded from discussions of policy and the claim that their basic principle is self-evident. I argue here that none of these claims are objectionably anti-democratic when (...) understood properly. (shrink)

There is currently no consensus from the relevant stakeholders regarding the operational and construct definitions of child assent for research. As such, the requirements for assent are often construed in different ways, institutionally disparate, and often conflated with those of parental consent. Development of a standardized operational definition of assent would thus be important to ensure that investigators, institutional review boards, and policy makers consider the assent process in the same way. To this end, we describe a Delphi study that (...) provided consensus from a panel of expert stakeholders regarding the definitions of child assent for research. Based on current guidelines, a preliminary definition of assent was generated and sent out for review to a Delphi panel including pediatric bioethicists and researchers, Institutional Review Board members, parents, and individuals with regulatory/legal expertise. For each subsequent review, the process of summarizing and revising responses was repeated until consensus was achieved. Panelists were also required to rank order elements of assent that they believed were most important in defining the underlying constructs of the assent process. In providing these rankings, panelists were asked to frame their responses in the contexts of younger and adolescents/older children in non-therapeutic and therapeutic trials. Summary rankings of the most important identified elements were then used to generate written construct definitions which were sent out for iterative reviews by the expert panel. Consensus regarding the operational definition was reached by 14/18 of the panel members. Seventeen panelists agreed with the definitions of capacity for assent, elements of disclosure for younger children, and the requirements for meaningful assent, respectively. Fifteen members agreed with the elements of disclosure for adolescents/older children. It is hoped that this study will positively inform and effect change in the way investigators, regulators, and IRBs operationalize the assent process, respect children’s developing autonomy, and in concert with parental permission, ensure the protection of children who participate in research. (shrink)

Can Lewisian counterpart theory adequately account for the deliberation involved in universalizing moral judgments? In this paper, the dispute between Shalom Lappin and Yehudah Freunlich over the answer to this question is examined and clarified. Then it is argued that Lappin andFreunlich do not join issue in a way which allows for satisfactory adjudication of their dispute. Specifically, they are unaware of the different models of role projection which each employs. By making these models explicit, it can be seen that, (...) regardless of how universalization is construed, a Lewisian can indeed offer an adequate account of moral deliberation. (shrink)

This paper targets the constitutive basis of social cognition. It begins by describing the traditional and still dominant cognitivist view. Cognitivism assumes internalism about the realisers of social cognition; thus, the embodied and embedded elements of intersubjective engagement are ruled out from playing anything but a basic causal role in an account of social cognition. It then goes on to advance and clarify an alternative to the cognitivist view; namely, an enactive account of social cognition. It does so first by (...) articulating a diachronic constitutive account for how embodied engagement can play a constitutive role in social cognition. It then proceeds to consider an objection; the causal-constitutive fallacy (Adams & Aizawa 2001, 2008; Block 2005) against enactive social cognition. The paper proceeds to deflate this objection by establishing that the distinction between constitution and causation is not co-extensive with the distinction between internal constitutive elements and external causal elements. It is then shown that there is a different reason for thinking that an enactive account of social cognition is problematic. We call this objection the ‘poverty of the interactional stimulus argument’. This objection turns on the role and characteristics of anticipation in enactive social cognition. It argues that anticipatory processes are mediated by an internally realised model or tacit theory (Carruthers 2015; Seth 2015). The final part of this paper dissolves this objection by arguing that it is possible to cast anticipatory processes as orchestrated as well as maintained by sensorimotor couplings between individuals in face-to-face interaction. (shrink)