Malebranche’s characterization of the human condition appears to generate a problem. While his metaphysics and his conception of man and man’s place in nature appear to preclude the possibility that we could ever be responsible for anything—much less for our passions—he insists that we are. Consequently, many commentators (both past and present) have argued that Malebranche is committed to an untenable, if not inconsistent, position. In this paper I argue that careful consideration of Malebranche’s account of the passions and the (...) various means, methods, and strategies one might employ in order to control them reveals that these charges—charges that might well be justified with respect to contemporary pre-theoretical views of the emotions—are mistaken. (shrink)

Entre 1829 et 1839, le mathématicien américain Nathaniel Bowditch (1773-1838) publie quatre volumes de la Mécanique Céleste by the Marquis de Laplace, translated with a commentary. Il s’agit d’une traduction de l’astronomie mathématique de Pierre Simon de Laplace parue en France entre 1799 et 1825 et assortie d’un commentaire explicatif. L’ouvrage américain est alors distribué en France comme aucune autre production savante américaine ne l’est au cours du xixe siècle. Cet article cherche à redonner à ce texte la (...) place qui est la sienne dans le cadre des échanges mathématiques franco-américains au xixe siècle orientés des États-Unis vers la France, un sens de transfert des savoirs négligé ou minoré par l’historiographie. Sur le plan intellectuel, il étudie la réception de l’ouvrage auprès des savants français et souligne combien l’auteur américain répond aux manques et aux difficultés du texte d’origine. Sur le terrain matériel, il montre comment les passeurs de sciences, intermédiaires non scientifiques, essentiels dans la transmission du texte entre les mondes savants de Boston et Paris, sont progressivement remplacés par les professionnels de l’édition. (shrink)

The Morality of Spin explores the ethics of political rhetoric crafted to persuade and possibly manipulate potential voters. Based on extensive insider interviews with leaders of Focus on the Family, one of the most powerful Christian right organizations in America, Nathaniel Klemp asks whether the tactic of tailoring a message to a particular audience is politically legitimate or amounts to democratic malpractice. Klemp’s nuanced assessment, highlighting both democratic vices and virtues of the political rhetoric, provides a welcome contribution to (...) recent scholarship on deliberative democracy, rhetoric, and the growing empirical literature on the American Christian right. (shrink)

A divide exists in the creativity literature as to whether relatively more or less executive processing is beneficial to creative thinking. To explore this issue, we employ an individual differences perspective informed by dual-process theories in which it is assumed that people vary in the extent to which they rely on autonomous or controlled processing . We find that those more willing and/or able to engage Type 2 processing are more likely to successfully make creative connections in tasks requiring the (...) unification of disparate elements and the novelty of generated items, but not in some other indices of creativity, namely, cognitive flexibility and fluency. Implications for the role of executive processing in creative thinking are discussed in the context of DPTs. We situate the ability to make remote connections alongside other advanced higher order thinking capabilities that are unique to humans. (shrink)

This paper explores Aristotle ’s discussion in the Nicomachean Ethics of the relation between the rational and nonrational parts of the soul to make sense of his claim that “we cannot be fully good without prudence [practical wisdom], or prudent without virtue of character.” The significance of this interpretive project for an understanding of the Nicomachean Ethics as a whole cannot be understated. While Aristotle ’s conception of human excellence clearly incorporates both cognitive and conative capacities – which he calls (...) virtues of the intellect and virtues of character –, Aristotle ’s commitment to the biconditional relation between these capacities is less obvious. It follows that to understand his account of either form of virtue is to understand both, as well as the ways in which they are related. By attending to his account of the process through which an ethically undeveloped human being becomes a virtuous person, I approach this interpretive challenge from an angle too often neglected by contemporary readers of Aristotle. Although the Nicomachean Ethics contains no sustained treatment of the virtuous person’s development through time, the text is rich with materials that emerge in a variety of contexts and indicate the extent to which the very possibility of virtue itself depends on how one is brought up. By attending to the details of the developmental story, we will put ourselves in a much better position both to make sense of Aristotle ’s characterization of the fully developed virtuous person,, and to respond to the interpretive challenges articulated above. (shrink)

This article examines the change which occurred in discussions of cultural transmission between the Enlightenment and the liberal outlook of the nineteenth century. The former is exemplified mainly by eighteenth-century historical discussions, the latter by the thought of Alexis de Tocqueville. An interest in the influence of advanced Western cultures on seemingly inferior non-Western societies was consistent throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was manifested mainly in discussions of the barbarian conquest of the Roman Empire on the one hand, (...) and of European colonial policies on the other. The sources discussed here evinced a clear Eurocentric chauvinism, yet were inherently non-racial in nature. While many Enlightenment intellectuals retained a generally positive view of cultural transmission, Tocqueville's post-revolutionary outlook was more pessimistic. (shrink)

In 1847, Johanne Luise Heiberg, a thirty-year old Danish actress and friend of Søren Kierkegaard, performed the role of Juliet in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in the Copenhagen theatre. She had played Juliet once before, aged 16, and it was this first performance which helped to launch her prestigious career. The 1847 performance prompted Kierkegaard to write an article for the newspaper Fædrelandet , called 'The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress' under the name of Inter (...) et Inter. Its publication contradicted Kierkegaard’s resolve to cease his literary authorship and to write directly under his own name as a religious author. This essay shows what was at stake for Kierkegaard in publishing 'The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress' and its pivotal status for him both as a writer and a Christian. Both ‘crises’ of the title refer to a metamorphosis as a return to ‘the beginning’ effected through a series of elliptical characters: the actress, Juliet, Inter et Inter, Kierkegaard himself and the reader. Kierkegaard’s commentary on Frau Heiberg’s performance of Juliet brings together categories of repetition and anxiety in order to understand how “the metamorphosis of the actress” is effected as a return to the 'beginning', mirroring Kierkegaard's own transition from 'literary' to 'religious' writer and ultimately reflecting back on the reader’s own condition as existing individual. (shrink)

In previous work I argued that purely probabilistic accounts of what it takes to promote a desire are mistaken. This is because, I argued, there are desires that it is possible to promote but impossible to probabilistically promote. In a recent article critical of my account, Joshua DiPaolo and Jeffrey Behrends articulate a methodological principle -- Check the Neighborhood -- and claim that respecting this principle rescues pure probabilism from my argument. In this reply, I accept the methodological principle and (...) show that, despite rendering the original argument invalid, there remains a neighboring argument against purely probabilistic accounts of promotion. (shrink)

One of the many senses of the word spirituality—surely one of the vaguest words in the modern English language—is that of a special quality of life, a sublime fulfillment that somehow transcends the vicissitudes of fortune. According to this sense, spiritual people experience life as having such abundance of value or meaning that they can endure great hardship and tragedy without coming to despair. This abiding fullness and the equanimity it provides are perhaps the greatest prize of the spiritual life.Spiritual (...) fulfillment was once claimed as the special reward of religion, but no longer. In late modernity "spiritual but not religious" has become a commonplace self-description, and presumably this concept of .. (shrink)

Reason is precariously positioned in the Critique of Pure Reason. The Transcendental Analytic leaves no entry for reason in the cognitive process, and the Transcendental Dialectic restricts reason to noncognitive roles. Yet, in the Appendix to the Transcendental Dialectic, Kant contends that the ideas of reason can be used in empirical investigation and eventually knowledge acquisition. Given what Kant has said, how is this possible? Kant attempts to answer this in A663–A666/B691–B694 in the Appendix, where he argues that principles of (...) reason “have objective but indeterminate validity.” In Part I of this paper, I explain the full motivation behind this section. In Part II, I provide an exegesis of it. In particular, to reach his conclusion that principles of reason have objective but indeterminate validity, I interpret Kant as making three arguments from analogy. Finally, in Part III, I show that the first and third arguments fail—and what this means for Kant’s project. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.3 (2000) 415-432 [Access article in PDF] Christiaan Huygens's Attitude toward Animals Nathaniel Wolloch The debate on the status of animals has interested people since ancient times. In the early modern era this debate reached one of its most historically important and sedulous stages, drawing the attention of some of the most famous minds in Europe. Curiously enough, the historiography of this (...) debate has failed to take cognizance of the part played in it by the famous Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens (1629-95), renowned for his invention of the pendulum clock, founding of the wave theory of light, and discovery of the true shape of the rings of Saturn, to name only a few of his prolific and varied activities. 1 While Huygens's contribution does not occupy a historically central part in this debate, which did not usually directly engross his attention, it is possible, based on some of his writings and activities, to piece together a picture of his general attitude toward animals. Such a study, as presented here, reveals more than anecdotal importance, since it both entails and affords an enlightening discussion of the connection between philosophy, science, and the treatment of animals, a discussion, moreover, which is relevant to the understanding not only of the early modern debate on animals, but also to the current debate of this issue. [End Page 415]One of the most prevalent features of the development of the attitude toward animals has been the recurrence of anthropocentric arguments. Such arguments were exhibited both by theriophiles (lovers of animals) and anti-theriophiles. 2 A significant instance of this is the recurring argument that harming animals is not bad in itself but rather because it might lead to the harming or corruption of human beings. While such an approach in effect states that those who are kind to animals would also be kind to human beings, it also implies that cruelty toward animals is excusable if committed to advance good causes, such as science and medicine. 3 Such anthropocentric views ultimately derive from both classical culture and philosophy, and especially the notion, rooted in biblical cosmology, according to which all of nature was given to man for his use by God, i.e., man was given the stewardship of nature. 4Theriophilic views which tend to regard animals as sentient beings in their own right became relatively common in early modern times. The most influential of these theriophiles was Michel de Montaigne, known for his love and praise [End Page 416] of animals, 5 and among the many theriophiles influenced by his views one of the most important was his disciple Pierre Charron. 6However, the most influential early modern view of animals, which became the main reference-point for the debate on animals, was anti-theriophilic. This was the Cartesian theory of the "beast-machine," which viewed animals as mere automata, devoid of an immortal soul as possessed by human beings; they were regarded as devoid of mind, and their behavior was compared to that of a clock. Descartes himself seems to have been rather agnostic regarding this issue. He did not deny animals some capacity for feeling but claimed that it was more probable they were senseless automata than beings with souls like human beings. 7 However, while many theriophiles attacked the beast-machine theory, its anti-theriophilic implications were developed and radicalized by various seventeenth-century Cartesians beyond what Descartes himself probably intended. The most prominent example of this was the leading Cartesian Nicolas Malebranche. The French intellectual Bernard Le Bovier, sieur de Fontenelle, related how he saw Malebranche, a generally kind man, kick a pregnant bitch, and when confronted with his (Fontenelle's) alarm, regarded this act as inconsequential, claiming that she did not feel a thing. 8 As cruel as the beast-machine [End Page 417] theory may seem, however, one should remember that it tried to explain away the suffering of animals. It implied that had such suffering been proven to exist, it would have required moral consideration. The views of Spinoza... (shrink)

Permissivism is the view that sometimes an agent's total evidential state entails both that she is epistemically permitted to believe that P and that she is epistemically permitted to believe that Q, where P and Q are contradictories. Uniqueness is the denial of Permissivism. Permissivism has recently come under attack on several fronts. If these attacks are successful, then we may be forced to accept an unwelcome asymmetry between epistemic and practical rationality. In this essay I clarify the debate by (...) distinguishing two versions of Permissiveness and Uniqueness. I then respond to several recent challenges to Permissivism in an attempt to even the score between Permissivism and Uniqueness. I will also respond to a worry – arising out of my discussion – that a defense of Permissivism itself introduces an unwelcome asymmetry between epistemic and practical rationality. (shrink)

The philosopher Roberto Unger and the physicist Lee Smolin have recently argued that the current explanatory framework of cosmology, which presumes a timeless background of unchanging physical laws, should be replaced by a thoroughly relational framework in which time is fundamental and all laws are subject to change. Within this alternative framework, however, Unger and Smolin find themselves confronted by a dilemma: either the laws of nature evolve according to some higher set of “meta-laws,” which reinstates a timeless background at (...) a higher level, or the laws of nature evolve randomly and the path of inquiry is blocked. In response to this dilemma, the authors propose a theory of causal events as singular, freely chosen, and self-determined optimalities constrained only by their intrinsic relations to all other events. (shrink)

Radical contextualists have observed that the content of what is said by the utterance of a sentence is shaped in far-reaching ways by the context of utterance. And they have argued that the ways in which the content of what is said is shaped by context cannot be explained by semantic theory. A striking number of the examples that radical contextualists use to support their view involve sentences containing color adjectives ("red", "green", etc.). In this paper, I show how the (...) most sophisticated analysis of color adjectives within the explanatory framework of compositional truth conditional semantics—recently developed by Kennedy and McNally (Synthese 174(1): 79-98 2010)—needs to be modified to handle the full range of contextual variation displayed by color adjectives. (shrink)

Philip Pettit has argued that all semantically basic terms are learned in response to ostended examples and all non-basic terms are defined via them. Michael Smith and Daniel Stoljar maintain that this “global response-dependence” entails noumenalism, the thesis that reality possesses an unknowable, intrinsic nature. Surprisingly Pettit acknowledges this, contending instead that his noumenalism, like Kant’s, can be construed ontologically or epistemically. Moreover, Pettit insists, construing his noumenalism epistemically renders it unproblematic. The article shows that construing noumenalism epistemically prevents Pettit (...) from knowing whether members of different communities respond to different properties in the world or the same properties differently. Pettit then faces a trilemma. He can construe noumenalism ontologically and confront Smith and Stoljar’s charge. He can construe noumenalism epistemically and confront the author’s charge. Or he can reject global response-dependence. After explaining why Pettit should choose the middle horn, the article closes with lessons about global response-dependence generally. (shrink)

Recent defenders of metaethical constructivism (like Christine Korsgaard, Sharon Street, Aaron James, and Carla Bagnoli) argue that this view can be shown to represent a new, free-standing alternative to familiar approaches in metaethics. If they are correct, traditional discussions in metaethics have overlooked an important position, one that is supposed to adequately explain the nature of our ethical thinking and practice while avoiding the kinds of objections that traditional views struggle with. However, what form constructivism should take and whether constructivists (...) can make good on this ambitious claim remains extremely controversial. This article starts out with a brief account of the origins of contemporary discussions of constructivism. It then moves on to canvass the main motivations and arguments for constructivism along with the various ways in which the view has been interpreted. In the second half of the article, it introduces a serious challenge to the ambitious claim that constructivism represents a new, free-standing approach in metaethics and concludes by entertaining a very recent proposal that this challenge might overlook. (shrink)

Twentieth-century developments in logic and mathematics have led many people to view Euclid’s proofs as inherently informal, especially due to the use of diagrams in proofs. In _Euclid and His Twentieth-Century Rivals_, Nathaniel Miller discusses the history of diagrams in Euclidean Geometry, develops a formal system for working with them, and concludes that they can indeed be used rigorously. Miller also introduces a diagrammatic computer proof system, based on this formal system. This volume will be of interest to mathematicians, (...) computer scientists, and anyone interested in the use of diagrams in geometry. (shrink)

A number of philosophers have claimed that non-evidential considerations cannot play a role in doxastic deliberation as motivating reasons to believe a proposition. This claim, interesting in its own right, naturally lends itself to use in a range of arguments for a wide array of substantive philosophical theses. I argue, by way of a counterexample, that the claim to which all these arguments appeal is false. I then consider, and reply to, seven objections to my counterexample. Finally, as a way (...) of softening the blow, I show how the counterexample itself suggests a plausible diagnosis of why this claim has seemed so plausible to so many. (shrink)

In July 2015, shortly after the murder of an elderly priest in the city of Rouen, the leading French daily Le Monde announced it would no longer publish the names or images of individuals involved in acts of terrorism. The decision, wrote the editors, was intended to limit the "posthumous glorification" of terrorist acts. It was not the first time the notion of conscientious self-censorship in the fight against terrorism had bubbled to the fore. The strategy had been flowing through (...) media circles and policy centers for over a decade. By the time the Islamic State emerged in the summer of 2014, it had become nearly impossible for the average Western consumer to hear or see any actual trace of the... (shrink)

ABSTRACTEvidence suggests that older adults experience greater emotional well-being compared to younger adults. Appraisal theories of emotion posit that differences in emotional experience are the...

According to extant versions of epistemic instrumentalism, epistemic reasons are instrumental reasons. Epistemic instrumentalism is unpopular. I think it’s just misunderstood. Rather than saying epistemic reasons are instrumental reasons, epistemic instrumentalists should only say that if there is an epistemic reason, there is also an instrumental reason. This is the view I call ecumenical epistemic instrumentalism. In this paper, I first motivate, next sketch, and finally highlight the advantages of this version of epistemic instrumentalism.

This article conducts a mixed-method content analysis of Chinese and American news media coverage of Google DeepMind’s Go playing computer program, AlphaGo. Drawing on humanistic approaches to artificial intelligence, combined with an empirically rigorous content analysis, it examines the differences and overlap in coverage by the Chinese and American press in their accounts of AlphaGo, and its historic match with Korea’s Lee Sedol in March, 2016. The event was not only followed intensely in China, but also made the front page (...) of The New York Times. This article finds that the Chinese press was more likely than the American press to frame AlphaGo as non-threatening, which the authors attribute to cultural differences and the two countries' different understandings of Go. In addition to quantitatively identifying similarities and differences in the framing of AlphaGo, this paper also investigates the underlying and evolving contestations over what constitutes the “human” and the “machine.” It concludes by discussing the implications of the study’s findings as well as outlining avenues for further research. (shrink)

In several articles, Mumma has presented a formal diagrammatic system Eu meant to give an account of one way in which Euclid's use of diagrams in the Elements could be formalized. However, largely because of the way in which it tries to limit case analysis, this system ends up being inconsistent, as shown here. Eu also suffers from several other problems: it is unable to prove several wide classes of correct geometric claims and contains a construction rule that is probably (...) computationally intractable and that may not even be decidable. (shrink)

Memoirs of a twenty-year relationship between the author and Ayn Rand, who was his friend, mentor, lover, and enemy. No index. No bibliography. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Warne's original study provides an insightful analysis of the role of contemplation and creation in the thought of Josef Pieper, illustrating the importance of this practice to earthly happiness and human flourishing. What is the relationship between creation, contemplation, human flourishing, and moral development? Nathaniel Warne's Josef Pieper on the Spiritual Life offers a sophisticated answer to this question through a systematic analysis of philosopher Josef Pieper's (1904-1997) thought. Warne's examination centers on the role of contemplation and creation in (...) Pieper's thinking, arguing that contemplation of the created order is a key feature of earthly happiness. By emphasizing the importance of contemplation, Pieper illustrates the deep interconnections between ethics, creation, and spirituality. For Warne, to posit a binary between the contemplative life and active life creates a false dichotomy. Following Pieper, Warne claims that theology and spirituality cannot be bracketed from ethics and social action--indeed, our lived experience in the world blurs the lines between these practices. Contemplation and action are closer together than are typically assumed, and both have important implications for both our spiritual development and our engagement with the world around us. Ultimately, Warne's emphasis on creation and contemplation represents an attempt to resist a view of ethics and the spiritual life that is divorced from our environment. In response to this view, Warne argues that we need a renewed sense that creation and place are important for self-understanding. Contemplation of creation is, at bottom, a form of communion with God--we thus need a more robust sense of how ethics and politics are rooted in God's creative action. Taking Pieper as a guide, Warne's study helps to deepen our thinking about these connections. (shrink)

Architecture and the architect, threatened with disappearance, capitulate before the property developer who spends the money. And best of all is finding a place to be in the early years of a better civilisation. As the articles in this special issue on the problematic of architecture and Utopia attest, the final word on the influence of Utopia on architecture, and of the veracity of claims that modern architecture in particular was utopian, is a long way off. Definitions are elusive, as (...) is any real sense of persistent or consistent clarity about what exactly is intended by nominating this or that architecture or city plan utopian. At the very least, the articles that follow are testament to the .. (shrink)

The relationship between Rand and Branden changed over eighteen yaears from student and teacher, to friends, to colleagues, to lovers and finally antagonists.