This article examines communication between a human being and God in the Jewish philosophy of Hermann Cohen (1842–1918). The article focuses on two distinct forms of biblical communication: lyrical psalms and a godly revelation in a still small voice. It investigates Cohen’s Jewish philosophy in light of communication theories to deepen the philosophical and theoretical discussion. The article examines previously unexplored ideas in Cohen’s writings, analyzes his religious perceptions in terms of communication, and at the same time expands the concept (...) of communication. This new perspective sheds new light on Cohen’s Jewish philosophy and offers a new philosophic perception of divine-human communication. (shrink)

We give a complete characterization of the class of upward monotone generalized quantifiers Q1 and Q2 over countable domains that satisfy the scheme Q1 x Q2 y φ → Q2 y Q1 x φ. This generalizes the characterization of such quantifiers over finite domains, according to which the scheme holds iff Q1 is ∃ or Q2 is ∀ (excluding trivial cases). Our result shows that in infinite domains, there are more general types of quantifiers that support these entailments.

In this book, William H. F. Altman argues that it is not order of composition but reading order that makes Euthyphro, Apology of Socrates, Crito, and Phaedo “late dialogues,” and shows why Plato’s decision to interpolate the notoriously “late” Sophist and Statesman between Euthyphro and Apology deserves more respect from interpreters.

_Kant and Applied Ethics_ makes an important contribution to Kant scholarship, illuminating the vital moral parameters of key ethical debates. Offers a critical analysis of Kant’s ethics, interrogating the theoretical bases of his theory and evaluating their strengths and weaknesses Examines the controversies surrounding the most important ethical discussions taking place today, including abortion, the death penalty, and same-sex marriage Joins innovative thinkers in contemporary Kantian scholarship, including Christine Korsgaard, Allen Wood, and Barbara Herman, in taking Kant’s philosophy in new (...) and interesting directions Clarifies Kant’s legacy for applied ethics, helping us to understand how these debates have been structured historically and providing us with the philosophical tools to address them. (shrink)

There are two well‐known ways of doing arithmetic with ordinal numbers: the “ordinary” addition, multiplication, and exponentiation, which are defined by transfinite iteration; and the “natural” (or “Hessenberg”) addition and multiplication (denoted ⊕ and ⊗), each satisfying its own set of algebraic laws. In 1909, Jacobsthal considered a third, intermediate way of multiplying ordinals (denoted × ), defined by transfinite iteration of natural addition, as well as the notion of exponentiation defined by transfinite iteration of his multiplication, which we denote. (...) (Jacobsthal's multiplication was later rediscovered by Conway.) Jacobsthal showed these operations too obeyed algebraic laws. In this paper, we pick up where Jacobsthal left off by considering the notion of exponentiation obtained by transfinitely iterating natural multiplication instead; we shall denote this. We show that and that ; note the use of Jacobsthal's multiplication in the latter. We also demonstrate the impossibility of defining a “natural exponentiation” satisfying reasonable algebraic laws. (shrink)

Most ethics guidelines for distributing scarce medical resources during the coronavirus pandemic seek to save the most lives and the most life‐years. A patient’s prognosis is determined using a SOFA or MSOFA score to measure likelihood of survival to discharge, as well as a consideration of relevant comorbidities and their effects on likelihood of survival up to one or five years. Although some guidelines use age as a tiebreaker when two patients’ prognoses are identical, others refuse to consider age for (...) fear of discriminating against the elderly. In this paper, I argue that age is directly relevant for maximizing health benefits, so current ethics guidelines are wrongly excluding or deemphasizing life‐stage in their triage algorithms. Research on COVID‐19 has shown that age is a risk factor in adverse outcomes, independent of comorbidities. And limiting a consideration of life‐years to only one or five years past discharge does not maximize health benefits. Therefore, based on their own stated values, triage algorithms for coronavirus patients ought to include life‐stage as a primary consideration, along with the SOFA score and comorbidities, rather than excluding it or using it merely as a tiebreaker. This is not discriminatory because patients ought to have equal opportunity to experience life‐stages. The equitable enforcement of that right justifies unequal treatment based on age in cases when there is a scarcity of life‐saving resources. A consideration of life‐stage would thus allow healthcare workers to responsibly steward public resources in order to maximize lives and life‐years saved. (shrink)

In this first book-length liberal reply to CLS, Andrew Altman systematically examines the philosophical underpinnings of the CLS movement and exposes the deficiencies in the major lines of the CLS argument against liberalism.

This article offers a timely, critical analysis of the male gaze upon sportswomen in male Chinese fans’ consumption of sporting megaevents. We use the most popular Chinese-language sports fandom platform, Hupu, as the data repository and scrutinise the threads of male Hupu users’ postings about two elite sportswomen at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics as the case studies. Drawing on feminist critical discourse analysis (FCDA), we elucidate the discursive strategies that male Chinese fans adopt to sexualise sportswomen and trivialise their accomplishments. (...) The research findings showcase how China’s sports fandom has evolved as a masculine terrain, where men’s visions of asymmetrical gender power relations are discursively negotiated and rationalised. (shrink)

Birkhahn discusses children’s rights with 1st grade students through cultural perspectives. Playing or studying in adolescent years serves as a significant role in this discussion.

Archaeology is a practice concerning time. Layer upon layer of earth condenses to become the ground on which generation after generation lives and dies. Human remains are among the many objects that fill the soil, and some of them get 'discovered', exhumed, researched and displayed by archaeologists across the world. For the edited volume, Archaeologists and the Dead, editors Howard Williams and Melanie Giles convened a collection of authors who take seriously the scientific, metaphoric, historical and political implications of the (...) work of digging. (shrink)

According to Bastin et al.’s integrative memory model, familiarity may be attributed to both entity representations and relational representations. However, the model does not specify what triggers familiarity for relational representations. I argue that fluency is a key player in the attribution of familiarity regardless of the type of representation. Two lines of evidence are reviewed in support of my claim.

In this book, William H. F. Altman turns to Demosthenes-universally regarded as Plato's student in antiquity-and Plato's other Athenian students in order to add external and historical evidence for Plato's original curriculum.

Two of the major arguments against performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs), appealing to fairness and the protection of athletes’ health, have serious flaws. First, there is no relevant moral distinction between the use of PEDs and the use of other performance enhancers that introduce unfairness and that we accept nonetheless. Second, prohibiting PEDs for athletes’ own good ignores the fact that adult athletes are constantly making tradeoffs to improve performance and pursue excellence, including sacrificing their health. We should not paternalistically impose our (...) values on them. On the other side, arguments to allow ‘safe’ PEDs provide no normative criterion to determine the acceptable level of risk, thus begging the question. The reasonable athlete argument solves both sets of problems: it justifies a ban on some performance-enhancing drugs based on health and fairness, while avoiding paternalism, and it also establishes a non-arbitrary standard to determine which drugs ought to be allowed. First, if unsafe PEDs were allowed, some athletes would refuse to take them out of concern for their health. This is a reasonable decision even though it would put them at a competitive disadvantage against athletes who choose to use unsafe PEDs. It would be unfair for clean athletes to suffer a competitive disadvantage for acting reasonably. Therefore, PEDs that pose significant health risks should be prohibited for all athletes. Second, it would be unreasonable for athletes to refuse, on principle, relatively safe and effective PEDs, so a blanket prohibition is also unjustified. Which drugs and which doses to allow should be determined not by athletes’ actual choices but by the hypothetical choices of the reasonable athlete. The resulting sport-specific drug policy would carve a justifiable middle path between complete prohibition and complete permission. (shrink)

Recent Plato scholarship has grown increasingly comfortable with the notion that Plato’s art of writing brings his readers into the dialogue, challenging them to respond to deliberate errors or lacunae in the text. Drawing inspiration from Stanley Fish’s seminal reading of Satan’s speeches in Paradise Lost, this paper considers the narrative of Timaeus as deliberately unreliable, and argues that the actively critical reader is “the missing fourth” with which the dialogue famously begins. By continuing Timaeus with Critias—a dialogue that ends (...) with a missing speech—Plato points to the kind of reader he expects: one who can answer Critias’ question : ὡς μὲν γὰρ οὐκ εὖ τὰ παρὰ σοῦ λεχθέντα εἴρηται, τίς ἂν ἐπιχειρήσειεν ἔμφρων λέγειν. (shrink)

A student written poem, alongside responses from 2nd and 6th graders on the poem's philosophy.

This book argues that Cicero deserves to be spoken of with more respect and to be studied with greater care. Using Plato’s influence on Cicero’s life and writings as a clue, Altman reveals the ineffable combination of qualities—courage, originality, intelligence, sparkling wit, subtlety, deep respect for his teacher, and deadly seriousness of purpose—that enabled Cicero not only to revive Platonism, but also to rival Plato himself.

The year Leo Strauss published "Persecution and the Art of Writing" (1941), he prepared a lecture ("German Nihilism") that he never published. An analysis of this lecture shows that Strauss hadn't fully mastered the art of writing he'd discovered in others: his secrets are too exposed. In the context of "German Nihilism," it becomes clear that "Persecution and the Art of Writing" is about liberal persecution of authoritarianism, no the reverse, as liberals would assume. In response to recent apologias presenting (...) Strauss as a liberal who didn't "write between the lines," a Strauss-style reading of "German Nihilism" disproves both claims. (shrink)

In this Introduction, Altman surveys some of the most important positions and debates regarding the definition of punishment and its justification. After explaining the so-called “standard definition” of punishment, he poses several questions, including whether any definition can be value-neutral, whether punishments (as opposed to mere penalties) must include an expressive dimension, and whether punishment must intend to cause suffering. Altman then examines the traditional dichotomy between consequentialism and retributivism, and their different versions. Many theories of punishment blur (...) the distinction or resist easy categorization, which has led to alternative classifications. He describes the political turn in punishment theory, how legal punishment has been criticized as a tool of oppression, and the challenge of abolitionism. He also surveys the chapters in the book. (shrink)

This book advances a novel theory of international justice that combines the orthodox liberal notion that the lives of individuals are what ultimately matter morally with the putatively antiliberal idea of an irreducibly collective right of self-governance. The individual and her rights are placed at center stage insofar as political states are judged legitimate if they adequately protect the human rights of their constituents and respect the rights of all others. Yet, the book argues that legitimate states have a moral (...) right to self-determination and that this right is inherently collective, irreducible to the individual rights of the persons who constitute them. Exploring the implications of these ideas, the book addresses issues pertaining to democracy, secession, international criminal law, armed intervention, political assassination, global distributive justice, and immigration. A number of the positions taken in the book run against the grain of current academic opinion: there is no human right to democracy; separatist groups can be morally entitled to secede from legitimate states; the fact that it is a matter of brute luck whether one is born in a wealthy state or a poorer one does not mean that economic inequalities across states must be minimized or even kept within certain limits; most existing states have no right against armed intervention; and it is morally permissible for a legitimate state to exclude all would-be immigrants. (shrink)

German Idealism was without doubt one of the most fruitful, influential, and exciting periods in the history of philosophy. The Palgrave Handbook of German Idealism covers this revolutionary philosophical movement in remarkable detail and includes contributions from 36 of the leading scholars in the field, including Paul Guyer, Terry Pinkard, Violetta Waibel, Jason Wirth, and Günter Zöller. In his introduction, Matthew Altman investigates the meaning of idealism and sets the historical context. Ensuing chapters then consider the philosophical importance of (...) the movement’s four most important thinkers (Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel) and explore the areas of philosophy on which they had their greatest impact. A concluding chapter examines the legacy of German Idealism from the nineteenth century to the present day. (shrink)

In this book, William H. F. Altman considers the pedagogical connections behind the post-Republic dialogues from Timaeus to Theaetetus in the context of their Reading Order.

This article foregrounds the great translation movement (GTM), initially mobilised on X (formerly Twitter) in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, as an example of activist journalism countering China's 'mainstream' narrative of the war and its broader implications. Using Fairclough’s dialectical-relational approach, adapted to the specifics of social media communication, we examine GTM postings throughout the first calendar year of the war, highlighting how the GTM evolves into a broader activist-journalistic initiative that challenges the party-state beyond its involvement in (...) the war. This paradigm of intervention unfolds as GTM activists report on evidential events within China that bear the potential to spark public contention outside of the party-state’s censorship reach. By examining the dialectical relations between reportage and advocacy, this analysis demonstrates how activist journalism constitutes an emerging cross-border civic engagement, challenging a Southern authoritarian regime from the outside. A critical evaluation of activist journalism and its broader societal impacts is also provided, highlighting its progressive potential and future development in the Chinese context and beyond. (shrink)