Using yet untapped resources from moral and political philosophy, this book seeks to answer the question of whether an all good God who is presumed to be all powerful is logically compatible with the degree and amount of moral and natural evil that exists in our world. It is widely held by theists and atheists alike that it may be logically impossible for an all good, all powerful God to create a world with moral agents like ourselves that does not (...) also have at least some moral evil in it. James P. Sterba focuses on the further question of whether God is logically compatible with the degree and amount of moral and natural evil that exists in our world. The negative answer he provides marks a new stage in the age-old debate about God's existence. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 7.2 (2002) 27-38 [Access article in PDF] On the Possibility of Grounding a Defense of Ecofeminist Philosophy James P. Sterba It is a pleasure to comment on Karen Warren's excellent book. 1 The book is a treasure trove of discussions in ecofeminist philosophy that I am sure people will be drawing upon for years to come. In the introduction to the book, Warren says (...) that her main goal is to present and defend a particular version of ecofeminist philosophy (xiii). In my brief comments, I want to consider how Warren understands that defense, consider how strong it is, and consider further how one might add to it to make it even stronger.As I was trying to figure out how best to understand Warren's defense of ecofeminist philosophy, I kept being reminded of Warren's conception of philosophy as quiltmaking. 2 According to this conception, in philosophizing we bring together a wide array of ideas like patches with some prima facie constraining conditions, and we don't quite know what will emerge until we put all the ideas or patches together. Well, I sort of felt that way about Warren's various remarks throughout the book on how she understands herself to be defending a particular version of ecofeminist philosophy. They were like various patches that needed to be brought together to illuminate her defense. Moreover, according to Warren's conception of philosophy as quiltmaking, we will sometimes need to repair or replace certain ideas or patches in our philosophical quilt patches that we [End Page 27] have come to recognize do not fit well with the rest of the quilt. Similarly, when I was trying to bring together Warren's various remarks on how she was defending a particular version of ecofeminist philosophy; some of her remarks did not seem to fit well with her overall purpose of defending ecofeminist philosophy. These remarks did not seem to belong to her own ecofeminist philosophy quilt, or at least they needed to be repaired to make a better fit. But, of course, this is just what one would expect given Warren's quiltmaking conception of doing philosophy; repairing and replacing patches in one's philosophical quilt is business as usual according to Warren's preferred way of doing philosophy. Or, as Warren herself puts it, correcting such mistakes is "simply a lovely and welcome part of the process of theorizing" (102).As her book makes abundantly clear, Warren is against both the domination of women and the domination of nature. Early in the book, she considers how we might defend her perspective against someone who was against the domination of women but not against the domination of nature, presumably because the person did not think that nonhuman nature deserved moral consideration (57). Warren's defense here is to appeal to the very definition of environmental ethics. Warren distinguishes environmental ethics, an ethics of the environment, from an ethics concerning the environment. An environmental ethics, by definition, Warren tells us, takes nonhuman nature to deserve moral consideration whereas an ethics concerning the environment does not. So for those committed to an environmental ethics, so defined, it is not an open question whether to be against the domination of nonhuman nature, or, presumably, the domination of women. They must be against both forms of domination. Now while this part of Warren's defense of ecofeminist philosophy does work to some extent, it is worth noting how close the premises are to the desired conclusion. The defense is directed at those who regard both women and nonhuman nature as deserving moral consideration. The conclusion that is drawn is that those same individuals should be against both the domination of women and against the domination of nonhuman nature.Later in the book, in another related philosophical patch, Warren considers whether she can provide an argument in defense of the moral considerability of nonhuman nature, and she claims that she cannot (74-76). This is because, she claims, the moral considerability of nonhuman nature is groundless.Here Warren compares her view... (shrink)

The study reports on the results of an empirical investigation of the education and recruitment processes used in HIV vaccine trials conducted in South Africa. Interviews were conducted with 21 key informants involved in HIV vaccine research in South Africa and three focus groups of community advisory board members. Data analysis identified seven major themes on the relationship between education and recruitment: the process of recruitment, the combined dual role of educators and recruiters, conflicts perceived by field staff, pressure to (...) achieve recruitment targets, problems in achieving comprehension, accountability and education as capacity building. The results raise ethical concerns about the adequacy of current informed consent processes in these settings. The study findings bear directly on current debates about issues of exploitation and the scope of moral responsibilities of researchers and funding agencies to assure that HIV clinical prevention research is conducted ethically. (shrink)

DNA methylation is a repressive epigenetic mark vital for normal development. Recent studies have uncovered an unexpected role for the DNA methylome in ensuring the correct targeting of the Polycomb repressive complexes throughout the genome. Here, we discuss the implications of these findings for cancer, where DNA methylation patterns are widely reprogrammed. We speculate that cancer‐associated reprogramming of the DNA methylome leads to an altered Polycomb binding landscape, influencing gene expression by multiple modes. As the Polycomb system is responsible for (...) the regulation of genes with key roles in cell fate decisions and cell cycle regulation, DNA methylation induced Polycomb mis‐targeting could directly drive carcinogenesis and disease progression.Editor's suggested further reading in BioEssays Unmasking risk loci: DNA methylation illuminates the biology of cancer predisposition Abstract. (shrink)

Skeptical theists hold that we should be skeptical about our ability to know the reasons that God would have for permitting evil, at least in particular cases. They argue for their view by setting aside actions that are wrong in themselves and focusing their attention on actions that are purportedly right or wrong simply in terms of their consequences. However, I argue in this paper that once skeptical theists are led to take into account actions that are wrong in themselves, (...) as they must, they cannot escape the conclusion that there is a logical contradiction between the existence of an all-good, all-powerful God and what would have to be God’s permission of the significant and horrendous evil consequences of immoral actions found in our world. (shrink)

Dwayne Moore’s "A Naturalistic Theodicy for Sterba’s Problem of Natural Evil," (Moore, 2024) provides a detailed critique of my logical argument from evil against the existence of the God of traditional theism. While there have been many critiques of my logical argument against the existence of the God of traditional theism from moral evil to which I have replied (2020b, 2020c, 2021, 2023), there has been only one previous critique that was directed at my logical argument from natural evil (see (...) Jordan, 2023 ). Accordingly, I welcome this opportunity to show how my logical argument from natural evil works against Moore’s critique. (shrink)

Christianity's roots, distinctiveness, and cultural implicationsare highlighted in this multi-dimensional resource, providing anintroductory understanding of the richness of the faith andchurch.

One of the standard principles of rationality guiding traditional accounts of belief change is the principle of minimal change: a reasoner's belief corpus should be modified in a minimal fashion when assimilating new information. This rationality principle has stood belief change in good stead. However, it does not deal properly with all belief change scenarios. We introduce a novel account of belief change motivated by one of Grice's maxims of conversational implicature: the reasoner's belief corpus is modified in a minimal (...) fashion to assimilate exactly the new information. In this form of belief change, when the reasoner revises by new information p ∨ q their belief corpus is modified so that p∨q is believed but stronger propositions like p∧q are not, no matter what beliefs are in the reasoner's initial corpus. We term this conservative belief change since the revised belief corpus is a conservative extension of the original belief corpus given the new information. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kenneth Burke on Dialectical-Rhetorical TranscendenceJames P. ZappenKenneth Burke's concept of rhetoric is complex and elusive, increasingly so as it becomes intertwined and infused with dialectic in the long third part of A Rhetoric of Motives and in some essays published shortly thereafter (1951; 1955; 1969b [1950], 183–333).1 The connection between Burke's rhetoric and dialectic is well established (Brummett 1995; Crusius 1986; 1999, 120–21; Wess 1996, 136–216; Wolin 2001, 143–204), (...) and his concept of rhetoric as identification is widely recognized for its broadening of the traditional view of rhetoric as persuasion to include identification as a means of inducing cooperation and building communities (Crusius 1999, 120–21; Hauser 1986, 120–37; Henderson 1988, 33–34). Timothy W. Crusius establishes the fundamental relationship between A Grammar of Motives and A Rhetoric of Motives as dialectical and rhetorical counterparts and explains both the strengths and the limitations of identification as a means of inducing cooperation (1986). According to Crusius, dialectic explores the substance of a person or thing—all that "supports or 'substands'" it—from multiple and shifting perspectives, viewing human action dramatistically as act, scene, agent, agency, and purpose (24–28). Rhetoric complements dialectic and its multiple dramatistic perspectives by promoting "identification" and "cooperation," building "a community, a sense of oneness amid diversity of conflicting interests and values" (28–30). As Crusius and others observe, [End Page 279] however, identification as a means of inducing cooperation is inherently limited since any identification necessarily also entails a division: "Every 'us' requires a 'them'" (29; Biesecker 1997, 47–49; Wolin 2001, 177–78). Thus, for example, while Christianity provides a powerful instance of identification, it also provides an equally powerful illustration of its division from other peoples—"Satan and his counter-kingdom," "the Turk infidel," and "the pagan hordes of Asia" (28–29). For Burke, these divisions were largely political (George and Selzer 2007, 16–57, 110–32; Lentricchia 1983, 21–38). For us, they are differences of gender, culture, and economic and social class (Condit 1992), compounded by political, economic, and religious differences on a global scale. By this account, the first two parts of the Rhetoric offer at best a partial solution to the problem. The third part challenges and mystifies and in itself seems to offer little more than a utopian vision without purpose or outcome (Crusius 1999, 120–21; Wess 1996, 211–16; Wolin 2001, 201–3).2 Situated within the broader context of Burke's work, however, the third part seems rather to offer a bold and creative solution to the problem by merging dialectic and rhetoric with dialogue and poetic myth in a dialectical-rhetorical transcendence—a concept that merits a place alongside identification as a major contribution to rhetorical theory (1969b, 197–208, 221–33).3Burke's concept of dialectical-rhetorical transcendence developed over the course of more than twenty years, from the mid 1930s to the mid 1950s and beyond. Its sources are partly Hegelian and Marxist but increasingly Platonic,4 as Burke comes to perceive the Hegelian and Marxist concepts of history as part of the problem of competing ideologies and his version of Platonic transcendence as the solution—a solution that leads, on the one hand, toward "pure persuasion" and "ultimate identification" and, on the other, toward the pragmatics of a new rhetoric and a revolutionary program of lifelong education (1951; 1955; 1969b, 267–94, 328–33; Biesecker 1997, 43–47; Lee 2004; Wess 1996, 203–5, 211–16; Wolin 2001, 201–3). In the midst of the political divisiveness of the 1930s, Burke glimpsed in Hegel and even Marx the possibility of bridging conflicting ideologies via transcendence, but he turned to Plato in the Grammar and again in the Rhetoric to explain the processes by which opposing ideas and ideologies might merge in transcendent visions or myths that encompass what he perceived to be partial and partisan points of view. In the Grammar, his solution is dialectical—a merger of opposing ideas at higher levels of generalization through a process of linguistic abstraction and transformation that respects a diversity of individual interests, even as it seeks to transcend them in larger [End... (shrink)

The experimental results reported in Clahsen's target article clearly distinguish regular from irregular processes and suggest a basic difference between items that are productively formed and items which are stored in the lexicon. However, these results do not directly implicate any particular combinatory operation (such as affixation), nor do they distinguish inflectional items from other productive formations.

The Pursuit of Justice: A Personal Philosophical History is a collection of renowned scholar and philosopher James P. Sterba’s finest works - essays spanning the full spectrum of his illustrious career along with new scholarship on the enduring struggle for justice we face as a society, and as individuals in the modern world. That struggle, or pursuit, may be ongoing, but – as this book details – it has come a long way, and that progress, however frustrating it may (...) be to obtain and secure, is a testament to the work to which scholars like Sterba have devoted their lives and careers. (shrink)

On Saturday morning, February 28, 1953, the mystery of heredity appeared secure. Humans hadn't the faintest idea of how genetic information was transmitted—how the uncanny resemblance between mother and daughter, grandfather and grandson was conveyed across generations. Yet, by that Saturday afternoon, two individuals, James Watson and Francis Crick, had glimpsed the solution to these mysteries. The story of Watson and Crick's great triumph has been told and retold and has rightly entered the pantheon of scientific legend. But Watson (...) and Crick's breakthrough was just that: a rupture and dramatic discontinuity in human knowledge that solved a deep mystery, the likes of which occurs, perhaps, a couple of times each century. And that's the problem. The story is just so good and so irresistible that it has misled generations of scientists about what to expect regarding a life in science. And more damaging, the resulting breakthrough mentality misleads the public, the media, and society's decision-makers about how science really works, all to the detriment of scientific progress and our society's well-being. (shrink)

Well-known philosophers from a variety of philosophical orientations vigorously discuss James Sterba's bold claims that morality is required by reason and that even a minimal morality leads to braodly egalitarian commitments--Alison M. Jaggar, on back cover.

"In this revisionist study, Young denies that Adams was a reactionary critic of democracy and instead contends that he was an idealistic, though often disappointed, advocate of representative government. Young focuses on Adams's belief that capitalist industrial development during the Gilded Age had debased American ideals and then turns to a careful study of Adams's famous contrast of the unity of medieval society with the fragmentation of modern technological society."--BOOK JACKET.

I show how Jan Narveson’s critique fails to unseat my central argument that harm cuts both ways in our assumed idealized conflict situations, such that sometimes the poor harm the rich and sometimes the rich harm the poor. I further show how this supports my overall argument that libertarianism has gone over the brink into the waiting arms of welfare liberals and socialists. I also reject the; other reasons that Narveson provides for not recognizing the welfare rights of distant peoples (...) and future generations which are independent of my argument about harm. (shrink)

This paper describes an approach for reasoning in a dynamic domain with nondeterministic actions in which an agent’s beliefs correspond to the simplest, or most plausible, course of events consistent with the agent’s observations and beliefs. The account is based on an epistemic extension of the situation calculus, a first-order theory of reasoning about action that accommodates sensing actions. In particular, the account is based on a qualitative theory of nondeterminism. Our position is that for commonsense reasoning, the world is (...) most usefully regarded as deterministic, and that nondeterminism is an epistemic phenomenon, arising from an agent’s limited awareness and perception. The account offers several advantages: an agent has a set of categorical beliefs, yet can deal with equally-likely outcomes or with outcomes of differing plausibility. The agent maintains as its set of contingent beliefs the most plausible, or simplest, picture of the world, consistent with its beliefs and actions it believes it executed; yet it may modify these in light of later information. (shrink)

Charles Darwin questions whether conflicts between species palpably captured by the conflict between Ichneumonidae and the caterpillars on which they prey could be compatible with the existence of an all-good, all-powerful God. He also questioned whether the suffering of millions of lower animals throughout our almost endless prehistory could be compatible with an all-good, all-powerful God. In this paper, I show that these two problems of natural evil that Darwin raised in his work can be resolved so as to present (...) no objection to theism once it is recognized what the moral principles are that should govern our relationship to the natural world and analogously should govern God’s relationship to the natural world. (shrink)

Consider the case of Gary Gyges, an otherwise normal human being who, for reasons of personal gain, has embezzled $300,000 while working at People's National Bank and is in the process of escaping to the South Sea Islands where he will have the good fortune to live a pleasant life protected by the local authorities and untroubled by any qualms of conscience. If we assume that in the society from which Gyges is fleeing moral standards are generally observed, Gyges's behavior (...) would be obviously immoral. Is it possible, however, that Gyges, a rational person, may have had perfectly consistent reasons for acting immorally? Is it also possible that Gyges may not have had any moral reasons at all to refrain from his act of embezzlement? (shrink)

In The Metaphysics of Morals, Kant claims that “the first command” of all self-regarding duties is to know our “heart.” Kant ostensibly identifies our heart with our moral disposition. Strangely, this appears to be precisely the sort of knowledge that, elsewhere, Kant claims is epistemically inaccessible to us. While the more sophisticated attempts to resolve this difficulty succeed in situating an injunction to know the quality of one’s disposition within a Kantian epistemic framework, no account is wholly successful in explaining (...) why Kant takes self-knowledge to be a necessary condition of virtue. To make sense of the priority Kant assigns to the pursuit of self-knowledge, I argue that it is essential to understand the role of what has been called “generic” self-knowledge in Kant’s moral philosophy. I proceed to defend the place Kant grants moral self-knowledge in his moral philosophy, primarily by developing a Kantian account of such “generic” self-knowledge. (shrink)

IStephen Darwall is one of the few contemporary philosophers who, like myself, claims to have provided a conclusive argument in favor of morality over egoism. As a result, Darwall’s essay on my book,See this issue of The Journal of Ethics.From Rationality to Equality, provides me with the marvelous opportunity to assess the strengths and weaknesses of our different approaches to providing just such a defense of morality, an opportunity for which I am very grateful.Darwall begins with a fairly accurate summary (...) of one of my two arguments against ethical egoism, the argument that assumes that egoists are interested in providing a non-question-begging defense of the view. The other argument against egoism does not make that assumption but still manages to show that egoism is question-begging nonetheless. Unfortunately, Darwall does not consider this second argument.I assume that Darwall just overlooked this argument. Otherwise, it would be difficult to explain why he would repeatedly menti .. (shrink)

In his celebrated paper of 1931 [7], Kurt Gödel proved the existence of sentences undecidable in the axiomatized theory of numbers. Gödel's proof is constructive and such a sentence may actually be written out. Of course, if we follow Gödel's original procedure the formula will be of enormous length.Forty-five years have passed since the appearance of Gödel's pioneering work. During this time enormous progress has been made in mathematical logic and recursive function theory. Many different mathematical problems have been proved (...) recursively unsolvable. Theoretically each such result is capable of producing an explicit undecidable number theoretic predicate. We have only to carry out a suitable arithmetization. Until recently, however, techniques were not available for carrying out these arithmetizations with sufficient efficiency.In this article we construct an explicit undecidable arithmetical formula,F(x, n), in prenex normal form. The formula is explicit in the sense that it is written out in its entirety with no abbreviations. The formula is undecidable in the recursive sense that there exists no algorithm to decide, for given values ofn, whether or notF(n, n)is true or false. MoreoverF(n, n)is undecidable in the formal (axiomatic) sense of Gödel [7]. Given any of the usual axiomatic theories to which Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem applies, there exists a value ofnsuch thatF(n, n)is unprovable and irrefutable. Thus Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem can be “focused” into the formulaF(n, n). Thus some substitution instance ofF(n, n)is undecidable in Peano arithmetic, ZF set theory, etc. (shrink)

Established religions integrate a society's everyday secular realities with humankind's numinous experience of the holy. Powerful emotions nourish the cultural expression of the archetypes propelling the “ritual dances” of art, sport, and technocracy. During sacred moments such as mother‐infant or adult bonding, neuroendocrine triggers activate lifelong ties. The cultural canon of the left cortex contrasts with the intuitive right. Brainstem “switches” alternate the left's cool, extraverted, sympathetic drive for control with the right's “warm” attachment behavior and dreaming sleep. Psychic trauma (...) damages flexibility with resultant alexithymic blindness to emotions and archetypes. Substance abuse and narcissistic overemphasis on control ensue. (shrink)

My discussion of Hegel focuses direcrly upon the process of interiority at the centre of his thought. This process captures certain fundamental classical philosophical and religious themes in its gamut: knowledge, love, the Incarnation, and the Trinity. The central anti-reductionistic principle around which my examination of interioriry is developed is Hegel’s contention that the low or imperfect must be seen in the light of the high or perfect. I discriminate between the different ontological forms of this principle in the philosophies (...) of Aristotle, Aquinas, and Hegel. (shrink)

THIS ESSAY OUTLINES THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN RELIGIOUS VIRTUE ethics and positive psychology—a field that has grown exponentially since its inauguration in 1998 by Martin Seligman, then president of the American Psychological Association. This essay shows how positive psychology, through its comprehensive classification of human virtues in Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification, opens the possibility of dialogue between empirical psychology and religious virtue ethics; considers some internal and external challenges to positive psychology's approach; and examines one of positive (...) psychology's virtues, the virtue of humanity, and indicates how a Thomistic religious virtue ethics presents a more compelling account of this virtue. The conclusion provides a brief answer to the question, Is positive psychology friend or foe? (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the U.S. and its coalition partners should announce that they intend to completely withdraw from Iraq within six months or less. And if this announcement did bring a suspension or reduction of hostilities against them, then, I argue, they should leave even sooner. For the most part, my grounds for holding this view are based on the lack of a justification for going to war against Iraq in the first place. But part of the (...) grounds for an immediate withdrawal turns on what has transpired since the U.S. and its coalition partners invaded Iraq. (shrink)

ALERT: Before you purchase, check with your instructor or review your course syllabus to ensure that you select the correct ISBN. Several versions of Pearson's MyLab & Mastering products exist for each title, including customized versions for individual schools, and registrations are not transferable. In addition, you may need a CourseID, provided by your instructor, to register for and use Pearson's MyLab & Mastering products. Packages Access codes for Pearson's MyLab & Mastering products may not be included when purchasing or (...) renting from companies other than Pearson; check with the seller before completing your purchase. Used or rental books If you rent or purchase a used book with an access code, the access code may have been redeemed previously and you may have to purchase a new access code. Access codes Access codes that are purchased from sellers other than Pearson carry a higher risk of being either the wrong ISBN or a previously redeemed code. Check with the seller prior to purchase. -- Students learn how traditional ethical theories can be applied to practical problems . Introducing Ethics is a brief text that encourages students to determine how the common wisdom of traditional ethical theories can be applied to practical problems such as the distribution of income and wealth, torture, terrorism, and gay and lesbian rights. The text begins by challenging students to think about whether or not ethics is useful for making choices. It poses three questions: 1) Is morality determined by religion rather than reason? 2) Is everything relative? 3) Is it better to be an egoist? Then, after laying out Utilitarian ethics, Kantian ethics, and Aristotelian ethics, the author poses an additional three challenges focused on the traditional conceptions of ethics: the environmental challenge, the feminist challenge, and the multicultural challenge. Learning Goals Upon completing this book readers will be able to: Answer the question: Do I make ethical or moral choices well? Determine their own responses to ethical challenges Note: MySearchLab does not come automatically packaged with this text. To purchase MySearchLab, please visit: www.mysearchlab.com or you can purchase a ValuePack of the text + MySearchLab (at no additional cost): ValuePack ISBN-10: 0205903843 / ValuePack ISBN-13: 9780205903849. (shrink)

This book conveys the breadth and interconnectedness of questions of justice - a rarity in contemporary moral and political philosophy. James P. Sterba argues that a minimal notion of rationality requires morality, and that a minimal libertarian morality requires the welfare and equal opportunity endorsee by welfare liberals and the equality endorsed by socialists, as well as a full feminist agenda. Feminist, racial, homosexual, and multicultural justice, are also shown to be mutually supporting. The author further shows the compatibility (...) between anthropocentric and biocentric environmental ethics, as between just war and pacifist theories. Finally, he spells out when normal politics, legal protest, civil disobedience, revolutionary action, and criminal disobedience are morally permitted by justice for here and now. This highly original and potentially controversial book is ideal for courses in moral and political philosophy, applied ethics, women's studies, environmental studies, and peace studies. (shrink)

In my comments on Mr. Pell’s paper, I consider the premises of his argument against diversity affirmative action showing how these premises can be either reasonably rejected or reformulated so that what remains from his argument is a set of premises that supports, or at least is consistent with, a defense of diversity affirmative action.

In a famous essay, Wilfrid Sellars makes a distinction between the manifest and scientific images.1 According to Sellars, these images represent the two dominant conceptual frameworks by which we understand ourselves as persons-in-the-world. The manifest image utilizes "perennial philosophy" and "sophisticated common sense" to effect that understanding, while the scientific image employs the resources of theoretical physics. The challenge for the philosopher, Sellars argues, is to fuse these two complete and competing images into a single, synoptic view. It is important (...) to note, however, that the fusion Sellars envisions is not between two equally adequate frameworks. Rather, he claims, the scientific image is more adequate than its manifest counterpart. Briefly put, he maintains that the former provides a coherent account of the mind and the world, while the latter is essentially dualistic. For this reason, the scientific image merits primacy in his synoptic view. ;The task of this dissertation is to assess the ultimate adequacy of Sellars's claim. I proceed by placing Sellars in conversation with Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty and John McDowell, who, while owing significant philosophical debts to Sellars, do not believe we must privilege the scientific image to achieve a coherent account of the mind and the world. In effect, they argue that the manifest image is an entirely legitimate framework for addressing a problem that has haunted philosophy since the seventeenth century. By doing so, Putnam, Rorty and McDowell help us to see that there is something wrong with the way in which Sellars depicts the relationship between the manifest and scientific images---i.e. as complete and competing visions of persons-in-the-world. In the end, the efforts of Putnam, Rorty and McDowell remind us that resolving the difficulties that are implicit to the mind-world relation demands the resources of both images or frameworks; that is to say, it demands that we see the manifest and scientific images as partial and complementary, rather than complete and competing visions of persons-in-the-world. ;1See Wilfrid Sellars, "Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man," reprinted in Science, Perception and Reality , 1--40. (shrink)