This major study examines the most fundamental categories in terms of which we conceive of ourselves, critically surveying the concepts of substance, causation, agency, teleology, rationality, mind, body and person, and elaborating the conceptual fields in which they are embedded. The culmination of 40 years of thought on the philosophy of mind and the nature of the mankind Written by one of the world’s leading philosophers, the co-author of the monumental 4 volume _Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations_ Uses broad (...) categories, such as substance, causation, agency and power to examine how we think about ourselves and our nature Platonic and Aristotelian conceptions of human nature are sketched and contrasted Individual chapters clarify and provide an historical overview of a specific concept, then link the concept to ideas contained in other chapters. (shrink)

William James’ argument against William Clifford in The Will to Believe is often understood in terms of doxastic efficacy, the power of belief to influence an outcome. Although that is one strand of James’ argument, there is another which is driven by ampliative risk. The second strand of James’ argument, when applied to scientific cases, is tantamount to what is now called the Argument from Inductive Risk. Either strand of James’ argument is sufficient to rebut Clifford's strong evidentialism and show (...) that it is sometimes permissible to believe in the absence of compelling evidence. However, the two considerations have different scope and force. Doxastic efficacy applies in only some cases but allows any values to play a role in determining belief; risk applies in all cases but only allows particular conditional values to play a role. (shrink)

This article explores three ways in which a cognitively entrenched mindreading (or 'theory of mind') system may bias our thinking as cognitive scientists. One issues in a form of tacit dualism, impacting scientific debates about phenomenal consciousness. Another leads us to think that our own minds are easier to know than they really are, influencing debates about self-knowledge, and about mindreading itself. And the third results in a bias in favour of empiricist over nativist accounts of cognitive development. The discussion (...) throughout is tentative and speculative, and can be regarded as an appeal for caution, as well as a call for further research. (shrink)

Berent (this issue) critiques one of the three main proposals put forward by Carruthers (this issue), who suggests that cognitive scientists are biased against innateness-claims by the tacit assumptions of the mentalizing faculty. Berent proposes, instead, that the bias results from dissonance produced by a conflict between our innate dualism and our innate essentialism. The present response raises a number of difficulties for her argument.

This article reviews the common models of pious women's agency in the literature with respect to pious feminist perceptions in Turkey, and calls for a relational approach to subjectivity and autonomy. After critically assessing individualistic models of pious women's autonomy as well as the main theoretical tenets of Saba Mahmood's landmark study on the women's piety movement in Egypt, I argue that previous models cannot fully explain the second stage of pious subjectivity-formation in the pious feminist narratives in Turkey, which (...) combines habituation with informed choice. In the intersection of applied theory and ethnographic empirical research, my study posits the need for a relational reformulation of these common models that can account for self-constitutive engagement with multiple discursive traditions, and the importance of complex and interrelated webs of relationships. I suggest that Jennifer Nedelsky's relational self and relational autonomy and Kenneth Gergen's relational multi-being might provide a starting point for such an approach. (shrink)

A considerable literature has grown up around the claim of Uniqueness, according to which evidence rationally determines belief. It is opposed to Permissivism, according to which evidence underdetermines belief. This paper highlights an overlooked third possibility, according to which there is no rational doxastic attitude. I call this 'Nihilism'. I argue that adherents of the other two positions ought to reject it but that it might, nevertheless, obtain at least sometimes.

This article, written by a former justice of the Supreme Court of India and chairman of the Press Council of India, describes the media accountability system in India and argues for the global necessity for such systems. It declares the need for free press systems for the survival of democratic institutions and claims that society has an obligation to monitor media systems so they remain free. The alternative will be government regulation, which will suspend the vital characteristics of a free (...) press. A press council, on the other hand, can work more cooperatively with the press to assure responsibility. Global forces make it important for the mass media to explore the virtues inherent in media accountability systems, such as press councils. This article suggests why those systems are increasingly important, proposes structures and functions for such councils, and uses the Press Council of India as an example of a working organization. (shrink)

Entertainments and celebrations are meant to give audiences and participants pleasure. Pleasure and enjoyment are an integral part of flourishing human life, and the desire for pleasure and enjoyment is a distinctive aspect of human nature. Psychological hedonism is a descriptive doctrine concerned with giving an account of actual human motivation. Ethical hedonism is a prescriptive doctrine that advances the view that human beings ought to pursue pleasure and avoid pain, that prospective pleasure and pain are severally the only good (...) reasons for action. ‘Pleasure’, ‘enjoyment’, and ‘being pleased’ are three graces that stand at the intersection of psychology, axiology, and practical reasoning. The relation between pleasure and awareness or consciousness of pleasure is subtle and unlike the corresponding relation to having a pain. To live the life of a practical hedonist is to live a life guided by the pursuit of pleasure. (shrink)

Striving to find a simple characterization of the essence of the imagination, philosophers have argued that it consists in the power to call up before the mind mental images, either in recollection and recognition or in fancy. Wittgenstein's interest in the imagination focused upon six interrelated themes. First, the concept of imagination is associated with the concept of a mental image. Second, imagination is connected in various ways with perception. Third, the faculty of imagination is associated with artistic creativity and (...) no less so with intellectual creativity, with originality, insight and deviation from stock solutions to problems. Fourth, 'to imagine' is connected not only with intellectual creativity, but also more generally with thought, conception or supposition. Fifth, 'to imagine' is associated with false belief, mistaken memory and misperception. Finally, the imagination is connected with make‐believe, pretence, play‐acting or idle fancy. The multitude of grammatical similarities between the visual imagination and visual perception is deceptive. (shrink)

Upshot: Time constraints, locked curriculums, strict management, and possible anarchy in the classroom are some of the themes that originated from the commentaries. I argue that these challenges should be viewed holistically in the broader picture. I also question the educator’s role in mitigating these obstacles. My advice: Do it anyway.

This chapter contains sections titled: Background The Tractatus The role of the Tractatus in the history of analytic philosophy The collapse of the Tractatus vision The Philosophical Investigations Philosophy of language Philosophy of mind The critique of metaphysics and nature of philosophy Wittgenstein's place in postwar analytic philosophy Notes Bibliography.

The physical world consists of relatively enduring objects that exist in an objective spatiotemporal framework, that consist of matter of one kind or another, and that interact with each other in physical processes and events. In the course of his reflections on the idea of a private language, and more generally in his ruminations on psychology and the philosophy of psychology, Wittgenstein subjected the traditional philosophical picture to critical scrutiny. In every respect he found it a distortion of grammar in (...) the flawed mirror of metaphysics. The concept of pain‐location is parasitic on the concept of the sufferer from pain, for the location of a pain is where the sufferer points and where he avows it is. Frege presented the idea that pains (experiences in general) are inalienably owned by the person whose pains or experiences they are as a metaphysical insight into the essential nature of things. (shrink)

In reviewing Ellis' OCT of Catullus, Housman scorned the ‘diction and metre’ of Carm. 64.37, ‘Pharsaliam coeunt, Pharsalia tecta frequentant’. Yet several subsequent editors have agreed with Ellis and have also refrained from emending Pharsaliam. Even if there has not been enough discomfort with the MS reading to put some editors off retaining it, they might yet welcome a piece of positive evidence to support this decision. I will make the case that a passage in Statius' Achilleid may indicate that (...) the later poet was familiar with the line as the MSS have it. (shrink)