In a number of publications, John Earman has advocated a tertium quid to the usual dichotomy between substantivalism and relationism concerning the nature of spacetime. The idea is that the structure common to the members of an equivalence class of substantival models is captured by a Leibniz algebra which can then be taken to directly characterize the intrinsic reality only indirectly represented by the substantival models. An alleged virtue of this is that, while a substantival interpretation of spacetime theories falls (...) prey to radical local indeterminism, the Leibniz algebras do not. I argue that the program of Leibniz algebras is subject to radical local indeterminism to the same extent as substantivalism. In fact, for the category of topological spaces of interest in spacetime physics, the program is equivalent to the original spacetime approach. Moreover, the motivation for the program--that isomorphic substantival models should be regarded as representing the same physical situation--is misguided. (shrink)

We attempt to gain some insight into the issue of whether pure states evolve to density matrices in the black hole evaporation process by examining the mode functions of the particles entering the black hole which are correlated with the particles which escape to infinity. We show that these particles enter the black hole singularity at relatively early times. This tends to support the view that pure states evolve to density matrices, i.e., that in this process quantum (...) coherence is lost. (shrink)

ABSTRACT John Dewey argued in his Art as Experience that the significance of art as experience was of incomparable importance for the adventure of philosophical thought. He claimed that while both move in the medium of imaginative mind, art provides a “unique control” for the “imaginative ventures of philosophy.” In this article I examine, relying on a range of sources, some pivotal implications of this claim and especially how various forms of art and aesthetic experience can exemplify and further ways (...) of formulating, presenting, and critically engaging focal issues, both methodological and substantive, of the tasks of philosophy. The originary context of philosophy is agonistic, wresting meaning from the noise of meaninglessness or discerning order in a seeming world of chaos, not merely that of winning an argument. Both philosophy and art have attempted to fill a “hole in sense” by various practices, discursive in the case of philosophy and nondiscursive or “presentational” in the case of art. But art forms offer us models for a plurality of philosophical approaches to the task of enabling us to maintain and restore our existential and experiential balance within what Dewey called the “moving unbalanced balance of things.”. (shrink)

Jim Weatherall has suggested that Einstein's hole argument, as presented by Earman and Norton, is based on a misleading use of mathematics. I argue on the contrary that Weatherall demands an implausible restriction on how mathematics is used. The hole argument, on the other hand, is in no new danger at all.

After some background setting in which it is shown how Maudlin's (1989, 1990) response to the hole argument of Earman and Norton (1987) is related to that of Rynasiewicz (1994), it is argued that the syntactic proposals of Mundy (1992) and of Leeds (1995), which claim to dismiss the hole argument as an uninteresting blunder, are inadequate. This leads to a discussion of how the responses of Maudlin and Rynasiewicz relate to issues about gauge freedom and relativity principles.

This special issue of Foundations of Physics collects together articles representing some recent new perspectives on the hole argument in the history and philosophy of physics. Our task here is to introduce those new perspectives.

A team of philosophical writers examines the startling ideas and arguments of this pundit of persuasion.

Leibniz Equivalence is a principle of applied mathematics that is widely assumed in both general relativity textbooks and in the philosophical literature on Einstein’s hole argument. In this article, I clarify an ambiguity in the statement of this Leibniz Equivalence, and argue that the relevant expression of it for the hole argument is strictly false. I then show that the hole argument still succeeds as a refutation of manifold substantivalism; however, recent proposals that the hole argument (...) is undermined by principles of representational equivalence do not fare so well. (shrink)

So far my examples have illustrated purely descriptive and evaluative uses of "work of art," but my main claim is that most uses are not pure. Take a controversial example. Christo recently hung a huge, bright orange curtain between the sides of a canyon in Rifle Gap, Colorado. The curtain stretched all the way across the canyon, filled the canyon from top to bottom, and had a hole cut out for the road at the base of the canyon to (...) pass through. There was a good deal of controversy in Colorado at the time about whether the curtain was a work of art. . . . First, the curtain was not in a traditional medium, and this alone was enough to disqualify it as a work of art for some people. Still, it was an artifact, it was intended for public observation and contemplation, and it had no essential utilitarian function. That it met these criteria there could be no doubt, and this was enough for some to consider it a work of art. Others, however, required more before deciding. Of those, some said that a great deal of skill was required to produce it; that it definitely had significant formal qualities—especially the dramatic contrast in line and color between it and the completely natural surroundings; that it was certainly a creative endeavor; and that it was most conducive to aesthetic experience—comparable to certain natural phenomena. For these people it was, without a doubt, a work of art for both descriptive and evaluative reasons. Others, however, were much less charitable. They thought that if the production required skill at all, it was engineering not artistic skill; that not only did it not have significant formal qualities, it was formally trivial and sterile; that perhaps it was novel, but to call it creative was beyond the pale; that far from being conducive to aesthetic experience, it was a blight upon the landscape. Therefore, it was not a work of art. Finally, there were those people who were not sure which characteristics to attribute to the Christo production and were therefore uncertain whether it was a work of art. Robert McGregor is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Denver and is the author of several articles on aesthetics. See also: "Christo's Gates and Gilo's Wall" by W. J. T. Mitchell in Vol. 32, No. 4. (shrink)

This book explores four types of nothingness as found in nature: holes in nature, totalizing nothingness in horror, naturing nothingness, and encompassing nothingness. Robert S. Corrington argues that though nothingness takes many forms, they are all guises of the same vast Nothingness.

As is well know from Einstein the choice of a criterion for distant simultaneity is equivalent to stipulating one-way speeds for the transit of light. It is shown that any choice of non-standard synchrony is equivalent to a Lorentz local time boost. From this and considerations from the hole argument, it follows that there is a non-trivial sense in which distant simultaneity is conventional, at least to the extent that the “gauge freedom” arising in the hole argument is (...) non-trivial. (shrink)

The data were collected during 9.5 months of field work by Sarah Mathew from 2008– 2010. Participants were a representative sample of adult men reliant on nomadic pastoralism for their livelihood. We recruited them in a town close to the ethnic border frequented by nomadic Turkana who live in the surrounding 50 km radius. Recruitment was done with the help of trained local Turkana research assistants. The RA approached potential participants, briefly introduced them to the study, and then asked them (...) to participate. If they agreed, they were brought to the study site described below. We conducted the study in the town center because the risk of raids in the surrounding nomadic settlements was high. We did not recruit from the settled Turkana population in this town center as they are Turkana who have actively pursued schooling and professions outside the pastoral sector, or were forced out of subsistence pastoralism after droughts, epidemics or raids. Nomadic Turkana frequent the perimeter of the town center for a variety of reasons as it is an important trading center and is adjacent to dry season watering holes. Herders from surrounding nomadic settlements frequent the market to sell an animal and purchase tobacco, tea, sugar and flour. Turkana women come to sell milk and collect relief food. Nomadic Turkana periodically come to town to visit their settled relatives. A river runs along the perimeter of town. The wells dug in the dry bed of the river provide water for 1 surrounding nomadic settlements and so herdsmen frequently bring their livestock for watering to the perimeter of town from where we can recruit them.To ensure that our sample is representative of herders within the town perimeter on a given day, we aimed to recruit using the following procedure to the extent that circumstances allowed: First, we specified the age-group that the participant should belong to. Then the RA went to one of the locations where nomadic herders visiting town are found.. (shrink)

Topology is a kind of abstraction from metrical geometry. The metrical geometry is the distance geometry of a space and gives rise to concepts such as length, angles, and curvature. Topology studies spaces with a much more general conception of “nearness” than that provided by the metric. Thus, although the metric geometry distinguishes spheres, cubes, and pyramids from one another due to their different metrical properties, topology classifies them together as instances of the same object. However, topology does mark a (...) difference between spheres and doughnuts since, loosely speaking, “holes” are topological properties. Explaining the difference between topological and metrical properties is therefore the natural first order of business when introducing the ideas of topology. (shrink)

While substantial progress has been made in reaching a moral and policy consensus regarding forgoing life-sustaining treatment, several holes exist in that consensus where more public discussion and moral analysis is needed. First, among patients who have not been found to be legally incompetent there is controversy over whether certain treatments can be refused. Controversies also remain over damages for treatment without consent, limits based on third-party interests and the ethical integrity of the medical profession, and cases where it cannot (...) be agreed whether the patient is competent. Even greater dispute exists over care of incompetent patients. Perhaps the greatest gap in the consensus arises over limits to the use of the best interests standard. This article proposes replacing it with a "reasonableness standard" that takes into account disputes about what is literally the best for the patient and conflicts of interest between the patient and others. (shrink)

We examine the time discontinuity in rotating space–times for which the topology of time is S1. A kinematic restriction is enforced that requires the discontinuity to be an integral number of the periodicity of time. Quantized radii emerge for which the associated tangential velocities are less than the speed of light. Using the de Broglie relationship, we show that quantum theory may determine the periodicity of time. A rotating Kerr–Newman black hole and a rigidly rotating disk of dust are (...) also considered; we find that the quantized radii do not lie in the regions that possess CTCs. (shrink)

What if subconscious brain processes are actually independent consciousnesses, each resembling an independent advisor whispering advice to the main consciousness, or “I”? This multi-consciousness model would support free will, as our choices are informed by other consciousnesses, not the subconscious. Each independent consciousness allows a movable perspective through its rich representation of the world and constantly seeks harmony and resonance between its internal concepts, other consciousnesses, external reality, and the genetic worm hole to the evolutionary past.

Is it possible to be spiritual and yet not believe in the supernatural? Can a person be spiritual without belonging to a religious group or organization? In Spirituality for the Skeptic, philosopher Robert Solomon explores what it means to be spiritual in today's pluralistic world. Based on Solomon's own struggles to reconcile philosophy with religion, this book offers a model of a vibrant, fulfilling spirituality that embraces the complexities of human existence and acknowledges the joys and tragedies of life. (...) Solomon has forged an enlightened new path that synthesizes spirituality with emotions, intellect, science, and common sense. His new paradigm, "naturalized" spirituality, establishes as its cornerstone the "thoughtful love of life"--a passionate concern for the here-and-now, and not the by-and-by. Being spiritual doesn't mean being holed up as a recluse, spending hours in meditation and contemplation, Solomon argues. It demands involvement and emotional engagement with others in the struggle to find meaning in our lives. As such, this modern-day spirituality encompasses a passionate enthusiasm for the world, the transformation of self, cosmic trust and rationality, coming to terms with fate, and viewing life as a gift, all of which are explored in depth throughout this book. Spirituality for the Skeptic answers the need for a non-institutional, non-dogmatic spirituality that leads to personal fulfillment and satisfaction. By examining the ideas of great thinkers from Socrates and Nietzsche to Buddha to Kafka, Solomon arrives at a practical vision of spirituality that should appeal to many seekers looking to make sense of the human condition. (shrink)

Formal models lead beyond ordinary experience to abstractions such as black holes and quantum entanglement. Applying such models to experience itself makes it seem unfamiliar and even paradoxical. We suggest, however, that doing so also leads to insights. It shows, in particular, that the “view from nowhere” employed by the theorist is both essential and deeply paradoxical, and it suggests that experience has an unrecorded, non-reportable component in addition to its remembered, reportable component.

For most literary sociologists serious modern work starts with Robert Escarpit’s Sociologie de la Littérature , a book which proposes that sociology can usefully explain how literature operates as a social institution. Subsequent Escarpit-inspired work on the literary enterprise covers topics such as the profession of authorship; the stratified “circuits” of production, distribution, and consumption; and the commodity aspect of literature. Critics have objected that Escarpit’s increasingly macroquantitative and statistics-bound procedures bleach out literary and ideological texture. And his model (...) of literature as discrete social system encourages the abstract model making which Raymond Williams despises.1 But, whatever its shortomcings, Escarpit’s definition of literary product and practice as social faits forms an essential starting point for the sociologist intending to investigate the apparatuses of literature.In what follows, I shall mainly fix on a problem currently disabling constructive research on the literary-sociological lines projected by Escarpit: namely, scholarly ignorance about book trade and publishing history technicalities. This sets up, I shall suggest, a large and troubling hole at the centre of the subject, and there is little indication, at this stage, how or when the hole is to be filled. 1. See Raymond Williams, “Literature and Sociology,” Problems in Materialism and Culture: Selected Essays , pp. 11-30. John Sutherland is professor of literature at the California Institute of Technology. His books include Fiction and the Fiction Industry , Bestsellers , and Offensive Literature . He is currently completing an encyclopedia of Victorian fiction. (shrink)

Half a century later, a Dretskean stance on epistemic closure remains a minority view. Why? Mainly because critics have successfully poked holes in the epistemologies on which closure fails. However, none of the familiar pro-closure moves works against the counterexamples on display here. It is argued that these counterexamples pose the following dilemma: either accept that epistemic closure principles are false, and steal the thunder from those who attack classical logic on the basis of similarly problematic cases—specifically, relevance logicians and (...) like-minded philosophers—or stick with closure and surrender to relevantist claims of failure in truth-preservation aimed at classical rules of inference. Classicist closure advocates find the promise of a way out of the dilemma in the works of Roy Sorensen and John Hawthorne. The paper argues against their pro-closure move and renews Robert Audi’s call for a theory of closure-failure. (shrink)

This book offers a unified collection of published and unpublished papers by Robert Audi, a renowned defender of the rationalist position in ethics. Taken together, the essays present a vigorous, broadly-based argument in moral epistemology and a related account of reasons for action and their bearing on moral justification and moral character. Part I details Audi's compelling moral epistemology while Part II offers a unique vision of ethical concepts and an account of moral explanation, as well as a powerful (...) model of moral realism. Part III extends this account of moral explanation to moral responsibility for both actions and character and to the relation between virtue and the actions that express it. Part IV elaborates a theory of reasons for action that locates them in relation to three of their traditionally major sources: desire, moral judgment, and value. Clear and illuminating, Audi's introduction outlines and interconnects the self-contained but cumulatively arranged essays. It also places them in relation to classical and contemporary literature, and directs readers to large segments of thematically connected material spread throughout the book. Audi ends with a powerfully synthetic final essay. (shrink)

In a style that is both philosophically sophisticated and accessible to general readers, Robert Almeder introduces readers to the vigorous debate in the scientific community about the possibility of personal survival after death. He argues that belief in some form of personal survival is as empirically justifiable as our belief in the past existence of dinosaurs. Drawing on 21 of the best case studies in reincarnation, apparitions of the dead, ostensible possession, out-of-body experiences, and trance mediumships, Death and Personal (...) Survival offers a comprehensive discussion of the best empirical evidence in each of these areas and refutes alternative explanations offered by sceptics. (shrink)

This book critically evaluates liberalism, the dominant attempt in the tradition of political philosophy to provide a philosophical foundation for democracy, and argues for a conception of deliberative democracy to meet this need.

If people are inclined to attribute race to humanoid robots, as recent research suggests, then designers of social robots confront a difficult choice. Most existing social robots have white surfaces and are therefore, I suggest, likely to be perceived as White, exposing their designers to accusations of racism. However, manufacturing robots that would be perceived as Black, Brown, or Asian risks representing people of these races as slaves, especially given the historical associations between robots and slaves at the very origins (...) of the project of robotics. The only way engineers might avoid this ethical and political dilemma is to design and manufacture robots to which people will struggle to attribute race. Doing so, however, would require rethinking the relationship between robots and “the social,” which sits at the heart of the project of social robotics. Discussion of the race politics of robots is also worthwhile because of the potential it has to generate insights about the politics of artifacts, the relationship between culture and technology, and the responsibilities of engineers. (shrink)

This is explained in a new introduction that goes beyond the interpretative enterprise of the rest of the book to assess Marx in relation to contemporary ...

"This book discusses the vast and complex range of choices in between blanket amnesty and total accountability through criminal justice, and does so with ...

Propositional relationalists about the attitudes claim to find support for their view in what they assume to be the dyadic relational logical form of the predicates by which we canonically attribute propositional attitudes. In this paper I argue that the considerations that they adduce in support of this assumption, specifically for the assumption that the that-clauses that figure in these predicates are singular terms, are suspect on linguistic grounds. Propositional relationalism may nonetheless be true, but the logical form of attitude (...) predicates provides no grounds for thinking this to be so. (shrink)

Finance orthodoxy views finance capital as privately supplied, inherently scarce, and limited to assets accumulated by rentiers and held in financial institutions to be “intermediated” between virtuous savers and needful end users. But this “intermediated scarce private capital” orthodoxy is false and profoundly antagonistic to both democracy and productive investment. This article offers a more accurate portrayal that captures the critical role the public plays in generating and allocating its own full faith and credit in monetized form. The financial system (...) then looks like a franchise arrangement in which the public is franchiser and the institutions dispensing its full faith and credit are its franchisees. A post-capital-scarcity account of publicly underwritten finance explicitly recognizes both the propriety and the necessity of the public’s taking an active role in modulating and allocating its credit aggregates across the economy it constitutes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"Spirituality":"Weasel-Word" or Gateway to New Understanding?Peter Gilbert (bio)Keywordsspirituality, faith communities, NIMHEVisiting the Samuel Palmer Exhibition at the British Museum, I was struck, not only by the spiritual power of the paintings, especially in the late Shoreham period such as, my favorite: The Magic Apple Tree (circa 1830)—but how Palmer appeared to bring both Christian and Pantheistic themes into his work. The museum's exhibition collator remarks that Palmer saw the (...) fruitfulness of the earth as an intimation of Divine creativity. The artist sought to capture "The essential vivifying spirit, vital spark" (Palmer's words) of the physical world in which we live.I was reminded as I moved from The Magic Apple Tree, to In a Shoreham Garden, and The Golden Valley, how these paintings had been used by a record company when they had issued all of Ralph Vaughan Williams' orchestral and choral works in the 1970s, to mark his anniversary. Vaughan Williams was not a signed up Christian, but many of his choral works express a strong yearning for the transcendent using Christian imagery. The day before I visited the Palmer exhibition, I listened to Professor Robert Winston on Start the Week (28th November, 2005), in which he spoke of his BBC series The Story of God (Winston, 2005). As a scientist, Winston is intrigued as to why humans seek the transcendent. He continually refers to this desired other as "God," although I think it would be more accurate to call it a search for the transcendent. Winston puzzles over why there appears to be "a God-shaped hole" within humanity (Start the Week, November, 28, 2005), and again, as a scientist, postulates that: "the more we understand about science, the less we understand about the Universe."In the light of the most popular films and books at present, the search for something beyond ourselves appears to be very much at the center, rather than at the periphery of humanity's consciousness at the present time. Reading Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, and reading his various essays, we are struck by his articulation of the human search:We need a story, a myth that does what the traditional religious stories did. It must explain. It must satisfy our hunger for a Why... There are two kinds of Why, and our story must deal with both. There's the one that asks What brought us here? and the other that asks What are we here for?(Pullman, 2001)The author's article is very helpful in its practical approach to psychotherapy and spirituality. I particularly liked her reference to the work of Charles Corr (1991) and his work with people [End Page 197] who are dying and considering the physical, psychological, social, and spiritual aspects of the last days. The spiritual aspects being around identifying, developing, or reaffirming spiritual sources of energy and hope. This is the kind of approach that the National Institute for Mental Health in England (NIMHE) national Project on Spirituality and Mental Health has been engaged in since 2001, the approach being to stress the spiritual dimension as an integral part of a whole person and whole systems approach to mental health; work with mental health services and their partners to engage with this agenda; and work toward a better understanding between faith communities and mental health services (see Gilbert and Nicholls, 2003). Service users and their carers are increasingly stating strongly to services that they wish to have their spiritual dimension and spiritual needs addressed properly—and certainly not in a "tick-box" method! The author quotes Samson and Zerter (2003) as saying that the person's spiritual dimension "draws a thread of identity, relationship, meaning and purpose, which weave through each of these aspects" (i.e. the life events and other aspects of their being).I welcome the author's stress on a "relational approach," and her breadth of reference, for example, the diary of Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and philosopher, but I had some concerns about her use of the term personal theology, and talk of the personal aspect of religion and "the Divine," in that I think that this could... (shrink)

Defining qualified reasoning as reasoning containing such loose qualifying words as 'probably,' 'usually,' 'probable, 'likely,' 'ceteris paribus,' and 'primafacie, Ennis argues that typical cases of qualified reasoning, though they might be good arguments, are deductively invalid, implying that such arguments fail soundness standards. He considers and rejects several possible alternative ways of viewing such cases, ending with a proposal for applying qualified soundness standards, which requires employment of sufficient background knowledge, sensitivity, experience and understanding of the situation. All of this (...) takes place as part of the process, introduced elsewhere, of successively applying different legitimate sets of standards until one is found that is satisfied, or none is found, the latter calling for rejection of the argument, the former calling for its acceptance. (shrink)