Doing Ethics in a Pluralistic World is an apt title for this collection of essays in honour of Roger C. Hutchinson who, over many decades, has encouraged and participated in shaping a Canadian contextual social ethics. His abiding interest in social ethics and in religious engagement with public issues is reflected in his life’s work — seeking the consensus and self-knowledge required to achieve cooperation in the search for a just, participatory, and sustainable society. One of Roger Hutchinson’s (...) many notable accomplishments is his development of a method of dialogue for ethical clarification in situations of diversity. Some of the essays collected here apply this method to specific issues, while others discuss how religious persons and organizations can and do co-operate in a pluralistic world to achieve social and ecological well-being. All essays are of keen interest to those concerned with the role and function of ethics at the matrix of religious conviction and social transformation. For nearly three decades Roger Hutchinson has been based at Victoria University in Toronto, first in religious studies, then at Emmanuel College, where he completed his teaching career as professor of church and society while serving as principal from 1996 to 2001. (shrink)

the symmetry of our evidential situation. If our confidence is best modeled by a standard probability function this means that we are to distribute our subjective probability or credence sharply and evenly over possibilities among which our evidence does not discriminate. Once thought to be the central principle of probabilistic reasoning by great..

Argues that the only way to understand the Confucian vision of the consummate moral life is to take the tradition on its own terms.

This disagreement extends to the fundamental details of physical and biochemical theories. On the other hand, (2) There is almostuniversal agreementthatlife did notfirstcome aboutmerely by chance. This is not to say that all scientists think that life’s existence was inevitable. The common view is that given a fuller understanding of the physical and biological conditions and processes involved, the emergence of life should be seen to be quite likely, or at least not very surprising. The view which is almost universally (...) rejected by researchers in the field is that the numerous and prima facie improbable physical and biological requirements for life all fell together just by a fluke, like so many dice tumbling out of a bag and landing all sixes. Most importantly, for the purposes of the following discussion, (3) The conviction that life did not arise largely by chance is treated as epistem- ically prior to the development of alternative theories. C 2007, Copyright the Authors Journal compilation C 2007, Blackwell Publishing, Inc. (shrink)

Benedict de Spinoza was at once the father of the Enlightenment and the last sad guardian of the medieval world. In his brilliant synthesis of geometrical method, religious sentiment, and secular science, he attempted to reconcile the conflicting moral and intellectual demands of his epoch, and to present a vision of humanity as simultaneously bound by necessity and eternally free. Roger Scruton presents a clear and systematic analysis of Spinoza's thought, and shows its relevance to today's intellectual preoccupations.

Among other interesting proposals, Juan Comesaña’s _Being Rational and Being Right_ makes a challenging case that one’s evidence can include falsehoods. I explore some ways in which we might have to rethink the roles that evidence can play in inquiry if we accept this claim. It turns out that Comesaña’s position lends itself to the conclusion that while false evidence is possible and not even terribly uncommon, I can be rationally sure that I don’t currently have any and perhaps also (...) that I won’t get any, and (absent certain evidence to the contrary) you are not afflicted with any either. This conclusion might seem too good to be true. I finish by raising a puzzle about one of the main motivations for Comesaña’s view. (shrink)

As part of a review symposium on DARWIN'S ARGUMENT BY ANALOGY: FROM ARTIFICIAL TO NATURAL SELECTION (2021), the journal METASCIENCE invited Roger White, Jon Hodge and me to submit a response to the thoughtful commentaries on our book by Andrea Sullivan-Clarke, David Depew and Andrew Inkpen.

Critique of prevailing textbook conception of sufficient conditions and necessary conditions as a truth functional relation of material implication (p->q)/(~q->~p). Explanation of common sense conception of condition as correlative of consequence, involving dependence. Utility of this conception exhibited in resolving puzzles regarding ontology, truth, and fatalism.

Univocalist analyses of the modal auxiliary verbs ('ought'/'must'/'can'/'may''/'will') and the adjectives 'right'/'wrong'.

Elizabeth Anscombe is now recognised as one of the most important philosophers of the second half of the 20th century. She left a large corpus of work, wide-ranging in content, always original and bold. Her monograph Intention, published in 1957, is a modern classic, and was described by Donald Davidson as "the most important treatment of action since Aristotle." Her writings in ethics have inspired countless discussions, and she has been credited with having changed the face of Anglophone moral philosophy (...) by reviving and arguing for virtue ethics, now a major field. Since Anscombe's death in 2001, her philosophical work has received a steadily increasing level of attention worldwide. Anscombe is often difficult to read, and she has certainly been frequently misunderstood, but the sympathetic interest in her work which is now evident in so many quarters is making it possible for a true picture to begin to emerge of the range, depth, and power of her contribution to philosophy. The Oxford Handbook of Elizabeth Anscombe conveys something of that emerging picture of Anscombe's overall philosophy-showing the great fecundity of her ideas in essays that develop and expand on those ideas-and allows contributors to engage critically with Anscombe, not merely to expound what she said. The handbook opens with an introduction that addresses the question of the unity in diversity of Anscombe's philosophy, relating this to the twenty-two essays that follow. The handbook is divided into parts along broadly thematic lines, addressing: intention, ethical theory, human life, the first person, and Anscombe on other philosophers. (shrink)

Descartes’ distinction between infinite and indefinite is important for his philosophy, but poorly understood. Various commentators have offered conflicting interpretations of it; some have even questioned ist importance. In this paper I wish to investigate Descartes’ various discussions of the distinction and to use my investigation to shed light on the related question of the authority of the "Conversation with Burman". I believe that the distinction is treated differently in the "Conversation" than it is in the Cartesian corpus proper and (...) that the difference of treatment is paradigmatic of other differences between that work and the works which come from Descartes’ own hand. I divide my discussion into two parts: first, on the reliability of the "Conversation" and Ferdinand Alquié’s critique of it; and second, on the distinction between the infinite and indefinite. (shrink)

In this note, I point out a mathematically well-defined way of non-trivially comparing the sizes of uncountable sets of equal cardinality.

Roger Eberhard, Swiss-born and American-educated photographer, conceives his works as series, taking-up impulses and inspirations for new projects from any possible source, such as a story he learns about or media reports catching his attention. He is pa.

Logical form has semantic import. Logical sentences (GG: Greeks are Greeks) and their synonym interceptions (GH: Greeks are Hellenes) state the same fact but different truths with different explanations. Terms retain objectual reference but its role in explaining truth is preempted by syntax or synonymy. Church’s Test exposes puzzles. QMi sentences (GmG: ‘Greeks’ means Greeks), and QTi sentences (p≡it is true that p≡“p” is true) are metalogical necessities, true by syntax. Their interceptions alter syntax and modality, yielding contingent truths (GmH: (...) ‘Greeks’ means Hellenes, HmG: ‘Hellenes’ means Greeks). Meta-logical translation preserves syntax (GmG: ‘Greichen’ bedeutet Greichen), not necessarily objectual reference. Metalogical syntax secures truth by self-referential quotational indexing that identifies quotational referent with an intrasentential replica. (shrink)

Like '&', '=' is no term; it represents no extrasentential property. It marks an atomic, nonpredicative, declarative structure, sentences true solely by codesignation. Identity (its necessity and total reflexivity, its substitution rule, its metaphysical vacuity) is the objectual face of codesignation. The syntax demands pure reference, without predicative import for the asserted fact. 'Twain is Clemens' is about Twain, but nothing is predicated of him. Its informational value is in its 'metailed' semantic content: the fact of codesignation (that 'Twain' names (...) Clemens) that explains what fact it asserts and why it is necessary. Critiques of concepts of rigidity and elimination of singular terms result. (shrink)

Reid thought that testimony possesses positive epistemic value. Epistemic autonomy is not necessarily the royal road to truth; nor is credulity a systematic epistemic fault and indeed, it can be an intellectual virtue. Even though the notion of epistemic virtue does not explicitly appear in Reid’s epistemology, it seems inherent to his views that what will give a heteronomous agent exercising the social operations of the mind the best chance to acquire and develop true beliefs is the epistemic virtues that (...) permit her to recognize reliable authorities. This is why it seems to me possible to associate Reid with to the virtue epistemology tradition. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant is one of the most influential-and most complex-modern philosophers. His ideas on the subjective nature of reality challenged contemporary beliefs about God, morality, and free will. Roger Scruton, a well-known and controversial philosopher in his own right, tackles his exceptionally complex subject with a strong hand, providing an accessible introduction to Kant's work and his pivotal Critique of Pure Reason.

Embryos, cells, genes, and organisms : reflections on the history of evolutionary developmental biology / Manfred D. Laubichler and Jane Maienschein The organismic systems approach : streamlining the naturalistic agenda / Werner Callebaut, Gerd B. Müller, and Stuart A. Newman Complex traits : genetics, development, and evolution / H. Frederik Nijhout Functional and developmental constraints on life-cycle evolution : an attempt on the architecture of constraints / Gerhard Schlosser Legacies of adaptive development / Roger Sansom Evo-devo meets the mind (...) : toward a developmental evolutionary psychology / Paul E. Griffiths Reproducing entrenchments to scaffold culture : the central role of development in cultural evolution / William C. Wimsatt and James R. Griesemer. (shrink)

One of the central elements of John Rawls’ argument in support of his two principles of justice is the intuitive normative ideal of citizens as free and equal. But taken in isolation, the claim that citizens are to be treated as free and equal is extremely indeterminate, and has virtually no clear implications for policy. In order to remedy this, the two principles of justice, together with the stipulation that citizens have basic interests in developing their moral capacities and pursuing (...) their conceptions of the good life, are meant to provide a more precise interpretation of what is involved in treating citizens as free and equal. Rawls’ critics, however, have argued that satisfying the two principles of justice is not the most appropriate or plausible way to respect the status of citizens as free and equal. In relation to this debate, the present paper has two aims. The first is to examine Rawls’ account of the type of freedom that a just society must guarantee equally to its citizens. I will argue that those who think of Rawls as a theorist of freedom as non-interference are mistaken, because his notion of liberty resembles in important respects the republican notion of freedom as non-domination. Second, I will consider the extent to which Rawls’ principles of justice successfully protect the freedom as non-domination of all citizens so as to effectively treat them as free and equal. (shrink)

How far should religious practices be curtailed in pursuit of other social goals, such as equality and the removal of discrimination? This book reasons that religious freedom is one of our most precious freedoms, and essential to democracy, drawing on examples from across the Western world.

Does economics hold the key to everything or does the recent financial crisis show that it has failed? This book provides an assessment of modern economics that cuts through the confusion and controversy on this question. Case studies of the creation of new markets, the Russian transition to capitalism, globalization, and money and finance establish that economics has been very successful where problems have been well defined and where the world can be changed to fit the theory, but that it (...) has been less successful in tackling bigger problems. The book then offers a historical perspective on how economists have, since the Second World War, tried to make their subject scientific. It explores the evolving relationship between science and ideology and investigates the place of heterodoxy and dissent within the discipline. (shrink)

When young children first begin to ask 'why?' they embark on a journey with no final destination. The need to make sense of the world as a whole is an ultimate curiosity that lies at the root of all human religions. It has, in many cultures, shaped and motivated a more down to earth scientific interest in the physical world, which could therefore be described as penultimate curiosity. These two manifestations of curiosity have a history of connection that goes back (...) deep into the human past. Tracing that history all the way from cave painting to quantum physics, this book sets out to explain the nature of the long entanglement between religion and science: the ultimate and the penultimate curiosity. (shrink)

This paper critiques the so-called “Green Revolution” as a political myth of averted famine. A “political myth,” among other functions, reflects a narrative structure that characterizes understandings of causality between policy action and outcome. As such, the details of a particular political myth elevate certain policy options over others. One important narrative strand of the political myths of the Green Revolution is a story of averted famine: in the 1950s and 1960s, scientists predicted a global crisis to emerge in the (...) 1970s and beyond, created by a rapidly growing global population that would cause global famine as food supplies would not keep up with demand. The narrative posits that an intense period of technological innovation in agricultural productivity led to increasing crop yields which led to more food being produced, and the predicted crisis thus being averted. The fact that the world did not experience a global famine in the 1970s is cited as evidence in support of the narrative. Political myths need not necessarily be supported by evidence, but to the extent that they shape understandings of cause and effect in policymaking, political myths which are not grounded in evidence risk misleading policymakers and the public. We argue a political myth of the Green Revolution focused on averted famine is not well grounded in evidence and thus has potential to mislead to the extent it guides thinking and action related to technological innovation. We recommend an alternative narrative: The Green Evolution, in which sustainable improvements in agricultural productivity did not necessarily avert a global famine, but nonetheless profoundly shaped the modern world. More broadly, we argue that one of the key functions of the practice of technology assessment is to critique and to help create the political myths that preserve an evidence-grounded basis for connecting the cause and effect of policy action and practical outcomes. (shrink)

In this volume, representatives of different cultures and with alternative conceptions of human realization explore themes at the intersection of a changing ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Liberation and SpiritualityRoger HaightThese reflections on liberation and spirituality respond to a precise question. There is no better way to begin than in stating it clearly. People committed to action in behalf of liberation need a spirituality. What spirituality does Christianity offer them? The issue is not why Christian spirituality needs to be attentive to the demands of the poor and other victims of discrimination. The reasons why Christian (...) spirituality must be liberationist have been made convincingly over the past forty-five years. It should be taken for granted that Christians are to be concerned with liberation. A slightly different issue is at stake in the question of what spirituality, present in Christianity, is summoned forth when people who are dedicated to the project of liberation turn to Christianity and ask about its spiritual resources. This question comes from a different audience, one made up of those who are not sure that Christianity or religion generally has anything to offer to the commitment to human liberation. In addressing that question the goal is to respond with some clear convictions about what Christianity has to offer and how it may affect the lives of liberationists.Because this has to be done in a short space, the response will appear more like an outline than an argument. But both those familiar with Christianity and those less so will be able to understand the basic elements of the spirituality that is proffered. The presentation moves forward in three parts. The first explores the language of liberation and spirituality. The second and substantive part brings forward four classic witnesses to Christian spirituality and allows each to highlight a particular element of an integral Christian spirituality. And the third emphasizes the dimensions of ultimacy and finality.liberation and spiritualityThe words “liberation” and “spirituality” are familiar to everyone, but they do not bear the same meaning in everyone’s usage. The discussion, then, has to begin with a brief definition of the meaning of these terms as they are used here. These definitions [End Page 135] do not have to be developed at length. What follows simply stipulates aspects of these terms that are crucial for the logic of the position presented here.The term “liberation” is used very broadly because human repression takes many forms. In these reflections “liberation” refers to the process of attaining or assisting others to attain freedom from various obstacles to human flourishing. There can be no doubt that since the nineteenth century social oppression has provided a focal point for understanding liberation. Humanity in the West has gradually become more and more conscious of social and historical conditioning of individual human beings. We have learned that societies are human constructions; that they favor some and neglect, marginalize, and positively subjugate others; that no society has to be the way it is; that it can be changed; that some people encourage and others resist change; and that human beings can have a less or more conscious role in the process. We have the potential to be agents of social liberation. But other forms of liberation need not be excluded from the concept. It does not make any sense to neglect some forms of repressed human freedom in favor of others, even though some forms of human deprivation are more serious than others.One problem with such an open view of liberation is that it seems to give every liberationist concern an equal voice. It may even open a door to competitive interests. It is one thing to say that every human diminishment requires attention, but in a limited economy of human energy, time, and resources we cannot, either as individuals or societies, attend to all problems with equal vigor at the same time. We need some criteria for measuring importance. To this question a scale of values offered by Bernard Lonergan has some relevance. He begins to rank from below in an ascending scale the needs and values that lie open to human commitment.1 The denial of any basic human requirement like food and shelter calls out for liberation. But a scale of values measures relative importance of various human needs and opportunities for freedom’s development... (shrink)

Une interrogation sur l'art se basant sur deux concepts de la métaphysique : l'existence et l'identité. L'ouvrage s'interroge sur le mode d'existence des oeuvres d'art, sur le rapport qu'elles entretiennent avec les pratiques sans lesquelles elles n'existent pas, etc.

Roger Scruton; VII*—Self-Knowledge and Intention, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 77, Issue 1, 1 June 1977, Pages 87–106, https://doi.org/10.109.

1. The scientific study of sleep has recently been stimulated by comparisons between people and advanced computers, whose normal activities need to be suspended periodically for reprogramming. I quote from a popular account by Dr Christopher Evans, which appeared in the Sunday Times during 1969: Sleep is of course the state in which the brain-computer is ‘off-line’, during which time the vast mass of existing programmes are sorted, outdated ones revised in the light of recent experiences and useless ones or (...) the remnants of modified ones cleared and eliminated. These processes take place for a substantial part of the night, but because the brain is ‘off-line’ and consciousness suppressed, we are mostly not aware of them. However, if for some reason our sleep is disturbed or when we wake in the morning, as the conscious mind ‘comes to’ it catches the programme operations at work, and for a moment has no way of knowing whether the events are internal or external in origin. It sets to work therefore to try to make sense of the programme or fragments thereof that are being run through, and the result is what we call a dream— though we should presumably call it an interrupted dream. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"The Fittest Man in the Kingdom":Thomas Reid and the Glasgow Chair of Moral PhilosophyPaul Wood (bio)Paul Wood Paul Wood is at the Department of History, University of Victoria, PO Box 3045, MS 7381, Victoria BC V8W 3P4 Canada. email: [email protected] August 1996Revised January 1997Notes. An earlier version of this paper was delivered at a plenary session of the 23rd International Hume Conference held at the University of (...) Nottingham. For comments and/or references, the author wishes to thank Roger Emerson, Carol Gibson-Wood, Knud Haakonssen, Ian Simpson Ross, Stephen Snobelen, M. A. Stewart, and the anonymous Hume Studies referees. For permission to cite and quote from manuscripts, he is grateful to the Keeper of the Manuscripts of Scotland as well as to the Librarians of Aberdeen University Library, Edinburgh University Library, Glasgow University Archives and Business Records Centre, Glasgow University Library (Department of Special Collections), the Mitchell Library Glasgow, and Dr. Williams' Library.1. Although little information survives regarding Law's teaching, we do know that he discussed Pufendorf in his classes; see Christine Mary King [Shepherd], "Philosophy and Science in the Arts Curriculum of the Scottish Universities in the Seventeenth Century," (Unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 1974), 177. Carmichael's edition of Pufendorf first appeared in Glasgow in 1718, and a second edition was published in Edinburgh in 1724 while Hume was still a student there.2. The surviving correspondence between the two men from this period is to be found in The Letters of David Hume, ed. J.Y.T. Greig, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1932), I 32-35; 36-40; 45-48 (hereafter abbreviated as HL).3. The first detailed discussion of the 1745 election appeared in the introduction to David Hume, A Letter from a Gentleman to His Friend in Edinburgh, edited by Ernest C. Mossner and John V. Price (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1967). This account has recently been challenged in Roger L. Emerson, "The 'Affair' at Edinburgh and the 'Project' at Glasgow: The Politics of Hume's Attempts to become a Professor," in Hume and Hume's Connexions, edited by M. A. Stewart and John P. Wright (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994), 1-22; and M. A. Stewart, The Kirk and the Infidel (Lancaster: Lancaster University Publications Office, 1995). For historically sensitive contextual analysis of Hume's philosophical relations with Hutcheson, see inter alia James Moore, "Hume and Hutcheson," in Stewart and Wright, 23-57, and M. A. Stewart, Warmth in the Cause of Virtue (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, forthcoming).4. In January 1752, "Mr. Smith read an Account of some of Mr. David Hume's Essays on Commerce" to the Society, and Hume was elected a member in 1753; see Notices and Documents Illustrative of the Literary History of Glasgow, During the Greater Part of Last Century, edited by W. J. Duncan (Glasgow: T. D. Morison, 1886), 132-133. Hume's failed candidacy is discussed in Emerson, "The 'Affair' at Edinburgh," 14-16, and Ian Simpson Ross, The Life of Adam Smith (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995), 112-113. Smith's Glasgow colleague from 1751 to 1755, William Cullen, was also sympathetic to Hume's philosophy, as was John Millar, who was elected Professor of Law in 1761. On Cullen and Hume see J.R.R. Christie, "Ether and the Science of Chemistry: 1740-1790," in Conceptions of Ether: Studies in the History of Ether Theories 1740-1900, edited by G. N. Cantor and M.J.S. Hodge (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), 90-96.5. David Hume to William Strahan, 26 October 1775, HL II 301.6. See, for example, The Works of Thomas Reid, D.D., edited by Sir William Hamilton, 4th ed. (Edinburgh: Maclachlan and Stewart, 1854), 30n; James McCosh, The Scottish Philosophy, Biographical, Expository, Critical, from Hutcheson to Hamilton (London: Macmillan, 1875), 36; James Veitch, "Philosophy in the Scottish Universities," Mind 2 (1877): 207-234 (209).7. John Rae, Life of Adam Smith (London and New York: Macmillan, 1895); William Robert Scott, Francis Hutcheson: His Life, Teaching and Position in the History of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1900); idem., Adam Smith as Student and Professor (Glasgow: Jackson... (shrink)