Contributing Authors Include Hughes Leblanc, Richard Jeffrey, Wesley Salmon And Many Others.

Wesley Hohfeld is known the world over as the legal theorist who famously developed a taxonomy of legal concepts. His contributions to legal thinking have stood the test of time, remaining relevant nearly a century after they were first published. Yet, little systematic attention has been devoted to exploring the full significance of his work. Beginning with a lucid, annotated version of Hohfeld's most important article, this volume is the first to offer a comprehensive look at the scope, significance, (...) reach, intricacies, and shortcomings of Hohfeld's work. Featuring insights from leading legal thinkers, the book also contains many of Hohfeld's previously unseen personal papers, shedding new light on the complex motivations behind Hohfeld's projects. Together, these selected papers and original essays reveal a portrait of a multifaceted and ambitious intellectual who did not live long enough to see the impact of his ideas on the study of law. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 10.2 (2000) 171-174 [Access article in PDF] Bioethics Inside the Beltway The Oversight of Human Gene Transfer Research LeRoy Walters Jesse Gelsinger's death last September in a gene transfer study being conducted at the University of Pennsylvania has helped to spark a national debate. In part, this debate parallels the broader discussion of how human subjects research should be reviewed and regulated in (...) the United States. However, human gene transfer research is one of a handful of biomedical technologies that seem to deserve special attention, at least in the early years of their development.The major participants in the national debate on human gene transfer include the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, members of Congress, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, disease-oriented advocacy groups, reporters, and academics. At the December 1999 meeting of the NIH Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC), the protocol that involved Jesse Gelsinger was a central focus of discussion, but other topics emerged as well. One ad hoc panel reviewed adverse events that had occurred in other research protocols using adenovirus vectors, while a second proposed changes in the general system for reporting adverse events to NIH and the RAC.During the first several months of the year 2000, the United States Congress also became involved in the human gene transfer debate. In February, Senator Bill Frist (R-TN) convened a hearing to which Jesse Gelsinger's father, representatives of NIH and FDA, and several other witnesses were invited. At approximately the same time, the House Commerce Committee and its Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations initiated their own inquiries, asking the Office of Inspector General at the Department of Health and Human Services to review the oversight roles of NIH and FDA. In March and April, the House committee also wrote directly to the NIH Director, the FDA Commissioner, and the President of the University of Pennsylvania, requesting extensive documentation on gene transfer, in general, and the trial in which Jesse Gelsinger was involved, in particular. Congressman Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) have also raised questions and proposed solutions in multiple letters to the NIH Director and the Secretary of Health and Human Services. [End Page 171]The major general questions that have emerged from this discussion are the following:(1) What kinds of information about adverse events should be reported by researchers or sponsors during the course of human gene transfer trials?(2) To what group or groups should adverse-event information be reported? How often and in what ways should the information be analyzed?(3) Should the information about adverse events remain confidential, or should it be discussed publicly?(4) How can the disclosure and consent process in gene transfer trials be improved?(5) Which federal agency should have primary responsibility for overseeing human gene transfer research, and how can it best fulfill its oversight role?How these questions are answered will have immediate relevance to the field of human gene transfer research as it enters into its next phase. At the same time, the models that are created for this important cutting-edge field also may be useful in other complex or controversial arenas of biomedical research, for example, xenotransplantation or human embryonic stem-cell research. In addition, the lessons learned from this one important area of human subjects research may suggest ways to improve protections for all the volunteers who make clinical research--and medical progress--possible.In the remainder of this article, I will turn from reporting, in as objective a way as possible, on the status of the public policy debate about human gene transfer research to suggesting measures for improving the current oversight system for such research. My initial general recommendation is that we should not expect a single regulatory agency to be solely responsible for a field as large and dynamic as human gene transfer research. Rather, there should be some helpful redundancy or, to change the metaphor, checks and balances in the public oversight of this field. Thus, an... (shrink)

This collection represents the best recent work on the subject and includes essays by Clark Glymour, James H. Fetzer, and Wesley C. Salmon.

It is a privilege to be invited to contribute to the Festschrift dedicated to Professor Johan Buitendag, Emeritus Dean, Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. While his own work often examined the relationship between theology and natural science, he was also passionate about ecumenism and, in that spirit, the present essay utilised what might be described as an inductive approach to an important ecumenical question, the unity between Methodists and Catholics. Ecumenical dialogue is often (...) undertaken from a theological and dogmatic perspective. This essay took a different approach in that it sought to inductively examine what might be described as the inner logic of two ecclesial systems (Methodist and Catholic). In doing so, it was premised upon an Aristotelian philosophical principle, epistemic fit, in that it presupposed that both these ecclesial bodies possess an intrinsic logic that can be brought to the surface in order to exhibit parallel contours in the wider ecclesial terrain.Contribution: This article fits well within the scope of HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies in that it contributed to a new subdiscipline in epistemology, which explores the conceptual and epistemological dimensions of ecclesiology. Using the concept of epistemic fit, the article offered an inductive approach to some of the practical issues that emerge in ecumenical dialogue. (shrink)

Henricus Regius ou Henri LeRoy, outrora amigo e divulgador da filosofia de Descartes, agora escrevendo como adversário de seu antigo mestre, publica em Utrecht um panfleto anônimo sobre a natureza da mente humana. No intuito de evitar que as teses apresentadas por seu ex-discípulo fossem tomadas como suas, Descartes decide, então, refutar as opiniões defendidas no panfleto de Regius. É precisamente o texto produzido por Descartes nessa ocasião que é traduzido a seguir. Esse texto, aparentemente impresso sem o consentimento (...) de seu autor em dezembro de 1647, marca o ponto final da relação entre o filósofo francês e o professor de medicina. O texto latino aqui traduzido foi extraído da edição realizada por Charles Adam e Paul Tannery das Oeuvres complètes de Descartes, Paris, Vrin, tomo VIII, pp. 341-369. (shrink)

If Christian theology is that enterprise whose essential purpose is to understand the faith of the Christian Church, then it must approach that faith from the perspective not only of its transcendent source, but also as a human achievement, a creative interpretation of those events in which transcendent reality discloses itself for appropriation. Few theologians would deny that theology has to do primarily with the ways in which ultimate reality becomes manifest in human beings' faithful responses, in belief and trust, (...) to its self-disclosures, preparatory and decisive. But the implications of such a view are not always confronted straightforwardly, especially for the suitable normative principles by which theology must assess the adequacy of the church's expressions of its faith. This essay seeks to probe how an account of the Christian faith could proceed whose norm derives not from the revelatory source of faith but from the dynamic of human creativity within which alone faith's source, in being interpreted, becomes clear, cogent, and decisive for conscious existence. (shrink)

The philosophical theory of scientific explanation proposed here involves a radically new treatment of causality that accords with the pervasively statistical character of contemporary science. Wesley C. Salmon describes three fundamental conceptions of scientific explanation--the epistemic, modal, and ontic. He argues that the prevailing view is untenable and that the modal conception is scientifically out-dated. Significantly revising aspects of his earlier work, he defends a causal/mechanical theory that is a version of the ontic conception. Professor Salmon's theory furnishes a (...) robust argument for scientific realism akin to the argument that convinced twentieth-century physical scientists of the existence of atoms and molecules. To do justice to such notions as irreducibly statistical laws and statistical explanation, he offers a novel account of physical randomness. The transition from the "reviewed view" of scientific explanation to the causal/mechanical model requires fundamental rethinking of basic explanatory concepts. (shrink)

During the past century and a half historians and sociologists have often shown signs of considerable simplicity of mind when assessing the motivating forces behind the men whose deeds they are studying, and those attaining the most flattering notoriety in the intellectual world have been among the simplest. From the early nineteenth century, beginning with the fall of Napoleon, there is a tendency to present the historical disciplines as sciences: the re-creative anecdote is greeted with increasing disdain, and sociology undergoes (...) its act of baptism. The Revolution of 1789 and the epic of imperial France are events of such dimension that it is difficult to associate them with the conscious designs of a few individuals. No longer a muse, Clio becomes a goddess. In War and Peace Tolstoi ironically treats historians of the old school who pretend to offer the key to the Revolution “in exposing the deeds and gestures of a few dozen men in one building in the city of Paris.” The French emperor's gallop into Russia and the stubborn but apparently passive resistance offered by Kutuzov—these are facts in which Tolstoi sees the manifestation of forces far surpassing the play of a few human wills. Tolstoi's manner in extolling Kutuzov is typical: Kutuzov is not a visionary; he shows no signs of genius, but with humble and patient fervor he turns aside all obstacles which might stifle the voice of popular instinct. Thirty years before Tolstoi, in a letter to his fiancée, Georg Büchner stated the case in another good example of this type of thinking: “I have studied the history of the Revolution. … I find in human nature a frightening equality, in the condition of man an ineluctable power conferred at once upon all and upon no one. The individual is but a fleck of foam upon the wave, greatness merely the result of chance, the power of genius a puppet show, a ridiculous struggle against a law of iron.” Men are interesting insofar as they are representative. Saint-Simon, mentor of Auguste Comte and father of sociology, declares that the great men of the world merely play the role assigned to them in historical evolution. According to Saint-Simon, the sixteenth century, an age of theology, gave birth to theologian-kings: Charles V and Henry VIII. Because he is a theologian, Henry VIII easily prevails over gallant and witty Francis I. The eighteenth century, a siècle of philosophy, “counts but two great names among its sovereigns: Catherine and Frederick the Great, friends of philosophers and patrons of philosophy.” Seen in this light, the features of the individual become blurred and shadowy. History is admired instead— history which, often with material of mediocre quality, builds solid edifices. But, faced with the astonishing drama played out by Napoleon himself, Tolstoi merely shrugs his shoulders, while following step by step simple men like Tostopchin or Kutuzov, who are obviously the mere instruments of history. Heine, who went through a Saint-Simonian phase, is amazed that Luther, that rough, gross monk whose brain was clouded by anxiety and superstition, so easily wielded the battering ram that shattered the old medieval world. In the 1830’s Auguste Comte foresees a “history without proper names,” a definition which is of prime importance in the analysis we are undertaking here. But, a hundred years later, Maxime Leroy, nourished on both Comte and Sainte-Beuve, draws more subtly shaded definitions: history becomes a “sociology containing proper names.”. (shrink)

The literatures on both authentic leadership and behavioral integrity have argued that leader integrity drives follower performance. Yet, despite overlap in conceptualization and mechanisms, no research has investigated how authentic leadership and behavioral integrity relate to one another in driving follower performance. In this study, we propose and test the notion that authentic leadership behavior is an antecedent to perceptions of leader behavioral integrity, which in turn affects follower affective organizational commitment and follower work role performance. Analysis of a survey (...) of 49 teams in the service industry supports the proposition that authentic leadership is related to follower affective organizational commitment, fully mediated through leader behavioral integrity. Next, we found that authentic leadership and leader behavioral integrity are related to follower work role performance, fully mediated through follower affective organizational commitment. These relationships hold when controlling for ethical organizational culture. (shrink)

: In 1998, researchers discovered that embryonic stem cells could be derived from early human embryos. This discovery has raised a series of ethical and public-policy questions that are now being confronted by multiple international organizations, nations, cultures, and religious traditions. This essay surveys policies for human embryonic stem cell research in four regions of the world, reports on the recent debate at the United Nations about one type of such research, and reviews the positions that various religious traditions have (...) adopted regarding this novel type of research. In several instances the religious traditions seem to have influenced the public-policy debates. (shrink)

Through his S–R model of statistical relevance, Wesley Salmon offers a solution to the scientific explanation of objectively improbable events.

"The terrain of the self is vast," notes renowned psychiatrist Arnold Ludwig, "parts known, parts impenetrable, and parts unexplored." How do we construct a sense of ourselves? How can a self reflect upon itself or deceive itself? Is all personal identity plagiarized? Is a "true" or "authentic" self even possible? Is it possible to really "know" someone else or ourselves for that matter? To answer these and many other intriguing questions, Ludwig takes a unique approach, examining the art of biography (...) for the insights it can give us into the construction of the self. In The Biography of the Self, he takes readers on an intriguing tour of the biographer's art, revealing how much this can tell us about ourselves. Drawing on in-depth interviews with twenty-one of our most esteemed biographers--writers such as David McCullough (the biographer of Truman and Theodore Roosevelt), Wallace Stegner (John Wesley Powell), Gloria Steinem (Marilyn Monroe), Leon Edel (Henry James), Peter Gay (Freud), Diane Middlebrook (Anne Sexton), and many others--and interweaving fascinating observations of his own practice, Ludwig takes us through the labyrinthine hall of mirrors we term the self and shows us how malleable, elusive, and paradoxical it can be. In chapters such as "The 'Real' Marilyn," "Psychoanalyzing Freud," "How Did Hitler Live With Himself?" and "What Madness Reveals," we sit in as biographers talk not only about their work, but about their subjects (Allan Bullock on Hitler and Stalin, for instance, or Arnold Rampersad on Langston Hughes) and how their subjects saw themselves. Ludwig describes how biographers must impose a narrative structure on their subjects' lives to create order out of a mass of often contradictory views, baffling behavior, and inconsistent self-representations, much in the same way that psychotherapists try to foster self-awareness and understanding in their patients. In his concluding chapter, Ludwig introduces a new concept--biographical freedom--which brilliantly reconciles free will and determinism. We can, he asserts, become biographers of ourselves. Like the biographer, we are constrained to consider all the available facts of our lives--the personal experiences, cultural forces, and predetermined scripts that shape us--but we remain free to interpret, emphasize, and fashion these givens into a cohesive and meaningful narrative of our own choosing. This thought-provoking volume offers not only a wide-ranging and informative commentary on the biographer's art, but also a highly original theory of the self. Readers interested in biography and in the lives of others will come away with a new sense of what it means to be a "person" and, in particular, who they are. (shrink)

Books Reviewed in this Article: Beyond Ideology: Religion and the Future of Western Civilization. By Ninian Smart. Pp.350, London, Collins, 1981, £9.95. Neophtonism and Indian Thought. Edited by R. Baine Harris. Pp.xiii, 353, Albany, State University of New York Press, 1982, $39.00, $12.95. Monotheism: A Philosophic Inquiry into the Foundations of Theology and Ethics. By Lenn Evan Goodman. Pp.122, Totowa, Allenheld, Osmun, 1981, $13.50. Neoplatonism and Christian Thought. Edited by Dominic J. O'Meara. Pp. xviii, 297, Albany, State University of New (...) York Press, 1981, $39.00, $12.95. The Path to Transcendence: From Philosophy to Mysticism in Saint Augustine. By Paul Henry, introduction and translation by Francis F. Burch. pp.xxix, 120, Pittsburgh, The Pickwick Press, 1981, $10.95. The Adequacy of Christian Ethics. By Brian Hebblethwaite. Pp. 144, London, Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1981, £5.95. Ethics. By Wolfhart Pannenberg. Pp. 220, Philadelphia, The Westminster Press, 1981, $10.95. Human Nature, Election, and History. By Wolfhart Pannenberg. Pp. 116, Philadelphia, The Westminster Press, 1982, £2.95. Ethics, Religion and Politics. By G.E.M. Anscombe. Pp.ix, 161, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1981, £12.00. Moral Thinking: its Levels, Method and Point. By R.M. Hare. Pp.viii, 242, Oxford University Press, 1982, £11.00, £3.95. Utilitarianism and Beyond. Edited by Amartya Sen and Bernard Williams. Pp.vii, 290. £7.50. Cambridge University Press, 1982, £20.00. Language and Political Understanding. By Michael J. Shapiro. Pp.253, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1981, £18.20. Marx's Politics. By Allan Gilbert. Pp.xv, 326, Oxford, Martin Robertson, 1981, £16.50. Feuerbach. By Marx W. Wartofsky. Pp.xx, 460, Cambridge University Press, 1977, £30.00, £9.95. Nietzsche, Vol. 1: The Will to Power as Art. By Martin Heidegger, translated with notes and an analysis by D.F. Krell. Pp.xvi, 263, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981, £11.50. Freedom and Karl Jaspers's Philosophy. By Elizabeth Young‐Bruehl. Pp.xiv, 233, New Haven & London, Yale University Press, 1981, £14.00. ‘Being and Meaning’: Paul Tillich's Theory of Meaning, Truth and Logic. By I.E. Thompson. Pp.x, 244, Edinburgh University Press, 1981, £15.00. The Rationality of Science. By W.H. Newton‐Smith. Pp.xii, 294, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981, £9.95, £5.95. Realism and the Progress of Science. By Peter Smith. Pp.viii, 135, Cambridge University Press, 1981, £12.50. Angels and principalities. By Wesley Carr. Pp.xii, 242, Cambridge University Press, 1981, £13.50. Rconciliation: A Study of Paul's Theology. By Ralph P. Martin. Pp.233, London, Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1981, £8.95. Suffering and Martyrdom in the New Testament. Edited by William Horbury and Brian McNeil. Pp.xxi, 217, Cambridge University Press, 1981, £17.50. Constantine and Eusebius. By Timothy D. Barnes. Pp.viii, 458, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1981, £24.50. Songs of Glory: the Romanesque Façades of Aquitaine. By Linda Seidel. Pp.x, 220, figs.63, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press. 1981, £17.50. Marsilio Ficino and the Phaedran Charioteer. Translated and edited by Michael J.B. Allen. Pp.x, 274, Berkeley‐Los Angeles, University of California Press, 1981, £18.50. The Letters of Marsilio Ficino, Volume 3. Pp.xiv, 162, London, Shepheard‐Walwyn, 1981, £8.00. The World of the Renaissance Jew: The Life and Thought of Abraham ben Mordecai Farissol. By David B. Ruderman. Pp.xvii, 265, Cincinatti, Hebrew Union College Press, 1981, $20.00. A Dialogue Concerning Heresies. Edited by T.M.C. Lawier, G. Marc'hadour and R.C. Marius. Pp.xiv, 888, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1981, £56.00. Canterbury and Rome, Sister Churches: A Roman Catholic Monk reflects upon Reunion in Diversity. By Robert Hale. Pp.xi, 188, London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1982, £5.95. Rome and Canterbury through Four Centuries: A Study of the Relations between the Church of Rome and the Anglican Churches 1530–1981. By Bernard and Margaret Pawley. Pp.xi, 387, London and Oxford, Mowbray, 1981, £4.95. American Indians and Christian Missions. By H.W. Bowden. Pp.xix, 255, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1981, £10.50. Catholics in Western Democracies: A Study in Political Behaviour. By John H. Whyte. Pp.193, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan. 1981, £13.00. Päpstliche Unfehlbarkeit bei Newman und Döllinger: Ein historisch‐systema‐tischer Vergleich. By Wolfgang Klausnitzer. Pp.280, Innsbruck, Tyrolia Verlag, 1980, 54 DM. The Letters of Baron Friedrich von Hügel and Professor Norman Kemp Smith. Edited by Lawrence F. Barmann. Pp.353, New York, Fordham University Press, 1981, no price given. Merton: A Biography. By Monica Furlong. Pp.xx, 342, London, Collins, 1980, £6.95. The Autonomy of Religious Belief: A Critical Inquiry. Edited by Frederick J. Crosson. Pp.vii, 162, Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1981, £8.95. The Theological Imagination: Constructing the Concept of God. By Gordon D. Kaufman. Pp.309. Philadelphia, The Westminster Press, 1981, $13.95. Spirits of Power: An Analysis of Shona Cosmology. By Hubert Bucher. Pp.231, Capetown, Oxford University Press, 1980, £8.75. Judaism: The Evidence of the Mishnah. By Jacob Neusner. Pp.xix, 419, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1981, £17.50. (shrink)

:The most basic question one can ask of a model is ‘What is the effect on variable y2 of variable y1?’ Causation is ‘implementation neutral’ when all interventions on external variables that lead to a given change in y1 have the same effect on y2, so that the effect of y1 on y2 is defined unambiguously. Familiar ideas of causal analysis do not apply when causation is implementation neutral. For example, a cause variable cannot be linked to an effect variable (...) by both a direct path and a distinct indirect path. Discussion of empirical aspects of implementation neutrality leads to further unexpected results, such as that if one variable causes another the coefficient representing that causal link is always identified. (shrink)

Not since Ernest Nagel’s 1939 monograph on the theory of probability has there been a comprehensive elementary survey of the philosophical problems of probablity and induction. This is an authoritative and up-to-date treatment of the subject, and yet it is relatively brief and nontechnical. Hume’s skeptical arguments regarding the justification of induction are taken as a point of departure, and a variety of traditional and contemporary ways of dealing with this problem are considered. The author then sets forth his own (...) criteria of adequacy for interpretations of probability. Utilizing these criteria he analyzes contemporary theories of probability, as well as the older classical and subjective interpretations. (shrink)

In 1969, the field of human genetics was in its infancy. Amniocentesis was a new technique for prenatal diagnosis, and a newborn genetic screening program had been established in one state. There were also concerns about the potential hazards of genetic engineering. A research group at the Hastings Center and Paul Ramsey pioneered in the discussion of genetics and bioethics. Two principal techniques have emerged as being of enduring importance: human gene transfer research and genetic testing and screening. This essay (...) tracks the development and use of these techniques and considers the ethical issues that they raise. (shrink)

Corollaire à "l'homme mesure de toute chose" se place "l'homme démesure de toute chose". La démesure n'est pas dommageable en soi, ne pas prendre la mesure de cette démesure ni engager une culture préparant à digérer la démesure est par contre désastreux. Toute médiation est aussi facteur de démesure. Première des médiations humaines, le langage verbal entre dans un vertige de la démesure, à la mesure des médiations technologiques et de leur puissance inouïe. Cet essai sur la condensation se place (...) dans l'effort pour penser les fondements de la médiation symbolique et ce à partir d'une économie sensible de la représentation qui prend pour appui le langage plastique. Kim Leroy est docteur en Philosophie et lettres de l'Université libre de Bruxelles (2006). il enseigne la philosophie de l'art et la sémiologie des médias à l'académie royale des Beaux-arts de Bruxelles et à Arts2 à Mons. coopérateur à la coopérative Quatre Quarts à court-saint-Etienne, il est aussi observateur au conseil d'administration du Mundaneum à Mons et Membre de SEA (sustainable economy association). (shrink)

Le rôle de David Hume dans la philosophie moderne, par A. L. Leroy.--The enlightenment of David Hume, by E. C. Mossner.--Hume and Jurieu: possible Calvinist origins of Hume's theory of belief, by R. H. Popkin.--Hume: philosopher or psychologist? A problem of exegesis, by T. E. Jessop.--L'astrazione nella filosofia di Hume, di M. Dal Pra.--Infinite divisibility in Hume's "Treatise," by A. Flew.--Note a "La rgola del gusto," di E. Migliorini.--Kant, Hamann-Jacobi and Schelling on Hume, by P. Merlan.--Bibliografia humiana dal 1937 (...) al 1966, di E. Ronchetti. (shrink)

The individualism and restless mobility of modernity have become disorienting and frightening. Our nostalgia for premodern times when natural bonds to kith and kin were unshakable continues to surface, most recently in the popular phenomenon of support groups. On Community examines this crucial philosophical issue of community for the postmodern mind by presenting 13 readable, original essays by some of the top experts currently working on this problem. The first four essays, by Eliot Deutsch, R. W. Hepburn, Hilary Putnam, and (...) Leroy S. Rouner, examine philosophies of community, emphasizing metaphysical analysis and definition of the nature of community. The second section considers the theme in a cross-cultural context. Merry I. White, Katherine Platt, Benjamin Schwartz, and Huston Smith illustrate in this section the various ways in which community is understood and experienced in Japan, North Africa, China, and India. The final section, which contains contributions by Patrick Hill, Jurgen Moltmann, Catherine Keller, and George Rupp, explores the future of community, focusing on community building in Western societies. While the authors represent diverse interests, they also share common ground. Virtually all agree that a creative community needs some form of individualism in order to make a community effective. And there is a consensus among the essays that community is a good thing and that the quest for community in our time is a significant fact. Finally, the contributors suggest that the critique of the liberal view of the autonomous individual, in vogue in recent years, now seems to have waned. (shrink)

La dernière édition des Lettres sur les animaux, ouvrage de l'encyclopédiste mineur Charles-George Le Roy, date de 1896. Cette nouvelle édition propose une présentation très respecteuse de la pensée originale de l'auteur, elle précise dans quelles circonstances les divers éléments du livre furent successivement publiés et retrace son évolution depuis les articles HOMME (Morale) et INSTINCT de l'Encyclopédie jusqu'à l'édition complète de 1802. L'introduction situe les Lettresdans l'uvre de Le Roy qui, comptant l'écriture parmi ses activités, fut d'autant plus mêlé (...) aux conflits d'idées de l'époque. Des documents inédits permettent d'établir avec exactitude combien Le Roy a su mettre à profit ses fonctions de lieutenant des chasses des Parcs de Versailles pour exercer ses talents d'auteur. A la lumière de divers autres documents, et parmi eux des inédits, il apparaît que Le Roy fréquentait quelques-uns des penseurs les plus connus de l'époque (Condillac, Buffon, Diderot, Helvétius, d'Holbach), ainsi que des personnalités de la haute société (en particulier Mme de Marchais), deux mondes don't l'influence est perceptible dans les Lettres sur les animaux. Celles-ci font écho non seulement aux écrivains que leur auteur connaissit personnellement, mais aussi aux nombreux autres qu'il avait lus, notamment Montesquieu, Voltaire, Rousseau. Inspiré et nourri de ces contacts scientifiques, littéraires et philosophiques, Le Roy a su s'en dégager pour développer sa propre pensée et, à l'image de l'excellent accueil que les contemporains et la postérité ont réservé à l'ouvrage, ses idées ne peuvent qu'éveiller un vif intérêt. (shrink)

We distinguish between two categories of belief—thin belief and thick belief—and provide evidence that they approximate genuinely distinct categories within folk psychology. We use the distinction to make informative predictions about how laypeople view the relationship between knowledge and belief. More specifically, we show that if the distinction is genuine, then we can make sense of otherwise extremely puzzling recent experimental findings on the entailment thesis (i.e. the widely held philosophical thesis that knowledge entails belief). We also suggest that the (...) distinction can be applied to debates in the philosophy of mind and metaethics. (shrink)

According to a prominent claim in recent epistemology, people are less likely to ascribe knowledge to a high stakes subject for whom the practical consequences of error are severe, than to a low stakes subject for whom the practical consequences of error are slight. We offer an opinionated "state of the art" on experimental research about the role of stakes in knowledge judgments. We draw on a first wave of empirical studies--due to Feltz & Zarpentine (2010), May et al (2010), (...) and Buckwalter (2010)--which cast doubt on folk stakes sensitivity, and a second wave of empirical studies--due to Pinillos (2012) and Sripada & Stanley (2012)--said to vindicate it, as well as new studies of our own. We conclude that the balance of evidence to date best supports Folk stakes insensitivity, or that all else equal, stakes do not affect knowledge ascription. (shrink)

This book consists of four major papers written by Peter Achinstein, Peter Geach, Wesley Salmon, and J. L. Mackie. Each of the papers has two commentaries. Achinstein’s paper is commented on by Mary Hesse and R. Harré; Geach’s paper, by Peter Winch and Grete Henry; Salmon’s paper, by D. H. Mellor and L. Jonathan Cohen; Mackie’s paper, by Renford Bambrough and Martin Hollis. Each author of the original paper then replies to his two commentators. All four papers are (...) concerned with some aspect of the concept of explanation. Achinstein’s and Salmon’s papers are extensions and justifications of their previous work. For example, Salmon has argued against Hempel’s account of scientific explanation and has maintained that certain scientific explanations are not arguments of any kind, and that consequently they need not embody the high probabilities that would be required to provide reasonable ground for expectation of the event to be explained. He argues instead that a statistical explanation of a particular event "consists of an assemblage of factors relevant to the occurrence or non-occurrence of the event to be explained, along with the associated probability values". He indicates in the present volume that he does not wish to create the impression "that ability to transmit a mark is any mysterious kind of necessary connection or ‘power’ of the sort Hume criticized in Locke". There is little likelihood that Salmon would be misconstrued in this way. Also there is recent literature to the effect that Locke was clearer on the issues of causality than Hume and that there is nothing "mysterious" in Locke’s notion of powerful particulars. Why are they any more mysterious than the passive particulars preferred by Humeans? (shrink)

Introduction Étymologiquement, le mot « sexe » vient du latin seco, secas, secare qui a donné « section » et « secte » : le sexe sépare des individus tout en les rassemblant dans la catégorie de laquelle ils relèvent. En cela, la sexuation est paradoxale : elle exclut et rassemble. Jusqu’à une période assez récente, le sexe biologique ne faisait pas problème : descriptif et non prescriptif, il renvoie à la matérialité du corps. De même qu’il est difficile de (...) récuser le déterminisme génétique,... (shrink)

The problem of selfhood in theology, biology, psychoanalysis, and political theory comprises the final section: Krister Stendahl discusses the idea that our selfhood is understood primarily in terms of God's selfhood; Alfred I. Tauber examines biological ideas of organism in the work of Elie Metchnikoff; John E.

Anselm's two ‘ontological’ arguments rest upon three fundamental assertions: The idea of God is the idea of a being than which nothing more perfect is conceivable. Whatever exists in the understanding and outside the understanding is more perfect than whatever exists in the understanding alone. Whatever cannot be conceived not to exist is more perfect than whatever can be conceived not to exist.