In recent years a number of books have been published that offer short autobiographical essays of academics, focusing on their research and how their life history affected their scholarly development. These could be labeled as "intellectual journey narratives." Some volumes focus on philosophers and their religious faith or lack thereof (e.g., Clark, 1997, Antony, 2007). Psychology has its own version of the intellectual journey narrative, in T. S. Krawiec's (1972, 1974, 1978) multivolume set of autobiographical essays by contemporary psychologists. In (...) 1987, Rosemary Pilkington edited her first volume of essays entitled Men and Women of Parapsychology: Personal Reflections, Esprit Volume 1. It contains autobiographical essays by Jule Eisenbud, Montague Ullman, Jan Ehrenwald, Eileen Coly, Joseph H. Rush, Gertrude R. Schmeidler, Emilio Servadio, Renée Haynes, Hans Bender, Karlis Osis, George Zorab and Bernard Grad. The second (2013) volume contains autobiographical essays by Mary Rose Barrington, Eberhard Bauer, William Braud (now deceased), Stephen Braude, Richard S. Broughton, Larry Dossey, Sally Rhine Feather, Erlendur Haraldsson, Arthur Hastings, Stanley Krippner, Lawrence LeShan, Roger Nelson, John Palmer, Guy Leon Playfair, William G. Roll (now deceased), Serena Roney-Dougal, Stephan A. Schwartz, Rex G. Stanford, Russell Targ, Charles T. Tart, and Walter von Lucadou. Between the two volumes almost every significant contemporary parapsychologist is represented, with the major exceptions being the late John Beloff and the late Ian Stevenson. (shrink)

The current practice of organ transplantation has been criticized on several fronts. The philosophical and scientific foundations for brain death criteria have been crumbling. In addition, donation after cardiac death, or non-heartbeating-organ donation (NHBD) has been attacked on grounds that it mistreats the dying patient and uses that patient only as a means to an end for someone else's benefit.

Alan Shewmons article, The brain and somatic integration: Insights into the standard biological rationale for equating brain death with death (2001), strikes at the heart of the standard justification for whole brain death criteria. The standard justification, which I call the standard paradigm, holds that the permanent loss of the functions of the entire brain marks the end of the integrative unity of the body. In my response to Shewmons article, I first offer a brief summary of the standard paradigm (...) and cite recent work by advocates of whole brain criteria who tenaciously cling to the standard paradigm despite increasing evidence showing that it has significant weaknesses. Second, I address Shewmons case against the standard paradigm, arguing that he is successful in showing that whole brain dead patients have integrated organic unity. Finally, I discuss some minor problems with Shewmons article, along with suggestions for further elaboration. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE SPATIO-TEMPORAL THEORY OF INDIVIDUATION MICHAEL POTTS Methodist Callege Fayetteville, North Carolina I. HISTORICAL OVERVIEW A. The Influence of Plato HE SPATIO-TEMPORAL theory of individuation has long history in the philosophical tradition. Its roots go ack to Aristotle's theory of individuation by matter,1 and ultimately back to Plato. In the Timaeus, Plato struggled with the problem of how forms are instantiated in the phenomenal world. Besides " (...) a model form (paradeigmatos eidos), intelligible and ever uniformly existent" and "the model's copy (mimeta paradeigmatos), subject to becoming and visible," Plato postulated a third thing, a " receptacle " (hupodochen), "the nurse of all becoming." 2 It is wholly indeterminate:... while it is always receiving all things, nowhere and in no wise does it assume any shape similar to any of the things that enter into it. For it is laid down by nature as a moulding-stuff for everything, being moved and marked by the entering figures, and because of them it appears different at different times. And the figures that enter and depart are copies of those that are always existent, being stamped from them...8 1 I recognize that this is a controversial claim. Since I am tracing the spatio-temporal theory of individuation from Aristotle through St. Thomas Aquinas, for the purposes of this paper I will follow St. Thomas's interpretation of Aristotle and accept the view that Aristotle took matter to be the principle of individuation. 2 Plato, Timaeus 49a. The version used is the Loeb edition by R. G. Bury (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966). a Timaeus 50b-c. 59 60 MICHAEL POTTS The receptacle, then, is like formless wax upon which the forms are stamped. It is " apprehensible by a kind of bastard reasoning (logismo tini notho), barely an object of belief." 4 B. Aristotle It may seem on the surface unusual that the idea of the receptable would later be modified and used to explain individuation. Plato himself was concerned with the universal, the form. The instantiations of the forms in the phenomenal world do not even deserve to be called "this " or " that." 5 With Aristotle, however, the individual gains new importance, since for him forms have their reality only in individuals and individuals are primarily called "substance." If this is the case, then Aristotle has to explain how " humanity " can be the same while " Socrates" and " Callias" are two different individuals. Since form is universal, it cannot individuate, so the source of individuation must be matter-two individuals are different human beings, for example, because they have different lumps of matter.... and when the whole has been generated, such a form in this flesh and these bones, this is Callias or Socrates, and this is distinct from that which generated it because the matter is distinct (hulen, hetera gar), but it is the same in species since the species is indivisible.6 This view raises problems. Matter is indeterminate; it is Aristotle 's modification of Plato's receptacle. How can anything indeterminate itself determine individual substances? More needed to be done to.bring out the meaning of individuation by matter, and St. Thomas Aquinas developed a more detailed and satisfactory position. 4 Timaeus 52b. 5 Timaeus 49d-50a. 6 Aristotle, Metaphyscis 28 (1034a5-8). The Greek text used is Metaphysica, ed. by Werner Jaeger (Oxonii : E Typographaeo Clarendoniano, 1957). The English translation is by Hippocrates G. Apostle (Grinnell, Iowa: Peripatetic Press, 1979). THE SPATIO-TEMPORAL THEORY OF INDIVIDUATION 61 C. St. Thomas Aquinas Aquinas, recognizing that prime matter is indeterminate and therefore not something that can individuate, argues that the principle of individuation is " signate" or " designated" matter. "Materia signata" is defined as matter as " sub determinatis dimensionibus consideratur," " considered under determinate dimensions." 7 While the exact meaning of this is unclear, it seems to refer to matter under determinate spatial dimensions or coordinates. While the form determines what sort of thing an entity is, what determines it to be this individual is this matter with a particular set of spatial coordinates. Henry Veatch puts Aquinas's view into more modern terms: In fact, matter as determined by dimensive quantity guarantees ontologically nothing more nor less than the... (shrink)

Based on themes in Aquinas, this paper adds to the defense of the doctrine of an eternal hell, focusing on the state of those in hell after the resurrection. I first summarize the Thomistic doctrine of the human person as a body-soul unity, showing why existence as a separated soul is truncated and unnatural. Next, I discuss the soul-body reunion at the resurrection, which restores an essential aspect of human nature, even for the damned. This reveals the love of God (...) since He gives the damned the best human existence they can possibly have given their disordered wills. Finally, I defend this position against three important objections. (shrink)

Individuality has posed difficult problems throughout the history of philosophy. Not only is there the metaphysical difficulty of determining the principle of individuation, but, since our concepts and linguistic structure are based on universals, there is a gap in our knowledge of individuals and in our ability to express knowledge of individuals. God, who in Classical Theism is an individual, poses especially difficult problems. This dissertation proposes one way which may partially close the gap: metaphor. ;I argue that the principle (...) of individuation is what Duns Scotus called haecceitas, which uniquely delimits this particular individual. It is not opposed to form or to universality, but is the ultimate reality of form. I follow Scotus further in holding that the individual qua individual is intrinsically intelligible; our difficulty in understanding individuals is due to the weakness of our intellect, since our thought is through universal concepts. ;Next I defend the interaction theory of metaphor, which holds that the terms of a metaphor interact to form a new meaning which cannot be entirely reduced to the meanings of the terms. I argue further that metaphor can not only give us richer linguistic access to entities, but also give us cognitive insight which cannot be gained in any other way. ;I then defend a form of non-propositional knowing and argue that metaphor is a particularly appropriate way to express this knowledge. I argue that Scotus' theory of individuality, which holds that the individual is intrinsically intelligible, leaves open the possibility of some form of metaphoric cognition of the individual. I present a case study: the poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins attempted to use metaphor and other devices in his poetry to illuminate individual beings. ;Finally I discuss God, the ultimate instance of the correlation of universality and individuality. God, being the ultimate individual, presents epistemological and linguistic problems similar in some ways to those which accrue to finite individuality. I defend the thesis that metaphorical and modelling language can help us gain insight into God. (shrink)

This paper considers the possibility of a disembodied conscious soul, arguing that a great deal of current research converges in a direction that denies the possibility of a bodiless consciousness for human beings. Contemporary attacks on Cartesianism also serve as attacks on the view of some hylomorphist Catholics, such as Thomas Aquinas, that there can be a disembodied consciousness between death and resurrection, a view that violates the Catechism of the Catholic Church. However, there may be a way out for (...) the Catholic hylomorphist which was suggested by Dante—the possibility of a temporary body. The first section of the paper will summarize the contemporary attack against both the Cartesian soul and physicalist systems that reduce the mind to the brain. The alternative position proposed is that the human being is a psychosomatic unity at the level of the organism as a whole, and that both mind-body and brain-body dualism should be avoided. Such a position, I will argue, supports the notion that a disembodied soul, including a disembodied consciousness, is not possible for human beings. Finally, I will discuss Dante’s views on temporary bodies and explore three ways of understanding a temporary body, any of which can preserve a conscious intermediate state between death and resurrection. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 2, Page 40-42, February 2012.

Recently, several articles in the scholarly literature on medical ethics proclaim the need for “responsible scholarship” in the debate over the proper criteria for death, in which “responsible scholarship” is defined in terms of support for current neurological criteria for death. In a recent article, James M. DuBois is concerned that academic critiques of current death criteria create unnecessary doubt about the moral acceptability of organ donation, which may affect the public’s willingness to donate. Thus he calls for a closing (...) of the debate on current death criteria and for journal editors to publish only critiques that “substantially engage and advance the debate.” We argue that such positions as DuBois’ are a threat to responsible scholarship in medical ethics, especially scholarship that opposes popular stances, because it erodes academic freedom and the necessity of debate on an issue that is literally a matter of life and death, no matter what side a person defends. (shrink)

In this paper, I supplement T. A. Cavanaugh’s arguments against physician-assisted suicide in his book, Hippocrates’ Oath and Asclepius’ Snake, by focusing more specifically on the dangers of the misuse of physician power and on the virtues essential to restrain such power. Since Cavanaugh’s starting point is similar to Edmund Pellegrino’s views on the fundamental ends of medicine, I start with the question of the proper ends of medicine. Cavanaugh’s interpretation of the Hippocratic Oath as the limitation of physician power (...) to heal and to kill raises the issue of the proper use of physician power over the patient. In order to support and strengthen Cavanaugh’s case, I use Richard Zaner’s discussion of physician power over the patient and the attendant duty to use such power in a responsible way. Finally, I supplement Cavanaugh’s discussion with a fuller account of physician virtues as they relate to physician-assisted suicide. I first discuss the ends of medicine, medical power, and physician-assisted suicide. Second, I discuss the relationship between virtue and physician-assisted suicide. Third, I draw some final conclusions. (shrink)

Since the introduction of the concept of brain death by the Ad Hoc Committee of the Harvard Medical School to Examine the Definition of Brain Death in 1968, the validity of this concept has been challenged by medical scientists, as well as by legal, philosophical, and religious scholars. In light of increased criticism of the concept of brain death, Stephen Napier, a staff ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, set out to prove that the whole-brain death criterion serves as (...) good evidence for death in the Catholic bioethical framework, on the grounds that when whole-brain death has occurred the soul has already departed from the body. Opponents have argued that (1) brain death does not disrupt the somatic integrative unity and coordinated biological functioning of a living organism and (2) clinical tests outlined in the practice guidelines for determining brain death lack sufficient power to exclude persisting function and fail to detect elements of the brain that, although currently functionless, may retain potential for recovery under conditions of optimal medical care. It is therefore possible that heart-beating organ procurement from patients with impaired consciousness is de facto a concealed practice of active euthanasia and physician-assisted death, both of which, either concealed or overt, the Catholic Church opposes. (shrink)

Harmonic Grammar (HG) is a model of linguistic constraint interaction in which well-formedness is calculated as the sum of weighted constraint violations. We show how linear programming algorithms can be used to determine whether there is a weighting for a set of constraints that fits a set of linguistic data. The associated software package OT-Help provides a practical tool for studying large and complex linguistic systems in the HG framework and comparing the results with those of OT. We describe the (...) translation from Harmonic Grammars to systems solvable by linear programming, and we illustrate the usefulness of OT-Help with a set of studies of the predictions HG makes for phonological typology. (shrink)

This study was conducted in 1985 in Asuncion, Paraguay, 6 years after the closure of the state supported family planning services. Data from national surveys in 1977 and 1987 permit a comparison of sources of contraceptive supplies before and after the elimination of government support for family planning. The purchase of pseudo-abortifacients from private pharmacies was used as an indication of induced abortion. After the loss of government clinics, it is suggested that some women turned to pharmacists to obtain pseudo-abortifacients (...) when faced with unwanted pregnancy. There is an indication of increased pseudo-abortifacient use, particularly among unmarried women and those from poorer neighbourhoods. (shrink)

Michael Potts, Paul A. Byrne, an David W. Evans are critical of donation after cardiac death (DCD). Contrary to the authors’ assertion that the removal of vital organs is the proximate cause of death, the eventual fulfillment of the neurological criteria of death is solely dependant on the rate of brain cell death in the absence of circulation. Consistent with the “dead donor rule,” DCD is not the cause of death. There are also procedural mechanisms to address the (...) potential conflicts of interest that concern the authors. Rather than being prohibited, DCD may be an ethically justifiable exception to the rule that organ donors must be dead prior to organ recovery. (shrink)

A modern and influential Aristotelian conception of universals combines two ideas: that a universal is immanent in its instantiations, and that its instantiations are partly constructed by this universal. I argue that these two ideas are inconsistent on weaker assumptions than previously recognized.

This will be the best way of explaining ‘Paris is the lover of Helen’, that is, ‘Paris loves, and by that very fact [et eo ipso] Helen is loved’. Here, therefore, two propositions have been brought together and abbreviated as one. Or, ‘Paris is a lover, and by that very fact Helen is a loved one’.

The laboratory animal environment: room for concern.

It’s not implausible to think that whenever I have a justified noninferential belief that p, it is caused by a seeming that p. It’s also tempting to think that something contributes to the justification of my belief only if I hold my belief because of that thing. Thus, given that many of our noninferential beliefs are justified and that we hold them because of seemings, one might be inclined to hold a view like Phenomenal Conservatism, according to which seemings play (...) a crucial role—perhaps the only crucial role—in the justification of our noninferential beliefs. But Phenomenal Conservatism seems to conflict, in a number of ways, with externalist accounts of justification. As a result, the attractiveness of the intuitions appealed to in support of views like Phenomenal Conservatism present something of a challenge to externalism. The purpose of this paper is to deal with that challenge by developing and defending an externalist-friendly account of the role of seemings in the formation and justification of our noninferential beliefs—an account that incorporates what is attractive in views like Phenomenal Conservatism. Because this externalist-friendly account is compatible with both externalist accounts of justification and the plausible elements of views like Phenomenal Conservatism, the challenge to externalism inspired by such views is thereby undermined. (shrink)

We argue that thoughts are structures of concepts, and that concepts should be individuated by their origins, rather than in terms of their semantic or epistemic properties. Many features of cognition turn on the vehicles of content, thoughts, rather than on the nature of the contents they express. Originalism makes concepts available to explain, with no threat of circularity, puzzling cases concerning thought. In this paper, we mention Hesperus/Phosphorus puzzles, the Evans-Perry example of the ship seen through different windows, and (...) Mates cases, and we believe that there are many additional applications. (shrink)

Contemporary psycholinguistic models place significant emphasis on the cognitive processes involved in the acquisition, recognition, and production of language but neglect many issues related to the representation of language-related information in the mental lexicon. In contrast, a central tenet of network science is that the structure of a network influences the processes that operate in that system, making process and representation inextricably connected. Here, we consider how the structure found across phonological networks of several languages from different language families may (...) influence language processing as we age and experience diseases that affect cognition during the typical and atypical acquisition of new words, during typical perception and production of speech in adults, and during language change over time. We conclude that the network science approach may not only provide insights into specific language processes but also provide a way to connect the work from these domains, which are becoming increasingly balkanized. (shrink)

Intuitionism can be seen as a verificationism restricted to mathematical discourse. An attempt to generalize intuitionism to empirical discourse presents various challenges. One of those concerns the logical and semantical behavior of what has been called ' empirical negation'. An extension of intuitionistic logic with empirical negation was given by Michael De and a labelled tableaux system was there shown sound and complete. However, a Hilbert-style axiom system that is sound and complete was missing. In this paper we provide (...) the missing axiom system which is shown sound and complete with respect to its intended semantics. Along the way we consider some further applications of empirical negation. (shrink)

I consider two threats to the idea that on-line intelligent behaviour (the production of fluid and adaptable responses to ongoing sensory input) must or should be explained by appeal to neurally located representations. The first of these threats occurs when extra-neural factors account for the kind of behavioural richness and flexibility normally associated with representation-based control. I show how this anti-representational challenge can be met, if we apply the thought that, to be a representational system, an action-oriented neural system must (...) not only be the source of at least some of the observed behavioural richness and flexibility, it must also feature two architectural traits, namely arbitrariness and homuncularity. Unfortunately, however, this solution opens the door to our second threat to representation. The homuncularity condition will not be met by any system in which the causal contribution of each component is massively context-sensitive and variable over time. I end by discussing the empirical bet that biological nervous systems will not exhibit this style of causation. (shrink)

Computational complexity theory is a branch of computer science dedicated to classifying computational problems in terms of their difficulty. While computability theory tells us what we can compute in principle, complexity theory informs us regarding our practical limits. In this chapter I argue that the science of \emph{quantum computing} illuminates complexity theory by emphasising that its fundamental concepts are not model-independent, but that this does not, as some suggest, force us to radically revise the foundations of the theory. For model-independence (...) never has been essential to those foundations. The fundamental aim of complexity theory is to describe what is achievable in practice under various models of computation for our various practical purposes. Reflecting on quantum computing illuminates complexity theory by reminding us of this, too often under-emphasised, fact. (shrink)

I focus on three preoccupations of recent writings on proof. -/- I. The role and possible effects of empirical reasoning in mathematics. Do recent developments (specifically, the computer-assisted proof of the 4CT) point to something essentially new as regards the need for and/or effects of using broadly empirical and inductive reasoning in mathematics? In particular, should we see such things as the computer-assisted proof of the 4CT as pointing to the existence of mathematical truths of which we cannot have a (...) priori knowledge? -/- 2. The role of formalization in proof. What are the patterns ofinference according to which mathematical reasoning naturally proceeds? Are they of 'local' character (i.e. sensitive to the subject-matter of the reasoning concerned) or 'global' character (i.e. invariant across all subject-matters)? Finally, what if any relationship is there (a) between the patterns of inference manifest in a proof and its explanatory capacity and (b) between explanatory capacity and rigor? -/- 3. Diagrams and their role in mathematical reasoning. What essentially is diagrammatic reasoning, and what is the nature and basis of its usefulness? Can it play a justificative role in the development of mathematical knowledge and, more particularly, in genuine proof? Finally, does the use of diagrammatic reasoning force an adjustment either in our conception of rigor or in our view of its importance? (shrink)

Against arealist background, the paper starts by demonstrating the horror of the very popular doctrine, “Worldmaking”, according to which a known world is partly constructed by our imposition of concepts. The rest of the paper aims to make worldmaking hard. (i) It rejects the usual episternological and semantic paths to Worldmaking arguing that they use the wrong methodology and proceed in the wrong direction. (ii) It considers the relation between Worldmaking and the response-dependency theory of concepts. Philip Pettit has proposed (...) a global version of that theory: all our concepts are response-dependent. The paper argues that this theory provides an example of the semantic path to Worldmaking and for that reason alone should be rejected. (shrink)

Chapter 1 presents BS, a basic syllogistic system based on Aristotle's logic, in natural deduction form. Chapters 2 and 3 treat the metatheory of BS: consitency, soundness, independence, and completeness. Chapter 4 and 5 deal with syllogistic and, in turn, propositional and predicate logic, chapter 6 is on existential import, chapter 7 on subject and predicate and chapter 8 on classes. Chapter 9 adds negative variables to BS, and proves its soundness and completeness.

As scholars have commonly observed, a central difference between epistemic and practical normativity is the fact that the reasons of the former kind balance prohibitively, while reasons of the latter kind do so permissively. To explain the prohibition to believe or disbelieve in the face of tied evidence, several scholars have appealed to normative reasons in favour of a third doxastic option, the suspension of judgement. However, the question remains as to what happens if these latter reasons are defeated. In (...) such cases, one seems to be stuck in an impasse: either one is forced into an epistemic dilemma– where neither of one’s doxastic options seems permissible– or one must relax the prohibitive balancing principle– where there might be, after all, situations in which believing in the face of tied evidence is rationally permissible. In this paper, I discuss different ways to derive this puzzle of defeated suspension, as well as the most common strategy in responding to it. I argue that an appeal to undefeated reasons to suspend judgement comes with significant downsides and, thus, one should seek a different response: in extreme forms of the puzzle of defeated suspension, a form of higher-order suspension becomes rational. If one treats higher-order suspension as an additional doxastic option, one can avoid the puzzle in its entirety. Furthermore, an analogue puzzle of higher-order doubt merits the same treatment. (shrink)

Paul K Feyerabend’s engagement with physics started before his engagement with philosophy, and he continued to think about new developments in physics until the end. To understand Feyerabend’s philosophy, therefore, it is crucial to understand his views on physics, many of which have remained unpublished until now. Doing so pays off, not only in helping us to understand the history of philosophy of science, but also insofar as it opens up new resources for contemporary philosophy of physics. The papers collected (...) in this special issue demonstrate just how impactful such a project can be. -/- This special issue arrives in two parts, each collecting four papers. The first half was published in 2022. This is the introduction for the second half. (shrink)