Forty-three years ago Max Weber observed that “the belief in the value of scientific truth is not derived from nature but is a product of definite cultures.” We may now add: and this belief is readily transmuted into doubt or disbelief. The persistent development of science occurs only in societies of a certain order, subject to a peculiar complex of tacit presuppositions and institutional constraints. What is for us a normal phenomenon which demands no explanation and secures many ‘self-evident’ cultural (...) values, has been in other times and still is in many places abnormal and infrequent. The continuity of science requires the active participation of interested and capable persons in scientific pursuits. This support of science is assured only by appropriate cultural conditions. It is, then, important to examine those controls which motivate scientific careers, which select and give prestige to certain scientific disciplines and reject or blur others. It will become evident that changes in institutional structure may curtail, modify or possibly prevent the pursuit of science. (shrink)

This important collection of essays offers a sustained philosophical examination of fundamental questions raised by multicultural education in primary and secondary schools. The essays focus on both theory and policy. They discuss the relation between culture and identity, the role of reason in bridging cultural divisions, and the civic implications of multi-culturalism in the teaching of history and literature. Several of the essays examine aspects of multicultural policies in California and New York, as well as the curriculum guidelines promulgated by (...) the National Council for Social Studies. Although much has been published on the subject of multi-culturalism, including the cultural war on American campuses, there is very little available on the impact of multicultural policies for primary and secondary education. So this is a volume that will be welcomed by all those interested in multicultural education: philosophers and historians of education, sociologists, professional educators and policy-makers. (shrink)

In Grassroots Spirituality, Robert Forman documents an important and profound shift in the nature of spirituality in North America, that strongly influences Europe as well. His exciting survey graphically illustrates the possibility of this "grassroots" movement shaping a creative era that responds to new and old needs of religiosity.

Are mystical experiences primarily formed by the mystic's cultural background and concepts, as modern day "constructivists" maintain, or do mystics in some way transcend language, belief, and culturally conditioned expectations? Do mystical experiences differ in the different religious traditions, as "pluralists" contend, or are they identical across cultures? Twelve contributors here attempt to answer these questions through close examination of a particular form of mystical experience, "Pure Consciousness"--the experience of being awake but devoid of intentional content for consciousness. The contributors (...) analyze pure consciousness and other mystical experiences from historical Hindu, Buddhist, Christian, and Jewish sources, as well as from modern mystics. They demonstrate that pure consciousness poses serious conceptual problems for a contructivist understanding of mysticism. Revealing the inconsistencies and inadequacies of current models, they make significant strides towards developing new models for the phenomenon of mysticism, breaking new ground for our understanding of mysticism and of human experience in general. (shrink)

Philosophers, psychiatrists, and social scientists would welcome clarification of the distinction between rational and irrational desires. It may be proper to say that rational desires are those which manifest rationality. But since this seems a rather unilluminating characterization, philosophers sometimes offer definitions of what constitute such manifestations of rationality. I shall consider definitions provided by John Rawls and Richard Brandt. Their definitions are unsatisfactory mainly because they include subjunctive conditionals. An alternative approach, which avoids conditionals, is attractive. But it encounters (...) so many additional problems that I shall conclude that we are not now in a position to define rationality in this area and must treat it as a state or disposition which to date has only been partially characterized. Thus, if we want a definition of the difference between rational and irrational desires, we must at present settle for the rather unexciting one mentioned above. (shrink)

This book focuses on issues in astronomy, cosmology, physics, matter theory, philosophy, and theology vital to the “Copernican Revolution.” It describes efforts among individuals advocating different world views to fit new ideas compatibly into broad perspectives reflecting four traditional patterns of interpretation: teleological, mechanical, occultist, and mathematico-descriptive.

Wirtschaftstexte aus Fara II. By Horst Steible and Fatma Yildiz. Die Inschriften von Fara, vol. 4. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2015. Pp. x + 272. €78.

Analytic philosophers need to distinguish between what has been called the conditional fallacy and what might be called the self-thwarting fallacy. The paper explores the difference by illustrating how its neglect has obscured the evolution of Keith Lehrer’s theory of knowledge. The paper also considers how attending to the distinction helps to reveal new critical concerns regarding Lehrer’s treatment of knowing.

What do well-known theories look like if formulated with a relevant rather than a standard classical or intuitionist logic? Do familiar reconstructions of these theories go through, or do we change the reconstruction when we change the logic? I show in this paper that a new class of fallacies arises when we take the familiar Peano postulates as the foundation for a relevant theory of the natural numbers N. For these postulates fail in the relevant context to establish the relevant (...) cancellation theorem. Put otherwise, there are fallacies of division in arithmetic formulated relevantly! (shrink)

Is faith that p compatible with disbelief that p? I argue that it is. After surveying some recent literature on the compatibility of propositional and non-propositional forms of faith with the lack of belief, I take the next step and offer several arguments for the thesis that both these forms of faith are also compatible, in certain cases, with outright disbelief. This is contrary to the views of some significant recent commentators on propositional faith, including Robert Audi and Daniel (...) Howard-Snyder. The primary argument revolves around the possibility of maintaining a single faith through drastic changes in cognitive attitude. I argue that once we allow that propositional faith is compatible with weaker cognitive attitudes than belief, such as acceptance or assent, there is prima facie reason to consider propositional faith as sometimes compatible with disbelief. I then consider objections and offer some final reflections on the significance of the thesis. (shrink)

This is a sequel to Forman's well-received collection, The Problems of Pure Consciousness (OUP 1990). The essays in this previous volume argued that some mystical experiences do not seem to be formed or shaped by the language system--a thesis that stands in sharp contrast to the constructivist school, which holds that all mysticism is the product of a cultural and linguistic process. In The Innate Capacity, the same scholars put forward a hypothesis about the formative causes of these "pure consciousness" (...) experiences. All the contributors agree that mysticism is the result of an innate human capacity, rather than a learned, socially conditioned constructive process. They look at mystical experience as it is manifested in a variety of religious and cultural settings, including Hindu Yoga, Buddhism, Sufism, and medieval Christianity. Taken together, the essays constitute an important contribution to the ongoing debate about the nature of mystical experience and its relation to the social and cultural context in which it appears. (shrink)