Research has suggested an increase in loneliness during the COVID-19 pandemic, but much of this work has been cross-sectional, making causal inferences difficult. In the present research, we employed a longitudinal design to identify loneliness trajectories within a period of twelve months during the COVID-19 pandemic in Belgium (N = 2106). We were particularly interested in the potential protective role of self-compassion in these temporal dynamics. Using a group-based trajectory modelling approach, we identified trajectory groups of individuals following low (11.0%), (...) moderate-low (22.4%), moderate (25.7%), moderate-high (31.3%), and high (9.6%) levels of loneliness. Findings indicated that younger people, women, and individuals with poor quality relationships, high levels of health anxiety, and stress related to COVID-19, all had a higher probability of belonging to the highest loneliness trajectory groups. Importantly, we also found that people high in two of the three facets of self-compassion (self-kindness and common humanity) had a lower probability of belonging to the highest loneliness trajectory groups. Ultimately, we demonstrated that trajectory groups reflecting higher levels of loneliness were associated with lower life satisfaction and greater depressive symptoms. We discuss the possibility that increasing self-compassion may be used to promote better mental health in similarly challenging situations. (shrink)

Primary works on Huang-Lao Taoism and Yin-yang philosophy, lost for more than two thousand years, are translated and prefaced with an informative introduction.

The authors argue it is essential to examine the linguistic and communicative practices that are used in the production of introspective data, and thereby make an important contribution to debates about how we may study experience that are relevant to a wide range of disciplines.The book has three objectives. It offers an account of the way in which contemporary researchers are employing introspection methodologies; it argues for the importance of viewing introspective data as discourse, and illustrates this via discussion of (...) research findings in four substantive chapters; and it outlines new directions for research and theorising on introspection and consciousness which will have implications for a range of psychological and social science disciplines.Robin Wooffitt is a Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of York, and Director of the Anomalous Experiences Research Unit.Nicola Holt is a Lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of West of England at Bristol. (shrink)

Background While most countries that allow abortion on women’s request also grant physicians a right to conscientious objection (CO), this has proven to constitute a potential barrier to abortion access. Conscientious objection is regarded as an understudied phenomenon the effects of which have not yet been examined in Germany. Based on expert interviews, this study aims to exemplarily reconstruct the processes of abortion in a mid-sized city in Germany, and to identify potential effects of conscientious objection. Methods Five semi-structured interviews (...) with experts from all instances involved have been conducted in April 2020. The experts gave an insight into the medical care structures with regard to abortion procedures, the application and manifestations of conscientious objection in medical practice, and its impact on the care of pregnant women. A content analysis of the transcribed interviews was performed. Results Both the procedural processes and the effects of conscientious objection are reported to differ significantly between early abortions performed before the 12th week of pregnancy and late abortions performed at the second and third trimester. Conscientious objection shows structural consequences as it is experienced to further reduce the number of possible providers, especially for early abortions. On the individual level of the doctor-patient relationship, the experts confirmed the neutrality and patient-orientation of the vast majority of doctors. Still, it is especially late abortions that seem to be vulnerable to barriers imposed by conscientious objection in individual medical encounters. Conclusion Our findings indicate that conscientious objection possibly imposes barriers to both early and late abortion provision and especially in the last procedural steps, which from an ethical point of view is especially problematic. To oblige hospitals to partake in abortion provision in Germany has the potential to prevent negative impacts of conscientious objection on women’s rights on an individual as well as on a structural level. (shrink)

In this clear, concise and up-to-date introduction to environmental ethics, Robin Attfield guides the student through the key issues and debates in this field in ways that will also be of interest to a wide range of scholars and researchers. The book introduces environmental problems and environmental ethics and surveys theories of the sources of the problems. Attfield also puts forward his own original contribution to the debates, advocating biocentric consequentialism among theories of normative ethics and defending objectivism in (...) meta-ethics. The possibilities of ethical consumerism and investment are discussed, and the nature and basis of responsibilities for future generations in such areas as sustainable development are given detailed consideration. Attfield adopts an inclusive, cosmopolitan perspective in discussions of global ethics and citizenship, and illustrates his argument with a discussion of global warming. The text uses a range of devices to aid understanding, such as summaries of key issues, and guides to further reading and relevant websites. It has been written particularly with a view to the needs of students taking courses in environmental ethics, and will be of interest to students and scholars of philosophy, ethics, geography, religion and environmental studies. (shrink)

Considérez les énoncés suivants : « La bombe a causé la destruction du pont » ; « L’explosion de la bombe a causé la destruction du pont » ; « Booth a causé la mort de Lincoln » ; et « Le tir de Booth a causé la mort de Lincoln ». Ces énoncés suggèrent que les objets, tels que les bombes ou les personnes, font partie de la catégorie ontologique des causes, au même titre que les évènements, comme le (...) tir de Booth et l’explosion de la bombe. À première vue, le fait que les objets et les personnes puissent être des causes n’a rien de particulièrement surprenant. Cependant, les philosophes du XXe siècle ont fait preuve d’une extrême méfiance à l’égard de cette idée. Une majorité de philosophes ont trouvé l’idée même de causalité par des objets ou des agents inintelligible, à tel point que les théories standards de la causalité présupposent que les entités reliées comme causes à effets sont des évènements, ou encore des faits, des propriétés ou des états. Pourtant, cette hostilité à l’égard de la causalité des objets est relativement récente ; la causalité agentive semble, au moins jusqu’à Thomas Reid (1710-1796), avoir été la norme, et non le mystère. La mise à l’écart des objets et des agents de la catégorie de cause est-elle justifiée ? Un nombre grandissant de philosophes, les agentialistes (agent-causalists), soutiennent que non et cherchent à réhabiliter l’idée de causalité agentive (par des agents) et/ou substantielle (par des substances), tandis que d’autres, les évènementialistes (event-causalists), défendent que celle-ci est au mieux réductible à la causalité entre évènements, ou au pire que l’idée est incohérente. L’importance de cette question n’est pas négligeable, car elle revient à demander quels sont les moteurs du changement. En effet, nous voulons savoir si certains objets tels que les couteaux, les bombes, les animaux et les personnes sont parfois à l’origine du changement, ou si tout effet procède uniquement de changements antérieurs, d’évènements. Existe-t-il une relation causale, la causalité agentive ou substantielle, reliant objets et changements, différente des relations causales habituellement traitées par les philosophes de la causalité ? Quelle est sa relation avec la causalité évènementielle ? Et comment fonctionne-t-elle ? (shrink)

This book brings together new essays on a major focus of debate in contemporary metaphysics: does time really pass, or is our ordinary experience of time as consisting of past, present, and future an illusion? The international contributors broaden this debate by demonstrating the importance of questions about the nature of time for philosophical issues in ethics, aesthetics, psychology, science, religion, and language.

Science is not a great way to make money, or these days, even a job. But there are great riches in it, and in this book too. Tim Bradford, 'New Scientist'.

In her article in this volume Linda Martín Alcoff makes the case for a form of political epistemology that denaturalizes, in the sense of historically and socially situating, procedures of knowledge production and distribution. She pursues this project via a discussion of three twentieth-century thinkers (Horkheimer, Habermas and Foucault) who, she argues, pursued this form of political epistemology, albeit in different ways, and to different ends. In this article I pursue a similar project, but within a different tradition, one that (...) grows out of naturalized epistemology. (shrink)

We present a new class of models of players’ reasoning in non-cooperative games, inspired by David Lewis's account of common knowledge. We argue that the models in this class formalize common knowledge of rationality in a way that is distinctive, in virtue of modelling steps of reasoning; and attractive, in virtue of being able to represent coherently common knowledge of any consistent standard of individual decision-theoretic rationality. We contrast our approach with that of Robert Aumann, arguing that the former avoids (...) and diagnoses certain paradoxes to which the latter may give rise when extended in particular ways. (shrink)

Can room be found in between the matter and void of a Newtonian universe for an immaterial and immortal soul? Can followers of Locke with his agnosticism about the nature of substances claim to know that some of them are immaterial? Samuel Clarke, well versed in Locke's thought and a defender both of Newtonian science and Christian orthodoxy, believed he could do both and attempted to prove his case by means of some hard-boiled reductionism. Anthony Collins, a deist whose only (...) lapse from materialism concerned God himself, rejected Clarke's argument. In this paper I discuss their controversy' in order to bring out the state of debate about material systems and consciousness among people influenced by Locke and Newton in the early eighteenth century, and I also assess Clarke's reductionist premise, as he himself frequently invites "the impartial reader" to do. (shrink)

In his posthumously published lectures, Politics in Commercial Society, István Hont argues that Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith should be understood as theorists of commercial society. This article challenges Hont’s interpretation of both thinkers and shows that some of his key claims depend on conflating the terms ‘commercial society’ and ‘commercial sociability’. I argue that, for Smith, commercial society should not be defined in terms of the moral psychology of commercial sociability, before questioning Hont’s Epicurean interpretation of Smith’s theory of (...) sociability. I then turn to Rousseau and outline some of the difficulties involved with classifying him as a theorist of commercial society, the most important of which is that he often appeared to be more deeply opposed to commercial progress than Hont suggests. I conclude by highlighting some of the most salient differences between Rousseau’s and Smith’s views of the politics of eighteenth-century Europe. (shrink)

This book brings together for the first time the political and related writings of R.G. Collingwood (1889-1943), the great Oxford philosopher, historian, and archaeologist. Including a great deal of previously unpublished or inaccessible material, the writings place political action in the context of action as a whole and addresses substantive social and political issues, particularly Nazism and Fascism, which Collingwood recognized as a threat to European civilization.

Este libro es el resultado del trabajo póstumo de compilación y selección de los papeles de Collingwood.

In The Gay Science §341, the thought of eternal return is introduced as the announcement of a “demon.” Two possible hearers are described: one is crushed by the demon’s speech, while the other is overjoyed. This article argues that these responses are different because they are responses to different messages. One is conveyed in plain words by the demon’s speech; the other is implied by a final reference to “this ultimate eternal confirmation and sealing.” While that confirmation is provided by (...) what the demon says, not everyone will be aware of it: rather, only someone for whom the value of life has become problematic will be aware of it. Further, it seems that the demon does not understand his own message, since he personifies a will to knowledge that is indifferent to such concerns. Thus, only a human being can gain insight into the value and meaning of life from the thought of eternal return. (shrink)

Published here for the first time in paperback is much of a final and long-anticipated work on philosophy of history by the renowned Oxford philosopher, historian, and archaeologist R. G. Collingwood. The original text of this uncompleted work was only recently discovered in the archives of Oxford University Press. Also found there were two conclusions written by Collingwood for lectures which were eventually revised and published as The Idea of Nature, but which have relevance to his philosophy of history as (...) well. These pieces are included in this volume, accompanied by further short writings by Collingwood on historical knowledge and inquiry, selected from previously unpublished manuscripts held at the Bodleian Library, Oxford. All these writings, besides containing entirely new ideas, discuss further many of the issues which Collingwood is famous for having raised in The Idea of History and in his Autobiography.A lengthy editorial introduction sets these writings in their context, and discusses philosophical questions to which they give rise. The editors also consider why Collingwood left The Principles of History unfinished at his death, and what significance should be attached to the fact that it contains no reference to one of his best-known ideas: that of historical understanding as re-enactment. This volume will be a significant publication not just in Collingwood studies but in philosophy of history generally. (shrink)

It is widely held that moral obligations to non-human beings do not involve considerations of justice. For such a view, nonhuman interests are always prone to be trumped by human interests. Rawlsian contractarianism comprises an example of such a view. Through analysis of such theories, this essay highlights the problem of reconciling the claim that humans have obligations to non-humans with the claim that our treatment of the latter is not a matter of justice. We argue that if it is (...) granted that the basic interests of non-human beings sometimes count for more than the peripheral interests of humans, then our understandings of obligation and of justice must be aligned, so that what we say about obligation is not countered by assumptions about the invariable priority of humans in matters of justice. We further consider whether such a conclusion can be endorsed by those who adopt certain alternative theories to contractarianism. We conclude that adherents of a range of theories including sentientism and biocentrism must accept that human interests can sometimes be superseded by animal interests, and that this applies not least in matters of justice. (shrink)

Fabian Freyenhagen's impressive reconstruction of Adorno's ‘practical philosophy’ provides a convincing defence of the possibility of making normative claims about the social world we live in without justifying these claims in terms of the right, the good, or human nature. More specifically, and more controversially, Freyenhagen argues that the normative resources Adorno's critique relies on are provided by a negative Aristotelianism. In this paper, I argue that this approach underestimates the extent to which Adorno follows the model of immanent critique, (...) I highlight the socio-theoretical underpinnings of what Freyenhagen calls Adorno's ‘ethics of resistance’, and I discuss the risk of overstating the danger of co-optation that collective political action faces. (shrink)

There is a need to disentangle various distinct kinds of claim. The body may be important in schooling, though not in education. Movement, sport, fitness and health need to be distinguished. Does sport improve character? Does education imply knowledge about matters of health? Is learning to dance analogous to either learning to play cricket or learning to play a musical instrument? The most challenging questions concern whether the body provides an alternative route to knowledge, if so of what. For example, (...) is ballet a unique form of language with its own intrinsic value, an alternative way of arriving at valued propositional knowledge, or does it provide access to a unique kind of knowledge? The conclusion is drawn that none of these claims is sustainable in terms that make them of any great educational significance. (shrink)

For Kant and Hill, self-respect is a morally central and morally powerful concern. Both have also had some things to say in moral praise of humility and in condemnation of arrogance, a trait widely regarded as the vice to which the virtue of humility is the prevention and cure. Arrogance can easily be seen as a failure to respect both other people and oneself. It might be thought, however, that humility and self-respect are in tension, if not at odds with (...) one another, for the one is widely thought to involve a low opinion of one’s worth and the other a high regard for it. My essay focuses on understanding, with the help of Kant and Hill, relations among various kinds of humility, arrogance, and self-respect. I argue that humility is not the virtue opposing arrogance, but rather, self-respect is, and that humility is at best an ancillary, instrumental, contextual virtue and the servant of self-respect; but at worst, it is as serious a vice as arrogance, indeed, an aspect of it. (shrink)

We develop an analysis of discourse anaphora—the relationship between a pronoun and an antecedent earlier in the discourse —using games of partial information. The analysis is extended to include information from a variety of different sources, including lexical semantics, contrastive stress, grammatical relations, and decision theoretic aspects of the context.

This paper focuses on independent training providers (ITPs) – in other words, private companies – as suppliers of vocational education and training in post-war England. Whilst acknowledging the central role of further education (FE) colleges in delivering vocational learning, it draws attention to a large, diverse sector of ITPs operating alongside FE colleges, particularly during the 1960s and 1970s. Data suggest that around 15–20% of vocational learners were enrolled as fee-paying customers with private providers at that time – a figure (...) broadly similar to today. There are, it is argued, three related reasons for this. First, the post-war policy environment, and the varied and uneven nature of colleges at that time, allowed significant room for ITPs to operate as alternative providers of vocational education. Second, the far-reaching ‘efficiency’ gains required since FE colleges left local authority control have largely attenuated the space in which ITPs previously operated. Third, neoliberal assumptions about the superiority of private enterprise mean that ITPs now receive significant funding from the state, largely to deliver Apprenticeships and other programmes of work-related learning – which has, somewhat perversely, reduced the incentive for them to act as bone fide commercial providers of a broader range of vocational learning. (shrink)

We present a sketch of a formulation of an analysis of clarification ellipsis using dependent record types as they have been developed in Martin-Lof type theory. Record types provide a semantic formalism which at the same time..

In response to Alan Holland's 'Darwin and the meaning in life' (Environmental Values 18: 503—518) I argue that there can be room in a Darwinian world for talk of value, in the sense of interpersonal reasons to promote, preserve or cherish some of the states of that world, or to be glad about those states. Darwinian theorists can recognise a range of intrinsically valuable states of affairs, from the pleasure or the happiness of creatures to their flourishing, and need not (...) discard axiology in general. The context of the passage criticised by Holland is explained to show that I was attempting to supply a vocabulary (such as 'reasons to be glad') usable by religious sceptics as well as believers, for comparing worlds with parasitism and predation and worlds without them; the shape of such comparisons is further delineated. Reasons for being tentative about trans-world comparisons are also supplied. (shrink)

When the social sciences parted company from evolutionary biology almost exactly a century ago, they did so at a time when evolutionary biology was still very much in its infancy and many key issues were unresolved. As a result, the social sciences took away with them an understanding of evolution that was in fact based on 18th- rather than 19th-century biology. I argue that contemporary evolutionary thinking has much more to offer the social sciences than most people have assumed. Contemporary (...) evolutionary research on human behaviour focuses on two main issues at the micro-social scale: understanding the trade-offs in individual decision-making and understanding the cognitive constraints that limit flexibility of decisions. I offer examples of both of these approaches. Finally, I consider the broader question of the macro-social scale. (shrink)

Hume Regards it as a mere “Verbal Dispute” whether or not various “natural abilities” should be regarded as moral virtues. In his Treatise he complains that “good sense and judgment”, “parts and understanding” are classed in all systems of ethics of the day with bodily endowments and ascribed no “merit or moral worth”. Yet if compared with the received virtues, they fell short in no material respect, both sets being “mental qualities” and each equally tending to procure “the love and (...) esteem of mankind’. (shrink)

The Earth Charter is largely a wholesome embodiment of a commendable and globally applicable ecological ethic. But it fails to treat responsibilities towardfuture generations with sufficient clarity, presenting these generations as comparable to present and past generations, whose members are identifiable, whenin fact most future people are of unknown identity, and when the very existence of most of them depends on current actions. It can be claimed that we still haveobligations with regard to whoever there will be whom we could (...) affect, and in addition, all the possible people of the future whom we could affect have moralstanding, as well as corresponding members of other species. These obligations clash with the person-affecting principle, which considerably restricts suchobligations and the scope of moral standing at the same time. Finally, there are implications for sustainability, at least with regard to sustainable levels ofpopulation and with regard to global warming, and thus a need for further clarification of the content of responsibilities toward future generations. (shrink)

The phenomenon of global warming, the anthropogenic theory of its genesis and some of the implications of that theory are introduced as a case-study of a global environmental problem involving issues of equity between peoples, generations and species. In particular, recognition of the view that the absorptive capacities of the atmosphere comprise an instance of the Common Heritage of Humankind would have a key bearing on negotiations downstream from the Kyoto Protocol, suggesting the proportioning of emission quotas to population, and (...) also limits to the inter-state trading of quotas. This view and these possible implications are discussed; international regimes with such a basis are argued to have a firmer foundation than ones based on historical emission levels (such as the Kyoto agreement), and to escape the charge of anthropocentrism to which stress on the Common Heritage of Humankind appears to expose them. The anthropogenic theory might be held, instead, to favour tying emissions quotas to aggregate historical emissions of the last two centuries. But intergenerational equity requires a sustainable international regime, based on universal principles rather than history. (shrink)

The philosophy of nature is at least as old as the presocratics, but has undergone comparative neglect in philosophical circles this century until recently, at least in English-speaking lands. The philosophy of science concentrates on scientific concepts and methods and the interpretation of scientific theories, rather than on the concept of nature itself, while, with significant exceptions , aesthetics focuses on the experience of art rather than on that of nature. Meanwhile moral, political and social philosophy has focused on the (...) social environment, but the natural environment has often been lost to view. Indeed it has been argued, with some cogency, that mainstream Western metaphysics, epistemology and ethics have historically been inhospitable to conservation, to environmentalism and to their values. (shrink)

Examples are presented which raise problems for theories of proper names which deny their equivalence either with descriptions (miller, Kripke) or with non-Trivial descriptions (bach). These examples of names equivalent to the same descriptions for all the possible worlds in which their bearers exist require the theories to be abandoned or at least modified as to their scope.

Granted the far-flung impacts of humanity on the future and the biosphere, Hans Jonas has rightly called for our responsibilities to be reconceptualised, and where responsibilities are non-reciprocal Chris Groves has put forward a model of the ethics of care to underpin them. In view, however, of Derek Parfit's work on responsibilities with regard to the possible but unidentifiable people of alternative possible futures, the author suggests that an ethical model grounded in relations, while helpful, is insufficient with regard to (...) these impersonal responsibilities, and is not sufficiently strengthened by resorting to 'constitutive value'. To meet the need for further models, he first presents two familiar ones (those of bequests or legacies and of stewardship or trusteeship), and then a new model appropriate for responsibilities towards unidentifiable parties, based on hospitality and generosity, and Jesus' parable of the great banquet as in Luke 14. This model also has its shortcomings, but could, alongside the others, assist people to take non-reciprocal responsibilities seriously. (shrink)

The relations of philosophy and poetry include but are not exhausted by Plato’s hostility to mimetic poetry in the Republic and Aristotle’s defence of it in the Poetics. For poetry has often carried a philosophical message itself, from the work of Chaucer and Milton to that of T.S. Eliot. In yet earlier generations, poetry was chosen as the medium for conveying a philosophical message by (among Greek philosophers) Xenophanes, Parmenides and Empedocles, and (at Rome) by Lucretius, who struggled both with (...) the Latin language and with the standard metre of didactic poetry, hexameters, to spread what he considered enlightenment and to reach for his Epicureanism an audience that might otherwise have remained unreached. To the extent that poets such as Lucretius succeeded, the philosophical critics of poetry in the tradition of Plato would have to recognise merit in some mimetic poetry. (Thus Lucretius compares clouds of atoms to flocks of sheep, which he graphically depicts.) Yet a defence of poetry other than Aristotelian katharsis would be needed for works such as those of Empedocles and Lucretius. Perhaps Enlightenment can be conveyed equally well in verse as in prose, mimetic components notwithstanding; for some purposes perhaps itcan be conveyed uniquely well. De nihilo nil fit, to quote Lucretius, comprises an example. (shrink)

A global ethic needs to be cosmopolitan in a sense which is explained; this excludes certain kinds of communitarian ethic. Contracttheories, Kantianism, basic-rights theories, Ross-type deontology and theories of virtue ethics are reviewed and found to encounter severe problems. Consequentialist theories, however, are found capable of coping with Williams’ objections, and practice-consequentialist theories capable of coping with right-making practices and with Lenman's unpredictability objection. Variants that exclude from consideration unintended consequences, the results of omissions, or impacts on possible people, or (...) which prioritize average over total outcomes, fail to improve on the Total View, which is argued to overcome objections based on population numbers and on good procedures, but which needs to be biocentric in scope. Theories of this kind are capable of coping with global problems, while also favouring alliances between global citizens of diverse normative outlooks. Key Words: alienation • biocentric consequentialism • cosmopolitanism • global citizens • global ethic • global problems • overpopulation • practice-consequentialism • Total View • unpredictability. (shrink)