In the nearshore waters of Alaska's remote and pristine Aleutian Islands is an astoundingly diverse and beautiful undersea world that is captured here for the first time, through color photographs taken by research divers. The photographs in this book convey the awe-inspiring experience of the divers as they encountered the spectacular beauty of the underwater Aleutians ecosystems. Together with an accompanying text that provides natural history information and an overview of the geography, geology, and oceanography of the 1,200-mile archipelago, the (...) images are a powerful vehicle for science education, making apparent the need to preserve the region's natural splendor. (shrink)

It is widely affirmed that human beings have irreplaceable valuable, and that we owe it to them to treat them accordingly. Many theorists have been drawn to Kantianism because they think that it alone can capture this intuition. One aim of this paper is to show that this is a mistake, and that Kantianism cannot provide an independent rational vindication, nor even a fully illuminating articulation, of irreplaceability. A further aim is to outline a broadly Aristotelian view that provides a (...) more fitting theoretical framework for this appealing conception of human value. This critique of Kantianism extends to contemporary theorists with a broadly Kantian orientation, including Christine Korsgaard, Stephen Darwall and John Rawls. The problem with these views, at heart, is that they attempt to ground morality in respect alone. Yet it is love, not respect, that brings irreplaceability into view. The paper closes with a sketch of a virtue-theoretic theory that follows Aquinas in taking love to be a master virtue that refines the other virtues so as to ensure a continuous and practically efficacious sensitivity to the irreplaceable value of fellow human beings. (shrink)

l i ver Cromwell delivered history's most famous rebuke to the heroworshiping that irons all subtlety into flawless cardboard: Mr. Lely, I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at al l ; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it. Helena Cronin, in The Ant and the Peacock , displays a raw talent clearly equal (...) to that of our finest portraitists, but has placed herself into a position even worse than Mr. Lely's. Cromwell's painter at least faced the subject himself; Cronin has produced an uncritical gloss upon a false and simplistic view that never was more than a caricature of Darwinian theory. (shrink)

¿Cómo entiende Jean-Luc Marion la relación entre conocer y amar, especialmente en el contexto histórico que él esboza a partir de la relación entre metafísica y la fenomenología de la donación? Este artículo sugiere que el fenómeno de aferrarse a sabiendas a una falsedad, especialmente como lo analiza San Agustín y lo desarrolla Marion, puede servir como camino para responder a dicha pregunta. La verdad ilumina de un modo que acusa a quien se aferra a una falsedad (veritas redarguens); en (...) el contexto histórico de la metafísica, quien queda así expuesto por la luz es el yo “demiúrgico”, cuyas pretensiones trascendentales divinas incluyen intenciones eróticas tan fuertes como las que se encuentran en el pensamiento pre- y post-metafísico. El análisis del fenómeno del apego al error sugiere que la estructura de la confessio agustiniana es intrínseca a cualquier compromiso filosófico con la verdad. (shrink)

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Experimental natural philosophy was a mid-seventeenth-century development in which physical enquiry proceeded by connecting phenomena in an experimentally guided fashion, as opposed to attempting to account for them in terms of some underlying micro-corpuscular structure. The approach proved fruitful in two areas: Boyle’s experiments on the air pump and Newton’s experiments on the prism. This chapter argues that Lockean empiricism, which was subsequently taken to embody the principles behind Newtonianism, was an outcome of these developments and that it was worked (...) into an epistemological doctrine only when Locke encountered Malebranche’s vindication of the sole legitimacy of micro-corpuscularian explanation. The chapter reveals a form of empiricism—empiricism as a successor to, and refinement of, seventeenth-century experimental natural philosophy—which is intimately tied up with natural-philosophical practice, and is quite distinct from the speculative epistemology to which it is reduced in the rationalism and empiricism debates. (shrink)

Lately I've been giving a great deal of thought to the nature of human (and other organic) abilities. In part, this is connected to my recent research into multiple personality and the need to explain, not only the partitioning of abilities and skills among alternate personalities, but also the enhanced levels of functioning that some of them exhibit (and for that matter, the exceptional performances of "nonmultiples" in hypnotic and other sorts of dissociative states). My interest in this topic is (...) also connected to my ongoing study of savants and prodigies, who apparently have much to teach us about the limits (and perhaps also the latency) of human abilities. At bottom, I suppose, it connects with my general and longstanding concern with problems of psychological explanation, particularly in light of the gross inadequacies of trendy computational theories of the mind. (shrink)

teach a course at Harvard with philosopher Robert Nozick and lawyer Alan Dershowitz. We take major issues engaged by each of our professions—from abortion to racism to right-to-die—and we try to explore and integrate our various approaches. We raise many questions and reach no solutions.

The core thesis of this essay is that “progressive Confucianism” is a clear and viable category, a label for many though not all contemporary Confucians, which succeeds in capturing what is useful about so-called “liberal” Confucianism without suffering from various problems to which I show “liberal Confucianism” falls prey. The essay begins with examples of progressive Confucians being labeled as “liberal” in ways that are misleading. I next turn to the use of “liberal” by influential twentieth-century New Confucians and then (...) look at some contemporary theorists who are often labeled “liberal Confucians.” Overall, for reasons having to do both with content and with rhetoric, I argue that even some Confucians who have been content to be called “liberal Confucians” should resist this label and identify as progressive Confucians instead, although others with “dualcommitments” may still prefer “liberal Confucian” or even “Confucian liberal.” The essay concludes with some further clarification of the senses in which progressive Confucians use the idea of “progress.” . (shrink)

Leslie Stephen was a writer, philosopher and literary critic whose work was published widely in the nineteenth century. As a young man Stephen was ordained deacon, but he later became agnostic and much of his work reflects his interest in challenging popular religion. This two-volume work, first published in 1876, is no exception: it focuses on the eighteenth-century deist controversy and its effects, as well as the reactions to what Stephen saw as a revolution in thought. Comprehensive (...) and full of detailed analysis, this is an important work in the history of ideas. Volume 1 contains a thorough discussion of the arguments for and against deism, and of the state of theology at the end of the century. Volume 2 focuses on eighteenth-century moral philosophy, political philosophy, literature, and on the literary and religious reactions to the revolution in thought. It also discusses utilitarianism in depth. (shrink)

Karl Barth and the displacement of natural law in contemporary Protestant theology -- Development of the natural-law tradition through the high Middle Ages -- John Calvin and the natural knowledge of God the Creator -- Peter Martyr Vermigli and the natural knowledge of God the Creator -- Natural law in the thought of Johannes Althusius -- Francis Turretin and the natural knowledge of God the Creator.

At the age of eighty-four, Thomas Hobbes wrote an autobiography in Latin elegaics. Unsurprisingly, it was not as widely read as his two great philosophical works, Leviathan and Behemoth, in which he laid out a set of sociopolitical theories that enraged many of the philosophers and moralists of Europe. In this comprehensive biography, first published in 1904, Sir Leslie Stephen charts the character and changes of Hobbes' thinking, from the scholasticism of his early Oxford education, to his later devotion (...) to geometry and deductive science. With an emphasis on personal influences, Stephen sets Hobbes and his work in the historical context of Hobbes' often difficult patrons, the Civil War, and the Restoration, providing an insight into the life of the eminent philosopher and into the tenets of early twentieth-century biographical writing. An interesting text for students of both philosophy and English literature. (shrink)

First published in 1918, this volume was partly based on lectures delivered by Dorothea Jane Stephen at and near Bangalore and was intended to illustrate the considerable influence exercised by the early literature of India on later Indian philosophy and culture. Examining themes of divinity and religion together with morality and human nature, the essays in this book combine to offer a fitting introduction to the importance and far-reaching effects of early Indian thought.

One of the most valuable features of the early years of both the Proceedings and Journal of the Society for Psychical Research was the frequent publication of intriguing (and often scrupulously investigated) anecdotal reports. Indeed, the enterprising early SPR researchers produced some mammoth reports based on such material, including its 400-page “Report on the Census of Hallucinations” (Society for Psychical Research 1894) and the monumental Phantasms of the Living (Gurney, Myers, & Podmore 1886). The pioneers of psychical research were shrewd (...) enough to realize that apparent spontaneous occurrences of ESP and PK, and phenomena suggestive of postmortem survival, could provide valuable clues as to the nature of psychic functioning, and that the collection and careful study of this material was an essential precursor to doing serious theoretical work in the area. Sadly, that lesson seems not to have entirely survived the gnawing tooth of time, as more and more would-be psi researchers, in a misguided attempt to appear conventionally scientific and curry favor with mainstream science, confined their activities and attention strictly to the laboratory, having little familiarity with or comprehension of the day-to-day apparent eruptions of phenomena that drove earlier researchers into the lab in the first place. I mention this now because this issue of the JSE features a contribution by Russell Targ to the material suggestive of postmortem survival—two incidents pointing to the survival of his daughter Elisabeth. The two incidents are considerably more intriguing than most, and they highlight what is probably the most recalcitrant issue in the debate over survival—namely, the apparent standoff between the survivalist and living-agent psi (LAP) interpretations of the evidence. (shrink)

Priorities in Medical Research was published in 1988 by a select committee of the House of Lords. The report ushered in an era of NHS research and development that lasted from 2001 to 2006. The inquiry's origins lay in concerns about academic medicine in the United Kingdom, yet PMR gave relatively little attention to this subject. Instead the report focused critically on the disconnect between the Department of Health and the NHS in R & D. This, the committee argued, had (...) led to the neglect of research into health services and public health. To sidestep the report's unwelcome proposal for a National Health Research Agency, the department eventually grafted R & D management onto structures created as part of wider NHS reforms. The Medical Research Council successfully pursued a strategy of keeping the committee's attention away from sensitive aspects of its own programme. The final focus of PMR was shaped by an alignment between committee members with an industrial view of research and champions of health services research. The actions of the various actors involved are interpreted using elite models of the state, and the applicability of these models is critically examined. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic coincided with a transition in my scholarly life. Specifically, I shifted from being a postdoctoral fellow in an anthropology department at a traditional university to a tenure track position as an assistant professor at an institute for bioethics and health humanities within an academic health center. This development has been instructive, partly because I have begun learning about how the political economies of academic medicine and the traditional university differ, align, and respectively shape institutional research cultures. My (...) primary research interests are focused on ethical and socio-technical issues in infectious disease research and control, including in initiatives that are... (shrink)

This paper defends a simple and surprisingly adequate definition of philosophy: as suggested by the “know thyself” imperative, philosophy is the “self-defining” discipline. The task of philosophizing is therefore best described as the task of self-defining. In responding to various objections, I defend four senses in which this definition holds. First, when other academic disciplines seek to define the nature of their discipline, they are generally recognized as exploring the philosophy of their discipline; only for philosophy is such an inquiry (...) self-referential, remaining fully within the discipline itself. Second, while some genuinely philosophical topics do not explicitly involve self-defining, philosophy as a way of life always has self-examination at its core. Third, even though psychology may have largely usurped philosophy’s classical role as the guardian of self-knowledge, the goal of helping persons to refine their own self-understanding is still crucial for philosophers today. Finally, in a deep but paradoxical sense, genuine philosophy is self-authenticating. While Socrates’ maxim, “the unexamined life is not worth living” should not be taken too literally, it does correctly convey the fact that only an authentic life is really worth living. (shrink)

This chapter examines one class of public emotions – the “political emotions,” such as patriotism and promotion of the national interest and how they are, or are not, compatible with good journalism in a global media era. To what extent is journalism ethics, as we have known it, compatible with patriotism and love of nation? Can nation-based political emotions provide appropriate primary values for a global ethics and an emerging global media ethics? With regard to the first question, the chapter (...) argues that only a moderate patriotism is compatible with the principles of journalism ethics in a democracy. With regard to the second question, the chapter argues that a global ethics should not be based on nation-based values. It should be based on global emotions, or global political emotions. (shrink)

This volume collects the best and most influential essays that Stephen Stich has published in the last 40 years on topics in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of language. They discuss a wide range of topics including grammar, innateness, reference, folk psychology, eliminativism, connectionism, evolutionary psychology, simulation theory, social construction, and psychopathology. However, they are unified by two central concerns. The first is the viability of the commonsense conception of the mind in the face of challenges posed (...) by both philosophical arguments and empirical findings. The second is the philosophical implications of research in the cognitive sciences which, in the last half century, has transformed both our understanding of the mind and the ways in which the mind is studied. The volume includes a new introductory essay that elaborates on these themes and offers an overview of the papers that follow. (shrink)

Descartes' The World offers the most comprehensive vision of the nature of the world since Aristotle, and is crucial for an understanding of his later writings, in particular the Meditations and Principles of Philosophy. Above all, it provides an insight into how Descartes conceived of natural philosophy before he started to reformulate his doctrines in terms of a sceptically driven epistemology. Of its two parts, the Treatise on Light introduced the first comprehensive, quantitative version of a mechanistic natural philosophy, supplying (...) a theory of matter, a physical optics, and a cosmology. The Treatise on Man provided the first comprehensive mechanist physiology. This volume also includes translations of material important for an understanding of the work: related sections from the Dioptrics and the Meteors, and an English translation of the complete text of The Description of the Human Body. (shrink)

The concept of evolution is widely considered to be a foundational building block in atheist thought. Leaders of the New Atheist movement have taken Darwin's work and used it to diminish the authority of religious institutions and belief systems. But they have also embraced it as a metaphor for the gradual replacement of religious faith with secular reason. They have posed as harbingers of human progress, claiming the moral high ground, and rejecting with intolerance any message that challenges the hegemony (...) of science and reason. Religion, according to the New Atheists, should be relegated to the Dark Ages of superstition and senseless violence. Yet Darwin did not see evolution as a linear progression to an improved state of being. The more antagonistic members of the New Atheist movement who embrace this idea are not only employing bad history, but also the kind of rigid, black-and-white thinking they excoriate in their religious opponents. Indeed, Stephen LeDrew argues, militant atheists have more in common with religious fundamentalists than they would care to admit, advancing what LeDrew calls secular fundamentalism. In reaction to fundamentalist Christianity and Islamism, this strain of atheism has become an offshoot of the religion it tries so hard to malign. The Evolution of Atheism outlines the essential political tension at the heart of the atheist movement. The New Atheism, LeDrew shows, is part of a tradition of atheist thought and activism that promotes individualism and scientific authority, which puts it at odds with atheist groups that are motivated by humanistic ethics and social justice. LeDrew draws on public relations campaigns, publications, podcasts, and in-depth interviews to explore the belief systems, internal logics, and self-contradictions of the people who consider themselves to be atheists. He argues that evolving understandings of what atheism means, and how it should be put into action, are threatening to irrevocably fragment the movement. (shrink)

This article presents reflections on the Terri Schiavo starvation case: the public confusion about the facts of the case, the ethical and legal principles governing it, the modern philosophical trends that led to it, the failure of all three branches of government to properly address it, the authority of the Florida governor and the President to intervene to save Terri Schiavo, and how the case illustrated a gross and outrageous lack of political will.