STUDYING RELIGION in its many aspects is profoundly important to understanding our cultural diversity, our history, and our values. If religion is at the heart of every culture, it is imperative that we seek to know more about its influence in our lives and its place in our world. These six inaugural lectures, delivered by Sterling McMurrin from 1992 to 1994, introduce and discuss religion in various aspects. Subsequent volumes featuring the work of invited lecturers will continue to present (...) the very best scholarship on religion. (shrink)

For more than fifty years, Sterling M. McMurrin served as one of the preeminent intellectual voices of the LDS community. From his beginnings as an Institute of Religion instructor to U.S. Commissioner of Education, and from a professor of philosophy to U.S. Envoy to Iran, he showed by example how personal and institutional morality can be defended.In a series of candid discussions with Jack Newell, McMurrin reveals his ability to reconcile freedom and conscience. In a spirit of repartee and (...) friendship, writes Boyer Jarvis in the foreword, Newell probes, challenges, and constantly draws McMurrin out as he... reflects upon his wide-ranging ideas and experiences. Rich in insight and humor, this remarkable dialogue captures the sweep and depth of McMurrin's thoughts as Newell engages him in discussing his approaches to philosophy, education, and religion.Among the qualities that characterized McMurrin's life and mind, explains Newell, perhaps the most notable is the freedom with which he has spoken his views on both the sacred and the profane. His intellectual integrity -- coupled as it almost always is with his humane instincts and innate fairness -- has simultaneously confounded and earned the respect of critics. (shrink)

If we had no idea which parts of Greek literature in a certain period were poetry or prose, we would regard it as our first job to find out. How much of the Greek prose of the Imperial period is rhythmic has excited less attention; and yet the question should greatly affect both our reading of specific texts and our understanding of the whole literary scene. By ‘rhythmic’ prose, this article means only prose that follows the Hellenistic system of rhythm (...) started, it is said, by Hegesias, and adopted by Cicero and by many Latin writers of the Imperial period. Estimates of how much Greek Imperial prose is rhythmic have long varied drastically. Some experts suggest that all or much artistic Greek prose in the period is rhythmic, others that what little there is fades out after the first centurya.d., as part of the victory of Atticism. There has been fairly little substantial work on rhythmic prose in the first three centuriesa.d.for over fifty years. The object of this article is to investigate a large part of one author's work thoroughly, and to establish that that part is rhythmic. It will also aim to show how that conclusion should greatly affect our whole conception of the author as a writer, and our reading of his every sentence. (shrink)

Experientially, we often have a sense of self which is relatively constant across moments in one’s personal timeline. There are instances where this sense of self fractures, though, and self-identity becomes difficult to sustain. This essay argues that such fracturing is the result of an interruption in a process of self-narrativization—an interruption which can be mended, at least partially, through creative and communal practices which allow for the possibility of recreating narratives at the site of their failure—and explores the meaning (...) of this fracturing and mending process in terms of colonial violence as an example of a fracturing situation. (shrink)

Beginning with an exploration into the question of what war is, War and Warfare Since 1945 provides a chronological analysis of military history since the end of World War II extending through to an analysis of the limits of modern warfare in the nuclear age with the purpose of examining why war occurs and how it is carried out. The book concludes with an investigation into modern war and speculation on the changing face of warfare."--Provided by publisher.

Why does Frege claim that logical axioms are ‘self‐evident,’ to be recognized as true ‘independently of other truths,’ and then offer arguments for those axioms? I argue that he thinks the arguments provide us with the justification that we need for accepting the axioms and that this is compatible with his remarks about self‐evidence. This compatibility depends on philosophical considerations connected with the ‘critical method’: an interesting approach to the justification of axioms endorsed by leading philosophers at the time.

From birth to 15 months infants and caregivers form a fundamentally intersubjective, dyadic unit within which the infant’s ability to recognize gender/sex in the world develops. Between about 18 and 36 months the infant accumulates an increasingly clear and subjective sense of self as female or male. We know little about how the precursors to gender/sex identity form during the intersubjective period, nor how they transform into an independent sense of self by 3 years of age. In this Theory and (...) Hypothesis article I offer a general framework for thinking about this problem. I propose that through repetition and patterning, the dyadic interactions in which infants and caregivers engage imbue the infant with an embodied, i.e., sensori-motor understanding of gender/sex. During this developmental period (which I label Phase 1) gender/sex is primarily an intersubjective project. From 15 to 18 months (which I label Phase 2) there are few reports of newly appearing gender/sex behavioral differences, and I hypothesize that this absence reflects a period of developmental instability during which there is a transition from gender/sex as primarily inter-subjective to gender/sex as primarily subjective. Beginning at 18 months (i.e., the start of Phase 3), a toddler’s subjective sense of self as having a gender/sex emerges, and it solidifies by 3 years of age. I propose a dynamic systems perspective to track how infants first assimilate gender/sex information during the intersubjective period (birth to 15 months); then explore what changes might occur during a hypothesized phase transition (15 to 18 months), and finally, review the emergence and initial stabilization of individual subjectivity-the period from 18 to 36 months. The critical questions explored focus on how to model and translate data from very different experimental disciplines, especially neuroscience, physiology, developmental psychology and cognitive development. I close by proposing the formation of a research consortium on gender/sex development during the first 3 years after birth. (shrink)

Commentators regularly attribute to Frege realist, idealist, and quietist responses to metaphysical questions concerning the abstract objects he calls ‘thoughts’. But despite decades of effort, the evidence offered on behalf of these attributions remains unconvincing. I argue that Frege deliberately avoids commitment to any of these positions, as part of a metaphysical separatist policy motivated by the fact that logic is epistemologically autonomous from metaphysics. Frege’s views and arguments prove relevant to current attempts to argue for epistemological autonomy, particularly that (...) of ethics. (shrink)

1 Context The idea for the current issue of _Philosophia Scientiæ_ emerged from discussions which took place in the Manchester Ethnomethodology Reading Group. This reading group has its origins in Wes Sharrock’s weekly discussion groups, which have taken place in Manchester (UK) since the early 1970s. As the global Covid-19 pandemic hit in early 2020, the reading group moved online, facilitated by Phil Hutchinson and Alex Holder. Being an online reading group opened up participation to people beyond Northwest UK (...) and within weeks the group became global, with the membership including participants logging on from Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Japan, Macau, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden, and the USA. While the name of the group might indicate an exclusive focus on ethnomethodology, following the naming conventions for academic discussion groups, the name really fails to indicate both the heterogeneity of the group’s reading materials, the interests of t... (shrink)

The Tanner Lectures on Human Values is the annual publication of the Tanner lectures given at Clare Hall, Cambridge University; Brasenose College, Oxford University; Harvard University; Yale University, the University of California; Stanford University, the University of Michigan; and the University of Utah and other locations. Established to reflect upon the scholarly and scientific learning relating to human values, the lectureships are international and intercultural, and transcend ethnic, national, religious, and ideological distinctions. Appointment as a Tanner lecturer is a recognition (...) of uncommon capabilities and outstanding scholarly or leadership achievement in the field of human values. This first volume of lectures, originally published in 1980, explores valuation on many levels of our physical and intellectual environments. (shrink)

Frege claims that the laws of logic are characterized by their “generality,” but it is hard to see how this could identify a special feature of those laws. I argue that we must understand this talk of generality in normative terms, but that what Frege says provides a normative demarcation of the logical laws only once we connect it with his thinking about truth and science. He means to be identifying the laws of logic as those that appear in every (...) one of the scientific systems whose construction is the ultimate aim of science, and in which all truths have a place. Though an account of logic in terms of scientific systems might seem hopelessly antiquated, I argue that it is not: a basically Fregean account of the nature of logic still looks quite promising. (shrink)

In this article I examine three ways in which one might interpret Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations (PI). In a partial response to Hans‐Johann Glock's article in this journal, I suggest that since publication PI has, broadly speaking, been interpreted in three ways: doctrinal; elucidatory; or therapeutic. The doctrinal interpretation is shown to be, at best, difficult to sustain textually. The elucidatory (standard) interpretation, though seemingly closer to the text, is shown both to implicate Wittgenstein in some unfortunate philosophical commitments and to (...) face a problem of “motivation.” I argue that, correctly understood, any attempt to elucidate in PI is undertaken only in pursuit of the therapeutic goal. I conclude by arguing that the therapeutic interpretation is the only interpretation that can adequately make sense of Wittgenstein's text as a whole and the metaphilosophical remarks in particular. Furthermore, it is the only interpretation that can demonstrate Wittgenstein's continued importance and relevance as a philosopher. (shrink)

Despite many points of divergence, social scientists and social theorists seem united by one primary concern: to identify what it is people are doing. The thought that this might count as not only a viable but centrally important concern is grounded in a scepticism about the ability of societies’ ordinary members to reliably correctly identify their own and others’ actions. In this scepticism, such social scientists and social theorists usually situate themselves in opposition to ethnomethodologists and Peter Winch. This scepticism (...) is grounded in a belief that ordinary or competent members of societies are unreliable authorities on the identity of their own and others’ actions because they are subject to systems of sociological refraction. The idea being that ordinary members of society are systematically misled as to the identity of their actions and those of their peers because they — or their perceptions of actions — are subject to the refractive properties of ideology, or folk theories of action, and so on. In this paper, I subject to analysis this core commitment of much social science and social theory. (shrink)

Examines the moral and political philosophies of John Locke in comparison with his predecessors and contemporaries such as Hobbes and Filman.

Contemporary society involves a number of different persons, groups, and ways of life that are deeply divided and very often opposed on fundamental matters of deep concern. Today, many contemporary philosophers regard this 'fact of diversity' as a problem that needs to be addressed when assessing the principles employed to organize society. In this paper, I discuss the fact of diversity, as it is understood by the notion of reasonable pluralism, and explain why it is thought by some to challenge (...) the stability of a society's political morality. I examine the leading attempt to offer an account of the stability of a political morality and I argue that John Rawls's attempt to account for the stability of Justice as Fairness fails for reasons applicable to all political moralities because the very notion of a stable political morality is implausible. Diversity, as reasonable pluralism understands it, is not a problem that can be solved either by identifying a stable political morality or by modifying a political morality in some way that will make it more stable. Instead, the fact of diversity indicates only that disagreements on all aspects of society's organization, including its organizing principles and matters of value, is a permanent feature of social life that cannot be ignored, wished away, or solved. (shrink)

The Province of Jurisprudence Democratized explores the implications of taking a vigorously democratic approach to issues of traditional legal theory. Allan C. Hutchinson introduces the democratic vision and examines the complementary philosophy of a Dewey-inspired pragmatism. This is followed by an examination from a pragmatic perspective of the dominant theories of analytical jurisprudence in both their positivist and naturalist forms. He emphasizes the contested concepts of 'truth', 'facts' and 'law/morality relation' and explores what a more uncompromising democratic/pragmatic agenda for (...) law and legal theory would entail. The Author's intent is to contribute to the shift away from a technical and elite philosophical approach to jurisprudence to a more democratic engagement. It advances and follows through on the critical claim that there is no position of theoretical or political innocence. Like the law it seeks to illuminate, legal theory must recognize its own political and social setting as well as its own responsibilities. Moreover, whatever else democracy might entail or imply, it opposes elite rule whether by autocrats, functionaries or theorists, however enlightened or principled their proposals or interventions may be: authority must come from below, not above. (shrink)

Attention is strongly influenced by both external stimuli and internal goals. However, this useful dichotomy does not readily capture the ubiquitous and often automatic contribution of past experience stored in memory. We review recent evidence about how multiple memory systems control attention, consider how such interactions are manifested in the brain, and highlight how this framework for ‘memory-guided attention’ might help systematize previous findings and guide future research.

This chapter contains sections titled: Van Inwagen's First Formalization.