As denominadas filosofias do _hen kai pan_tiveram um papel determinante no pensamento alemão do século XVIII e XIX, em boa parte devido ao tratamento que lhes foi dado por F. H. Jacobi em _Sobre a doutrina de Espinosa em cartas ao senhor Moses Mendelssohn _. Espinosa e Giordano Bruno são os grandes representantes desse modo de pensar, e suas filosofias inauguram uma nova articulação entre causa e razão, mundo e Deus. Jacobi identifica em ambos o modelo da máxima coerência intelectual (...) que uma filosofia pode alcançar, um monismo imanente cuja consistência lógica não pode ser combatida no interior do sistema com as armas da metafísica pura. Por outro lado, é no princípio indeterminado, comum a essas doutrinas, que Jacobi verá a confirmação de uma danosa tendência da história da filosofia que culmina no idealismo de Fichte e na filosofia do jovem Schelling, isto é, na união entre natureza naturada e naturante no eu. (shrink)

In his account of his Düsseldorf conversations with G.E. Lessing shortly before the latter’s death in 1781, F.H. Jacobi records the Enlightenment poet and philosopher’s allusion to the Kabbalistic philosophy of Henry More, whom he cited in support of his shocking Spinozist creed of the hen kai pan. Origen’s first Christian philosophy hinges upon a conviction of universal divine goodness which cannot but share its riches with beings capable of participating in it by virtue of their own free will. From (...) this first Christian truth flow the infamous doctrines of the pre-existence of souls and, above all, the restitution of all things envisaged as a never-ending process of autonomous moral soul-making. Origen’s philosophy of divine goodness and human freedom appealed deeply to the Cambridge Platonists Ralph Cudworth and Henry More, who cited the Church Father in support of their metaphysics of God’s benignity and man’s free will. German rationalist G.W. Leibniz was also a close reader of Cudworth and More. Both his Theodicy and his Monadology—notably the notion of a best possible world created by a good God and inhabited by self-improving spiritual monads—are indebted to the Church Father’s Christian philosophy. G.E. Lessing, reviewing the controversial discussions about the apokatastasis in his day, staunchly defended Leibniz’s Origenist rationalism in several works devoted to his philosophical eschatology. Above all, he restated Origen’s notion of salvation as divine pedagogy in his celebrated Education of the Human Race. The present essay establishes the deeply Origenist character of the historic systems of these two seminal German rationalists, with their shared concern for God’s creative goodness and man’s free perfectibility. (shrink)

Wichtige Aspekte der Spinoza-Rezeption sind lange Zeit im Hintergrund geblieben. Spinoza galt seit dem öffentlich gemachten Bekenntnis des Aufklärers Lessing zum Hen kai Pan als Vertreter einer Substanzenontologie für Atheisten. Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi war es, der 1785 und 1789 eine breite Debatte um Pantheismus, Atheismus, letztbegründende Prinzipien der Metaphysik, ferner um Freiheit und Notwendigkeit auslöste. Spinozas Trieb- und Affektenlehre blieb in der Forschung weitgehend unbeachtet. Weniger lautstark als im ausgehenden 18. Jahrhundert, aber durchaus wirksam, ist Spinoza im 20. und 21. (...) Jahrhundert durch Denker wie Gilles Deleuze oder den Neurologen Antonio Damasio erneut in den Fokus der Aufmerksamkeit geraten. Diesmal ist es Spinozas vormals wenig beachtete Affektenlehre, die für Theorien vom ganzen, nicht bloß vom einseitig rationalen Menschen Interesse weckte. Galt das Interesse der Aufklärung der Rationalität des Denkens, die gegen Aberglauben und Irreführungen der Vernunft ins Recht zu setzen war, so wenden sich das 20. und das 21. Jahrhundert der Entdeckung der Intelligenz und Rationalität der Gefühle zu – zuerst in der Psychologie, bald auch in der Philosophie. Der Band nimmt das neue Interesse an Spinoza zum Anlass zu untersuchen, ob und inwieweit im Deutschen Idealismus, in der Romantik und im 19. Jahrhundert bis heute der andere Spinoza, der Spinoza einer bemerkenswerten Trieb- und Affektenlehre sowie des amor Dei intellectualis, wahrgenommen wurde. Die Beiträge zu Spinoza selbst, zu Jacobi, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Hardenberg/Novalis, Friedrich Schlegel, Schleiermacher, schließlich zu Nietzsche, Freud, Sartre, Lacan, Deleuze zeigen, dass dieser andere Spinoza durchaus in der einen oder anderen Weise gesehen wurde. Mit Beiträgen von Karl Ameriks, Andreas Arndt, Ulrich Barth, Wolfgang Bartuschat, Arno Böhler, Konrad Cramer, Bärbel Frischmann, Patrizia Giampieri-Deutsch, Ulrike Kadi, Thomas Kisser, Jane Kneller, Konrad P. Liessmann, Elizabeth Millán, Ursula Renz, Helma Riefenthaler, Violetta L. Waibel, Reiner Wiehl und Jure Zovko. (shrink)

Recent arguments claim that behavioral science has focused – to its detriment – on the individual over the system when construing behavioral interventions. In this commentary, we argue that tackling economic inequality using both framings in tandem is invaluable. By studying individuals who have overcome inequality, “positive deviants,” and the system limitations they navigate, we offer potentially greater policy solutions.

In this study, I show how Plato in the Parmenides reprises the encounter with the Phaedo’s Antisthenes, whom I elsewhere assumed to be one of the various tis that get examined in the dialogue. Now, with the Parme­nides’ tis, a similar situation arises: this Antisthenes embodies such characteristics as being “an expert in many areas”, “not without natural gifts” and “capable of following with critical intelligence” the logoi taken from “distant premises.” In the four logoi of the gumnasia, I highlight (...) how Plato, in developing his exercise, proceeds on his own way without openly arguing with any tis and how, despite his detached attitude, his hodos, while interweaving with that of his colleague Antisthenes, enters into a conflict. I then demonstrate how the two paths, despite having a common aporetic beginning (the objections of Gorgias to Parmenides and the testimony of Proclus against Antisthenes), at times overlap and at times are mutually exclusive. From this, I also argue that whoever wrote the dialogue must have been aware that the path, although appar­ently linear and rectilinear, was in fact bumpy and tortuous. (shrink)

Autophagy promotes both health and disease, depending on tissue types and genetic contexts, yet the regulatory mechanism remain incompletely understood. Our recent publication has uncovered a coherent FOXO‐SNAI feed‐forward loop in autophagy, which is evolutionarily conserved from Drosophila to human. In addition, it's revealed that DNA binding plays a critical role in intracellular localization of nucleocytoplasmic shuttling proteins. Based on these findings, herein we further integrate mechanistic insights of FOXO‐SNAI regulatory interplay in autophagy and unravel the potential link of FOXO‐induced (...) autophagy with SNAI in diseases. Besides, the generality of DNA‐retention mechanism on transcription factor nuclear localization is illustrated with wide‐ranging discussion, and more functions potentially regulated by FOXO‐SNAI feedforward loop are provided. Elucidation of these unsolved paradigms will expand the understanding of FOXO‐SNAI interplay and facilitate the development of new therapeutics targeting FOXO‐SNAI axis in diseases. (shrink)

Het begrijpen van verschijnselen is een belangrijk doel van de wetenschap. Echter, onder wetenschappers en wetenschapsfilosofen bestaat traditioneel de neiging om het belang van wetenschappelijk begrijpen te bagatelliseren. Het wordt bijvoorbeeld omschreven als een psychologisch bijproduct van wetenschappelijke verklaringen. Typerend is de opmerking van de psycholoog Edward C. Tolman dat sommige wetenschappers verklaringen nodig hebben voor hun innerlijke gemoedsrust. Verklaringen zouden bij hen de ‘innerlijke spanningen’ wegnemen die ontstaan bij de confrontatie met onverklaarde verschijnselen . Begrijpen verwijst in deze interpretatie (...) enkel naar psychologische aspecten van wetenschappelijke verklaringen, die van persoon tot persoon kunnen verschillen. In combinatie met het traditionele beeld van de objectieve wetenschap, waarbij het resultaat van wetenschap niet afhankelijk mag zijn van dergelijke aspecten, leidt deze interpretatie tot de opvatting dat begrijpen niet moet worden gezien als een wezenlijk doel van de wetenschap. (shrink)

This article reports on a corpus-based study of the English translation of Wang Anyi’s award-winning novel, The Song of Everlasting Sorrow [长恨歌, Chang Hen Ge] from the perspective of style. Using the keyword and concordance functions of corpus software packages AntConc and ParaConc, this research focuses on how the translator’s style reveals itself in the target text as well as how the style of the source text is represented in the TT. Findings show that the translators have a preference for (...) contracted negative verb forms and expressions such as “bit” over “little,” making the text more colloquial. In general, the rendering of the ST style tends not to be entirely faithful. A distinction between reader-centered and text-centered keywords is made. While the reader-centered ST keywords are, as expected, largely altered, the translation of text-centered ST keywords is also rewritten, contrary to expectations. Presumably, the translators tended to reduce the ambiguity of the ST, resulting in a more explicit TT. The article argues that the translators chose to rewrite the translation to make it more understandable for the target audience since it concerned a work from a source culture very different from the target culture. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:On Substance Being the Same As Its Essence in Metaphysics Z 6: The Pale Man ArgumentNorman O. Dahlin general Aristotle’s account of substance in the Categories is clear. Primary substances, the basic constitutents of the world, are independently existing individuals, paradigm examples of which are particular living organisms. However, the later use to which Aristotle puts matter and form provides him with two new candidates for primary substance.1 A (...) reconsideration of substance is in order, and Aristotle begins it in Metaphysics Z. The status of matter soon becomes clear. It can’t be substance because it isn’t a “this” and separate (Z 3, 1029a26–28). The status of form, however, is another story. Aristotle argues in Z 6 that substances are the same as their essences. While the evidence isn’t unequivocal, Z 4, 10, 11, and 15 take essence to be form, where form is universal. Z 13, however, argues that no universal is substance. Aristotle thus appears caught in an inconsistency. Substance is universal form because it is the same as universal form; however, no universal is substance. This and other problems have led to as wide a variety of interpretations of Metaphysics Z as one will find of any philosophical text. Virtually all of them end up attributing to Aristotle one of [End Page 1] three views about substance—substances are universal forms, particular forms, or composites of matter and form.2This paper takes a first step in a project that promises to remove the above inconsistency while allowing but not requiring Aristotle to take concrete particular substances (composite substances involving both matter and form) to be substances. The project looks at the first of the three claims that lead to the above apparent inconsistency and asks whether the sameness relation in it should be understood as identity or a weaker relation that could hold between concrete particular substances and their universal essences. It is the latter possibility that promises to avoid the above contradiction. If concrete particular substances can be the same as their universal essences, then the essences of substances can be universals without necessarily turning substances into universals. Nevertheless, granting this possibility wouldn’t require Aristotle to take concrete particular substances to be substances. Forms of concrete particular substances will also be the same as their essences in this weaker sameness relation, and considerations other than those at work in Z 6 could still lead Aristotle to rule out concrete individuals as substances.1Although Aristotle has standardly been interpreted as arguing in Z 6 that substances are identical with their essences,3 two considerations allow the question of this paper to be raised. [End Page 2]The first is the variety of uses to which Aristotle puts such notions as the same (tauto) or one (hen). Aristotle’s concern in Z 6 is with whether certain things are or are not the same (tauto), one (hen), or one and the same (hen kai auto and to auto kai hen) as their essences.4 He argues that kata sumbebēkos legomena (things said to be what they are with respect to an accident) are not the same as their essences, but that kath’ hauta legomena (things said to be what they are with respect to themselves), a class of things that includes substances,5 are the same as their essences. However, when Aristotle says that one thing and another are the same or one, there is more than one kind of claim he can be making. Some of them apply to things that are identical; others do not.For example, things can be the same in number, species, and genus. A doublet and a cloak are the same in number, a man and another man are the same in species, and a man and a horse are the same in genus.6 Although a doublet and a cloak are identical, a man and another man, and a man and a horse, are not.Things can also be accidentally the same, or the same in definition, substance, or essence,7 where these two ways of being the same cut across the previous ways of being the same. For example... (shrink)

Conceptualizing intelligence in its biological context, as the expression of manifold adaptations, compels a rethinking of measuring this characteristic in humans, relying also on animal studies of analogous skills. Mental manipulation, as an extension of object manipulation, provides a continuous, biologically based concept for studying G as it pertains to individual differences in humans and other species.

An important measure of the success of an academic institution is evaluation of its moral health. In order to investigate academic integrity in our institution, we administered the Academic Integrity Survey to a representative sample of 384 students from different departments. In addition we performed content analysis on 24 disciplinary hearing files from the previous academic year in order to ascertain which students were brought before the committee and why. Results show that the majority of students perceived academic misconduct as (...) a serious matter. Those who reported high on academic misconduct were concentrated among those who had not done national service, studied in the science faculty, and were Arabic-speaking students. Evaluation of the disciplinary hearings revealed that half the student brought before the committee were Arabic-speaking students despite their relatively small numbers in the college. The findings suggest that prevention of academic misconduct should focus on supporting specific at-risk populations. (shrink)

It is not quite as easy to see that there is in fact no formula of this modal language having the same truth conditions (in terms of S5 Kripke semantics) as (1). This was rst conjectured by Allen Hazen2 and later proved by Harold Hodes3. We present a simple direct proof of this result and discuss some consequences for the logical analysis of ordinary modal discourse.

The positivists defined analyticity as truth in virtue of meaning alone and advocated the view that the notion of analyticity so defined is co-extensive with both the notion of an a priori truth an...

90 nian dai, Du Weiming xian sheng de geng duo jing li zai yu kai zhan "wen hua Zhongguo" de lun yu."Wen hua Zhongguo" zhuo mo zui duo de shi ru jia de ren wen jing shen, yi jiu zheng jiang ru jia ru shi de jia zhi qu xiang he fan su ren wen zhu yi hun wei yi tan de yin xiang, tu xian ru jia yi mai xiang cheng de pi pan jing shen.

widely reprinted articles on euthanasia in bioethics , is still very much alive. The following policy statement cited and..

Whereas past research on the trickle-down diffusion of abusive supervision has demonstrated that abused supervisors often translate the abuse that they experience from their managers downward to their followers, we examine the active involvement of abused supervisors through leading in a more principled and positive manner. Adopting the sociofunctional perspective on emotions, we propose that supervisors who feel contempt for their abusers and are morally attentive will be motivated to morally differentiate themselves from perpetrators by treating their subordinates with greater, (...) rather than less, interpersonal justice. Four studies, including two survey-based studies and two scenario-based experiments, based on data collected in China and the United Kingdom show consistent evidence supporting the overall moderated mediation model. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. (shrink)

Two ways to locate a modal claim in time • Time of Modality vs. Time of Prejacent • Condoravdi’s (2002) terminology: – temporal orientation – temporal perspective but which is which? 2 Time of modality..

This thesis is concerned with two interrelated sets of problems: How can we have knowledge in a universe of processes? How can knowledge be improved, and how is scientific progress possible? ;To address the epistemological question in conjunction with the ontological is not a common approach in contemporary philosophy of science. I therefore begin the dissertation by arguing that these two areas of philosophy are intimately interrelated, and that the one-sided concentration on epistemological issues has led to an unsatisfactory account (...) of the nature of knowledge. In particular it has led to a conflation of epistemology with methodology. I argue that methodologies carry with themselves certain presuppositions concerning the nature of the world and of human beings. ;I suggest that we should attempt to construct a philosophical system within which epistemology and ontology mutually support one another. Insights derived from modern science provide us with a basis for the construction of such a system. ;I begin this task by arguing that scientific knowledge can be viewed as an extension of perception. Relying on insights derived from Gregory and Piaget I emphasize the constructive characteristics of our perceptual system and argue that they find their counterpart in the constructive nature of modern science. ;Having outlined a constructivist view of knowledge I turn to the discussion of the ontological issues. ;I propose as an alternative the adoption of a metaphysics of processes. I outline such an ontology, basing my model upon ideas derived from Prigogine's research on dissipative structures and Pattee's investigation of hierarchical organization. I explain how dissipative structures create stability in an instable world and link this insight to the constructive features of our perceptual and conceptual systems. ;The resulting model shows how knowledge is possible in the strange world of processes which we probably inhabit. It further shows how knowledge can be improved and what progress through evolution means. This issue is pursued in greater detail in the last part of the dissertation. There I expound Waddington's cybernetic model of evolutionary change and show how it finds its counterpart in cognitive evolution. (shrink)

Corporate social responsibility has generally been recognized as corporate pro-social behavior aimed at remediating social issues external to organizations, while political CSR has acknowledged the political nature of such activity beyond social aims. Despite the growth of this literature, there is still little attention given to gender as the starting point for a conversation on CSR, ethics, and the Global South. Deploying critical insights from feminist work in postcolonial traditions, I outline how MNCs replicate gendered neocolonialist discourses and perpetuate exploitative (...) material dependences between Global North/south through CSR activities. Specifically, I address issues of neocolonial relations, subaltern agency, and ethics in the context of gendered global division of labor through the exemplar of Rana Plaza and its aftermath. In all, I offer new directions for CSR scholarship by attending to the intersections of gender, ethics, and responsibility as they relate to corporate actions in the Global South. (shrink)

Erratum to: Axiomathes DOI 10.1007/s10516-014-9234-yIn the original publication of the article, some of the references were published incorrectly. Please find below the corrected version of these references.

African ethics is primarily concerned with community and harmonious communal relationships. The claim is frequently made on behalf of African moral beliefs and customs that, in stark contrast with Western moral attitudes and practices, there is no comparable objectification and exploitation of other-than-human animals and nature. This article investigates whether this claim is correct by examining the status of animals in religious and philosophical thought, as well as traditional cultural practices, in Africa. I argue that moral perceptions and attitudes on (...) the African continent remain resolutely anthropocentric. Although values like ubuntu or ukama have been expanded to include nonhuman nature, animals are characteristically not seen to have any rights, and human duties to them are almost exclusively “indirect.” I conclude by asking whether those who, following their own liberation, continue to exploit and oppress other creatures—simply because they can—are not thereby contributing to their own dehumanization. (shrink)

This study inspected the effect of Massive Open Online Course and flipped instruction on EFL learners’ foreign language speaking anxiety, foreign language learning motivation, and attitude toward English learning. To fulfill this objective, the Oxford Quick Placement Test was given to 160 Iranian EFL learners, of whom 120 upper-intermediate participants were chosen and divided into two experimental groups—MOOC and flipped —and one control group. After that, all selected participants were administered a speaking anxiety questionnaire and a motivation questionnaire as the (...) pre-test of the research. Then, one of the experimental groups received an online-based instruction via Skype: one conversation was instructed to this group online every session. The other experimental group received the treatment via flipped-based instruction. The audio files and the texts of the conversations were sent to this group via the WhatsApp application because they all had easy access to it. On the other hand, the control group did not receive any Internet-delivered treatment yet was trained through a face-to-face method. This process continued until the last session, and after the treatment period, the post-tests of speaking anxiety and motivation were given to all three groups to determine the effectiveness of the treatment. Moreover, two attitude questionnaires were administered to the experimental groups to examine their attitudes toward the MOOC and the flipped models of instructions. The findings of the One-way ANOVA test, Post-hoc Scheffe test, and paired samples t-test showed that there were significant differences between the post-test of the experimental groups and the control group. The results indicated that the experimental groups significantly outflanked the control group after the treatment. Lastly, the outcomes showed that participants in both experimental groups had positive attitudes toward technological-based instructional environments. (shrink)

Democratic decision-making is often defended on grounds of the ‘wisdom of crowds’: decisions are more likely to be correct if they are based on many independent opinions, so a typical argument in social epistemology. But what does it mean to have independent opinions? Opinions can be probabilistically dependent (threatening the ‘wisdom of crowds’) even if individuals form their opinion in causal isolation from each other. We distinguish four probabilistic notions of opinion independence. Which of them holds depends on how individuals (...) are causally affected by environmental factors such as commonly perceived evidence. In a general theorem, we identify causal conditions guaranteeing each kind of opinion independence. These results have implications for whether and how ‘wisdom of crowds’ arguments are possible, and how truth-conducive institutions can be designed. (shrink)

The last two decades have witnessed a wide-ranging and global discussion of the theory and structure of human and constitutional rights. This debate initially focused on the principle of proportionality and subsequently on the related ideas of the ‘culture of justification’ and the ‘right to justification.’ There is now a far-reaching agreement that both proportionality and justification in human and constitutional rights law are concerned with the reasonableness, alternatively the justification in terms of public reason, of the act under consideration. (...) Thus, reasonableness and/or public reason have assumed a, perhaps the, central place in the theory of human and constitutional rights. (shrink)

African ethics is primarily concerned with community and harmonious communal relationships. The claim is frequently made on behalf of African moral beliefs and customs that African society does not objectify and exploit nature and natural existents, unlike Western moral attitudes and practices. This book investigates whether this claim is correct by examining religious and philosophical thought, as well as traditional cultural practices in Africa. Through exploration of what kind of status is reserved for other-than-human animals in African ethics, Horsthemke argues (...) that moral perceptions and attitudes on the African continent remain resolutely anthropocentric, or human-centred. Although values like ubuntu (humanness) and ukama (relationality) have been expanded to include nonhuman nature, animals have no rights, and human duties to them are almost exclusively 'indirect'. Animals and African Ethics concludes by asking whether those who, following their own liberation, continue to exploit and oppress other creatures, are not thereby contributing to their own dehumanization. (shrink)

Why are some conditionals subjunctive? It is often assumed that at least one crucial difference is that subjunctive conditionals presuppose that their antecedent is false, that they are counterfactual (Lakoff 1970). The traditional theory has apparently been refuted. Perhaps the clearest counter-example is one given by Alan Anderson (1951: 37): If Jones had taken arsenic, he would have shown just exactly those symptoms which he does in fact show. A typical place to use such a subjunctive conditional would be in (...) the course of an argument that tries to bolster the hypothesis that Jones did in fact take arsenic. But then it would of course be self-defeating to presuppose that the hypothesis is false. Thus, something else must be going on. (shrink)

Many find the prospect of death distressing at least partly because they believe that death deprives its subject of life’s benefits. Properly qualified, the belief is surely true. But should its truth lead us to conclude that there is something dreadful or awful about death, something that merits distress?

Through a brief comparison between two Cappadocian trinitarian texts (On the Holy Spirit by Basil of Ceasarea and the 31st Discourse of Gregory Nazianzen), parallel modalities are revealed as to the position of the Holy Spirit within the Trinity and the definition of its function ; an attempt is thus made to establish the identity of the third hypostasis. In spite of the difference in their arguments, the doctrinal stance of the two theologians, Basil of Ceasarea and Gregory Nazianzen, is (...) the same, and their scriptural and philosophical sources are to a large extent identical. They share a common thesis : the Spirit at the same time accomplishes the Trinity as the complete manifestation of the divine and enables the advent of knowledge, so that, through the Trinity, humans are made to discover their proper condition. According to Cappadocian trinitarian theology, the Spirit is the hypostasis that relates the hypostases to each other (sun allêla) ; it is the hypostasis of their relation and that relation is identified to the very nature of the godhead. As the hypostasis of the relation, the Spirit at the same time establishes the unity of the Trinity and demonstrates the inseparability of the three. However, their unity is evidenced by the Spirit in a specific way : neither by the common divine ousia, nor by the link provided by their internal disposition (skhesis) which allows the hypostases to be described one by one (eis kai eis) according to their properties, but by taking over the part of the expression of the One (hen) via the relation (pros ti) leading through it to the unity within the One. Thus, the Spirit appears as the living expression of the relation that allows everyone to reach recognition by recognizing the divinity and the unicity of the other. In order to define the Spirit, the two Cappadocians conceive a twofold, ontological and theological, perspective of the Trinity : on the one hand, a Trinity whose divinity is ontic and consequently that evidences the Monarchy of the being ; on the other hand, a Trinity unconditioned by the being, accomplished in the privacy of mutual intellection by means of the unlimited attraction immanent to the act. To reach that twofold perspective as well as the knowledge that constitutes the Trinity, the two theologians borrow the instruments of philosophy. They resort to a topos of the reflexive experience of the divine in Platonic thought, i.e. the meeting of individual solitudes expressed in the formula one to one with the One. Such borrowing from Plotinus offers three types of stakes, which concern (i) the part assigned to the principle of homotetic similarity, (ii) the specific condition of otherness in the relation of the human and divine kinds, and (iii) the means that operates the transfer from the discursive to the contemplative dimensions of intellection, and hence to a revelation of the nature of the conjoined acts – being, living, thinking – proper to the common condition of the good or the divine to which the intellective soul pertains. (shrink)

Reacting against philosophers such as Braithwaite, Hare and Van Buren, caught in what not a few would believe to be an essentially positivist rut, John Wisdom and Ilham Dilman forcefully argue that there is more to religion than commitment to a way of life and yet they both are, like Braithwaite and Hare, adamant in maintaining that believers and non-believers need not differ, and indeed will not differ, when they are informed, reflective and philosophically sophisticated, ‘in what they expect by (...) way of a life after death’ and more importantly still – they will not differ in what ‘they infer about what lies beyond the reach of the senses’ . 1 Moreover, they agree that not only can we not make any valid inferences about what lies beyond any possible reach of the senses, we cannot directly know - encounter, become acquainted with - such a reality either. (shrink)

Noted philosopher Kai Nielsen offers an answer to this fundamental question - a question that reaches in to grasp at the very heart of ethics itself. Essentially, this innocent inquiry masks a confusion that so many of us get caught in as we think about moral issues. We fail to realize that there is a difference between judging human behavior within an ethical context, or set of moral principles, and justifying the principles themselves. According to Nielsen, it is precisely this (...) basic muddle that has spawned all sorts of challenges to morality, from relativism and intuitionism to egoism and skepticism. Nielsen first argues the case for these challenges in the strongest possible terms; then he shows that their failure to establish themselves demonstrates a fundamental flaw - an inability to understand what it means to have good reasons for the moral claims we make. In his search for "good reasons," Nielsen must face the innocent question "Why be moral?" He tries to show us that skirmishes among supporters of specific moral principles require a different sort of resolution than those that occur between groups of ethical principles. Justifying an action within a moral point of view is quite different from making the case for having a moral point of view in the first place. In its relentless search for the very basis of morality and the limits of moral justification, Why Be Moral? outlines the essential questions that will help us clear away confusion. Nielsen's approach will interest and delight informed readers and professionals alike. This vital work addresses itself to thoughtful people everywhere who are perplexed about morality and about the foundations of the moral life. (shrink)

Indigenous Knowledge provides all educators, especially indigenous educators, with theoretical tools for critical reflection and interrogation of their own and others’ preconceptions. The book challenges our conception of knowledge as a tool in anti-discrimination and anti-repression discourse with profound educational consequences.

This article concerns a new constraint on the interaction of quantifier phrases and epistemic modals. It is argued that QPs cannot bind their traces across an epistemic modal, though it is shown that scoping mechanisms of a differentnature are permitted to cross epistemic modals. The nature and source of this constraint are investigated.

This paper is an exploration of the nature of what is perhaps the most widely recognized justification for inflicting harm on human beings: the appeal to defense (self-defense and other-defense). I develop and defend a rights-based account of the appeal to defense that takes into account whether and to what degree both the aggressor and his potential victim are morally responsible for the relevant threat. However, unlike most extant rights-based accounts, mine is not a forfeiture account. That is, I do (...) not attempt to explain the permissibility of defense in terms of the aggressor’s loss of a right not to be harmed. Instead I appeal directly to the fact that defense in the relevant cases prevents the aggressor from infringing upon the rights of his potential victim. Accordingly, I call my account a “prevention account.”. (shrink)

This book discusses Henry Odera Oruka's sage philosophy, rethinking it in light of recent debates in African philosophy and African Studies. The chapters engage perspectives from anthropology, literature, and postcolonial scholarship, questioning and exploring the relevance of sage philosophy for current challenges, including decolonialization.