Many philosophres have attempted to argue from the "Humean Theory of Motivation" (HTM) and the "Internalism Requirement" (IR) to the "Humean Theory of Practical Reason" (HTPR). This argument is familiar, but it has rarely been stated with sufficient precision. In this paper, I shall give a precise statement of this argument. I shall then rely on this statement to show two things. First, the HTPR is false: it is incompatible with some extremely plausible assumptions about weakness of will or akrasia. (...) Second, this argument for the HTPR is invalid: even if the HTM and the IR are true, they do not provide any support whatsoever to the HTPR. (shrink)

This paper outlines a new approach to the task of giving an account of the meaning of moral statements: a sort of "conceptual role semantics", according to which the meaning of moral terms is given by their role in practical reasoning. This role is sufficient both to distinguish the meaning of any moral term from that of other terms, and to determine the property or relation (if any) that the term stands for. The paper ends by suggesting reasons for regarding (...) this "conceptual role semantics" approach as preferable to noncognitivism, the causal theory of reference, and noncircular conceptual analysis. (shrink)

Philosophers have long distinguished between practical and theoretical rationality. The first section of this chapter begins by discussing the ways in which this distinction was drawn by Aristotle and Kant; then it sketches what seems to be the general consensus today about how, at least roughly, the distinction should be drawn. The rest of this chapter explores what practical and theoretical rationality have in common: in the second section, several parallels between practical and theoretical rationality are outlined, and it is (...) argued that these parallels make it plausible that a unifying account of rationality can be given. Finally, in the third section, a number of such unifying accounts of practical and theoretical rationality are surveyed. These include accounts that are inspired in various ways by Hume and by the results of formal decision theory, as well as views that appeal to reasons and to the distinctive value of correct or appropriate attitudes. (shrink)

In this article i defend the claim that an individual is no more and no less than a bundle of instances of properties against the following objections: (1) the concept of an instance of a property presupposes the concept of an individual. i argue that it presupposes only that no instance of a property exists independently of other instances. (2) if a thing were only a bundle of instances of properties, then properties would qualify properties. this objection commits the fallacy (...) of composition. (3) a bundle constituting an individual needs a component which is not a property to individuate it. i argue that such a bundle individuates itself. (4) the bundle theory makes change impossible. i argue against this claim by distinguishing a thing's numerical identity from its "complete" identity. (5) the bundle theory makes all true statements about individuals analytically true. i show that, at least for one interpretation of 'analytically true', this is not so. (shrink)

Both these ideas are intuitively plausible: rationality has an external aim, such as forming a true belief or good decision; and the rationality of a belief or decision is determined purely by facts about the thinker’s internal mental states. Unlike earlier conceptions, the conception of rationality presented here explains why these ideas are both true. Rational beliefs and decisions, it is argued, are those that are formed through the thinker’s following ‘rules of rationality’. Some rules count as rules of rationality (...) because it is rational to believe---through following other rules---that those rules are reliable. But there must also be certain basic rules, which are a priori, or ‘built into’ our basic cognitive capacities. That these rules are a priori is a purely internal matter; and in following these rules the thinker has done all that could reasonably be expected to achieve the external aim of forming a true belief or good decision. (shrink)

The _Symbolic Forms_ has long been considered the greatest of Cassirer’s works. Into it he poured all the resources of his vast learning about language and myth, religion, art, and science—the various creative symbolizing activities and constructions through which man has expressed himself and given intelligible objective form to this experience. “These three volumes alone make an outstanding contribution to epistemology and to the human power of abstraction. It is rather as if ‘The Golden Bough’ had been written in philosophical (...) rather than in historical terms.”—F.I.G. Rawlins, _Nature_. (shrink)

The 25th volume of Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion continues to provide readers with an interdisciplinary assortment of high quality research studies aimed at capturing salient, contemporary trends in the field. The current volume presents a special section examining the role of spiritual and religious themes in sexuality research.

It would appear that among scientific men discussion of the general principles of natural science has, on the whole, proved more congenial to mathematicians and physicists than to biologists. Just why this should be so might be difficult to explain or justify. But one reason seems to lie in the comparative ambiguity of the concept of causation in biology. In general, the term causation has been used in science to designate the special rôle of active factors, rather than of passive (...) or stable factors, in the determination of single events. By active factors we mean those which involve physical change, typically associated with transfer of energy; these are distinguished from stable factors or invariants which persist unchanged throughout the process under consideration. Thus in the classical isolated system, the total energy represents a stable factor which remains the same through all transformations of the system. The energy changes its form, potential or distribution, but not its total quantity. This rule of conservation defines a static condition persisting as a limiting factor through any case of change. Similarly, the permanent or unchanging factor in a machine consists in the stable properties and structural interconnections of its parts; together those constitute an invariant which fixes definitely the possible range of activity. Activity itself requires flow of energy; strictly speaking, a causal factor is not a static factor but is a change of some kind; releasing events are included under causal events since they introduce factors without which change does not occur. (shrink)

Despite its attraction for journalists and others, communitarianism corrupts a liberal democracy and denies a community the ability to make reason-based decisions by becoming highly rule oriented and static with self-protection as the driving motive. Civic or public journalism that retains its pluralistic characteristics may still encourage moral development of individuals, particularly journalists, to assure a dynamic society. Communitarian journalism, however, devalues truth in favor of community loyalty and conformity at the expense of individual moral development.

In this paper, we discuss the macroscopic quantum behavior of simple superconducting circuits. Starting from a Lagrangian for electromagnetic field with broken gauge symmetry, we construct a quantum circuit model for a superconducting weak link (SQUID) ring, together with the appropriate canonical commutation relations. We demonstrate that this model can be used to describe macroscopic excitations of the superconducting condensate and the localized charge states found in some ultrasmall-capacitance weak-link devices.

In this article, I reply to the comments that Richard Holton, Peter Railton, and James Lenman have made on my 2007 book "The Nature of Normativity".