"Law week 2005 highlights." Ethos: Official Publication of the Law Society of the Australian Capital Territory, (196), pp. 33.

In this essay, I discuss the philosophical significance of three features of the Phaedrus’s dramatic scenery: the myth of Boreas, the two trees Socrates singles out upon arriving at the grove, and the grove itself. I argue that attention to these three features of the dramatic scenery helps us better understand the Phaedrus’s account of erōs.

Nichols offers the first comprehensive interpretation of the eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid's theory of perception - by far the most important feature of his philosophical system. Nichols's consummate knowledge of Reid's texts, lively examples, and plainspoken style make this book especially readable. It will be the definitive analysis for a long time to come.

This essay argues that the Phaedrus’s Palinode articulates an account of love (erōs) in which the experience of love can morally and intellectually transform both lover and beloved. After situating this account of love within the dialogue’s thematization of soul-leading (psuchagōgia), I show how Socrates’s account of love makes an intervention into typical Greek thought on pederasty and argue against Jessica Moss’s contention that soul-leading love suffers severe limitations in its soul-leading capacity, showing that Moss is wrong to think that (...) love can only efficaciously lead souls that are already well-formed. By contrast, the Palinode portrays the moral and intellectual formation of the lover, who first approaches the beloved in the spirit of rapacity only to be turned by his experience of beauty toward genuine service, ordered to the beloved’s benefit. The beloved likewise undergoes such a transformation as a result of his nascent return-love (anterōs). (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to advance understanding of intellectually virtuous honesty, by examining the relationship between a recent account of intellectual honesty and a recent account of intellectual transparency. The account of intellectual honesty comes from Nathan King, who adapts the work of Christian Miller on moral honesty, while the account of intellectual transparency comes from T. Ryan Byerly. After introducing the respective accounts, I identify four potential differences between intellectual honesty and intellectual transparency as understood by (...) these accounts. I then turn to the question of how to think about the relationship between these traits in light of these potential differences. I make the case that intellectual transparency can either be regarded as an exceptionally strong or ideal variety of intellectual honesty, or it can be regarded as a distinct virtue from intellectual honesty which is a more cardinal virtue than the latter. Along the way, I also note some places where a case can be made that Miller's and King's accounts of honesty and intellectual honesty are in need of refinement or clarification. (shrink)

Abstract:This essay follows the recent discourse on two phenomena: the tendency of hegemony to incorporate subversive cultures, and the digital reanimation of prominent dead people. At the intersection of these phenomena lies what we call “cultural necromancy,” a special case of hegemonic incorporation that aesthetically manipulates the physical presence of a deceased figure in the service of power. This essay explores historical analogues to cultural necromancy and how the digital age has accelerated the process through examples ranging from medieval saints (...) to Lenin’s mausoleum to the Tupac hologram. It then examines cultural necromancy’s implications for counterculture and resistance. (shrink)

Hume believes that distinctively moral sentiments can only be felt from a disinterested perspective. While much scholarly attention has been paid to the question of how Hume believes we “correct” our moral sentiments to form a coherent moral language, less has been paid to the question of why we first adopt this disinterested vantage point. Answering this question involves determining what, for Hume, enables our disinterested point of view to influence us despite the fact that the sentiments produced by our (...) parochial vantage points are originally stronger. I term this the “influence question.” I contend that Hume has two answers to this question: one in the Treatise and one in the second Enquiry. While the former is based upon our ability to share sentiments with others via sympathy, the latter holds that our disinterested vantage point enables us to found the “party of humankind” upon the universal principle of humanity. I argue that Hume saw this latter answer as rectifying a certain deficiency in his Treatise explanation and that his later answer supports Hume’s aim of demonstrating that morality is a fundamentally social phenomenon. (shrink)

The rise of populism and nationalism in the West have raised concerns about the fragility of liberal political values, chief among them tolerance. But what alternative social resources exist for cultivating the interpersonal relationships and mutual goodwill necessary for sustainable peace? And how might the lived practices of religious communities carry potential to reinterpret or re-circuit these interpersonal tensions and transform the relationship with the cultural "other" (Fremde) from "foe" (Feind) to "friend" (Freund)? This volume contributes a unique analysis of (...) this shifting discourse by viewing the contemporary socio-political upheaval through the lens of Friedrich Schleiermacher's theology, with a focus on the themes of friendship, interpersonal subjectivity, and sociability as a path beyond mere tolerance. Each of the essays of the volume is written by an internationally recognized scholar in the field, and the volume examines Schleiermacher's novel reflections across multiple social contexts, including North America, Great Britain, western Europe, and South Africa. As these essays demonstrate, the implications of this conversation continue to resound in contemporary religious communities and political discourse. (shrink)

In June 2020, representatives of eight photography organizations addressed ongoing challenges to the industry by introducing the “Photo Bill of Rights,” asserting “the rights of all lens-based workers and defining actions that build a safer, healthier, more inclusive, and transparent industry.” The bill centers what “lens-based workers” are owed by the media organizations that employ them. This study analyzes the bill’s contents and the explicit and implicit values within it, finding that the bill presents a normative view of the work (...) environment lens-based workers should expect as a baseline. In so doing, the bill connects what lens-based workers owe their respective publics to what their employers owe those same workers. The bill highlights the enabling environment that these workers need to satisfy their obligations to the public. The bill reminds employers of their duty to create an equitable environment that can enable the fulfillment of public responsibility. (shrink)

Plato’s Republic is governed by an analogy drawn between the structures of cities and souls. Because the inner workings of souls are difficult to discern, we might better find the soul’s nature and virtues by looking at the city’s nature and virtues. Despite successfully using the analogy to discern the nature of the soul, its virtues, and its proper ordering, the Republic frequently obscures the very analogy that functions as its guiding thread, and it is not at all obvious whether (...) the political material in Books V–VII has a psychological correlate. This essay develops a psychological reading of key moments in the dialogue where the city-soul analogy fades in favor of more apparently political content. Focusing on the Allegory of the Cave, it argues that when the Cave is read as a “psychic drama,” it discloses reason’s drama within the soul. Like the freed prisoner, reason must be liberated from imprisonment alongside the sub-rational elements of the soul so that it may see the truth by which it can be nourished. However, reason must also descend, like the prisoner, to the sub-rational elements of the soul in order to care for them, for its own sake and for theirs. Read this way, the Republic presents an account of reason which rules the passions in the “precise sense” of Book I, that is, for their sake, and not simply for its own liberation and well-being. (shrink)

Experimental tests about cross-cultural differentiation of cognitive style conclude that East Asian and Western cognition differ. Tendencies described as East Asian include holism, non-linearity, expectation of change, relationalism, field dependence, causal pluralism, dialecticism, and a tolerance of contradiction. Cross-cultural psychologists generally refrain from discussing the intellectual history or cultural evolution of these differences, preferring to explain results on cognitive scales in terms of results on social scales assessed using present-day participants. The present article attempts to partially close this explanatory gap (...) through detailed discussion of tendencies of East Asian cognitive style as represented in what is probably the most influential book in the history of East Asia, The Book of Changes. This study purports to show that the content of the Yijing 易經 and its commentaries is best described in terms of the cognitive tendencies just mentioned, that reading the Yijing activated those cognitive tendencies, and that the Yijing attained prodigious influence on subsequent Chinese and East Asian cultures through four known mechanisms of cultural transmission. Informed by this case study, researchers of cross-cultural cognition may be positioned to develop a richer appreciation of the cultural representation and evolution of East Asian cognitive style in historical context. (shrink)

Rethinking Cooperation with Evil advances the theological conversation on this topic from both speculative and practical vantage points. To facilitate his argument, Connors utilizes historical analyses that contrast Aquinas's method of moral reasoning with that of the casuist treatment of cooperation. Consequently, the book includes numerous case studies that will be of interest both to moral theologians and readers new to the topic.

This article considers the capacity of the military body to appropriate various modes of power, personnel and material, in terms of the tache. In particular we examine the (post)colonial military body, especially in Southeast Asia, and its intimate relations to the detachment of the colonial state from the colonial body and attachment to the global regimes of Cold War and neo-liberal post Cold War processes. We do so through a wide range of ‘texts’– including a Conrad novella, a Singaporean documentary (...) series, transformers (toys), and international money laundering – in which the defining logic that the (post)colonial military body deploys is its capacity to attach and detach at will. A series of related and homologous attachments and detachments proceed from this capacity: the power of sovereignty, the generation and circulation of capital, and the transformation of the colonial military body into the postcolonial military body. However, it is also the logic of this empowering connectivity that imposes intractable limits on the desire for ultimate control, as the tache always indicates something beyond the corpus, something outside the locus of control. (shrink)

A renewed focus on the role of interpersonal relationships in the cultivation of religious sensibilities is emerging in the study of religion. Matthew Ryan Robinson addresses this question in his study of Friedrich Schleiermacher's notion of "free sociability." In Schleiermacher's ethics, the human person is formed in and consists of intimate, tightly interconnecting relationships with others. Schleiermacher describes this sociability as a natural tendency prompted by experiences of physical and existential limitation that lead one to look to others to (...) complete one's experience. But this experience of incompleteness and orientation to "the completion of humanity" also constitute the fundamental structure of religion in Schleiermacher's theory of religion as orientation to "the universe and the relationship of humanity to it." Thus, Schleiermacher not only presents sociability as basic to human nature, but also as inherently religious - and, potentially, redemptive. What making such a claim means and the implications it raises are central considerations of this study of Schleiermacher's ethics, theory of religion and ecclesiology. (shrink)

Ryan, Jennie A current search of reliable internet sources gives the present number of recognised major world religions as somewhere between twenty two and twenty five. These religions have approximately 6.9 billion adherents. Recent meta-analysis of a range of surveys into non-belief in 'God' has reported that between 7% and 10% of the world's population identifies as non-theistic . Out of the top fifty countries with the largest percentage of self-professed atheists, , close to 80% are developed, democratic, mostly (...) European countries, with high standards of public healthcare and accessible food, water and housing. (shrink)

Translation of the death scene from Phaedo by Plato.

Issues-driven shareholder activism suggests that specific issue characteristics brought by shareholders, a group to which firms are obligated to respond, interact in a way that affects the materiality of the issue in the eyes of the modern corporation. Relevant issue characteristics include: issue type, social significance, and issue life cycle stage.

Michael Ryan (d. 1840) remains one of the most mysterious figures in the history of medical ethics, despite the fact that he was the only British physician during the middle years of the 19th century to write about ethics in a systematic way. Michael Ryan’s Writings on Medical Ethics offers both an annotated reprint of his key ethical writings, and an extensive introductory essay that fills in many previously unknown details of Ryan’s life, analyzes the significance of (...) his ethical works, and places him within the historical trajectory of the field of medical ethics. (shrink)

Over the last 20 years, organizations have attempted numerous innovations to create more openness and to increase ethical practice. However, adult students in business classes report that managers are generally bureaucratically oriented and averse to constructive criticism or principled dissent. When organizations oppose dissent, they suffer the consequences of mistakes that could be prevented and they create an unethical and toxic environment for individual employees. By distinguishing principled dissent from other forms of criticism and opposition, managers and leaders can perceive (...) the dissenter as an important organizational voice and a valued employee. The dissenter, like the whistleblower, is often highly ethically motivated and desires to contribute to the organization’s wellbeing. Recognizing and protecting principled dissent provides the means of transforming organizations. By restoring dignity to the individual, organizations gain more productive and loyal employees, and they create an environment that promotes critical thinking, learning, and a commitment to ethics. (shrink)

What is a language? What do scientific grammars tell us about the structure of individual languages and human language in general? What kind of science is linguistics? These and other questions are the subject of Ryan M. Nefdt's Language, Science, and Structure. -/- Linguistics presents a unique and challenging subject matter for the philosophy of science. As a special science, its formalisation and naturalisation inspired what many consider to be a scientific revolution in the study of mind and language. (...) Yet radical internal theory change, multiple competing frameworks, and issues of modelling and realism have largely gone unaddressed in the field. Nefdt develops a structural realist perspective on the philosophy of linguistics which aims to confront the aforementioned topics in new ways while expanding the outlook toward new scientific connections and novel philosophical insights. On this view, languages are real patterns which emerge from complex biological systems. Nefdt's exploration of this novel view will be especially valuable to those working in formal and computational linguistics, cognitive science, and the philosophies of science, mathematics, and language. (shrink)

More than a quarter of the global population of two billion children live in Islamic countries; therefore, their protection is vital while a handful of them are suffering from lack of hygiene, education, and poverty. The current armed conflict in different ways also has an effect and seriously impacts children as victims and associates in armed groups. Organization of Islamic Conference as a collective voice of its 57 members, initiated a series of efforts in this regard. Islamic texts and traditions (...) show significant importance for child protection, but what has been done until today by OIC as a main intergovernmental Organization guided by Islamic principles, values and norms, is not sufficient. Covenant on the Rights of the Child in Islam is the first human rights binding document adopted by OIC as part of consecutive efforts of OIC to promote protection of children. Although it is regarded as an important step, its adequacy for protection of children affected by armed conflicts is under question. Furthermore, in comparison to International Humanitarian Law and Convention on the Rights of the Child, it does not reflect proportionately and further provisions for children affected, with regard to the extent and the dimensions of conflicts in Islamic countries. (shrink)

_The Logical Reconstruction of the World (Aufbau) is one of the major works of Rudolf Carnap in which he attempts to put an end to some of the traditional disputes in epistemology by using what he calls 'construction theory'. In this paper, I shall try to show that the traditional dualist-monist debates are among those disputes that the construction theory aims to get rid of. I will show that Carnap's position on the mind-body problem is really close to what Davidson (...) later termed as 'anomalous monism' and that this is why Carnap fails to complete his logical construction at a crucial step. (edited). (shrink)

Functionalism argues that since any mental state can be realized by different physical systems, it is therefore wrong to define or identify a mental state of an organism by the corresponding physical-chemical state of its body . In this paper, I argue that since a single mental state can also be realized in different functional patterns, multiple realizability creates the same problem for functionalism. This means that it is wrong to implicitly define a mental state by its causal role in (...) an interconnected network of inputs, outputs and internal states. It is discussed that the functionalists’ responses to this criticism are as plausible as the physicalists’ responses to the problem. It is concluded that in dealing with the multiple realizability problem, functionalism has no advantage over its rival, type physicalism. (shrink)