Nine of the papers collected here derive directly from a conference organized by Schirn in Munich in 1991. Seven others, three of them reprinted, have been intelligently chosen to complement the original nine. The collection has no overarching theme, nor is it dominated by any particular approach to Frege’s thought. It is “a mixed selection”, and aims to reflect “the prevailing tendency in current Frege scholarship”. The influence of Dreben is less in evidence than one might expect, but otherwise the (...) collection meets that broad brief pretty well. Some of the collection’s best papers—for example, those by Burge, Boolos, Dummett, Heck, and Terence Parsons—are essential reading. Inevitably, not all the others have that standing. But, excepting only an over-long essay by the editor, each deserves its place. (shrink)

In this article, I explain why stabilizing constructs is important to the success of the Research Domain Criteria Project and identify one measure for facilitating such stability.

This paper argues that the concept of paternalism is currently overextended to include a variety of actions that, while resembling paternalistic actions, are importantly different. I use the example of Japanese physicians’ non-disclosures of cancer diagnoses directly to patients, arguing that the concept of maternalism better captures these actions. To act paternalistically is to substitute one's own judgement for that of another person and decide in place of that person for his/her best interest. By contrast, to act maternalistically is to (...) decide for another person based on a reasonable understanding of that person's own preferences. The concept of maternalism allows for a more thorough assessment of the moral justification of these types of actions. I conclude that it is possible, at least in principle, to justify Japanese physicians’ non-disclosures, and that this justification must be based on an understanding of these actions as maternalistic. (shrink)

This book provides an exploration of the clinical practice of psychoanalysis and analytical psychology. It explores the ways psychoanalysts and other clinicians are taught to evade direct emotional connections with their patients. Sullivan, suggesting that relatedness is the basis of emotional health, examines the universal struggle between socially oriented energies that struggle toward truth and narcissistic impulses that push us to take refuge in lies. She maintains that, rather than making interpretations, it is the clinician’s capacity to bring relatedness (...) to the clinical encounter which is the crucial factor. Examining the work of both Jung and Bion, Sullivan draws on the overlap between their ideas on the psyche and the nature of the unconscious. The book uses clinical examples to examine the implications that these perspectives have for the practising therapist. Specific areas of discussion include: the creative unconscious the structure of narcissism transformation in analytic work. New modes of listening and relating that deepen analytic work and greatly facilitate transformative changes are described in easy-to-follow language that will help the therapist to find new approaches to a wide range of patients. _The Mystery of Analytical Work_ will be of interest to Jungians, psychoanalysts and all those with an interest in analytic work. (shrink)

In the first post World War II identity theories (e.g., Place 1956, Smart 1962), mind brain identities were held to be contingent. However, in work beginning in the late 1960's, Saul Kripke (1971, 1980) convinced the philosophical community that true identity statements involving names and natural kind terms are necessarily true and furthermore, that many such necessary identities can only be known a posteriori. Kripke also offered an explanation of the a posteriori nature of ordinary theoretical identities such as that (...) water = H2O. We identify the kinds and substances involved in theoretical identities by certain of their contingent properties. What we discover when we discover a theoretical identity is the underlying nature of the kind that we identify by those contingent properties. Now, of course, it was being a posteriori, not being contingent, that mattered to the identity theorists anyway, so the necessity of identity is not, in itself, damaging to mind brain identity theories. However, Kripke also argued persuasively that the alleged mind brain identities could not be treated in the same way as ordinary theoretical identities. We "identify" pain by feeling it, and surely how it feels is an essential property of pain, not a contingent property. Thus, a mind body identity theory must provide a different explanation of why its identities are a posteriori. A new wave of materialists has appeared on the scene with a new strategy for explaining [1] the a posteriori nature of its alleged identities. The strategy is to locate the explanation for the a posteriori nature of mind body identities, not on the side of the world, but on the side of the mind -in different ways of thinking about or imagining, or in different concepts. Thus, on this new view, there is only one property—this brain process type, which is identical with this pain.. (shrink)

War and Border Crossings brings together renowned scholars to address some of the most pressing problems in public policy, international affairs, and the intercultural issues of our day. Contributors from widely varying disciplines discuss cross-cultural ethical issues and international topics ranging from American international policy and the invasion and occupation of Iraq to domestic topics such as immigration, the war on drugs, cross-cultural bioethics and ethical issues involving American Indian tribes. The culture clashes discussed in these essays raise serious questions (...) about what principles ought to inform the negotiating of conflicts in order to achieve, or at least approach, outcomes that are fundamentally just, fair, responsible, and ethical. (shrink)

This paper is a response to a commentary by Walter Glannon (2016, Frontiers in Human Neuroscience) on my paper "Stabilizing Constructs Across Research Fields as a Way to Foster the Integrative Approach of the Research Domain Criteria Project".

This paper explores the view that there are such things as (nonexistent) fictional objects, and that we refer to such objects when we say things like "Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective", or "Conan Doyle wrote about Sherlock Holmes". A theory of such objects is developed as a special application of a Meinongian Ontology.

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

In this chapter, we address the roles that exemplars might play in a comprehensive response to epistemic injustice. Fricker defines epistemic injustices as harms people suffer specifically in their capacity as (potential) knowers. We focus on testimonial epistemic injustice, which occurs when someone’s assertoric speech acts are systematically met with either too little or too much credence by a biased audience. Fricker recommends a virtue­theoretic response: people who do not suffer from biases should try to maintain their disposition towards naive (...) testimonial justice, and those who find themselves already biased should cultivate corrective testimonial justice by systematically adjusting their credence in testimony up or down depending on whether they are hearing from someone whom they may be biased against or in favor of. We doubt that the prominent admiration-­emulation model of exemplarism will be much use in this connection, so we propose two ways of learning from negative exemplars to better conduct one’s epistemic affairs. In the admiration-­emulation model, both the identification of what a virtue is and the cultivation of virtues identified thusly proceed through the admiration of virtuous exemplars. We show that this model has serious flaws and argue for two alternatives: the envy-­agonism model and the ambivalence-avoidance model. (shrink)

Bering's analysis is inadequate because it fails to consider past and present adult soul beliefs and the psychological functions they serve. We suggest that a valid folk psychology of souls must consider features of adult soul beliefs, the unique problem engendered by awareness of death, and terror management findings, in addition to cognitive inclinations toward dualistic and teleological thinking.

This article shows how there is a great kinship between Polanyi's thought and that of Bernard Haring, "the father of modern moral theology" in the Roman Catholic Church. Haring advocated an ethics of personal responsibility that calls for an epistemology such as Polanyi developed for history and social sciences in The Study of Man.

Despite striking parallels between their philosophies and artistic work, there have been no prior dedicated studies of the reinforcing ideas of Siegfried Kracauer and Andrei Tarkovsky. I contend with other interpreters that Kracauer’s philosophy of film is best understood as a form of revelationism, with strong sociological and ontological theses about the nature of modern psychological life and the medium specificity of film. Essentially, Kracauer felt that certain films which adhere to what he called “truly cinematic” content by depicting the (...) naturalistic “flow of life” have the potential to awaken in viewers a psychological reconnection to the concrete material world, in contrast to the experience of abstraction characteristic of modernity. Having presented Kracauer’s philosophy, I outline strong convergences in the philosophy and aesthetics of Tarkovsky, and illustrate these parallels through close analysis of Tarkovsky’s 1979 film Stalker. In the third section of this article, I further explore the converging revelationist philosophies of Kracauer–Tarkovsky by confronting them with critiques which were levied by Theodor Adorno (against Kracauer) and Fredric Jameson (against Tarkovsky). The reconstructed debate between these four critic/practitioners touches on central issues for film criticism, including methodological approaches of ontology versus dialectics and the question of how to represent utopic impulses in cinema. (shrink)

Does philosophy have a timeless essence? Are the writings that have come down to us over the centuries from philosophers of genius mere souvenirs from a bygone era? Or are their thoughts still eminently worth examining with care? Modern Challenges to Past Philosophy argues pondering past philosophy with modern problems in mind is worth the effort, even though earlier works are uninformed by modern science and lack some of tools of modern analysis. The great texts defamiliarize our world and offer (...) solutions to crucial questions often forgotten as we fixate on current philosophical trends. Modern Challenges is no appeal to a return to a golden past but a study designed to show how and why understanding earlier works of some of the most penetrating minds ever to ponder eternally valid questions can contribute to a renewal of our own culture. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Hume, Cicero, and the Skeptical Tradition Hume and the French The Deists and Butler Conclusion References Further Reading.

This article explores the integrity of the discourse in the Anglican eucharistic tradition by considering the philosophical assumptions that underlie eucharistic theology. It argues that where the conversation of the Anglican eucharistic tradition is open and unfinished then the integrity of the discourse is facilitated as opposed to the conversations of party positions and particular interests which suggest exclusive versions of truth. The conversation or dialogue of Anglican eucharistic theology is seen to be enhanced through the consideration of the philosophical (...) assumptions of realism and nominalism to both the moderate and immoderate degrees that underpin eucharistic theology as a state of affairs. The insights of contemporary philosophers are used as a way of conceptualising the discourse of the Anglican eucharistic tradition and a model of Anglican eucharistic theology is suggested as a means of facilitating the integrity of the discourse through the recognition of multiformity in the tradition and by distancing the discourse from the hermeneutic idealism of particular interest. (shrink)

My intent in this paper is to give an account of Aquinas' analysis of the nature of Christian faith, to indicate some difficulties to which it seems to me, and has seemed to others, to give rise, to try to evaluate the degree to which his analysis can suggest answers to those difficulties, and then to conclude with some general comments about the sources of those perplexities that still remain.*.

Although Hale and Resnik are correct in their specific objection to my proposal for nominalizing science, the proposal can be saved by means of a simple and plausible modification.

Why do a conceptual analysis on a word that we already know how to use? Marilyn Strathern provides some information on garden cities and suburbs which suggests a novel solution to me.

In this book, the authors present current research in the study of the philosophy of the mind. Topics discussed in this compilation include the concepts of hope and belief; how consciousness builds the subject through relating and human behaviour; analysing the neurophysiological mechanism of qigong on the mind and brain activity; the conscious and unconscious mind and implications for society, religion, and disease; how the mind is shaped by culture; and the power of computational mathematics to explore some of the (...) universal ways by which each human mind builds its image of the world. (shrink)

Joseph Raz criticizes John Rawls for a procedure supporting a non-adaptable constitution. This paper considers how a non-adaptable constitution can seem not so counterintuitive and also when.

The purpose of this paper is not to offer any solution to the problem of evil, or to declare it insoluble. It is rather the more modest one of deciding on its nature. Many writers assume that the problem of evil is one that poses a logical challenge to the theist, rather than a challenge of a moral or scientific sort. If this assumption is correct, and the challenge cannot be met, Christian theism can be shown to be untenable on (...) grounds of inconsistency. This in turn means that it is refutable by philosophers, even if their task is interpreted in the most narrowly analytical fashion. It has recently been argued that the challenge of the problem of evil can be met on logical grounds, and that if the existence of evil is damaging to theism it is not because the recognition of its existence is inconsistent with some essential part of it. I take two examples of this position. The first is in the paper ‘Hume on Evil’ by Nelson Pike; the second I owe to Professor R. M. Chisholm. (shrink)

Normative reconstruction is a form of immanent critique which judges society in terms of values which are already institutionalized and implicitly expressed across everyday forms of interaction. Honneth, for his part, reads the value of social freedom into the normative grammar of modern institutions and anticipates further advances towards its institutionalization. Many have voiced doubts over the extent to which the model of normative reconstruction which Honneth proposes is solidly anchored in social reality: at worst, it is argued, this reality (...) is resistant to reconstruction in terms of the value of social freedom; at best, it is too susceptible to multiple readings to allow for such a reconstruction. I seek to respond to these charges, while also testing the reach of Ricoeur’s understanding of the philosophical anthropological idea of indebtedness to the past, by following up on Honneth’s appeal to a horizon of social memory in response to his own uncertainties over the viability of normative reconstruction. More generally, I seek to arrive at a better understanding of the capacity of memory to orientate social critique within a shifting historical landscape. (shrink)

In this critical study I first summarize Crispin Wright's "Truth and Objectivity". Wright maintains (1) that truth- aptness of a given discourse is neutral about questions of realism and anti- realism concerning the discourse, but also (2) that such metaphysical questions largely turn on discourse- specific constraints governing the truth- predicate. I urge a distinction between (i) Wright's general approach to truth and objectivity, and (ii) his apparent inclination to implement and the approach by construing truth as a fundamentally epistemic (...) notion. I argue against an epistemically reductive implementation, and I briefly sketch an alternative way to implement the book's core ideas. (shrink)