The specific aim of this article is to focus on Kierkegaard’s confessional discourses and to examine his appreciation for the experience of guilt—the feeling of guilt and the acknowledgment of guilt—in a person’s efforts to act with a good will, or what he calls ‘purity of heart’. The article offers an interpretation of what Kierkegaard means by the ‘purity of heart’ that guilt serves, and it makes an argument that in this service to ‘purity of heart’ the relationship between guilt (...) and self-awareness is especially significant. For Kierkegaard, without the subjective feeling of guilt and without a self-reflective endorsement of that feeling, a person cannot overcome a bad or divided will; a person who strives to have a good will is a person who is able rightly to acknowledge, appropriate or endorse his or her guilt. Furthermore, Kierkegaard’s claim is not simply that this acknowledgment of guilt is a necessary precondition for a good will but that it is itself a quintessential action of a good will. The article concludes with a note of caution that while Kierkegaard does not want to make guilt a final word about a person, a word that overshadows grace and pardon, he is also very wary of the ways people fail to take their own guilt seriously and thereby forfeit the benefits of its self-disclosing power. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of strategic conversations in corporate social responsibility (CSR) strategy formation. The authors suggest that explicitly engaging stakeholders in the CSR strategy-making process, through the mechanism of strategic conversations, will minimize future stakeholder concerns and enhance CSR strategy making. In addition, suggestions for future research are offered to enable a better understanding of effective strategic conversation processes in CSR strategy making and the resulting performance outcomes.

Augustus De Morgan was a British mathematician and logician. He formulated De Morgan's laws and introduced the term mathematical induction, making its idea rigorousFrom the introduction:"If I had before me a fly and an elephant, having never seen more than one such magnitude of either kind; and if the fly were to endeavor to persuade me that he was larger than the elephant, I might by possibility be placed in a difficulty. The apparently little creature might use such (...) arguments about the effect of distance, and might appeal to such laws of sight and hearing as I, if unlearned in those things, might be unable wholly to reject. But if there were a thousand flies, all buzzing, to appearance, about the great creature; and, to a fly, declaring, each one for himself, that he was bigger than the quadruped; and all giving different and frequently contradictory reasons; and each one despising and opposing the reasons of the others-I should feel quite at my ease. I should certainly say, My little friends, the case of each one of you is destroyed by the rest. I intend to show flies in the swarm, with a few larger animals, for reasons to be given.In every age of the world there has been an established system, which has been opposed from time to time by isolated and dissentient reformers. The established system has sometimes fallen, slowly and gradually: it has either been upset by the rising influence of some one man, or it has been sapped by gradual change of opinion in the many.I have insisted on the isolated character of the dissentients, as an element of the a priori probabilities of the case. Show me a schism, especially a growing schism, and it is another thing. The homeopathists, for instance, shall be, if any one so think, as wrong as St. John Long; but an organized opposition, supported by the efforts of many acting in concert, appealing to common arguments and experience, with perpetual succession and a common seal, as the Queen says in the charter, is, be the merit of the schism what it may, a thing wholly different from the case of the isolated opponent in the mode of opposition to it which reason points out.During the last two centuries and a half, physical knowledge has been gradually made to rest upon a basis which it had not before. It has become mathematical. The question now is, not whether this or that hypothesis is better or worse to the pure thought, but whether it accords with observed phenomena in those consequences which can be shown necessarily to follow from it, if it be true. Even in those sciences which are not yet under the dominion of mathematics, and perhaps never will be, a working copy of the mathematical process has been made. This is not known to the followers of those sciences who are not themselves mathematicians and who very often exalt their horns against the mathematics in consequence. They might as well be squaring the circle, for any sense they show in this particular.". (shrink)

In this, the first book devoted to Peter Achinstein's influential work in philosophy of science, twenty distinguished philosophers, including four Lakatos award winners, address various aspects of Achinstein's influential views on the nature of scientific evidence, scientific explanation, and scientific realism. It includes short essays by Steve Gimbel and Jeff Maynes, Nancy Cartwright, Jordi Cat, Victor DiFate, Jerry Doppelt, Adam Goldstein, Philip Kitcher, Fred Kronz, Deborah Mayo, Greg Morgan, Helen Longino, John Norton, Michael Ruse, Bas van Fraassen, Stathis Psillos, (...) Larry Laudan, Richard Richards, Kent Staley, and Jim Woodward with replies to each contributor from Peter Achinstein. Readers will come away with an understanding of the current debate in multiple areas of philosophy of science and how various contemporary issues are connected. (shrink)

Martin Buber is considered one of the 20th centuryes greatest thinkers and his contributions to philosophy, theology and education are testimony to this. His thought is founded on the idea that people are capable of two kinds of relations, namely I-Thou and I-It, emphasising the centrality of dialogue in all spheres of human life. For this reason, Buber is considered by many to be the philosopher of dialogue par excellence. After Buberes death the appreciation of his considerable legacy to the (...) various disciplines in which he had worked became rather muted, but was never completely forgotten. There is now a renewed and growing interest in Buberes thought, especially in his philosophy of education. This book brings together aspects of Buberes philosophy and educational practice, and explains their significance for peace dialogue and for conflict resolution, both between individuals and communities. Buber's philosophy of dialogue and views on education are pivotal in demonstrating the personal and social benefits of dialogical education as well as the dangers of non-dialogical education. The book will be valuable reading for academics, researchers and postgraduate students interested in Martin Buber, education, peace dialogue and conflict resolution. (shrink)

I argue that there exists a proportional relationship between degrees of moral culpability and degrees of probability, where the more an agent believes her actions will result in certain consequences, the more morally culpable she is for these consequences. I assert that this degree of probability is necessarily diminished by the existence of active supernatural powers. Consequently, agents who believe in such powers are less morally culpable than agents who do not.

During the last two centuries, the way economic science is done has changed radically: it has become a social science based on mathematical models in place of words. This book describes and analyses that change - both historically and philosophically - using a series of case studies to illuminate the nature and the implications of these changes. It is not a technical book; it is written for the intelligent person who wants to understand how economics works from the inside out. (...) This book will be of interest to economists and science studies scholars. But it also aims at a wider readership in the public intellectual sphere, building on the current interest in all things economic and on the recent failure of the so-called economic model, which has shaped our beliefs and the world we live in. (shrink)

Online gaming creates unique public spaces of interaction. These spaces are both highly controlled but also able to slip through the regulatory net, as domestic legislation struggles to respond to fast-changing interjurisdictional environments. Inter- and transdisciplinary research hold potential to respond to questions surrounding the regulation of these online spaces, by exploring multiple perspectives. The authors of this paper each come from a unique starting point in their exploration of these issues. The paper will examine three spaces of regulation in (...) online game world environments. It will look at (1) rules and regulations that governs online interaction in virtual spaces, (2) the ‘code’ that controls behaviour through game architecture, and (3) the laws that are developed by players inside the game world. The first part will analyse whether domestic law can be adequate to regulate a space that is not geographically fixed. The second will discuss how the coding of the game and its architecture regulate behaviours within the space. The last is a “bottom-up” regulatory system, originating within the gaming community. Where do these three layers of regulation interact with each other? What are the unique languages of these spaces? This paper is a starting point for further investigation into the regulation of online behaviours through interwoven rule systems. (shrink)

In this paper I will evaluate Ali’s dissolution of the gamer’s dilemma. To this end the dilemma will be summarized and Ali’s dissolution formulated. I conclude that Ali has not dissolved the dilemma (at least not fully).

_The Struggle for Meaning_ is a landmark publication by one of African philosophy's leading figures, Paulin J. Hountondji, best known for his critique of ethnophilosophy in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In this volume, he responds with autobiographical and philosophical reflection to the dialogue and controversy he has provoked. He discusses the ideas, rooted in the work of such thinkers as Husserl and Hountondji's former teachers Derrida, Althusser, and Ricoeur, that helped shape his critique. Applying his philosophical ideas to (...) the critical issues of democracy, culture, and development in Africa today, he addresses three crucial topics: the nexus between scientific extraversion and economic dependence; the nature of endogenous traditions of thought and their relationship with modern science; and the implications—for political pluralism and democracy—of the emergence of “philosophies of subject” in Africa. While the book's immediate concern is with Africa, the densely theoretical nature of its analyses, and its bearing on current postmodern theories of the “other,” will make this timely and elegant translation of great interest to many disciplines, especially ethnic, gender, and multicultural studies. (shrink)

In a recent paper in Religious Studies, Clarke criticizes Mumford's definition of a miracle as it fails to recognize a supernatural agent capable of intent. Clarke believes that in order for an event to qualify as a miracle a supernatural agent must intend it. It is my aim to dismiss this qualification and demonstrate how Mumford's intent-neutral definition is less problematic. I will do this by examining each of the three cases against Mumford's definition and give reason to reject Clarke's (...) criticism and his own definition of a miracle. (shrink)

Cesario argues that experimental studies of bias tell us little about why group disparities exist. We argue that Cesario's alternative approach implicitly frames understanding of group disparities as a false binary between “bias” and “group differences.” This, we suggest, will contribute little to our understanding of the complex dynamics that produce group disparities, and risks inappropriately rationalizing them.

In this chapter, I present an analysis that re‐examines and reconstructs how Adorno reads Kierkegaard in his 1933 Habilitationsshrift, Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic and why he reads him in the manner he does, and inquire what the Kierkegaard book may teach us about Adorno's later philosophic development. In the process of my analysis and in light of my answer to the latter question, we will come to understand Adorno's Kierkegaard reading through the following argument: (i) both a negative and (...) positive theology are present in Kierkegaard; (ii) Adorno embraces only the negative, apophatic and rejects the positive, cataphatic theology because Adorno reads the latter as an escape from worldly needs and action; and (iii) the negative theology that Adorno accepts is instructive of and bears an important relation to Adorno's 1970 Aesthetic Theory. The present chapter thus provides a summary of the most insightful and relevant scholarship on Adorno's intersection with Kierkegaard as well as a new argument about Adorno's Aesthetic Theory from rethinking this intersection. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to help authors construct coherent time-travel narratives by establishing five features of multiverse time travel. To this end, multiverse time travel will be contrasted to fixed-universe time travel, and both versions related to various cases - where each case is designed to illustrate a key feature of multiverse time travel.

In this interview, Ruth Groff discusses how she came to be a realist, her role as a community organizer, her relationship to critical realism, and various issues arising from her published work over the years. Discussion ranges across the nature of positivism and its legacy, the concept of falsehood, realism about causal powers, mind-independent reality, the history of philosophy, and the underlying interest in ideology-critique that runs through her thinking.

My argument will proceed as follows. I will first sketch out the broad internalist case for pitching its normative account of sport in the abstract manner that following Dworkin’s lead in the philosophy of law its adherents insist upon. I will next show that the normative deficiencies in social conventions broad internalists uncover are indeed telling but misplaced since they hold only for what David Lewis famously called ‘coordinating’ conventions. I will then distinguish coordinating conventions from deep ones and make (...) my case not only for the normative salience of deep conventions but for their normative superiority over the abstract normative principles broad internalists champion. (shrink)

We argue, contra Joshua Knobe in a companion chapter, that most people have an understanding of free will and responsible agency that is compatible with a naturalistic vision of the human mind. Our argument is supported by results from a new experimental philosophy study showing that most people think free will is consistent with complete and perfect prediction of decisions and actions based on prior activity in the brain (a scenario adapted from Sam Harris who predicts most people will find (...) it inconsistent with free will). We explain why most people are "theory-lite" about the nature of mind and free will--they are not committed to substantive theories of the underlying causal structure of mind, such as Knobe's "transcendence vision". Rather, we suggest a "causal competition principle"--that an agent's actions will be deemed unfree when they are perceived to be fully caused by factors that do not include her reasons. This principle explains why people, including some scientists, perceive neuroscientific explanations as threatening free will when they are described in terms of neural processes fully causing actions to the exclusion of agents' reasons or reasoning processes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Enchantment of Art: Abstraction and Empathy from German Romanticism to ExpressionismDavid MorganA familiar tradition since the eighteenth century has invested art with the power to heal a decadent human condition. Inheriting this ability from religion—the romantic enthusiast Wilhelm Wackenroder considered artistic inspiration to originate in “divine inspiration” in the case of his hero, Raphael 1 —art eventually replaced institutionalized belief in an evolutionary schedule of cultural development determined (...) by German idealism. Hegel, for instance, theorized the evolution of spirit from religion to art as a qualitative advancement over time. Rejecting the metaphysics of German idealism, Friedrich Nietzsche nevertheless contended that “Art raises its head where religions decline.” By assuming the “feelings and moods” of religion which had been dismantled by enlightenment, Nietzsche claimed that art gave new form to the life of feeling and imbued human endeavors with a “loftier, darker coloration.” 2 In the early twentieth century Wassily Kandinsky believed that the “spiritual in art” was the historical manifestation of an “inner necessity” that was in itself timeless and universal. Kandinsky portrayed the “life of the spirit” as “a large acute-angled triangle divided horizontally into unequal parts.” In a kind of “trickle down” aesthetic, the compartments of the triangle move slowly upward toward the apex, which is inhabited by the solitary genius of an age whose vision gradually elevates all those who occupy the lower stages. 3 [End Page 317]The point for proponents of the spiritual in art from romanticism to expressionism (and beyond) was to find in works of art what can best be described as an enchantment. 4 As the negotiation of the gaps or disjunctures separating human beings from complete power over their lives, enchantment conjoins the plane of immediate human experience to a desirable state of affairs through the mediation of such symbolic devices as rituals, incantations, or charms. Thus, evil can be warded off by the use of an apotropaic amulet, and fertility can be enhanced by the recitation of a suitable prayer or the performance of a certain ritual. In a modern analogy a sense of impotence is often alleviated by a trip to the mall where the bored therapeutically lose themselves in symbolic acts of self-renewing consumption. In the traditions of philosophy and science, systems of representation such as astrology, the microcosm, the harmony of the spheres, the great chain of being, the celestial hierarchies, or the mechanisms of theurgy and divination situate humanity within a cosmos that follows a particular order accessible to and in some degree manipulable by human beings. Enchantment consists of an apparatus of belief whose form of representation or enactment is thought to exert influence over the realities it configures.But enchantment is not limited to the spells and magic of premodern metaphysics (or modern consumerism). By means of religion, morality, and aesthetics, Nietzsche once averred, “man likes to believe that... he is touching the heart of the world.” 5 This study will focus on the manner in which art as constructed within the idealist tradition of German art theory functioned as an enchantment. Specifically, it will explore what the history of ideas about abstraction and empathy has to tell us about the spiritualization or enchantment of art. After identifying the philosophical and aesthetic wherewithal of enchantment in nineteenth-century Germany, attention focusses on Franz Marc’s early twentieth-century theorization of abstraction. It is certainly more customary to study Kandinsky, whose writings and early efforts at abstraction are much better known, but Marc’s ideas offer more immediate connections to German intellectual history and clarify the aims of his abstract art as a strategy of enchantment. Moreover, Marc was unusually articulate and wrote often, exploring ideas and artistic efforts with great insight. Focusing on Marc therefore offers a corrective to the historiography that has favored Kandinsky’s writings. Finally, Marc differed from his Russian friend over the cause of the war. Manifesting a difference that is portentous for this study, Kandinsky left Germany for Russia in 1914, while Marc enthusiastically took up arms for the fatherland. Given these circumstances and the unfortunate tendency of art historians to valorize expressionist art rather than situate it in the ideological context of... (shrink)

The way many human rights advocates frame the international norm against child, early, and forced marriage (CEFM) has shifted in the past decade. While CEFM has historically been framed as driven by poverty and underdevelopment, advocates have more recently discussed the problem with a feminist sexuality frame. What leads advocates to change their framing about an international norm? We build an argument that stresses how (a) the nature of the frame, (b) the characteristics of the advocates, and (c) the characteristics (...) of the discursive environment interact to determine whether and to what extent advocates will adopt an alternative frame. We use a multi-methods approach (machine-learning text analysis, process tracing, and interviews) to examine the process of frame adoption around an international norm. Our theoretical understanding of international norms requires a better grasp on the role of framing, especially framing among the very norm entrepreneurs that are critical to international norm diffusion. (shrink)

The question I want to pursue here is one that I have lifted from Harry Frankfurt’s recent surprising best-selling book, On Bullshit, in which he asks why there is so much bullshit today in Western cultures like the U. S. The scope of Frankfurt’s charge was deliberately broad. It’s not just that people bullshit about how much money they make or how important their jobs are, but that public discourse about just any topic of consequence in American culture is filled (...) with, one is even tempted to say consists of, such unseemly speech. Such is the case, I want to claim here, about public discourse about sport in the print and visual media, in everyday life, and even, as I will shortly comment upon, in so-called academic and civic forums. So I don’t think it is a stretch at all, nor do I believe Frankfurtwould regard it as such, to include sport among the topics about which bullshit abounds. He might, however, quibble with my claim that the preponderance of bullshit in and outside of sport circles has mainly to do with the incursion of the market into most of the social practices that people hold dear in our culture. This despite the fact that Frankfurt does recognize that one primary reason why bullshit dominates so much of our contemporary discourse is that people are frequently called upon to speak about things that exceed their grasp, their knowledge of the subject. What he seems not to appreciate in this regard, however, is that one especially important reason why people’s grasp of what they say and do leaves much to be desired is because more often than not it is market actors that are doing all the talking here, whether the topic be sports, or politics, or even science. And the reason they are doing all the talking is the same reason they are mostly responsible for what actually goes on in these disparate spheres, namely, they hold and control the purse strings. So I’m persuaded, more than Frankfurt apparently is, that it is because the money-changers dominate sports, as I have insinuated they dominate most everything else, that what gets said in and about sports is mostly bullshit. Convincing you that I’m right about this will be my aim today, and that’s no bullshit, I think. (shrink)

This is a good book. It is good because: (a) it outlines well the central arguments of the debate (that is, the arguments relating to what a miracle is, whether they are possible, whether we can have evidence of their occurrence, and what would follow from such evidence were we to have it); (b) it furthers the debate; and (c) it is a clearly written. If you are a philosopher religion whose research area is miracles, the book is a must-read. (...) If you are philosopher of religion whose research area is not miracles, then, as the book connects with core topics in this field, it will prove a valuable read. If you are merely a philosopher, there are far worse things you could be reading.Rather than provide a summary of each chapter of the book (Larmer provides such a summary on pages 3 and 4 of his introduction [which one can access freely online] and I cannot offer better), I will outline some of the book’s arguments. The type of arguments I focus on are not explicitly formulated by Larmer, t .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Remnants of SenseAlastair Morgan, PhD (bio)In an interview outlining her approach to understanding mental distress, Lucy Johnstone states that when faced with ostensibly bizarre, irrational or distressing experiences:[T]he guiding principle of "At some level it all makes sense" applies. In fact, I can't immediately think of anyone I've worked with for whom it did not, in the end, turn out to be true.1The two commentaries on my (...) paper point to two levels where this sense-making might operate; a structural and an individual level.Havi Carel (2023) draws attention to the important concept of power in the Power Threat Meaning Framework and suggests a widening of the concept of threat to a concept of vulnerabilization that refers to the multiple factors that expose people to institutional neglect and violence that is interlaced with a range of forms of discrimination, neglect and disadvantage. Whilst the main strength of the PTMF approach is to draw attention to the structural importance of power in contributing to forms of psychic distress, the emphasis on a concept of threat tends towards a reactive and reductive concept of power. Carel (2023) helpfully points to a wider concept of power that can be utilised for further work in understanding the impact of societal violence on forms of mental distress.Such a widening of the concept of power does not only rest on a critique of institutions but also an understanding of the ways in which people can be abandoned and neglected by state support of one kind or another. Power operates through a dual logic of exposure and abandonment. Some people are particularly exposed to forms of institutional power from an early age and vulnerabilized by such exposure, but there is also a logic of abandonment within such exposure; the ever present possibility of neglect. Such an operation of power is not univocal (or embedded in one profession) but dispersed and differentially applied. As Didier Fassin (2018, p. 43) writes: "All lives are precarious but certain lives much more so than others—and above all, quite differently."Psychiatric power is one important focus when trying to understand this process of the exposure and abandonment of power, however, as Carel (2023, p. 75) notes, "the medical realm is not its own kingdom." Psychiatry is inserted into a network of dispersed power that has multiple and differential effects, both positive and negative. The focus on the question of psychiatric diagnosis as the apotheosis of societal power neglects the multiple effects of diagnosis or the lack of diagnosis on people who are particularly vulnerable to the operations of power. In situations where institutional care is crumbling and under-resourced the focus on psychiatric care alone as a problem of power risks just compounding such an institutional neglect. [End Page 77] Veena Das (2020) asks the question of what happens before the arrival of the psychiatrist on the scene of care and after her disappearance. Das (2020, p. 174) is interested in the multiple ways that power flows across and between both formal and informal institutions to produce a "milieu of madness." Such flows of power will also apply to increasingly hegemonic psychological formulations of signs of distress as problems in living, as problems in adaptive reactions to adversity. Such formulations are themselves inserted into a nexus of power relations and processes of vulnerabilization and are not somehow free of the taint of other forms of understanding. Indeed, as Carel notes, the process of demedicalization and de-professionalisation can very easily be inserted into the dual logic of exposure and abandonment that I discussed earlier. People can be exposed to power in a wider range of settings as psychic distress is demedicalized but also subjected to abandonment and neglect as mental distress is no longer thought of as an illness but just one of many wider and non-medical problems in living that does not require state support.The structural account of the determinants of mental distress offers an important corrective to individualised and medicalised approaches to meaning, but doesn't completely erase the problem of understanding and interpreting mental distress. Mohammed Abouelleil Rashed's commentary raises important issues with the... (shrink)

Traumatic events happen in every age, yet there is a particularly cataclysmic feeling to our own epoch that is so attractive to some and so terrifying to others. The terrible events of September 11th 2001 still resonate and the repercussions continue to this day: the desperation of immigrants fleeing terror, the uncertainty of Brexit, Donald Trump in the White House, the rise of the alt-right and hard left, increasing fundamentalism, and terror groups intent on causing destruction to the Western way (...) of life. If that were not enough, we also have to grapple with the enormity of climate change and the charge that if we do not act now, it will be too late. Is it any wonder many are left overwhelmed by the events they see on the news? Galvanised by the events outside of his consulting room, in 2015, David Morgan began The Political Mind seminars at the British Psychoanalytical Society and their successful run continues today. A series of superlative seminars, mostly presented by colleagues from the British Society plus a few select external experts, that examine a dazzling array of relevant topics to provide a psychoanalytic understanding of just what is going on in our world. This book is the first in The Political Mind series to bring these seminars to a wider audience. The Unconscious in Political and Social Life contains compelling contributions from Christopher Bollas, Michael Rustin, Jonathan Sklar, David Bell, Philip Stokoe, Roger Kennedy, David Morgan, M. Fakhry Davids, Ruth McCall, R. D. Hinshelwood, Renée Danziger, Josh Cohen, Sally Weintrobe, and Margot Waddell. They investigate so many vital issues affecting us today: the evolution of democracy, right-wing populism, prejudice, the rise of the far right, attitudes to refugees and migrants, neoliberalism, fundamentalism, terrorism, the Palestine-Israel situation, political change, feminism, austerity in the UK, financial globalisation, and climate change. This book needs to be read by all who are concerned by the state of the world today. Psychoanalysis and psychoanalysts with their awareness of what motivates human beings bring clarity and fresh insight to these matters. A deeper understanding of humanity awaits the reader of The Unconscious in Political and Social Life. (shrink)

The mind-body problem is intuitively familiar, as mental and physical entities mysteriously interact. However, difficulties arise when intertwining concepts of the self with mental and physical traits. To avoid confusion, I propose instead focusing on three categories, with the mental matching the mind and physical the body with respect to raw inputs and outputs. The third category, the self, will experience and measure the others. With this new classification, we can see difficulties clearly, specifically five questions covering interaction and correlation. (...) We break down the problem using both existing theories and a hypercube topology representing the solution. We show any satisfactory theory must explain both spatial interaction and content correlation, and that we cannot escape our topology, whatever our preferred fundamental substance and mind-body movement permutation. We conclude by looking outside the hypercube, noting how solutions such as existential monism, priority monism, and will-based cosmic-idealism avoid the dangers involved. (shrink)

"_Weaving the World_ is a well-written and lucid overview of Simone Weil's writings on science and mathematics. This book will be of great benefit for anyone who wishes to pursue Weil's thought in depth." —_Eric O. Springsted, President of the American Weil Society_ "_Weaving the World_ is a detailed account of the philosophy of science and knowledge of Simone Weil. It is a very useful contribution to our understanding of one of the deepest and most incandescent thinkers of the twentieth (...) century." —_Martin Andic, University of Massachusetts, Boston_ This clearly written book introduces readers to Simone Weil’s philosophy of science and mathematics. Weil held that, for the ancient Greeks, the ultimate purpose of science and mathematics was the knowledge and love of the divine. Her creative assimilation of this vision led her to a conception of science and mathematics that connects the human person with not only the physical world but also the spiritual and aesthetic aspects of human existence. Vance Morgan sketches an outline of a metaphysical foundation for mathematics and science that, according to Weil, opens the door to a reinvigorated discussion among science, philosophy, art, and religion. (shrink)

The Derrida Dictionary is a comprehensive and accessible guide to the world of Jacques Derrida, the founder of deconstruction and one of the most important and influential European thinkers of the twentieth century. Meticulously researched and extensively cross-referenced, this unique book covers all his major works, ideas and influences and provides a firm grounding in the central themes of Derrida's thought. Students will discover a wealth of useful information, analysis and criticism. A-Z entries include clear definitions of all the key (...) terms used in Derrida's writings and detailed synopses of his key works. The Dictionary also includes entries on Derrida's major philosophical influences and those he engaged with, such as Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Freud, Heidegger, Foucault, Lacan and Levinas. It covers everything that is essential to a sound understanding of Derrida's philosophy, offering clear and accessible explanations of often complex terminology. The Derrida Dictionary is the ideal resource for anyone reading or studying Derrida, deconstruction or modern European philosophy more generally. (shrink)

Fuzzy logics are systems of logic with infinitely many truth values. Such logics have been claimed to have an extremely wide range of applications in linguistics, computer technology, psychology, etc. In this note, we canvass the known results concerning infinitely many valued logics; make some suggestions for alterations of the known systems in order to accommodate what modern devotees of fuzzy logic claim to desire; and we prove some theorems to the effect that there can be no fuzzy logic which (...) will do what its advocates want. Finally, we suggest ways to accommodate these desires in finitely many valued logics. (shrink)

Explorations of a trust approach for nursing ethicsTrust has long been acknowledged as central to nurse–patient relationships. It, however, has not been fully explored nor‐matively. That is, trust must be examined from a perspective that encompasses not only reliability and competence, but also good will within nursing relationships. In this paper, we explore how a trust approach, based on Annette Baier’s work on trust in feminist ethics, could help inform future developments in nursing ethics. We discuss the limitations of other (...) approaches such as those based on contracts, paternalism, and care. By drawing out central features of Baier’s theory, we demonstrate how it can help overcome the problems of these previous models. In doing so, we emphasise the importance of combining the ethics of care and justice, acknowledging vulnerability and the potential for evil in nursing relationships, and politically situating the ethical concerns of nursing. (shrink)

"One of the expected fruits of Descartes' philosophical enterprise is "the highest and most perfect moral system," a system which, organically developed from its metaphysical and physical foundations, will provide the moral agent with direction and purpose in each of life's contingencies. Yet, Descartes' published work contains no such moral system, and commentators have generally agreed that Descartes "has entered the history of philosophy as perhaps the only systematic philosopher of the first rank who failed to provide any methodical treatment (...) of moral problems."" "Through a careful investigation of primarily Descartes' Correspondence and his final treatise, The Passions of the Soul, Vance Morgan here constructs the framework of a working ethical system, consistent with the spirit of Cartesian metaphysics and physics. He finds that while Descartes' metaphysics are remarkable for their insistence on indubitably clear and distinct principles, his ethic is equally remarkable in its conclusion that indubitably certain, inviolable principles are not available in the realm of morals and human activity. Virtue is not defined with reference to the results of one's actions, nor to one's faithful adherence to a set of rationally derived moral directives. Rather, virtue consists in the moral attitude with which one lives one's life, the psychological conviction that one has always resolutely acted upon the best intellectual activity of which one is capable."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

People do not choose to suffer from catastrophic illnesses, but considerable human choice is involved in the ways in which the participants in the process treat and conduct research on these diseases. Catastrophic Diseases draws a powerful and humane portrait of the patients who suffer from these illnesses as well as of the physician-investigators who treat them, and describes the major pressures, conflicts, and decisions which confront all of them. By integrating a discussion of "facts" and "values," the authors highlight (...) the forces which affect new developments in medicine—such as kidney and heart transplants—and the controversial issues they generate. Katz and Capron explore these issues through the use of dual conceptual perspectives. Their study first examines and evaluates the authority which should be vested in each of the chief participants in the catastrophic disease process—the physician-investigator, the patient-subject and his relatives, the professionals, and the state. Challenging questions are raised concerning medical education, informed consent, and professional responsibility. The authors next explore how the roles and capacities of the participants vary not only according to the basic issues they face but also according to the point in decision-making at which these issues arise. The process of investigating and treating catastrophic diseases, the authors believe, can thus usefully be divided into three decision-making stages—the formulation of policy, the administration of research and therapy, and the review of the decisions and their consequences. In conclusion, Katz and Capron demonstrate the need for a variety of individuals and groups with diverse values to be involved in decision-making in a manner which will not unnecessarily impede the scientific investigation of these diseases. (shrink)

This paper is a response to Ray's recent proposal that the intellectual property rights attached to potentially life saving/life sustaining innovations should become public goods in cases where markets are either unable or unwilling to pay for the creation of the intellectual property. Using a free market approach to innovation based on Western moral philosophy, we suggest that treating intellectually protected life saving/life sustaining innovations as public goods will likely reduce social welfare over the long term.

We situate the debate on intentionality within the rise of cognitive neuroscience and argue that cognitive neuroscience can explain intentionality. We discuss the explanatory significance of ascribing intentionality to representations. At first, we focus on views that attempt to render such ascriptions naturalistic by construing them in a deflationary or merely pragmatic way. We then contrast these views with staunchly realist views that attempt to naturalize intentionality by developing theories of content for representations in terms of information and biological function. (...) We echo several other philosophers by arguing that these theories over-generalize unless they are constrained by a theory of the functional role of representational vehicles. This leads to a discussion of the functional roles of representations, and how representations might be realized in the brain. We argue that there’s work to be done to identify a distinctively mental kind of representation. We close by sketching a way forward for the project of naturalizing intentionality. This will not be achieved simply by ascribing the content of mental states to generic neural representations, but by identifying specific neural representations that explain the puzzling intentional properties of mental states. (shrink)

Miracles and the problem of evil are two prominent areas of research within philosophy of religion. On occasion these areas converge, with God’s goodness being brought into question by the claim that either there is a lack of miracles, or there are immoral miracles. In this paper I shall highlight a second manner in which miracles and the problem of evil relate. Namely, I shall give reason as to why what is considered to be miraculous may be dependent upon a (...) particular response to the problem of natural evil. To establish this claim, I shall focus upon Aquinas’s definition of a miracle and a particular free-will defence, the Luciferous defence. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper invites us to reconsider our usual understanding of infancy, no longer as something that passes but as infantia. The Latin word infantia, which is not easy to translate, means a lack of speech, a lack of eloquence, and also infancy, babyhood, and dumbness. Drawing on Barbara Cassin’s works on the untranslatables, I propose to translate infantia, starting by not-understanding, and then by taking detours by different texts, in-between languages. Exercising translation allows us to expose ourselves to the (...) differences between languages. The exercise in translation that unfolds will help to challenge some familiar distinctions such as infant/adult and uneducated/educated. (shrink)

Images can be studied in many ways--as symbols, displays of artistic genius, adjuncts to texts, or naturally occurring phenomena like reflections and dreams. Each of these approaches is justified by the nature of the image in question as well as the way viewers engage with it. But images are often something more when they perform in ways that exhibit a capacity to act independent of human will. Images come alive--they move us to action, calm us, reveal the power of the (...) divine, change the world around us. In these instances, we need an alternative model for exploring what is at work, one that recognizes the presence of images as objects that act on us. Building on his previous innovative work in visual and religious studies, David Morgan creates a new framework for understanding how the human mind can be enchanted by images in Images at Work. In carefully crafted arguments, Morgan proposes that images are special kinds of objects, fashioned and recognized by human beings for their capacity to engage us. From there, he demonstrates that enchantment, as described, is not a violation of cosmic order, but a very natural way that the mind animates the world around it. His groundbreaking study outlines the deeply embodied process by which humans create culture by endowing places, things, and images with power and agency. These various agents--human and non-human, material, geographic, and spiritual--become nodes in the web of relationships, thus giving meaning to images and to human life. Marrying network theory with cutting-edge work in visual studies, and connecting the visual and bodily technologies employed by the ancient Greeks and Romans to secular icons like Che Guevara, Abraham Lincoln, and Mao, Images at Work will be transformative for those curious about why images seem to have a power of us in ways we can't always describe"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

The Best Guide to Eastern Philosophy & Religion provides a thorough discussion of the most widely practices belief systems of the East. Author Diane Morgan understands how to direct the materialistic, linear way of Western thinking toward a comprehension of the cyclical, metaphysical essence of Eastern philosophy. With an emphasis on the tenets and customs that Wester seekers find most compelling, this text is accessible to the novice yet sophisticated enough for the experienced reader. Inside, you'll find complete coverage (...) of Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, as well as the less-widely practiced faiths of Shintoism, Jainism, Sikhism, and Zoroastrainism. Learn the fundamentals of the tantric path to liberation and the relationship between sex and seeking. Discover the true meaning of Feng Shui, the philosophical underpinnings of Hatha Yoga and Taoist connection to the martial art of Tai chi chuan. And if you've ever wondered: what is the sound of one hand clapping?. this book will get you started on finding that answer. The Eastern traditions, with their emphasis on harmony and oneness, have much to offer us in our hectic, demanding lives. For a comprehensive, entertaining exploration of the beliefs of Asia, The Best Guide to Eastern Philosophy & Religion is the essential manual for the seeker in all of us. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider Augustine’s attempted solution of the problem of divine foreknowledge and free will. I focus on two distinct notions of God’s relationship to time as they relate to this problem. In Confessions XI, Augustine develops an understanding of time and foreknowledge that cIearly offers a possible solution to the foreknowledge/free will problem. I then turn to On Free Will 3.1-4, where Augustine conspicuously declines to use a solution similar to the one in the Confessions, rather developing (...) a response that demands a very different conception of foreknowledge. I subsequently argue that in On Free Will, Augustine’s argument requires that God’s foreknowledge, when considered in light of events involving human freedom, must be in a real sense dependent on the results of free choice. (shrink)

In lines 5–8 of his 95th poem Catullus contrasts the everlasting world-wide fame which P. Helvius Cinna's Smyrna will enjoy with the quick death which Volusius' I Annales will suffer before they get beyond the Po.

Institutional Review Boards have expressed concern that research into sensitive topics such as mental disorder will cause participants undue distress. This study investigated the emotional responses of 5,220 Australians to a survey on mental-health-related discrimination. Participants were interviewed about their mental health and experiences of discrimination across 10 life domains and then the emotional impacts of the survey. Results suggested that a minority experienced a negative reaction in contrast to 88% reporting positive experiences. A mental health problem was associated with (...) both negative and positive reactions. (shrink)

What determines the reference of first-person thoughts—thoughts that one would express using the first-person pronoun? I defend a model on which our ways of gaining knowledge of ourselves do, in much the way that our ways of gaining knowledge of objects in the world determine the reference of perceptual demonstrative thoughts. This model—the Demonstrative Model of First-Person Thought—can be motivated by reference to independently plausible general principles about how reference is determined. But it faces a serious objection. There seems to (...) be an explanatory rival to it with a great deal of plausiblility. The rival is The Simple Rule Model, which says that first-person thoughts are governed by the simple rule that any token of one will be about the person whose token it is. I pinpoint a crucial unclarity in The Simple Rule Model, hinging on how we understand the notion of a rule, and argue that no version of the Simple Rule Model is both plausible and a genuine explanatory rival to the Demonstrative Model. I also provide an argument that the Demonstrative Model is extensionally adequate. (shrink)

Article 14 of the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child declares, “States Parties shall respect the right of the child to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.” In this paper I will consider whether signatory nation-states may be in breach of this article by permitting religious groups to communicate the concept of Hell to children in a particular way.

In this paper I focus on the interaction between affect and language as articulated in the works of Theodor W. Adorno and Julia Kristeva, sometimes in inchoate and non-explicit ways. Language is always in transit, exile, and dispossession. All language is the language of another, or the other, and precisely because of this, it is the site of dissenting and conflicting affect. In this context, my paper traces a missed but necessary dialogue between Adorno and Kristeva. Adorno’s diagnosis of failed (...) subjective inwardness, first presented in his book on Kierkegaard, was sustained throughout Adorno’s entire oeuvre, to the very end, in his posthumous 1969 Aesthetic Theory. I will explicate Adorno’s forced collapsing of subjective interiority into a negative space that opens up aesthetic emancipatory potential. In what follows I place Adorno’s negativity of subjective inwardness and the aesthetic potential after the fact of its destruction in dialogue with the writings of Kristeva, who has likewise diagnosed a subjective interiority of negativity but framed the latter in terms of the female, abjection and maternity. I conclude by placing Kristeva’s work in conversation with Adorno’s philosophy of the language of music, as one example of their shared framework for aesthetic emancipatory experience. (shrink)

I will consider how the notion of incommensurability, as championed by Parfit (Reasons and persons, 1984), Griffin (Well-being: its meaning, measurement and importance, 1986), Chang (Ethics 112:659–688, 2002), and Hare (Philos Perspect 23:165–176, 2009), might affect both the argument from slight pain (which suggests God’s non-existence can be inferred from the merest stubbing of one’s toe) and Leibniz’s reply to this argument. I conclude that the notion of incommensurability may ultimately strengthen Leibniz’s general position.

In a pioneering book, Philosophy of Microbiology, Maureen O’Malley argues for the philosophical importance of microbes through an examination of their impact on ecosystems, evolution, biological classification, collaborative behavior, and multicellular organisms. She identifies many understudied conceptual issues in the study of microbes. If philosophers follow her lead, the philosophy of biology will be expanded and enriched.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Human Genome Research in an Interdependent WorldAlexander Morgan Capron (bio)This has been the year of agenda-setting conferences for the ambitious ELSI (ethical, legal and social issues) program of the Human Genome Project (HGP). But of the dozen or more major meetings of this sort held across the country, the one held at the National Institutes of Heakh (NIH) in Bethesda, MD, June 2-4, 1991, was distinctive in several (...) respects.1As its name implies, "Human Genome Research in an Interdependent World" was a global look at the issues raised by gene mapping and sequencing. Unlike previous conferences, however, this meeting looked beyond a comparative analysis of clinical and domestic legal issues, and concentrated on topics that may require responses on a truly international level if they are to be successfully resolved.The meeting's organizers gathered an impressive group of more than seventy participants from fifteen countries, including the first significant contingent of Soviet and Japanese scientists, physicians, and philosophers at an ELSI meeting. In addition to talks by the heads of the genome projects in the Soviet Union, Japan, and the United States, the meeting was keynoted by Dr. James Wyngaarden, director general of the Human Genome Organization (HUGO), and I had the honor of serving as its general chairman.The goal of the meeting was to consider an array of issues that scientists, philosophers, and lawyers from around the world suggested might have international significance, with an eye to deciding three things: (1) Does the issue deserve further attention? (2) Is the issue best addressed in an international or domestic context? and (3) Do structures exist to which the issue can be referred for resolution? In the final sessions, the entire group debated proposed resolutions on the various topics and narrowed the list needing further, intensive exploration.To provide an international framework for this process, the conference [End Page 247] established a Global Steering Committee on Ethical and Social Issues in Genome Research, which will coordinate the efforts of several task forces charged with refining the tentative resolutions adopted by the conference participants on June 4. The task forces are expected to be able to complete work on some topics by the time of the steering committee's first meeting, which was described by one participant as a "check point," probably within the coming year; on other topics, the task forces will provide interim reports and arrange to continue their analysis. Several topics—less complex or more embryonic—were referred directly to the steering committee. On all issues, a major objective will be to ascertain what existing or newly created structure or structures are capable of implementing the group's recommendations and then to monitor the issue to ensure that appropriate implementation is occurring.Issues to be Explored by Task ForcesInsurance and EmploymentWhile individuals may derive medically useful information from the expanded range of genetic tests that will flow from the HGP, they could also be harmed if test results become a basis for discrimination. An area of particular concern at the conference in Bethesda was whether genetic information should be used to decide eligibility for employment or the scope and cost of health and life insurance. The complexity of this issue is increased as barriers to worker migration fall (especially in Europe) and as more firms carry on business internationally. Furthermore, questions arise about the limits of required testing and whether individuals may decline to be informed of the results of tests.The task force will not only gather information on practices and legal standards throughout the world—especially in light of the differences among nations with regard to the linkage of employment and various forms of insurance—but will also examine international anti-discrimination laws as a possible means of supplementing domestic statutes and regulations. As a starting point, the Bethesda meeting agreed on a set of principles for the task force to refine.2ForensicsAlthough their legal status is not fully resolved, DNA tests are being used increasingly in judicial proceedings and civil and criminal investigations as a highly probative means to identify people. Most forensic uses of "DNA fingerprints" are domestic, but international cooperation among investigative bodies... (shrink)

The SAGE Encyclopedia of Criminal Psychology will be a modern, interdisciplinary resource aimed at students and professionals interested in the intersection of psychology (e.g., social, forensic, clinical), criminal justice, sociology, and criminology. The interdisciplinary study of human behavior in legal contexts includes numerous topics on criminal behavior, criminal justice policies and legal process, crime detection and prevention, eyewitness identification, prison life, offender assessment and rehabilitation, risk assessment and management, offender mental health, community reintegration, and juvenile offending. The study of these (...) topics has been increasing continually since the late 1800s, with people trained in many legal professions such as policing, social work, law, academia, mental health, and corrections. This will be a comprehensive work that will provide the most current empirical information on those topics of greatest concern to students who desire to work in these fields. This encyclopedia is a unique reference work that looks at criminal behavior primarily through a scientific lens. With over 500 entries the book brings together top empirically driven researchers and clinicians across multiple fields—psychology, criminology, social work, and sociology—to explore the field. (shrink)

Informed consent is a vital part of ethical research. In emergency health care research environments such as ambulance services and emergency departments, it is sometimes necessary to conduct trial interventions or observations without patient consent. At times where treatment is time critical, it may be impossible or inappropriate to seek consent from next of kin. Emergency medicine is one of the few areas where the process of informed consent can be waived to allow research to proceed without patient consent. This (...) article will explore the ethics of informed consent in the prehospital emergency research context. This will include an overview of current Australian guidelines for ethical research, and recent changes in law internationally which have affected the conduct of international emergency health research. An overview of the ethical reasoning behind the waiver of informed consent in emergency research is presented, also addressing issues relating to emergency health research such as proxy consent, unconscious patients, and patient decision making capacity. The unusual circumstances encountered in the prehospital ambulance environment will also be discussed, including the dependent and coercive relationship between patients and ambulance professionals, and a lack of alternatives for care and transport for patients who refuse consent. The conflict arising from differences in medical culture and values between patients and health care professionals will also briefly be discussed. It will be argued that, while emergency care research should not require informed consent due to the restrictions of time and dependent nature of the relationship between patient and health professional, emergency health researchers still have a responsibility to consider the patients’ perspective when considering the ethical issues of an emergency research project, particularly in the prehospital environment. (shrink)

It will surprise no readers that Germans fiercely debated the notion of revelation from 1750 to 1850. Nevertheless, few would deny the difficulties inherent to studying the topic, with its bewilder...