Since the idea of a canon seems so closely bound up with the idea of history, there should be something to be learned from the persistent efforts that have been going on for nearly two hundred years to extend the musical repertory back in time. What is involved here is nothing less than a continuous effort to endow music with a history. From the workings of this process in the nineteenth century, we learn that where the ideology is right the (...) past can indeed yield up a canon of works and even a canon of performance. Bach, to take the most weighty example, would appear to have entered the canon—Hoffman’s canon—before entering the repertory. The history of the nineteenth-century Bach revival begins as a triumph of ideology over practice. Only after J. N. Forkel, in his famous biography, canonized Bach as the archetypal German master was The Well-tempered Clavier published for the first time—and if any one work of music deserved to be called canonic, it would have to be The Well-tempered Clavier.14 Gradually other Bach works, works which fitted better into nineteenth-century concert life, did enter various nineteenth-century repertories; Mendelssohn’s revival of the St. Matthew Passion is a famous landmark, and various piano transcriptions and orchestral arrangements, not to speak of Gounod’s “Ave Maria,” followed in due course. Bach was made to sound like a premature Romantic. There was as yet no call for historical “authenticity.” But I do not think it was Bach that Hood was thinking of when he complained of musical traditions of the past whose “real identities are gone.” The skeleton may not have been bodied out with authentic flesh and blood, but it was made into a handsome waxwork which was quite real enough for the nineteenth century. 14. This point is made by Crocker, “Is There Really a ‘Written Tradition’?” Joseph Kerman, professor of music at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of Opera as Drama, The Beethoven Quartets, The Masses and Motets of William Byrd, and The New Grove Beethoven. He is also coeditor of Beethoven Studies and Nineteenth-Century Music and is presently working on a concise study of modern musical scholarship. “How We Got into Analysis, and How to Get Out,” his previous contribution to Critical Inquiry, appeared in the Winter 1980 issue. (shrink)

In his Art and Knowledge, the distinguished Canadian philosopher of art, James O. Young, takes on the daunting task of defending his opening claim that ‘every item properly classified as a work of art can contribute to human knowledge’. His assertion is a general one, intended to apply to any and every prospective artwork, not merely to sub-genres like the moral novel or the ‘Shock-Headed Peter’ school of didactic bedtime terror-fest. Thus, according to Young, works such as The Well- (...) class='Hi'>Tempered Clavier and Vermeer’s Officer and Laughing Girl do not qualify as art unless they can provide knowledge about topics that are important to us as human beings. A work does not become artworthy by inspiring us to meditate, ruminate, or reflect unless the work also leads us to true beliefs that are, in some sense, justified. Furthermore, it’s not enough for a work to provide knowledge about, say, abstruse issues in eighteenth-century counterpoint or the cult of painterly flatness; to count as art, a work must, in some way, supply answers to questions that are important to us as human beings living in the world. Young also argues that artworks have their own method of conveying knowledge. Hence, he buttresses his cognitive definition of art with an epistemology of art. (shrink)

Mimesis and the portrayal of reflective life in action : Aristotle's Poetics and Sophocles' Oedipus the King -- The portrayal of reflective life in action in poetry : Shakespeare's dramatization of the poet in Sonnets 1-126 -- The portrayal of reflective life in action in music : Bach's Prelude and Fugue in B flat minor (The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1) and Beethoven's String Quartet in A minor, opus 132 -- The portrayal of reflective life in action in (...) painting : discovery of the inner life of sensory perception in watercolours by Turner and oil paintings by Cézanne. (shrink)

In his Art and Knowledge, the distinguished Canadian philosopher of art, James O. Young, takes on the daunting task of defending his opening claim that ‘every item properly classified as a work of art can contribute to human knowledge’. His assertion is a general one, intended to apply to any and every prospective artwork, not merely to sub-genres like the moral novel or the ‘Shock-Headed Peter’ school of didactic bedtime terror-fest. Thus, according to Young, works such as The Well- (...) class='Hi'>Tempered Clavier and Vermeer’s Officer and Laughing Girl do not qualify as art unless they can provide knowledge about topics that are important to us as human beings. A work does not become artworthy by inspiring us to meditate, ruminate, or reflect unless the work also leads us to true beliefs that are, in some sense, justified. Furthermore, it’s not enough for a work to provide knowledge about, say, abstruse issues in eighteenth-century counterpoint or the cult of painterly flatness; to count as art, a work must, in some way, supply answers to questions that are important to us as human beings living in the world. Young also argues that artworks have their own method of conveying knowledge. Hence, he buttresses his cognitive definition of art with an epistemology of art. (shrink)

My own life -- Selections from Hume's letters concerning virtue, religion and matters literary -- Selections from Hume's letters on history, politics, law, commerce and Scottish affairs -- Hume's last letter : to Adam Smith -- Selections from An enquiry concerning the principles of morals -- Extracts from Of the liberty of the press.

Intellectual history and the history of political thought are siblings, perhaps even twins. They have similar origins and use similar materials. They attract many of the same friends and make some of the same enemies. Yet like most siblings, they have different temperaments and ambitions. This essay explores the family resemblances and draws out the contrasts by examining two major works by one of the most prominent political theorists of the past half-century, Alan Ryan, who has recently published two big (...) books that intellectual historians will find rewarding and provocative. (shrink)

Whether or not capitalism is compatible with ethics is a long standing dispute. We take up an approach to virtue ethics inspired by Adam Smith and consider how market competition influences the virtues most associated with modern commercial society. Up to a point, competition nurtures and supports such virtues as prudence, temperance, civility, industriousness and honesty. But there are also various mechanisms by which competition can have deleterious effects on the institutions and incentives necessary for sustaining even these most commercially (...) friendly of virtues. It is often supposed that if competitive markets are good, more competition must always be better. However, in the long run competition enhancing policies that neglect the nurturing and support of the bourgeois virtues may undermine the continued flourishing of modern commercial society. (shrink)

When it comes to invasive manipulation of animals on the biological level, reactions of disgust are common and often influential on people’s moral judgments. As a case in point, the Belgian Blue, a breed of hyper-enhanced cattle which will serve as a case study for the present article, has historically been met with revulsion. Traditionally, in bio- and animal ethics, this ‘yuck factor,’ has been denied any productive role in proper moral justification, since rationalism is still a dominant paradigm in (...) those disciplines. This is not surprising since rationalism offers the fulfilment of certain expectations we have of morality, like universality, intersubjective communicability, and objectivity. Increasingly, however, the preconceptions of rationalism have been brought into question, both through empirical as well as philosophical insights. In this paper, we will explore a way in which researchers who are, accordingly, critical of rationalism, and who wish to take seriously the role disgust plays in the formation of moral judgments when it comes to biological manipulation of animals, can do so without abandoning those virtues of rationalism which make it such an appealing position. We will do so by offering what we call a ‘tempered’ kind of rationalism, that is, one which conceives of rationality in the terms of Mary Midgley, not as distinct from, but as a possible function of, well-ordered emotion. (shrink)

In this paper, I present and explore an alternative to a standard prioritarian axiology. Equality-tempered prioritarianism holds that the value of welfare increases should be balanced against the value of equality. However, given that, under prioritarianism, the value of marginal welfare benefits decreases as the welfare of beneficiaries increases, equality-tempered prioritarianism holds that the intrinsic value of equality will be sufficient to alter a prioritarian verdict only in cases in which welfare benefits are granted to the very (...) class='Hi'>well-off. I argue that this view, suitably refined, solves a persistent problem for prioritarianism, and is superior to alternatives. (shrink)

A lot of Indian research is replicative in nature. This is because originality is at a premium here and mediocrity is in great demand. But replication has its merit as well because it helps in corroboration. And that is the bedrock on which many a fancied scientific hypothesis or theory stands, or falls. However, to go from replicative to original research will involve a massive effort to restructure the Indian psyche and an all round effort from numerous quarters. The (...) second part of this paper deals with the essence of scientific temper, which need not have any basic friendship, or animosity, with religion, faith, superstition and other such entities. A true scientist follows two cardinal rules. He is never unwilling to accept the worth of evidence, howsoever damning to the most favourite of his theories. Second, and perhaps more important, for want of evidence, he withholds comment. He says neither yes nor no. Where will Science ultimately lead Man is the third part of this essay. One argument is that the conflict between Man and Science will continue till either of them is exhausted or wiped out. The other believes that it is Science which has to be harnessed for Man and not Man used for Science. And with the numerous checks and balances in place, Science will remain an effective tool for man's progress. The essential value-neutrality of Science will have to be supplemented by the values that man has upheld for centuries as fundamental, and which religious thought and moral philosophy have continuously professed. (shrink)

Inspired by Aristotle, Paul Bloomfield holds that all genuine reasons for action are explained in terms of one basic goal: to live a Good Life. But living morally—choosing and performing brave, temperate, just, and wise actions—is necessary for the Good Life. Using ideas from Kant and Sidgwick, Bloomfield argues that immorality is inherently self-defeating: in disrespecting others, one disrespects oneself. Moreover, immoralists—who believe that immoral action often conduces to self-interest—operate with a self-defeating conception of happiness. Bloomfield succeeds in explaining why (...) moral virtue and personal well-being are not completely opposed to one another. However, his main arguments against immoralism are unconvincing, because they require controversial claims about essential properties and the logic of attitudes taken towards them. Other arguments against immoralism attribute inessential views to immoralists, or else require controversial assumptions about the relation between valuing and believing good. (shrink)

Epistemic transparency tells us that, if an agent S knows a given proposition p , then S knows that she knows that p . This idea is usually encoded in the so-called KK principle of epistemic logic. The paper develops an argument in favor of a moderate version of KK , which I dub quasi-transparency , as a normative rather than a descriptive principle. In the second Section I put forward the suggestion that epistemic transparency is not a demand of (...) ideal rationality, but of ideal epistemic responsibility, and hence that ideally responsible agents verify transparency principles of some sort; I also contend that their satisfaction should not be tied to an internalist epistemology. The central argument in favor of transparency is then addressed in Sections 3 to 8, through the development of a formal system. I show that, in a well-behaved formal setting, a moderate version of transparency is imposed upon us as a result of a number of independent decisions on the structure of higher-order probabilities, as long as we request that our probability and knowledge attributions cohere with each other. Thus I give a rationale to build a model for a hierarchy of languages with different levels of knowledge and probability operators; we obtain an analogous to KK for successive knowledge operators without actually demanding transitivity. The formal argument reinforces the philosophical intuition that epistemic transparency is an important desideratum we should not be too ready to dismiss. (shrink)

Michael Hand has defended the “epistemic criterion” for “directive and nondirective teaching” in his 2008 Educational Theory article, “What Should We Teach as Controversial? A Defense of the Epistemic Criterion,” as well as subsequent pieces. Here, John Tillson defends use of the epistemic criterion in the case of what he calls “momentous propositions,” but he rejects two of Hand's key arguments in support of the criterion. This rethinking comes in light of important contributions to the debate made by Bryan (...) Warnick and D. Spencer Smith and by Maughn Rollins Gregory, also published in this journal. Tillson begins the article with an elucidation of the directive/nondirective distinction, and then discusses some limitations of defining the distinction in terms of intention. Next, he draws attention to the problems with the “soft-directive teaching” method that Warnick and Smith advocate. Finally, Tillson provides an additional argument in favor of the epistemic criterion, an argument also grounded in work by Hand, which places emphasis on imparting knowledge alongside cultivating rationality among our educational aims. (shrink)

This article challenges the common assumption that the character virtues can be divided into two groups, one consisting of other-regarding virtues and oneof self-regarding virtues. On such accounts the other-regarding virtues are often said to focus on advancing the good of others, whereas the self-regarding virtuesprimarily benefit the agent herself. Here, however, it will be shown that virtues like friendship, particular justice, even temper and benevolence—traditionally seen as other-regarding—all contain strong self-regarding aspects. The central claim of the article is that (...) these self-regarding aspects of the other-regarding virtues arenecessary components of complete virtue. Given the scope of these virtues, an agent has to act virtuously in her dealings with herself as well as with others inorder to qualify as fully virtuous. While this account draws on a number of Aristotelian ideas it should be noted that it is not intended as an authoritative, or exegetic, reading of Aristotle. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: Preface; 1. The trouble with God; 2. God unlimited; 3. How to reason if you must; 4. The well-tempered universe; 5. What does it all mean?; 6. Moral equilibrium; 7. What is life without thee?; 8. It necessarily ain't so.

lthough it was in the early eighties when I began to feel a growing disaff'ection with the radicalized academic left, a decisive nausea-inducing body blow was administered by the PMLA of January 1989. In that infamous issue appeared a letter signed by twenty-four feminist academics attacking the eminent Shakespeare scholar Richard Levin, for "Feminist Thematics and Shakespearean Tragedy," which had appeared in PMLA the year before. Levin's essay, the work of a well-tempered, open-minded, and liberal supporter of many (...) radical reforms in the academy, was a penetrating critique of the feminist identity politics that were trying to wrest Shakespeare into the persona of a feminist scourge of sexism and patriarchy. Levin's temerity in taking on the distortions of identity politics was threatening enough, but his Enlightenment style and Swiftian wit, which he brilliantly deployed to dismantle the tendentious and self-serving hermeneutics of the "dictatorship of virtue" (a phrase I borrow here from Richard Bernstein) that constitutes avant-garde millenarianism in the U.S. academy, served further to inflame the hypersensitive skins of his holier-than-thou critics, who brook no criticism.. (shrink)

In classical music, the immediate canon is Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Mozart. With Bach and Beethoven it is hard to go wrong. But my short list there would be Bach's B Minor Mass and St. Matthew's Passion, The Art of the Fugue, Well-Tempered Klavier, some of the organ music, the Brandenburgs, the Partitas, the Goldberg Variations, and the solo violin works.

We precipitately express opinions about religion without reflecting critically on our conception of it, and may blame it for conduct that the religious traditions themselves judge unbecoming. A distinction can be drawn between the raw, natural self of the untrained person and the well‐tempered demeanour of a spiritually developed person. Such a distinction drives the appropriation of religious beliefs and can survive their demise. ‘Religious belief’ is not to be conflated with Abrahamic notions of ‘belief in God’ and (...) ‘faith’. There are other versions of transcendence and other psycho‐dramas. One possible form of transcendence is available within the moral life of human beings. (shrink)

lthough it was in the early eighties when I began to feel a growing disaffection with the radicalized academic left, a decisive nausea—inducing body blow was administered by the PMLA of january 1989. In that infamous issue appeared a letter signed by twenty-four feminist academics attacking the eminent Shakespeare scholar Richard Levin, for "Feminist Thematics and Shakespearean Tragedy," which had appeared in PMLA the year before. Levin’s essay, the work of a well-tempered, open-minded, and liberal supporter of many (...) radical reforms in the academy, was a penetrating critique of the feminist identity politics that were trying to wrest Shakespeare into the persona of a feminist scourge of sexism and patriarchy. Levin’s temerity in taking on the distortions of identity politics was threatening enough, but his Enlightenment style and Swiftian wit, which he brilliantly deployed to dismantle the tendentious and self—serving hermeneutics of the "dictatorship of virtue" (a phrase I borrow here from Richard Bernstein) that constitutes avant-garde millenarianism in the U.S. academy, served further to inflame the hypersensitive skins of his holier-than-thou critics, who brook no criticism.. (shrink)

La confrontation de l’Open Access avec la propriété intellectuelle demeure mesurée dès lors que l’exercice du droit d’auteur n’est nullement antinomique avec un modèle de gratuité pour l’utilisateur final. L’existence de prérogatives morales fortes présente les garanties mêmes que la communauté scientifique appelle de ses vœux, à savoir l’identification de la source et la traçabilité de la version originale de la publication. Le constat est sans doute moins angélique s’agissant du mouvement du Public Access, lequel ne se soucie plus guère (...) des intérêts des auteurs, mais est tout entier tourné vers la diffusion des savoirs comme remboursement des tributs versés par les contribuables dans le financement de la recherche. La logique suivie devrait à terme nier l’existence même de droits d’auteurs de la part des chercheurs lesquels verraient la diffusion de leurs travaux leur échapper en totalité. Il n’est cependant pas certain que l’alternative proposée conduise à des résultats souhaitables car le chercheur doit pouvoir bénéficier d’une certaine liberté dans sa recherche et dans sa parole pour être incité à produire des travaux de qualité ; court-circuiter son contrôle intellectuel sur le destin de ses recherches risque, au contraire de le brider. La rencontre des deux aspirations est sans doute possible. Il n’est pas nécessaire pour atteindre le libre accès de détruire la libre recherche.The incipient clash between open access and intellectual property need not come to a head as long as the exercise of authorship rights does not contradict free access for end users. The existence of strong moral prerogatives offers the very guarantees that the scientific community is pressing for: identification of sources and traceability of the original version of a publication. The picture is not so well-tempered in the case of the Public Access movement, which has little concern for authorship and is entirely geared to knowledge dissemination as compensation for the taxpayers’ money spent on research. Taken to its logical conclusion, this would deny the very existence of authorship rights for researchers, who would lose all control over the dissemination of their work. However, the alternative solution proposed may not necessarily produce the desired results, since researchers need to have a certain amount of freedom in their work and in their communication to motivate high-quality output. Short-circuiting their intellectual control over the fate of their research is more likely to inhibit them than otherwise. But the clash between these two aspirations may yet be resolved: achieving free access does not necessarily mean destroying freedom for research. (shrink)

This article analyzes the application of creative visualization in the ethics of Ancient Greek Cynicism. The author concentrates on visualizations of 2 fundamental ethical principles (vicious chase of pleasures and virtuous radical temperance) and their relevance to modern society. The author comes to a conclusion that Cynics visualized the first principle through the image of a never-ending wheel of slavery and a concrete illness – dropsy, whereas the second one was visualized through the image of remedy for the above mentioned (...) disease and slavery as well as images of the result of taking that remedy, that is, permanent health, freedom and happiness. The both visualizations bear an evident creative character. The other important conclusion is that those visualizations are not relevant to contemporary society. Yet, being prototypes of relevant modern visualizations of hasty chase of pleasures and mild temperance, they retain significance to that society. (shrink)

La beauté d’une œuvre musicale dépend de certaines de ses propriétés formelles perceptibles par un sujet dans une attitude esthétique. Elle n’est pas dans la forme musicale mais elle n’en est pourtant pas indépendante. Ce rapport est précisé grâce à l’analyse de la beauté dans une démonstration mathématique. Elle dépend du rapport entre la pauvreté et l’évidence des prémisses, et la richesse et l’éloignement de la conclusion. La beauté obéit ainsi à des principes leibniziens : celui, quantitatif, d’économie de moyens, (...) et celui, qualitatif, de perfection. On s’efforce ensuite d’appliquer ces principes à deux exemples musicaux : le début du Prélude en do mineur du Premier livre du Clavier bien tempéré de J.-S. Bach et une ligne de chant d’un air de Verdi. On en conclut que percevoir la beauté, c’est percevoir l’intelligible dans le sensible. (shrink)

It is well-observed that undergraduate students frequently profess ethical relativism, but they also frequently defend ethical egoism. The author suggests four reasons why ethical egoism is so common among undergraduates: since college students’ identity is in flux, a normative framework in which the self may be appealed to as a foundation for value offers a sense of security; most college students have relatively few obligations beyond themselves; media and advertising tend to promote and reward egoism; egoism is easy and (...) affords students the appearance of being non-judgmental and tolerant. Nevertheless, the author notes, even the most diehard egoist holds the belief that their ego works to realize some potential, which means they are in at least a minimal sense committed to something beyond themselves. Virtue theory is especially useful in exploiting this commitment to show student egoists the plausibility of non-egoistic normative viewpoints. Discussing the examples of true friendship, courage, generosity, honest self-presentation, eudaemonia, and temperance, the author explains how virtue theory can articulate values which the student egoist is committed to but which cannot be satisfactorily accounted for by egoistic frameworks. The author concludes by addressing the importance of group discussion for lending concreteness to the lessons of virtue theory. (shrink)

Ayn Rand is well known for advocating egoism, but the substance of that instruction is rarely understood. Far from representing the rejection of morality, selfishness, in Rand's view, actually demands the practice of a systematic code of ethics. This book explains the fundamental virtues that Rand considers vital for a person to achieve his objective well-being: rationality, honesty, independence, justice, integrity, productiveness, and pride. Tracing Rand's account of the harmony of human beings' rational interests, Smith examines what each (...) of these virtues consists of, why it is a virtue, and what it demands of a person in practice. Along the way she addresses the status of several conventional virtues within Rand's theory, considering traits such as kindness, charity, generosity, temperance, courage, forgiveness, and humility. Ayn Rand's Normative Ethics thus offers an in-depth exploration of several specific virtues and an illuminating integration of these with the broader theory of egoism. (shrink)

Americans’ excessive consumption of food harms their health and quality of life and also causes direct and indirect environmental degradation, through habitat loss and increased pollution from agricultural fertilizers and pesticides. We show here that reducing food consumption could improve Americans’ health and well-being while facilitating environmental benefits ranging from establishing new national parks and protected areas to allowing more earth-friendly farming and ranching techniques. We conclude by considering various public policy initiatives to lower per capita caloric intake and (...) excessive meat consumption, and to translate this temperate behavior into substantial environmental protection. (shrink)

This paper proposes that public health is the sort of institution that has a role in producing structures of virtue in society. This proposal builds upon work that describes how virtues are structured by the practices of institutions, at the collective or whole-of-society level. This work seeks to fill a gap in public health ethics when it comes to virtues. Mainstay moral theories tend to incorporate some role for virtues, but within public health ethics this role has not been fully (...) articulated. Two recent papers have proposed ways in which the virtues might be incorporated: working from a structural account, Rozier suggests that public health could work to instil virtues, like temperance, in the public in order to achieve its health-related goals; Nihlén Fahlquist suggests that compassion is among three virtues that practitioners of public health should cultivate in order to do their work well. In the end, both accounts recommend incorporating virtues at the level of individuals, among the public and among practitioners. I propose a third kind of role for virtue in public health that focuses on structures. Public health activities take place at the population level, and a public health virtue ethics must also be suitably population-focussed. (shrink)

Personal health technologies such as apps and wearables that generate health and behavior data close to the individual patient are envisioned to enable personalized healthcare - and self-care. And yet, they are consumer devices. Proponents of these devices presuppose that measuring will be helpful, and that data will be meaningful. However, a growing body of research suggests that self-tracking data does not necessarily make sense to users. Drawing together data studies and digital health research, we aim to further research on (...) data ambivalence, a term we use to refer to the ambiguities and uncertainties people experience when interpreting their own data, as well as the critical obligation towards cultivating ethically sound uses and responses to such data in context. We develop the relationship between data, interpretation, and context as a central theoretical and practical problem in the datafication of healthcare. We then show how interpretation and context matter for data ambivalence through an empirical study of heart patients with an implanted advanced pacemaker who were offered a Fitbit wristband for self-tracking as part of a research project. We argue that the hope, anxiety, and doubt connected to the promise and accuracy of data are tempered by the context and purpose of self-tracking, and by individual circumstances. Finally, we link the findings on context-sensitivity in data interpretation to questions about response-ability in cloud-based care infrastructures. We discuss the ethical dilemmas associated with the use of commercial wellness-technologies in healthcare, and with researching such emerging practices. (shrink)

What does it mean for emotion to be well-constituted? What distinguishes good feeling from (just) feeling good? Is there such a distinction at all? The answer to these questions becomes clearer if we realize that for an emotion to be all it seems, it must be responsible as well as responsive to what it is about. It may be that good feeling depends on feeling truly if we are to be really moved, moved in the way that avoids (...) the need for constant, fretful replenishment and reinforcement. To be sound, emotions may need to be capable of genuineness, depth, and other kinds of integrity. And that, in turn, may require certain virtues of mind, such as truthfulness, temperateness, and even courage, that are more familiar at the level of action. The governing aim of this book is to demonstrate that there can be problems of a structural kind with the adequacy of emotions and the emotional life. (shrink)

The availability of unitarily inequivalent representations of the canonical commutation relations constituting a quantization of a classical field theory raises questions about how to formulate and pursue quantum field theory. In a minimally technical way, I explain how these questions arise and how advocates of the Hilbert space and of the algebraic approaches to quantum theory might answer them. Where these answers differ, I sketch considerations for and against each approach, as well as considerations which might temper their apparent (...) rivalry. (shrink)

In books such as The World Within the World and The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, astronomer John Barrow has emerged as a leading writer on our efforts to understand the universe. Timothy Ferris, writing in The Times Literary Supplement of London, described him as "a temperate and accomplished humanist, scientist, and philosopher of science--a man out to make a contribution, not a show." Now Barrow offers the general reader another fascinating look at modern physics, as he explores the quest for a (...) single, unifying theory that will unlock nature's secrets. Theories of Everything is more than a history of science, more than a popular report on recent research and discoveries. Barrow provides a reflective, intelligent commentary on what a true Theory of Everything would be--its ingredients, its limitations, and what it could tell us about the universe. Never before, he writes, have physicists been so confident and so eager in the hunt for this "cosmic Rosetta Stone," as he calls it: "a single all-embracing picture of all the laws of nature from which the inevitability of all things seen must follow with unimpeachable logic." He lays out eight essential ingredients for a Theory of Everything and then explores each in turn, tracing how our knowledge has developed and how scientific discovery relates to our changing philosophy and religious thought in each area. Some of these ingredients are obvious--the laws of nature must be explained, for example, as well as its organizing principles--but others may be surprising, such as broken symmetries and selection biases. A Theory of Everything must account for the fact that the universe is "messy and complicated," he tells us, and for the limitations imposed by the questions we ask and the information we can obtain. The key lies in the remarkable capacity of mathematics to express the fundamental workings of the physical world--a language that the human mind is uniquely equipped to understand and manipulate. Barrow examines what mathematics actually is and describes how it makes the universe intelligible and provides a path to the underlying coherence in nature--which has led, in fact, to arguments that the universe itself is a vast computer. Yet even the most complete theory, even the most comprehensive mathematical explanation, cannot account for the uncomputable varieties of human experience and thought. "No non-poetic account of reality," he writes, "can be complete." In a field where the authorities converse in equations and mathematical notations, John Barrow speaks with the voice of thoughtful and knowledgeable humanist. Written with eloquence and expertise, Theories of Everything establishes a new perspective on humanity's efforts to explain the universe. (shrink)

Eight moral virtues that have figured prominently in various cultures throughout history will be discussed: altruism, empathy, gratitude, humility, and the “cardinal virtues” of justice, prudence, fortitude, and temperance. The focus will be on how to understand them and what their relationship is to happiness. It will be argued that all eight essential moral virtues enhance happiness in most people most of the time. Their favourable impact on happiness may motivate humans to become better, which includes the decision to subject (...) themselves voluntarily to moral bioenhancement (MBE)—in order to achieve this betterment. Nonetheless, the development of MBE technologies is still in its infancy and moral education remains the primary means for the moral enhancement of humans, as well as for the enhancement of their happiness. This may however change in the relatively near future. (shrink)

This is a powerful and learned meditation on Christianity by a senior Irish theologian, and the main reason it should be noticed in a journal of philosophy is that James Mackey conceives theology as fundamentally philosophical in the way it reflects on and develops our ideas about the sources and nature of being and conduct as they have been articulated in myth, symbol and poetry, as well as more abstractly in metaphysics. On this view the philosophical aspect of theology (...) is displayed no less in the scrutiny and interpretation of that myth, symbol and poetry than in the more narrowly focussed field of natural theology as this has come to be practised by recent analytic philosophers—a field, indeed, which might well be thought, on the evidence of this book, to depend upon and be undermined by an uncritical reception of discredited readings of the imagery of the creation myth . It is appropriate—and something of a relief—that in his nuanced and compelling reflections on that myth Mackey's philosophical temper leads him to stress the importance of the creative imagination, particularly that of the poet, who is ‘the seer, the prophet, the visionary, who sees so deeply into the fabric of reality that the ways of the Creator with creation are revealed in the ensuing poetry, and with a power and a clarity seldom equalled in other forms’ . Indeed he opens his chapter on Creation by highlighting the importance of the metaphors and imagery which are to be his theme and by which myth is constituted and ‘reality’ mediated. He refers to them as ‘configurations through which reality first rewards the attentive, or more precisely the contemplative mind’ and remarks that at its outer limit ‘imagination … ends up by telling a cosmic story, resulting in nothing less than a cosmic myth’ . One important implication of this fertile approach is that it also requires engagement with a question about the nature of the relationship between myth and metaphysics: after all, some philosophers still incline to the view that metaphysics underwrites and validates what the poet ‘sees’. However, it provokes another question, which is at least as important, about the status of theism as itself perhaps ‘a cosmic myth’. What kind of ‘reality’ is revealed by the poet? Are ‘the ways of the Creator with his creation’ the reality whose nature is revealed by the poet? Or is it, rather, that ‘the ways of the Creator with his creation’ are part of a particular configuration of images by which the poets widen our perceptions and articulate their wonder at the world of creative forces in the form of story-telling, both mythopoeic and metaphysical. (shrink)

Excerpt from Essays, Literary, Moral and Political Some people are subject to a certain delicacy of passion, which makes them extremely sensible to all the accidents of life, and gives them a lively joy upon every prosperous event, as well as a piercing grief, when they meet with misfortunes and adversity. Favours and good offices easily engage their friendship while the smallest injury provokes their resentment. Any honour or mark of distinction elevates them above measure; but they are as (...) sensibly touched with contempt. People of this character have, no doubt, more lively enjoyments, as well as more pungent sorrows, than men of cool and sedate tempers but, I believe, when everything is balanced, there is no one, who would not rather be of the latter character, were he entirely master of his own disposition. Good or ill fortune Is very little at our disposal: and when a pe_r_son. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

This article focuses on the general theoretical issue of realism versus constructivism in politics, with a case of the present-day Russia as the main and most telling example. We present four assertions that we are going to defend. First, we claim that in the sphere of international relations, political realism of the offensive type, after decades of more tempered USA–USSR relations, is again challenging its opponent: political constructivism. Second, political realism is winning in the sphere of domestic politics and (...) policy in the leading countries as well. Third, we touch upon theoretical issues and discuss the ontological nature of political realism in comparison with political constructivism and the kindred of the latter with normativism, legalism, constitutionalism and liberalism. Political constructivism as a concept is underestimated and rarely used. Our article explicates the concept of political constructivism, which is a novel contribution to political theory and political philosophy. Fourth, we show that political constructivism, being the most advanced achievement of political civilization compared to archaic realism, has not lost the game so far and should be upheld in its battle with the remnants of the wild political past. Sliding back to political realism would turn humankind into another degraded animal species instead of making it the pilot in continuing human progress. (shrink)

The ease and applicability of CRISPR/Cas9––a new and precise gene editing and reproductive technology––have garnered hype and heightened concern about its potential ‘unprecedented and horrific consequences’ and have led many scientific leaders to call for a moratorium on its research and use. CRISPR appears distinctly more controversial than previous technological innovations, with a greater reach and speed of human treatment and enhancement; however, we have seen similarly inflated hopes and fears in response to other medical innovations for well over (...) a century. One intervention that has both historically and recently incited alarm––vaccines––serves as a pertinent example of what could go wrong if a technology's reach is shortened due to inflated fears. By comparing the vaccine controversy and the CRISPR debate, we can help separate the hype from the realistic potential of these technologies. How our society grapples with such innovations will determine the extent to which their impact on our individual and collective health will be beneficial. We must recognise the need for a tempered approach to CRISPR conversation leading to regulation and ethical application. Although CRISPR's reach will continue expanding with ongoing research, thus requiring continuous evaluation, the lessons we have learned from the vaccine controversy demonstrate that our approach must not be to shut down regulation and application now, but to thoughtfully conjoin productive debate and action so that therapeutic gene editing can alleviate suffering as soon as possible without precipitating social outcomes we would belatedly deplore. (shrink)

In 1704, Mary Astell, known by many scholars as the “first English feminist,” published Moderation Truly Stated, her contribution to the national debate over “occasional conformity.” This was the practice of periodic participation in the sacraments of the Church of England—above all, taking communion—in order to become eligible for public office. This practice was defended as an exercise of the virtue of “moderation,” viewed as the opposite of zeal and associated with politeness and reasonableness. In this article I recover Astell’s (...) critique on this new notion of moderation, as well as her own alternative conception of the virtue of moderation as scripture moderation, which she envisioned as zeal and indifference towards the right ends. My aim is threefold. First, to explore the dangers of conceiving of moderation as an “antidote to zeal,” which Astell argued would be detrimental to truth, salvation, and moral progress. Second, to demonstrate that her own conception of moderation as zeal and indifference towards the right ends was a radical subversion of the discourse on moderation at the time. Third, to shed light on the role of the Occasional Conformity debate in the transformation of moderation from a Christian virtue of temperance and control into a “modern” virtue construed as politeness and opposed to zeal, which was to become dominant in eighteenth-century England. (shrink)

Introduction. Why did Cynicism emerge throughout the Greek world when it did? Survey of relevant literature; criticism of previous suggestions and assumptions. Cynic individualism represents a radical internalization of widespread ideals of individual excellence. Cynic asceticism is a paradoxical response to the perceived problems of wealth and poverty in the fourth century B.C.E.: to escape poverty one must embrace it. Outline of chapters. ;Chapter one: Praise of poverty and work. Popular attitudes to work and wealth precede the Cynic praise of (...) po&d12;nov and the paradoxical claim that the Cynic beggar is "rich." Work is morally beneficial as well as economically necessary. Praise of the Greek poor in various authors: the poor are honest, just, and do the most productive work; the rich are often hubristic and exploitative. The critique of wealth from a variety of perspectives: wealth is the "mother-city of all evils," particularly class-struggle; in a democracy, wealth is dangerous given the power of the people; the limited nature of Greek production ensured that the rich could spend their money only on public services or invidious luxuries---benefits possibly dubious to some. The Cynics appear in cities with democratic traditions during times of heightened class-tension, as strident critics of wealth and the wealthy. ;Chapter two: Praise of poverty and war. Poverty trains individuals and nations to martial excellence---strength, courage, temperance, patriotism; therefore, the poor are the best soldiers, as many wars seem to demonstrate. Political theorists of the fourth century recommend that the fighting nobility embrace a voluntary poverty to maintain their preeminence. The Cynics' claim to "kingship" and their boast that asceticism makes them "invincible" vis-a vis Fortune exaggerates the traditional and more recent philosophical link between poverty and the ideal soldier's virtues. ;Chapter three: Praise of poverty and philosophical wisdom. The dichotomy between absolute and contingent Being introduced into philosophical discourse by Parmenides tends to isolate the Greek thinker as an unconventional, even solitary creature whose knowledge and goals are somehow superior to the norm. The ethical implications of this split between the philosopher and the external world become most apparent in two fourth-century versions of philosophic poverty, the Platonic and the Cynic. For both, the temporal and external cannot be really known or possessed and therefore should not be desired. As a result, the ideal sage eschews material wealth as a hindrance from the higher "wealth" of wisdom, which consists in contemplation of timeless Forms or immersion in the present moment. (shrink)

Educating against extremism doesn't just involve seeking to prevent individuals from becoming extremists or radicalized, although that, of course, is a significant concern. There is also an important role for education in teaching the rest of us, the general populace, the best way to react and respond when we learn of a terrorist attack or consider the potential risk of violent extremism in our community, or even worldwide, given we are connected globally via technology. In this article, Laura D'Olimpio argues (...) that educators have a central role to play in teaching young people to respond to the news of violent extremism and the worry about terrorists and terrorism in ways that support our sense of community and personal well-being. Among the ways in which educators may support such aims is by educating the emotions. There are practical and moral reasons to temper our fearful reactions, and it is in our best interest to educate pupils to avoid allowing fear of terrorists or violent extremism to interfere with their daily lives and actions. D'Olimpio claims that our best response to extremism, both representationally and practically, is to refuse to be terrified. By not being overwhelmed by fear or altering our day-to-day activities, we not only better support a well-functioning democracy and our own happiness or flourishing, but we also disempower rather than empower extremists. (shrink)

In a candid autobiographical chapter (Hirst 2010), which numbers among his last writings, Paul Hirst subjects his upbringing within a fundamentalist Christian sect to searching moral appraisal. He concludes that his parents wronged him by religiously indoctrinating him, stifling his emotional development, and arbitrarily restricting his range of valuable morally permissible experiences. This upbringing undermined his autonomy and—more fundamentally, on his account—kept him from living the life he had most reason to live. Surprisingly, however, Hirst suggests that his parents had (...) a right to initiate him into this conservative religious life, though the wider community owed him a more non-directive form of religious education to temper it. This is a striking concession to the scope of parental rights, especially in view of Hirst’s complaint that the emotional repression required by his parents was to ‘distort [his] experience and understanding of [himself] and others in ways that persisted well into [his] adult life’. Engaging with Hirst's evaluation of his upbringing, I argue for a narrower range of parental rights than Hirst–one which excludes a parental moral right to religious initiation–and provide an account of the kind of emotional experiences to which children plausibly have a right. (shrink)

For years, tour guide Daniel Lum has brought visitors as well as his children out to the remote corners of Barrow, Alaska, one of the northernmost cities in the world, to witness polar bears and walrus on the dark, sandy beaches. Over time, snapping pictures for tourists and shooting photographs of his own, he has been a first-hand witness to the profound environmental changes taking place as his homeland shifts and disappears before his eyes. As arguments over climate change (...) rage in more temperate locales, Nuvuk, the Northernmost is a poignant snapshot of life in a town where these changes are impossible to overlook. Lum's vivid photographs of wildlife, such as whales, polar bears, and birds, offer rare close-ups of animals few ever see. In addition, Lum provides vivid descriptions and pictures of daily life in and around Barrow, offering a compelling insider's introduction to living on the tip of the world. With Lum as a capable guide, Nuvuk, the Northernmost is a chance to see a rare world before it changes forever. (shrink)

This study argues that a much richer and more coherent account of Michael Oakeshott's political philosophy is gained by examining it in light of three customary sources for ordering human experience: human nature, religion and history. While the historical character of Oakeshott's thought has been readily recognized, too often the roles of human nature and religion have been neglected by commentators, leading to an impoverished account of his work. And even regarding history, there has been confusion concerning Oakeshott's notion of (...) the practical past. Towards this end, the study establishes that Oakeshott does have a significant concept of human nature and religion, clarifies his concept of the practical past, and argues that viewing his political thought through the prism of these three concepts significantly illuminates his understanding of, among other matters, political authority, politics, non-instrumental law, and the problem of innate human freedom versus the historical freedoms associated with Western individualism. ;Regarding human nature, Oakeshott's conception is seen to include the notions of reflective consciousness, free agency, intelligent learning, and a social character. These notions indicate a more substantial and consistent 'agent' across history than Oakeshott himself typically suggests. Regarding religion, the study argues there is a persistent if idiosyncratic religious sensibility in Oakeshott's writings, including an almost sacred understanding of human freedom tempered by an Augustinian awareness of human imperfection, that underlines the depth of conviction behind Oakeshott's philosophical and moral conclusions concerning human affairs. Regarding history, the concept of intimations operating in the practical past is explored as the primary vehicle by which moral and political practices are grounded in Oakeshott's thought. The limitations of this approach are examined as well. ;The study concludes that the substantive implications of Oakeshott's conceptions of human nature and religion are a significant aid to grasping the full significance of his political philosophy. In particular they render more coherent the force of his normative conclusions, especially his championing of individual freedom and his disdain of collectivism, clarify continued inconsistencies, such as his ambiguous gulf between reflection and practice, and suggest possible bridges between Oakeshott's thought and more foundational approaches to political philosophy. (shrink)

"All art should become science and all science art; poetry and philosophy should be made one." Friedrich Schlegel's words perfectly capture the project of the German Romantics, who believed that the aesthetic approaches of art and literature could reveal patterns and meaning in nature that couldn't be uncovered through rationalistic philosophy and science alone. In this wide-ranging work, Robert J. Richards shows how the Romantic conception of the world influenced (and was influenced by) both the lives of the people who (...) held it and the development of nineteenth-century science. Integrating Romantic literature, science, and philosophy with an intimate knowledge of the individuals involved—from Goethe and the brothers Schlegel to Humboldt and Friedrich and Caroline Schelling—Richards demonstrates how their tempestuous lives shaped their ideas as profoundly as their intellectual and cultural heritage. He focuses especially on how Romantic concepts of the self, as well as aesthetic and moral considerations—all tempered by personal relationships—altered scientific representations of nature. Although historians have long considered Romanticism at best a minor tributary to scientific thought, Richards moves it to the center of the main currents of nineteenth-century biology, culminating in the conception of nature that underlies Darwin's evolutionary theory. Uniting the personal and poetic aspects of philosophy and science in a way that the German Romantics themselves would have honored, The Romantic Conception of Life alters how we look at Romanticism and nineteenth-century biology. (shrink)

This timely, well‐written book illuminates an aspect of Brazilian science that has long been neglected, for two major reasons. The first is that it is only in the past two decades that the scientific past of Latin America, including Brazil, seemed to merit systematic academic investigation, and only with this change have scholars discovered, or rediscovered, several important, but forgotten, developments, such as the one Julyan Peard analyzes in this study. The second reason is that, although there is a (...) substantial literature on late nineteenth‐ to early twentieth‐century colonial science and medicine—which is considered almost synonymous with tropical medicine—none of it treats Brazil or any of the other Latin American countries because, even though they fall within the tropical zone, they were formally independent nations from the early 1800s onward.Peard rejects this adherence to the old criterion for defining “tropical.” Drawing on a respectable collection of both primary and secondary sources, she tells the story of the Escola Tropicalista Bahiana , which was founded before the revolution in bacteriological knowledge and the great European colonial expansion. The idea for the school originated, Peard says, with “a group of nineteenth‐century doctors in Brazil who, in attempting to adapt Western medicine to more fully engage with the problems of their tropical country, sought novel answers to the age‐old question of whether diseases of warm climates were distinct from those of temperate Europe. In their search, they used the tools of Western medicine to confront European ideas about the fatalism of the tropics and its people, and to argue in favor of Brazilian expertise.”The text is organized into five chapters, whose titles clearly describe both the structure of the narrative and Peard's main points, as well as part of her conclusions: “The Escola Tropicalista Bahiana: A Creative Response in Adversity”; “The Politics of Disease”; “Race, Climate, Medicine: Framing Tropical Disorders”; “Physicians and Women in Bahia”; and “Moving into Mainstream.” In her introduction Peard presents a useful discussion of the earlier literature on her topic, pointing out her contribution to several relevant fields. Throughout, the text is structured to highlight the tension between the Tropicalistas and European science: “although they [the Tropicalistas] resisted aspects of European cultural authority that harped on Brazilian, and Latin American, inferiority, they wanted to gain the mantle of legitimacy that they believed only European science, as the leader in universal science, could bestow on them.” Peard shows, chapter by chapter, the Tropicalistas' sometimes conscious, sometimes intuitive strategies to build up an innovative scientific field, a project that entailed issues of national identity and the regional response to the centralized imperial authority of Rio de Janeiro. Almost half the volume is devoted to supplementary material: three useful appendixes, notes to all the chapters, a list of primary sources, the bibliography, and a well‐elaborated index—all of which testify to the quality of both Peard's research and her book as a whole.It is important to stress here that Peard relies on what one could call the “new” Brazilian history and sociology of science, particularly in the fields of medicine and public health. Despite its vigorous growth, both quantitatively and qualitatively, this historiography still remains more or less confined to Latin America, its wider dissemination impeded by language barriers. In using and commenting on the bibliography of this new historiography, Peard respects the local intellectual production while helping to enrich the traditional set of references. Nevertheless, and although I warmly recommend the book, I regret that she did not fully incorporate the conclusions reached by this recent historiography, preferring instead to present essentially the same picture drawn in previous works, a picture based on the view that “in the few instances of research work being carried out in Brazil before 1900 such work was sporadic, isolated … or incapable of being self‐sustaining.”. (shrink)

Most contributions to Whewell scholarship have tended to stress the idealistic, antiempirical temper of Whewell’s philosophy. Thus, the only two monograph-length studies on Whewell, Blanché’s Le Rationalisme de Whewell and Marcucci’s L’ ‘Idealismo’ Scientifico di William Whewell, are, as their titles suggest, concerned primarily with Whewell’s departures from classical British empiricism. Particularly in his famous dispute with Mill, it has proved tempting to parody Whewell’s position in the debate by treating it as a straightforward encounter between an arch-empiricist and an (...) arch-rationalist. There is, however, a danger that an emphasis on the necessitarian and a priori elements in Whewell’s philosophy may well obscure the unmistakable empirical emphasis in Whewell’s theory of science. I think it is time to begin to redress the balance, by focusing attention on the significant ‘empiricist’ strains in Whewell’s philosophy of science. One of the most important of those strains is connected with the operation which Whewell calls ‘the consilience of inductions’. (shrink)

Individualism leading to more consumerism seems to be a bit of truism nowadays in the media. The USA is particularly indicted for being too individualistic and consumerist. Past research has mostly indicated a positive relationship between the two. However, past research has not suggested a negative association between individualism and consumerism. This paper offers support for such a negative relationship by showing that an individual’s ethical values can temper the consumerist nature of individualists. Data were collected in the USA and (...) Taiwan. Structural equation models demonstrate that our hypothesized model fits our data well. A key result over the global sample is the stability of the linear path from individualism to work ethic to consumer ethic to consumerism. The two-nation comparison also supports differences in how Taiwanese and Americans differ in their belief that consumption benefits society. (shrink)

The field of cognitive imaging is explodingboth in terms of the amount of our scientificresources dedicated to it and the associatedpublication rate. However, all of this effortis based on a critical question – Do cognitivemodules exist? Both of the reviewers of my book(Uttal, 2001) and I agree that this questionhas not yet been satisfactorily answered and,depending on the ultimate answer, the cognitiveimaging approach as well as some other parts ofthe quest for mechanistic models of mind mightnot be successful. Our (...) views of how our scienceshould respond to this serious problem,however, are quite different. Both ProfessorBechtel and Lloyd argue for an optimisticattack on the problem of the localization ofcognitive processes in the brain based on thehistory of other sciences. I argue that arealistic appreciation of the limits of thisapproach should temper the enthusiasm for whatultimately will go the way of other attempts tounravel the mind-brain problem. (shrink)