This publication arises in a context in which policy makers and educational researchers are increasingly vocal in their demands that educational policy and prac.

Two inter-linked theses are defended in this paper. One is the Duhemian theme that a rigid distinction between physical and chemical properties cannot be upheld. Duhem maintained this view not because the latter are reducible to the former, but because if physics is to remain consistent with chemistry it must prove possible to expand it to accommodate new features, and a rigid distinction would be a barrier to this process. The second theme is that naturally occurring isotopic variants of water (...) are in fact distinct substances, and naturally occurring samples of water are mixtures of these substances. For most practical purposes it is convenient to treat protium oxide, deuterium oxide, and so on, as the same chemical substance, but to insist on this as a matter of principle would stand in conflict with the first thesis. (shrink)

In their analysis Childress et al. (2023) suggest that withdrawal of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) over a patient’s dissent is not justified by existing ethical arguments. The alternat...

For the first time in the history of civilization, humans have procured the power to rewrite nature's book of life. Following the discovery of CRISPR and other key scientific developments at the dawn of the twenty-first century, humankind has-for better or worse-reached the Rubicon of precise genetic manipulation, which existed only in science fiction until now. Those familiar with genome editing understand its colossal power and potential to become a global transformative agent that surpasses the impact of electricity, the atomic (...) bomb, or the Internet. REWRITING NATURE is an interdisciplinary odyssey through the law, science, and policy of genome editing-the most significant breakthrough of our generation. The volume addresses a critical need to bridge gaps between law, science, and policy, and challenges the conventional, false dichotomy frequently associated with mutually exclusive normative roles for science and law. Through exploration of heuristic inquiries into an array of interdisciplinary fields, the book seeks to ignite thoughtful dialogues about authentic-rather than manufactured or sensationalized-issues raised by the technology. This timely resource is intended for keen audiences focused on venturing beyond the headlines and talking points to develop a deeper understanding of the prospects and challenges of genome editing. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Why is there a Third Critique? The Critique of the Aesthetic Power of Judgment The Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment Conclusion.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Psychiatric Hospitalization—Bridging the Gap Between Respect and ControlPaul P. ChristopherIntroductionThis issue of Narrative Inquiry in Bioethics offers varied and somewhat unique perspectives on the experience of psychiatric hospitalization. This commentary highlights a number of salient themes that emerge from reading these essays and attempts to explore how they relate to the broader academic literature on psychiatric hospitalization, particularly with regard to ethical considerations. In reading these narratives, each several (...) times, I was repeatedly struck by the courage required of the authors, both to share their stories publicly and to endure the challenges that the writing process no doubt demanded of them—revisiting and suspending themselves in deeply emotional and, at times, traumatic experiences in order to share the most compelling narrative. Their hard work clearly paid off—the stories are at once intimate and indelible. Still, in many instances, I found myself wanting to know more; to enter the story and sit with the individual through these events; to ask what they were thinking or feeling in a particular situation; to see and hear the world in which they found themselves. Such is the nature of good story telling—the reader, left with the lingering vision created in his mind, turns over the last page, eagerly hoping for more.Narrative ThemesI. Loss of Autonomy or ControlPerhaps the most notable theme had to do with the loss of control or freedom that followed from hospitalization. On first consideration, it may seem odd that this issue appears so often since patient autonomy constitutes one of the fundamental principles of medical ethics. Only under specific circumstances—e.g., when there is a risk of imminent harm—may autonomy be curtailed, and even then only to the extent that is minimally necessary. Yet, as these narratives highlight, there are a multitude of ways in which psychiatric hospitalization engenders actual or perceived restrictions in freedom (Newton-Howes & Mullen, 2011).Consistent with prior research (Goodwin et al., 1999), many of the authors describe a fear or the actual experience of not being able to leave the hospital freely, even when the admission seems to have been voluntary. For example, one writer worries, “I was so afraid that if I ever went ‘in,’ I would never get ‘out’... I thought I would never taste freedom again... alive.” Another describes:When it came time for my possible discharge they told me that I might not get discharged because I was ‘acting up the previous evenings.’ My anxiety level at this point went through the roof. The only reason I was discharged was because my father knew some politicians. If not [End Page 29] for him I would have been a patient there for perhaps years and my life would have been ruined.A third gives this example: “When I asked to sign the form to leave after three days, [the psychiatrist] told me if I did that she would have me committed.” Another writer fears not having any control of how the psychiatrist might approach the treatment: “... I was totally vulnerable... would the doctors blame me, drug me, shock me, kill me?”Somewhat surprising, however, was the fact that so few of the narratives take issue with the decision to hospitalize. This omission is especially striking in light of the fact that prior reports consistently note that a substantial minority (up to nearly half) of voluntarily admitted patients nevertheless experience their admission as coerced (Bonsack & Borgeat, 2005; Hiday et al., 1997; Katsakou et al., 2010; Rogers et al., 1993; Sheehan & Burns, 2011). Because many of these narrators had been hospitalized more than once, the relative absence of expressed resistance to being hospitalized seems strange, particularly when earlier hospital experiences or their aftermath are often described as negative. For example, one individual characterized the time after being released from the hospital as, “My sense of self was questioned. I felt as if I lost my soul.” Another put it this way:When I got out of the private hospital, I felt like my soul had been ripped out of me. I felt like I had a gaping hole in the center of my body... I felt psychically raped, dazed, and confused.Given these... (shrink)

This commentary focuses on the parts of psychological game theory dealing with preference, as illustrated by team reasoning, and supports the conclusion that these theoretical notions do not contribute above and beyond existing theory in understanding social interaction. In particular, psychology and games are already bridged by a comprehensive, formal, and inherently psychological theory, interdependence theory (Kelley & Thibaut 1978; Kelley et al. 2003), which has been demonstrated to account for a wide variety of social interaction phenomena.

An updated version of Plato's Dialogues, this adaptation takes place in contemporary times and is set at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. Through the characters' central discussions of Creationist and Materialist theories of evolution, together with their moral and social implications and ramifications, the author defines philosophy and science. This fresh approach to complex philosophical subjects will be an interesting supplement to courses in philosophy.

This paper revisits Buridan’s Bridge paradox (Sophismata, chapter 8, Sophism 17), itself close kin to the Liar paradox, a version of which also appears in Bradwardine’s Insolubilia. Prompted by the occurrence of the paradox in Cervantes’s Don Quixote, I discuss and compare four distinct solutions to the problem, namely Bradwardine’s “just false” conception, Buridan’s “contingently true/false” theory, Cervantes’s “both true and false” view, and then the “neither true simpliciter nor false simpliciter” account proposed more recently by Jacquette. All have (...) in common to accept that the Bridge expresses a truth-apt proposition, but only the latter three endorse the transparency of truth. Against some previous commentaries I first show that Buridan’s solution is fully compliant with an account of the paradox within classical logic. I then argue that Cervantes’s insights, as well as Jacquette’s treatment, are both supportive of a dialetheist account, and Jacquette’s in particular of the strict-tolerant account of truth. I defend dialetheist intuitions (whether in LP or ST guise) against two objections: one concerning the future, the other concerning the alleged simplicity of the Bridge compared to the Liar. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Paul Woodruff ROUSSEAU, MOLIÈRE, AND THE ETHICS OF LAUGHTER Rousseau attacks comedy on the grounds that it is bad for our morals. He tries to show that to make a comedy moral is to take the fun out of it. No one would deny that some jokes are bad, and bad for us. But I think Rousseau is mistaken in his belief that the fun of comedy depends (...) on the bad sort of joke. In this essay I examine the ethics of laughter and the techniques of comedy, and find them rooted in a common metaphysics of human nature. It turns out, if I am right, that the most effective comic techniques are the most innocent. A comic playwright can make us laugh at almost anything, even at things that unsettle or horrify us outside the theater. Surprised by our own laughter, we are grateful to see our bugbears turned ridiculous. But what if we find ourselves laughing at virtue in the theater, and are shocked by our own laughter? Laughter, it seems, can be elicited to good or bad effect, depending on the nature of its object. And even towards the same object there can be good and bad laughter. An ethnic joke can be told in a way that brings warm laughter, bridging impossible gulfs, or it can be told in a racist way, with unforgivable laughter driving us apart. Comic playwrights are dangerous people. Plato thought them so (though not so dangerous as tragedians) and argued for restrictions on the use of ridicule. It should always be good-natured, he says in the Laws, and ought never to be directed against citizens.1 Rousseau goes beyond this. In his Letter to M. d'Alembert on the Theater2 he appeals to the danger of comedy as he vehemently defends Geneva's law against theater. Comedy, he argues, must be bad for our morals, or be nothing but a dull sermon. We must not dismiss Rousseau's critique of comedy lightly. Rousseau 325 326Philosophy and Literature was fascinated by the theater, and particularly by Molière, whom he admired as the grand master of comedy. And he knew something of what he admired and why he admired it. He had tried his hand at writing comedy and comic opera. He was not without a sense of humor (as readers of his Confessions are well aware), and he had ideas about how audiences are made to laugh. So it is not out of ignorance that he writes of comedy, "It is all bad and pernicious;... since the very pleasure of the comic is founded on the vice of the human heart,... the more the comedy is amusing..., the more its effect is disastrous for morals." At best, comic playwrights "make fun of vices without making virtue loved." At worst, like Molière in the Misanthrope, they make fun of virtues. Molière's misanthrope, Alceste, is a good man; so good, indeed, that no audience could be comfortable with him. So to please the audience (says Rousseau) Molière is forced to make Alceste ridiculous by adding to his scrupulous honesty a disposition to childish rages, thereby reenforcing the audience's corrupt belief that virtue in the extreme is foolish. But why could the play not be turned to virtuous effect, and Alceste's foils be made ridiculous in his place? Rousseau shows us what changes he thinks would have to be made—they reduce a great comedy to a dull sermon. Rousseau concludes that the same play cannot both make us laugh and be good for our morals.3 This radical case against comedy rests on two principles. First, as an audience we want only to find bad characters exciting and good characters amusing, so that successful comedy must make us laugh at good characters. Second, when we laugh at good characters in comedy, we do so without sympathy; by laughing at them we repudiate their example. Rousseau thinks it comforts us to laugh at Alceste in the Misanthrope because it enables us to set aside an example of immaculate honesty that would otherwise make us ashamed of our own deficiencies. Such laughter, he argues, is bad for... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 477 (p. 32), although some might consider him to have been an important historian of logic. I am not certain that citing Carnap and Heideggar (p. 75) can do much to clarify Vires. When one reads 'Henrique Estienne' and "Hipotiposes pirronicas" (p. 266) in an Italian book he is a bit taken aback and wonders whether the author has done his homework. The writer missed a golden (...) opportunity to connect Galileo to the tradition, for his still unpublished Quaestiones on logic and the De motu (both written before 1600) have many interesting comments which tie in directly with the material developed in this volume. This could have provided an excellent bridge to the next'century, when the analytic method began to take a more central role in scientific and methodological discussions. There is still room for a number of studies on the evolution of the analytic method during the Renaissance. Unfortunately Crescini's study barely scratches the surface of this immense subject. Let us hope that his book will at least have the effect of encouraging others to treat the matter with more care, in greater depth, and more exhaustively. The volume is provided with a preface by Giorgio Radetti, who claims more for it than it actually provides, as well as noting that it is the first part of a more comprehensive study by the same author on the formation of the analytic method in Cartesian philosophy (p. 5). The book has a useful index, but unfortunately no bibliography. CHARLESB. ScxiMrrr The University of Leeds Le thomisme et la pens#e italienne de la Renaissance. By Paul Oskar Kristeller. Conference Albert-le-Grand 1965. (Montr6ah Institut d'~tudes m~di~vales, and Paris: Vrin, 1967. Pp. 287. $6) Surprisingly little is known about the later history of Thomism. This brief but very rich lecture by Professor Kristeller, renowned historian of Italian Renaissance philosophy, examines one period in the later career of St. Thomas' thought. This study, based chiefly on unpublished source material, shows that Thomas was very much present to both the humanists and to the academic philosophers during the Renaissance. Such leading humanists as Lorenzo Valla, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and Marsilio Ficino, quote St. Thomas frequently and with approval. Even the unfavorable attitudes of Ermolao Barbaro or Baptista Mantuanus show that Thomas was already the most celebrated of mediaeval philosophers. The professors of philosophy at Italian universities, such as Pierre Pomponazzi, speak of Thomas with great respect and regard his theology as in conformity with the truths of faith, even when they reject his philosophy as being in disaccord with the authentic teaching of Aristotle. St. Thomas made a continuous contribution to the development of Renaissance theology and philosophy. Yet the principal Italian thinkers did not follow him strictly nor fall under his exclusive influence. Thomas is merely one of the most important sources, not the prevailing influence, in Renaissance thought. Ficino, for example, is,178 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY in accord with Thomas on certain important points, but his own theology is more in the spirit of Plato and Augustine. Professor Kristeller's vast learning is at the service of admirably balanced conclusions. Not everyone will agree with all his interpretations; Ficino perhaps did not imagine himself to be "constructing a system of philosophy" (p. 96) since the very title of his work, Theologia platonica, suggests that he continues, with new materials, the labor of mediaeval theolo#ans. And Ficino's doctrine of the continuity of the supernatural life of the soul in this world and the next (p. 120) seems to be completely in accord with Thomas. But the author's very careful scholarly method and sound general conclusions are beyond criticism. Two hitherto unpublished Latin texts are printed in critical edition at the end of the French lecture, the Opus aureum in Thomistas by Baptists Mantuanus, which is anti-Thomas, and the Opusculum ad Laurentium Medicem on beatitude, by Vincentius Bandellus, which is pro-Thomas. Like Professor Kristeller's fine lecture, these new texts are a permanent contribution to scholarship. PAUL J. W. MILLER University of Colorado The Anatomy of Leviathan. By F. S. McNeilly. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1968. Pp... (shrink)

The Big Bang is a myth, says Paul Brockelman in this fascinating look at the spiritual side of modern cosmology. But it is a myth in the best sense--a fully realized creation story, one that, for all its scientific origins, has the power to transform us spiritually. In Cosmology and Creation, philosopher and religious scholar Brockelman seeks to bridge the gap between the scientific and the spiritual, to bring together the head and the heart. We have isolated the (...) two realms from each other for so long, he argues, that we have begun to lose a mystical sense of our place in the universe. But Brockelman believes that contemporary physics has advanced far beyond the mechanical view of nature, as propagated in the Enlightenment; the cosmology of the Big Bang has fostered a new way of understanding existence itself. To illustrate, he examines creation myths of the past, showing how they transcend simple explanations of the world to provide a deeper understanding of what our lives mean. And the fifteen-billion-year tale of the universe embraced by scientific cosmology serves precisely the same purpose, Brockelman claims; it bears a close resemblance to classic creation myths--and, indeed, it can transform our inner relationship with nature. The new scientific cosmology, Brockelman argues, offers something never before seen in human history: a scientifically accurate understanding of the entire universe and a spiritual vision of a "wider order of being" to which we all belong. Passionate and provocative, Cosmology and Creation promises to spark a lively debate about the new links between science and religion. (shrink)

Paul Crowther argues that art can bridge the gap between philosophy's traditional striving for generality and completeness, and the concreteness and contingency of humanity's basic relation to the world. He proposes an ecological definition of art: by making sensible or imaginative material into symbolic form, it harmonizes and conserves what is unique and what is general about human experience.

One of the most influential physics books of the twentieth century was actually about biology. In a series of lectures, Erwin Schrödinger described how he believed that quantum mechanics, or some variant of it, would soon solve the riddle of life. These lectures were published in 1944 under the title What is life? and are credited by some as ushering in the age of molecular biology. In the nineteenth century, many scientists thought they knew the answer to Schrödinger’s rhetorical question. (...) Life, they maintained, was some sort of magic matter. The continued use of the term ‘organic chemistry’ is a hangover from that era. The belief that there is a chemical recipe for life led to the hope that, if only we knew what it was, we could mix up the right stuff in a test tube and make life in the lab. Most research on biogenesis has followed that tradition, by assuming that chemistry was a bridge — and a long one at that — linking matter with life. Elucidating this chemical pathway has been a tantalizing goal, spurred on by the famous Miller–Urey experiment of 1952, in which amino acids were made by sparking electricity through a mixture of water and common gases. But the concept has turned out to be something of a blind alley, and further progress with prebiotic chemical synthesis has been frustratingly slow. The origin of life remains one of the great outstanding mysteries of science. To take up Schrödinger’s suggestion, a radical solution to the problem, ‘What is life?’ could be that quantum mechanics enabled life to emerge directly from the atomic world, without the need for complex intermediate chemistry. Life must have a chemical basis: organic molecules provide the hardware for biology. But what about the software? When Schrödinger asked, ‘What is life?’ he could already glimpse the central significance of the cell’s information storage and replication processes, even though the role of DNA and the genetic code was yet to be discovered.. (shrink)

In this essay, I offer a corrective to the standard reading of Hegel as a social constructivist when it comes to matters of the self by shifting the focus from the Phenomenology to his ‘Philosophy of Spirit’ and ‘Anthropology.’ There, a kind-of self or Selbstischkeit is revealed, anticipating the pre-reflective, experiential of the likes of Zahavi and, by extension, Husserl, Sartre, and Merleau-Ponty. I argue that Hegel's conception of the self enhances our understanding of the relationship between the pre-reflective, experiential (...) self and the self of self-consciousness, contributing to the discourse on the continuity between biological and mental life. The self, as it emerges in consciousness, traces its origins to a primarily bodily selfness which is foundational to psychical life. Habit emerges as a vital bridge between this selfness and the self of self-consciousness, offering a dynamic, dialectical framework for thinking the development of the self of self-consciousness in and out of its bodily context. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Prelude to Tackling Contemporary Crises: William James and a Psychological Springboard to Political ChangePaul Croce (bio)“That selective industry of the mind,... incessantly deciding, among many things,... which ones for it shall be realities.”—William James, 1892 (PBC, 167)“[N]either the whole of truth, nor the whole of good, is revealed to any single observer.”—William James, 1899 (TT, 149)The modern world has witnessed tremendous increases in prosperity, and that material abundance has (...) spurred great achievements. But these successes have also brought enormous and troubling side effects. Climate change, biodiversity loss, social inequality, and more problems have grown into crises with potential to challenge the achievements themselves. Alongside these challenges, many outstanding proposals have also emerged for dealing with our present crises. The crises and the insights for addressing them are in a harrowing competition, reminiscent of what H. G. Wells called “a race between education and catastrophe.” During recent chapters of this contest, especially in the United States, sound suggestions for halting or reversing environmental deterioration and for reducing class and racial inequities have gained some public and political support but have also met considerable resistance.1 While direct work to [End Page 26] address the crises is important, those efforts can be supported with understanding of the people and ideologies resisting that work. In fact, neglect of these impediments, which can further enable them to reduce abilities or willingness to address problems or even notice them, may be the biggest crisis of all.Just as medication can directly heal an illness while rest and self-care can build up general strength to support recovery, so coping with crises calls for both grappling with them directly and also consideration of the impediments that reduce the strength of those steps toward social healing. The inquiry here serves as a complement to sound proposals for immediate action by diagnosing what has hindered their realization. Outcries against injustice and creative interventions address the acute conditions of current crises, while cultural assessments of ways those responses gain or lose attention serve as prescriptions for addressing the chronic conditions that have exacerbated the crises through distraction. As with medical issues, long-term and preventive care of chronic problems can support acute treatment, even as they do not displace the need for immediate action.This article confronts a puzzle about why so many people do not pay attention to such large problems in nature and society and what steps can be taken to bridge that divide between the committed and the distracted. The emphasis here on attention shifts focus away from ideological differences and toward the values selections that drive the ideological differences. This article portrays James’s own path as he learned from differences before explaining how his theories offer insights on how selective choices shape the assumptions supporting ideologies that so often form into hostile contrasts.2 In addition to these alerts about the challenges of disagreement, he also presents methods to encourage listening across differences for chances to turn some of those commitments into constructive possibilities rather than treating them as reasons [End Page 27] to fight. These ways to evaluate cultural and political debates and increase understanding about selective choices can shed light on how so many people have been unwilling or unable to pay attention to the mounting problems, and through encouragement of more listening with respect, these methods can encourage more support for addressing the crises themselves.I. Jamesian Ways to Listen Across DifferencesCharles Taylor calls William James (1842–1910) “our great philosopher of the cusp.” This brief, elegant expression depicts a borderland thinker adept at mediating contrasting ideas. James’s often-difficult experiences in development toward that way of thinking and that reputation provide more depth about the contrasts that he experienced on the way toward his creative syntheses in psychology and philosophy.3 His wrestling with different interpretations serves as a microcosm for the challenges and rewards of listening for potential insights on each side of even hostile contrasts. He designed deliberate ways to reckon with differences, considering each to be a partial yet valuable window into the human condition. In his youth, he was torn between the competing perspectives of religious thought... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Overtones:A CollagePaul Youngquist (bio)Mom leans against the keyboard of the old upright piano in the den. She puckers her lips and gently fingers the valves. A couple of times a month, she frees her trumpet from the purple velveteen lining its case—out of love or frustration I can never tell. She stares hard at the bell, pointed somewhere near my feet. She inhales deeply, pressing the silver mouthpiece to (...) her crumpled lips. A silent moment passes—torn by a noise pitched past the sun, a shrieking flare sound. Another follows and another, bright glissandos blinking out somewhere below middle C. They shatter everything I know about her. Everything I thought I knew. What sound was that, what cry? What aspiration to be free? After those initial stabs, she falls into familiar melodies: "Bugler's Holiday" by Leroy Anderson, maybe, or "When the Saints Go Marching In." I'm unsettled for the rest of the day.Trumpeter Don Cherry's sound unsettled me too. I was much older when I first encountered it on Ornette Coleman's The Shape of Jazz to Come. It took me back to Mom's cries. I heard her sound in his: bright, high, and transient: less pitch than smudge, transmitting unknowable overtones. On "Lonely Woman," for instance. Cherry states the plaintive melody in hazy unison with Coleman, blurs the third note, wavers and plays his peculiar temper, untimely and free to move beyond the platitudes of harmony until, after Coleman's baffled cry, he parts company to play a sixth above (if such language matters, and it doesn't), descending in half steps to resolve (not happily) on a minor third, Cherry now pitched below. Their unison breaks apart to reconverge, and the brief bridge feels like a heaving between sobs. This isn't music. It's too raw for the repartee of bebop or the sociability of swing. But everybody can feel it, which explains the scandal of Coleman and company's extended appearance in late 1959 at the Five Spot in New York's East Village. Writing in the New York Times Magazine years later, Joseph Hooper likened it to the furor erupting after Stravinsky's Paris premier of "The Rite of Spring" in 1913. In an interview with Terry Gross, Cherry remembers everyone who was musically anyone being there—from Leonard Bernstein to Thelonious Monk—to witness the sacrilege. The implacable trickster Charles Mingus appeared one [End Page 133] night with Phineas Newborn, a keyboard virtuoso famous for his perfect pitch. Newborn sat and stared at his cufflinks. He never played a note. After the set, Mingus barreled onto the stage and, with his long arms and big hands, crashed all the keys. "That's where it is," he bellowed. "It's all there." Everywhere and nowhere. Cherry and Ornette decentered intonation. They distempered tradition's scales. Afflicted with perfect pitch, Newborn couldn't follow their cries and whispers. They flew free from the comforting staff. Still you feel them, hear their immeasurable sound.Don Cherry: "I've always been on the outside, and that's a good quality for the music to have, like the wind in your face."Cherry's mother Daisy gave him his first horn when he was fourteen. It breathed life into him, offering a way to express sounds his body harbored. Born in Oklahoma City in 1936 to "Negro-Choctaw Indian parents" (his words—his mother's mother was half native), Cherry heard gospel, blues, and Indian songs from the start. The family's move to the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles in 1940 only multiplied the sounds of diverse ethnicities mixed with the rumble of jazz from the Cherry Blossom, his father's club, where Don and his sister sometimes danced for dimes. His horn funneled all this sound—all the music he'd ever make—through a peculiarly powerful feeling: "that feeling to me, through as much music as I've learned, I still remember just that feeling when I first got that horn." What feeling exactly? "Infant happiness" (in-fant, not speaking). The feeling of life before language: "infant happiness, infant happiness, beautiful! That's what music is really... (shrink)

In recent works Nancy Fraser has developed a model of ?metademocracy? that promises to reconcile the competing claims of universal justice (grounded in human rights) and localized democracy (grounded in popular sovereignty). By instituting a global democratic procedure in which all enjoy participatory parity, Fraser hopes to ensure that some people are not denied standing as ?subjects of justice? simply because of their territorial location while keeping faith with the democratic commitment to autonomy and self-legislation. Despite the compelling nature of (...) this model, I argue that Fraser fails to bridge the gulf between justice and democracy because her model of metademocracy is built on the ?metanorm? of ?participatory parity?. Drawing on the work of Hannah Arendt, I claim that this foundationalist move re-asserts the priority of justice over democracy because it takes equality as a moral given rather than the ever-precarious achievement of human organization. (shrink)

This book explores how physicists, astronomers, chemists, and historians in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries employed ‘epistemic virtues’ such as accuracy, objectivity, and intellectual courage. In doing so, it takes the first step in providing an integrated history of the sciences and humanities. It assists in addressing such questions as: What kind of perspective would enable us to compare organic chemists in their labs with paleographers in the Vatican Archives, or anthropologists on a field trip with mathematicians poring (...) over their formulas? While the concept of epistemic virtues has previously been discussed, primarily in the contexts of the history and philosophy of science, this volume is the first to enlist the concept in bridging the gap between the histories of the sciences and the humanities. Chapters research whether epistemic virtues can serve as a tool to transcend the institutional disciplinary boundaries and thus help to attain a ‘post-disciplinary’ historiography of modern knowledge. Readers will gain a contextualization of epistemic virtues in time and space as the book shows that scholars themselves often spoke in terms of virtue and vice about their tasks and accomplishments. This collection of essays opens up new perspectives on questions, discourses, and practices shared across the disciplines, even at a time when the neo-Kantian distinction between sciences and humanities enjoyed its greatest authority. Scholars including historians of science and of the humanities, intellectual historians, virtue epistemologists, and philosophers of science will all find this book of particular interest and value. (shrink)

It is a challenge in teaching early modern philosophy to balance historical faithfulness to the arguments and concerns of early modern philosophers and interpreting them as relevant to the kinds of thinking that contemporary undergraduate students find plausible. Early modern philosophy is unique, however, in applying modern scientific method directly to problems concerning nonphysical aspects of reality that our contemporary scientific thought, and with it mainstream contemporary culture, no longer find amenable in their own, independent right to reliable reasoned approaches. (...) At the same time, early modern philosophy often also takes seriously purely conceptual or logically consequential thought in the investigation of these topics, as our mainstream contemporary culture does not. This kind of thought, we argue, is distinctive of philosophy in general and appropriate to nonphysical aspects of reality. Early modern philosophy, then, offers a bridge between the kind of reasoned, objective thought our mainstream culture finds plausible and thought about nonphysical reality or, in general, the thought that characterizes philosophy. (shrink)

The Challenge of the Avant-Garde is the fourth of six books in the series Art and its Histories, which form the main texts of an Open University course. The course has been designed for students who are new to the discipline but will also appeal to those who have undertaken some study in this area. This volume traces the challenge posed to the academic canon by the emergent avant-garde of the early and mid-nineteenth century.It looks at significant shifts in the (...) development of the concept, both in moves away from the sense of social leadership to a desire for artistic autonomy in the later nineteenth century and then a reverse movement to bridge the gap between art and life in the revolutionary avant-gardes of the early twentieth century. The book closes with an examination of the eventual incorporation of the avant-garde as a form of modern canon by the eve of World War II. Throughout, it seeks to relate the discourse of artistic avant-gardism in all its forms to contemporary social and political histories. (shrink)

In the latter half of this century, there have been two mostly separate threads within ethical theory, one on 'superogation', one on 'common-sense morality'. I bring these threads together by systematically reflecting on doing more than one has to do. A rich and coherent set of concepts at the core of common-sense morality is identified, along with various logical connections between these core concepts. Various issues in common-sense morality emerge naturally, as does a demonstrably productive definition of doing more than (...) one has to do. I then present an interpreted model-theoretic framework with the expressive power to generate truth-conditions for the core concepts, and the explanatory power to predict and explain the independently motivated logical connections between these concepts. The framework also has a certain heuristic power for 'discovering' substantive ethical theories that can derivatively generate the model-theoretic framework for the core concepts. Two theories discussed are expansions of traditional theories; two others, each giving pride of place to justice, are devised to resonate with more recent concerns. Methodologically, it is hoped that the approach within might suggest the possibility of bridging another gap: that between formal and informal studies of moral notions. (shrink)

The rise of international businesses' self-regulation regimes offers a challenging case study for those interested in the relationship between ethics and business. Regulation without external enforcement has always been a focal point for explorations into the relationship between morality and economic behaviour. Are self-regulatory arrangements viable? Are they stable? What are the factors and conditions that determine their stability and viability? Using these questions as a vehicle, the article explores the functional anatomy of self-regulation. As such, it is an attempt (...) to offer a broad conceptual picture in a way that creates a bridge between the current developments in the literature and the intellectual traditions that have framed the setting of the current intellectual efforts exploring the issue. Therefore the article may be seen as a conceptual and theoretical introduction to the topic as well as an attempt to frame it in a way that connects and integrates it to a broader intellectual perspective. (shrink)

Individual differences related to emotions are typically represented as emotion traits. Although important, these descriptive models often do not address the psychological dynamics that underlie the trait. Appraisal theories of emotion assume that individual differences in emotions can be traced to differences in patterns of appraisal, but this hypothesis has largely gone untested. The present research explored whether individual differences in the emotion of interest, known as trait curiosity, consist of patterns of appraisal. After completing several measures of trait curiosity, (...) participants read complex poems (Experiment 1) or viewed simple and complex pictures (Experiment 2) and then gave ratings of interest and interest's appraisal components. The effect of trait curiosity on interest was fully mediated by appraisals. Multilevel analyses suggested that curious people differ in the amount of appraisal rather than in the kinds of appraisals relevant to interest. Appraisal theories can offer a process-oriented explanation of emotion traits that bridges state and trait emotional experience. (shrink)

This study argues that a much richer and more coherent account of Michael Oakeshott's political philosophy is gained by examining it in light of three customary sources for ordering human experience: human nature, religion and history. While the historical character of Oakeshott's thought has been readily recognized, too often the roles of human nature and religion have been neglected by commentators, leading to an impoverished account of his work. And even regarding history, there has been confusion concerning Oakeshott's notion of (...) the practical past. Towards this end, the study establishes that Oakeshott does have a significant concept of human nature and religion, clarifies his concept of the practical past, and argues that viewing his political thought through the prism of these three concepts significantly illuminates his understanding of, among other matters, political authority, politics, non-instrumental law, and the problem of innate human freedom versus the historical freedoms associated with Western individualism. ;Regarding human nature, Oakeshott's conception is seen to include the notions of reflective consciousness, free agency, intelligent learning, and a social character. These notions indicate a more substantial and consistent 'agent' across history than Oakeshott himself typically suggests. Regarding religion, the study argues there is a persistent if idiosyncratic religious sensibility in Oakeshott's writings, including an almost sacred understanding of human freedom tempered by an Augustinian awareness of human imperfection, that underlines the depth of conviction behind Oakeshott's philosophical and moral conclusions concerning human affairs. Regarding history, the concept of intimations operating in the practical past is explored as the primary vehicle by which moral and political practices are grounded in Oakeshott's thought. The limitations of this approach are examined as well. ;The study concludes that the substantive implications of Oakeshott's conceptions of human nature and religion are a significant aid to grasping the full significance of his political philosophy. In particular they render more coherent the force of his normative conclusions, especially his championing of individual freedom and his disdain of collectivism, clarify continued inconsistencies, such as his ambiguous gulf between reflection and practice, and suggest possible bridges between Oakeshott's thought and more foundational approaches to political philosophy. (shrink)

The business of cognitive therapy is to transform meanings. What better way to achieve this than through a metaphor? Metaphors straddle two different domains at once, providing a conceptual bridge from a problematic interpretation to a fresh new perspective that can cast one's experiences in a new light. Even the simplest metaphor can be used again and again with different clients, yet still achieve the desired effect. This book is the first to show just how metaphors can be used (...) productively in CBT as an integral part of the treatment. It describes the use of metaphors for a wide range of problems, including anxiety and depression, and provides countless examples of metaphors that have been used by others in CBT. It brings together in one place hundreds of metaphors that experienced therapists have used to great success. It will be a valuable sourcebook for all cognitive behaviour therapists, as well as those training in CBT. (shrink)

This study of the Confessions engages with contemporary philosophers and psychologists antagonistic to religion and demonstrates the enduring value of Augustine's journey for those struggling with theistic incredulity and religious narcissism. Paul Rigby draws on current Augustinian scholarship and the works of Paul Ricœur to cross-examine Augustine's testimony. This analysis reveals the sophistication of Augustine's confessional text, which anticipates the analytical mindset of his critics. Augustine presents a coherent, defensible response to three age-old problems: free will and grace; (...) goodness, innocent suffering, and radical evil; and freedom and predestination. The Theology of Augustine's Confessions moves beyond commentary and allows present-day readers to understand the Confessions as its original readers experienced it, bridging the divide introduced by Kant, Hegel, Freud, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and their descendants. (shrink)

The arrow of time has been invoked to bridge all gaps between the 'two cultures'. Would time also help to mediate between the sphere of cognition (epistemic meaning) and the sphere of Bedeutsamkeit (meaning-as-relevance) when taking ritual to be a strongly idiosyncratic representative of the latter? What is the role of time in the modes of meaning in the realm of scientific concepts in their most rigorous shape (the mathematical) on the one hand, in ritual on the other hand? (...) Taking an external point of view, surprising connections can be laid, especially when focussing on the relations of form and materiality or content in the respective fields. Ritual can be considered — according toits formal structure — as an embodiment of the notion of an algorithm. When looking at the temporal structure of the respective symbolic practices from an internal point of view however, their contrasting modes of creating meaning become irreducible. In particular, the algorithmic-sequential mode in ritual is a shell for another time, constitutive of a proper Bedeutsamkeit. This is analyzed in terms of the role of the past in ritualized meaning (and illustrated via the art of time in the Japanese tea ceremony). Whereas a paradoxical creation of a past as something lost and nevertheless to be recollected is constitutive for the meaning of the ritual gesture, the proper element of the concept is time's arrow always pointing forward, to the next stage. Here the past, while embodied in the scientist's gesture as trace of epistemic styles and traditions, at the same time has to be suppressed in the interest of the creation of the new. (shrink)

In each of two experiments, college students were assigned to two ad hoc groups that competed in a dart-throwing contest. On each trial, one contestant from each team threw a single dart at a standard dart board, trying to come as close as possible to hitting the bull's-eye. Also on each trial, the other participants judged the likelihood that both the Team A contestant and the Team B contestant would come closer to hitting the bull's-eye. In both experiments, participants exhibited (...) a strong wishful thinking effect. They judged the likelihood that their own team members would come closer to be greater than the likelihood that the opposing team members would come closer. Experiment 2 suggested that it was participants' desires, as opposed to some other variable associated with team membership, that influenced their predictions. Experiment 2 also showed that the size of the effect did not depend on whether participants believed that their predictions had been influenced by their team membership. These results help bridge the gap between previous experimental laboratory studies, which have produced inconsistent results, and correlational field studies of sports fans and voters, which have consistently produced large effects. (shrink)

Polanyi belongs to a tradition which is neither modernist nor postmodernist, but which affirms speculative philosophy as an alternative to both and as an important form of public discourse. With his origins in the philosophical culture of central Europe, he may well emerge as a bridge between continental and Anglo-American analytic philosophy. He was a moral philosopher in the Aristotelian tradition who anticipated the turn in recent years away from the modern ethics of rules to the classical ethics of (...) virtue. Within this context he espoused a new kind of liberalism and a different understanding of liberty. (shrink)

Despite all the criticism showered on Nagel’s classic account of reduction, it meets a fundamental desideratum in an analysis of reduction that is difficult to question, namely of providing for a proper identification of the reducing theory. This is not clearly accommodated in radically different accounts. However, the same feature leads me to question Nagel’s claim that the reducing theory can be separated from the putative bridge laws, and thus to question his notion of heterogeneous reduction. A further corollary (...) to the requirement that all the necessary conditions be incorporated in an adequate formulation of the putative reducing theory is that the standard example of gas temperature is not reducible to average molecular kinetic energy. As originally conceived, Nagel’s conception of reduction takes no account of approximate reasoning and this failure has certainly restricted its applicability, perhaps to the point of making it unrealistic as a model of reduction in science. I suggest approximation can be accommodated by weakening the original requirement of deduction without jeopardizing the fundamental desideratum. Finally, I turn to briefly consider the idea sometimes raised of the ontological reducibility of chemistry. (shrink)

Few philosophers of science have influenced as many readers as Thomas S. Kuhn. Yet no comprehensive study of his ideas has existed--until now. In this volume, Paul Hoyningen-Huene examines Kuhn's work over four decades, from the days before The Structure of Scientific Revolutions to the present, and puts Kuhn's philosophical development in a historical framework. Scholars from disciplines as diverse as political science and art history have offered widely differing interpretations of Kuhn's ideas, appropriating his notions of paradigm shifts (...) and revolutions to fit their own theories, however imperfectly. Hoyningen-Huene does not merely offer another interpretation--he brings Kuhn's work into focus with rigorous philosophical analysis. Through extended discussions with Kuhn and an encyclopedic reading of his work, Hoyningen-Huene looks at the problems and justifications of his claims and determines how his theories might be expanded. Most significantly, he discovers that The Structure of Scientific Revolutions can be understood only with reference to the historiographic foundation of Kuhn's philosophy. Discussing the concepts of paradigms, paradigm shifts, normal science, and scientific revolutions, Hoyningen-Huene traces their evolution to Kuhn's experience as a historian of contemporary science. From here, Hoyningen-Huene examines Kuhn's well-known thesis that scientists on opposite sides of a revolutionary divide "work in different worlds," explaining Kuhn's notion of a world-change during a scientific revolution. He even considers Kuhn's most controversial claims--his attack on the distinction between the contexts of discovery and justification and his notion of incommensurability--addressing both criticisms and defenses of these ideas. Destined to become the authoritative philosophical study of Kuhn's work, Reconstructing Scientific Revolutions both enriches our understanding of Kuhn and provides powerful interpretive tools for bridging Continental and Anglo-American philosophical traditions. (shrink)

_Philosophy and the Vision of Language_ explores the history and enduring significance of the twentieth-century turn to language as a specific object of investigation and resource for philosophical reflection. It traces the implications of the access to language in some of the most prominent projects and results of the historical and contemporary tradition of analytic philosophy, including the projects of Frege, Wittgenstein, Sellars, Quine, Brandom, and Cavell. Additionally, it demonstrates the deep and enduring connections between the analytic tradition’s inquiry into (...) language and the parallel inquiries of phenomenology, critical theory, and deconstruction over the course of the twentieth century. Finally, it documents some of the enduring consequences of philosophy’s inquiry into language for contemporary questions of social and political life. The book provides a clear, accessible and widely inclusive introduction to the relevance of language for analytic and continental philosophy in the twentieth century and is readable by non-specialist audiences. It should contribute to a growing historical sense of the location of the analytic tradition in a broader geography of social, political and critical thought. Furthermore, it contributes to building bridges between this tradition and the neighboring continental ones from which it has all too often been estranged. (shrink)