This is an illustrated guide to a wonderland of reason where nothing is as it seems, through a maze of mental curiosities and contradictions. It discusses paradoxes of all types--mathematical, logical, scientific, philosophical and more. Though many involve sophisticated concepts and logical reasoning, none requires a highly technical background-knowledge of ordinary language and simple arithmetic will do. Twenty-five stand-alone chapters each present and discuss a different paradox, including: the Barber Paradox; the Crocodile's Dilemma, M. C. Escher's Paradoxes, the Liar Paradox, (...) the Prisoner's Dilemma, the Raven Paradox, Zeno's Paradox, and many others. Each chapter features an end note indicating related paradoxes elsewhere in the book. Includes 118 mind-boggling illustrations, optical illusions and visual acrobatics. (shrink)

In this entertaining and provocative introduction, Royle offers lucid explanations of various key ideas, including deconstruction, undecidability, iterability, differance, aporia, the pharmakon, the supplement, a new enlightenment, and the democracy to come. He also gives attention, however, to a range of less obvious key ideas of Derrida, such as earthquakes, animals and animality, ghosts, monstrosity, the poematic, drugs, gifts, secrets, war, and mourning. Derrida is seen as an extraordinarily inventive thinker, as well as a brilliantly imaginative and often very funny (...) writer. Other critical introductions tend to highlight the specifically philosophical nature and genealogy of his work. Royle's book proceeds in a new and different way, in particular by focusing on the crucial but strange place of literature in Derrida's writings. He thus provides an appreciation and understanding based on detailed reference to Derrida's texts, interwoven with close readings of such writers as Shakespeare, Coleridge, P.B. Shelley, Poe, Emily Brontë, Franz Kafka and Elizabeth Bowen. In doing so, he explores Derrida's consistent view that deconstruction is "a coming-to-terms with literature". He emphasizes the ways in which "literature", for Derrida, is indissociably bound up with other concerns, such as philosophy and psychoanalysis, politics and ethics, responsibility and justice, law and democracy. (shrink)

Here, I combine the semantics of Mares and Goldblatt [20] and Seki [29, 30] to develop a semantics for quantified modal relevant logics extending ${\bf B}$. The combination requires demonstrating that the Mares–Goldblatt approach is apt for quantified extensions of ${\bf B}$ and other relevant logics, but no significant bridging principles are needed. The result is a single semantic approach for quantified modal relevant logics. Within this framework, I discuss the requirements a quantified modal relevant logic must satisfy to be (...) “sufficiently classical” in its modal fragment, where frame conditions are given that work for positive fragments of logics. The roles of the Barcan formula and its converse are also investigated. (shrink)

Presumption is a remarkably versatile and pervasively useful resource. Firmly grounded in the law of evidence from its origins in classical antiquity, it made its way in the days of medieval scholasticism into the theory and practice of disputation and debate. Subsequently, it extended its reach to play an increasingly significant role in the philosophical theory of knowledge. It has thus come to represent a region where lawyers, debaters, and philosophers can all find some common around. In Presumption and the (...) Practices of Tentative Cognition, Nicholas Rescher endeavors to show that the process of presumption plays a role of virtually indispensable utility in matters of rational inquiry and communication. The origins of presumption may lie in law, but its importance is reinforced by its service to the theory of information management and philosophy. (shrink)

Enkrasia and the Fixed Point Thesis are equivalent.

I argue that inquiry can be defined without reference to the attitudes inquirers have during inquiry. Inquiry can instead be defined by its aim: it is the activity that has the aim of answering a question. I call this approach to defining inquiry a “naive” account. I present the naive account of inquiry in contrast to a prominent contemporary account of inquiry most notably defended by Jane Friedman. According to this view of inquiry, which I call an attitude-centric view, inquiry (...) is appropriately defined not by the aim of the activity but by the attitudes that inquirers have during inquiry. After developing the naive view, I defend it against the objection that it collapses into the attitude-centric view. (shrink)

Given the growing prominence of nudge economics both within and beyond the academy, it is a timely moment to reassess the philosophical and political arguments that sit at its core, and in particular what Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein call libertarian paternalism. The first half of this paper provides a detailed account of the main features of this form of paternalism, before moving, in the second half, to a critical evaluation of the nudge agenda that questions, among other things, the (...) gendered basis of paternalistic governance; the idea of ‘nudging for good’; and the political values that underpin nudge. The final section of this paper builds on the existing work of John McMahon by asking whether libertarian paternalism should be understood as a new, hybrid form of neoliberalism, or, rather, as a post-neoliberal form of governance that has emerged out of, and flourished in, the post-crisis situation. (shrink)

While Mindfulness-Based Interventions (MBIs) have been shown to be effective for a range of patient populations and outcomes, a question remains as to the role of common therapeutic factors, as opposed to the specific effects of mindfulness practice, in contributing to patient improvements. This project used a mixed-method design to investigate the contribution of specific (mindfulness practice-related) and common (instructor and group related) therapeutic factors to client improvements within an MBI. Participants with mild-severe depression (N= 104; 73% female,Mage = 40.28) (...) participated in an 8-week MBI. Specific therapeutic factors (formal out-of-class meditation minutes and informal mindfulness practice frequency) and social common factors (instructor and group ratings) were entered into multilevel growth curve models to predict changes in depression, anxiety, stress, and mindfulness at six timepoints from baseline to 3-month follow-up. Qualitative interviews with participants provided rich descriptions of how instructor and group related factors played a role in therapeutic trajectories. Findings indicated that instructor ratings predicted changes in depression and stress, group ratings predicted changes in stress and self-reported mindfulness, and formal meditation predicted changes in anxiety and stress, while informal mindfulness practice did not predict client improvements. Social common factors were stronger predictors of improvements in depression, stress, and self-reported mindfulness than specific mindfulness practice-related factors. Qualitative data supported the importance of relationships with instructor and group members, involving bonding, expressing feelings, and instilling hope. Our findings dispel the myth that MBI outcomes are exclusively the result of mindfulness meditation practice, and suggest that social common factors may account for much of the effects of these interventions. Further research on meditation should take into consideration the effects of social context and other common therapeutic factors. (shrink)

There is an extensive literature on time travel in both philosophy and physics. Part of the great interest of the topic stems from the fact that reasons have been given both for thinking that time travel is physically possible—and for thinking that it is logically impossible! This entry deals primarily with philosophical issues; issues related to the physics of time travel are covered in the separate entries on time travel and modern physics and time machines. We begin with the definitional (...) question: what is time travel? We then turn to the major objection to the possibility of backwards time travel: the Grandfather paradox. Next, issues concerning causation are discussed—and then, issues in the metaphysics of time and change. We end with a discussion of the question why, if backwards time travel will ever occur, we have not been visited by time travellers from the future. (shrink)

Eclipse of Grace offers original insights into the roots of modern theology by introducing systematic theologians and Christian ethicists to Hegel through a focus on three of his seminal texts: Phenomenology of Spirit, Science of Logic, and Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion. Presents brilliant and original insights into Hegel’s significance for modern theology Argues that, theologically, Hegel has been misconstrued and that much more can be gained by focusing on the logic that he develops out of an engagement with (...) Christian doctrines Features an original structure organized as a set of commentaries on individual Hegel texts, and not just presenting overviews of his entire corpus Offers detailed engagement with Hegel’s texts rather than relying on generalizations about Hegelian philosophy Provides an illuminating, accessible and lucid account of the thinking of the major figures in modern German philosophy and theology. (shrink)

Most regard toleration as an unattractive fallback position of compromise and so tend to overlook it in favor of such active concepts as freedom, equality, and justice. Fotion and Elfstrom argue that toleration offers us the useful possibility of responding to a difficult situation with a degree of flexibility not possible with the dichotomous concepts of good-bad, right-wrong, ethical-unethical, Right-Left. Tolerating saturates ordinary human life and infuses public discussions of religion, morality, and politics. It forms a major strand in the (...) history of Western European thought. Yet the word “toleration” and similar terms are rarely used. Unnoticed and unremarked, they are like the air that surrounds us, vitally important yet invisible. The authors seek to address this oversight in several ways. They begin with a thorough conceptual analysis of toleration and its kindred concepts. They are convinced that an appreciation of the importance of the family of toleration concepts must be founded on an understanding of the various ways in which they function in our language and our lives. In addition, they examine the historical development of the concept of toleration and canvass the major arguments people have employed either to urge toleration or to disparage it. They examine the role of toleration in liberal political philosophy and respond to the major critics of liberal toleration. The authors also discuss a number of factors that cause toleration to be overlooked in political debate and personal reflection and offer evidence to support the view that this omission is unfortunate. In particular, they argue that toleration has the crucial role of helping people live with one another with respect and dignity in the fractious and contentious world we inhabit. With the rise of racism and other forms of religious, political, and social intolerance, people on all sides of the present debates concerning multi-culturalism and diversity will benefit from this timely and lucidly argued philosophical discussion of the concepts of toleration and its possible application in a less-than-perfect world. (shrink)

This article deals with a highly debated text, namely 2 Maccabees 12, specifically the problematic verses (38–45) which contain a theology that is distinctly non-Jewish in import. Indeed, most recent scholars concerned with this passage do not seem to be unanimous apropos the best interpretation of the events that are described, resulting in a range of different opinions concerning, inter alia, the afterlife, purgatory and/or doctrinal disputes between Pharisees and Sadducees. By means of an interpretivist or constructivist epistemology, the authors (...) advocate that normally, traditional Judaism emphasises personal, individual responsibility and accountability, whereas in this text God is portrayed as requiring material, financial payment for wrongdoing and not individual תשובה [teshuvah]. This is in contradistinction to, inter alia, Exodus 30:11–16 and theologically Jewish ‘transgression’ has clearly metamorphosed into Christian ‘sin’. In addition, Judas Maccabeus seems to have retained a half-shekel methodology (employed for Jewish men of military age – soldiers) whilst emphasising the ‘atonement for your lives’ from Exodus 30:11–16 in a more literalistic, materialistic, non-Jewish sense whilst de-emphasising the real need to maintain the Temple as well as the proper, traditional rules of תשובה. (shrink)

We provide examples of plurals related to ambiguity and anaphora that pose problems or are counterexamples for current approaches to plurals. We then propose a dynamic semantics based on an extension of dynamic predicate logic to handle these examples. On our theory, different readings of sentences or discourses containing plurals don’t arise from a postulated ambiguity of plural terms or predicates applying to plural DPs, but follow rather from different types of dynamic transitions that manipulate inputs and outputs from formulas (...) or discourse constituents. Many aspects of meaning can affect the type dynamic transitions: the lexical semantics of predicates to the left and right of a transition, and number features of DPs and discourse constraints like parallelism. (shrink)

This volume represents an update of the author's earlier autobiography, Mid-Journey . The addition of three chapters brings the author's life up to 1985. The original autobiography was written at the mid-point of Rescher's professional life as an endeavor in self-definition and self-comprehension. The book's story-line revolves around the author's finding himself in the career of a philosopher, but also details the story of his life.

. Getting and spending. Cultural Values: Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 374-382.

An unusual aspect of Walter Benjamin's work is the provocative way he uses theology in tackling “theoretical” questions. While it is difficult to write about Benjamin without dealing with his relation to the Jewish tradition, in studies of his work surprisingly little attention is paid to theological questions. This is not to ignore the many accounts of Benjamin's interest in the Kabbala, his “theological” writings on language, or his messianic imagery. However, whereas for Benjamin theological concerns are central, this is (...) rarely true of his commentators. While some have confronted Benjamin's theology, until recently this has often been done by…. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Will We be Able to Clone Geniuses? Human Genomics and the Search for Smart Genes Doogie's Downside Nuclear Powered Vacuum Cleaners or Nuclear Bombs A Pragmatic Optimism about Enhancement Technologies.

We can contrast moral relativism, which was discussed in the previous article, with cognitive relativism, which holds that there are no universal truths about the world at all; that the world has no universal characteristics and that there are only different ways of interpreting it. Cognitive relativism is the subject of this article.

This is the third and final volume of A System of Pragmatic Idealism, a series that will synthesize the life's work of the philosopher Nicholas Rescher. Rescher's numerous books and articles, which address almost every major philosophical topic, reflect a unified approach: the combination of pragmatism and idealism characteristic of his thinking throughout his career. The three related but independently readable books of the series present Rescher's system as a whole. In combining leading ideas of European continental idealism and (...) American pragmatism in a new way, Rescher has created an integrated philosophical position in which the central concepts of these two traditions become a coherent totality. The initial volume in the series was dedicated to epistemology, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of nature, while the second dealt with issues of value theory, ethics, and practical philosophy. In Volume III Rescher examines the nature of philosophical inquiry itself, seeking to affirm the classical conception of philosophy as a significant problem-solving enterprise that draws on the whole range of human experience to attempt to resolve the "big questions." Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Choice without preference : the problem of "Buridan's ass" -- Nicholas of Cusa on the Koran : a fifteenth-century encounter with Islam -- On learned ignorance and the limits of knowledge -- Unanswerable questions and insolubilia -- Omniscience and our understanding of God's knowledge -- Issues of infinite regress -- Being qua being -- Nonexistents then and now -- Thomism : past, present, and future -- Respect for tradition and the Catholic philosopher today.

This volume sets out to reverse the neglect.

The article urges a negative answer to the question if values merely lie ‘‘in the eyes of the beholder’’. It argues the objectivity of values via their status as tertiary properties that are neither on dispositionally inherent in their objects nor yet affective (dispositionally evoked in the interaction between objects and sense–observers), but rather reflective in being dispositionally evoked in suitably competent minds considering the matters involved.