The discussion in Perspectives on Psychological Science about criteria for scholarly merit shows a potential bias of quantitative measurements compared with informed judgments of scholarly merits. This comment argues for a selection procedure that is open for qualitative arguments.

Exemption claims remain a tangled and divisive moral and legal issue both in academia and in the public sphere. In his book Exemptions: Necessary, Justified, or Misguided?, the constitutional scholar Kent Greenawalt zeros in on the vexed question of whether exemptions from rules of general applicability based on the conscientious convictions of individuals or groups are sometimes justified or prudent by discussing a wide range of cases drawn from the American jurisprudence. Although he does not engage in a significant way (...) with political and legal philosophy and comparative law, his contextualist and pragmatic approach is a powerful antidote against oversimplification and dogmatism with regard to exemption claims. Unsurprisingly, Greenawalt’s approach comes at times dangerously close to casuistry, and some of his analyses and normative recommendations would benefit from a firmer footing in moral principles and rational argumentation. In this review, I flesh out some of the strengths and limits of Greenawalt’s valuable book. (shrink)

La science économique semble en quête d'un nouveau paradigme. Si de nouvelles pistes sont explorées, qui font souvent appel à des coopérations interdisciplinaires, une vision globale de ce qui pourrait constituer une compréhension économique satisfaisante des phénomènes sociaux fait toujours défaut. Dans cette note nous expliquons en quoi Hayek peut ici être utile. Il a, à notre avis de façon convaincante, identifié certains des éléments clés autour desquels un nouveau programme de recherche peut être construit. Parmi ces éléments nous trouvons (...) : la nature et les effets de la complexité dans les phénomènes sociaux, la distinction entre ordres spontanés et ordres créés, le fait que ces ordres ont recours à des règles de natures différentes, la nécessité de trouver un critère normatif pertinent pour les règles gouvernants les ordres spontanés, ou encore la nécessité de repenser la formation de l'économiste.Today economics is a house to a great diversity of competing paradigms. If new routes are presently explored inviting economists to cooperate with scholars from various disciplines, a general vision of what could be meant by an economic understanding of social phenomena is still lacking. In this note it is argued that Hayek can be helpful in that respect. He has identified key elements which could guide our inquiry. This includes: a reflection on the complexity of social phenomena and on what distinguishes spontaneous orders from organizations; recognition of the fact that spontaneous orders and organizations rely on different types of rules, a need for a new normative criteria to evaluate the quality of a rule, and, finally, a reflection on what would constitute sound economic education. (shrink)

Although this review article is only about one book and about one man, it discloses a whole world, the world of Jerome, saint, scholar and stimulator of ascetism and of the study of the Bible. It is the merit of the book reviewed here to bring interesting insights into this other world, the emerging society of monks who were scholars and ascetic. In that world Jerome is one of the most fascinating patristic scholars. His choice for translating the Hebrew (...) Bible instead of the Greek Bible is one of the utmost examples that from time to time the conceitedness of one man wins. Williams’ book teaches us quite a lot about this man and his conceitedness. At the same time it explains us something about the Christian tradition, how asceticism could bring forth the wealth of libraries and abbeys. (shrink)

This article proposes a way of connecting two levels at which scholars have studied discursive practices from a normative perspective: on the one hand, local transactions-face-to-face arguments or dialogues-and broadly dispersed public debates on the other. To help focus my analysis, I select two representatives of work at these two levels: the pragmadialectical model of critical discussion and Habermas's discourse theory of politicallegal deliberation. The two models confront complementary challenges that arise from gaps between their prescriptions and contexts of actual (...) discourse. In response, I propose a theory of argument cogency that distinguishes three kinds of merit: content, transactional, and public. Normative links between the two levels arise through the ways argument contents spread across multiple transactions in a social space whose structure and composition favor collective reasonableness. (shrink)

The Ismāilī/Bātinī movement was criticized by early Ahl al-Sunnah kalam schools on different matters, one of which is the angel belief that is also related to other principles of faith. However, the issue of angels was not a direct subject of criticism; instead, it was mostly discussed in connection with related matters such as prophethood and the afterlife. On that note, the Ismāilī/Bātinī teaching, due to their views on prophethood and the afterlife, was accused of denying angels by some Ash‘arī (...) mutakallims. While Hanafī-Māturīdī kalam scholars found faults with the same points, they did not make such an accusation. Moreover, pointing out as the source of the opinions above to philosophers increased the merit of these criticisms. In the present study, after alluding to the claims and the accusations of the parties concerned, the matter of angels will be discussed in relation to prophethood and the afterlife from the viewpoint of the Ismāilī/Bātinī teaching. While doing so, their own works will be consulted. Subsequently, the criticisms of Ahl al-Sunnah will be compared with the views of the Ismāilī/Bātinī doctrine concerning the issue of angels. Also, the significance and value of different viewpoints put forward by the related schools of thought will be presented in terms of the consequences of those views. (shrink)

The 3rd Pan-African Ethics Human Rights and Medical Law (3rd EHRML) conference was held in Johannesburg on July 7, 2013, as part of the Africa Health Congress. The conference brought together bioethicists, researchers and scholars from South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya and Nigeria working in the field of bioethics as well as students and healthcare workers interested in learning about ethical issues confronting the African continent. The conference which ran with a theme of "Bioethical and legal perspectives in biomedical research and (...) medical practice in Africa with a focus on: Informed consent, HIV-AIDS & Tuberculosis, leadership & organizational ethics, patients and healthcare workers rights," was designed to expand the dialogue on African bioethics beyond the traditional focus on research ethics and the ethical dilemmas surrounding the conduct of biomedical research in developing countries. This introductory article highlights some of areas of focus at the conference including issues of leadership, organizational ethics and patients and healthcare workers rights in Africa. We analyze the importance of free speech, public debate of issues, argumentation and the need to introduce the teaching and learning of ethics to students in Africa in accordance with UNESCO guidelines. This article also focuses on other challenges confronting Africa today from an ethical standpoint, including the issues of poor leadership and organizational ethics which are main contributors to the problems prevalent in African countries, such as poverty, poor education and healthcare delivery systems, terrorism, social inequities, infrastructural deficits and other forms of 'structural violence' confronting vulnerable African communities. We believe that each of the eight articles included in this supplement, which have been rigorously peer-reviewed are a good example of current research on bioethics in Africa, and explore some new directions towards broadening the African bioethics agenda as we move forward to a new dawn for Africa in the 21st century. (shrink)

This research presents the results of a survey regarding scientific misconduct and questionable research practices elicited from a sample of 1215 management researchers. We find that misconduct is not encountered often by reviewers nor editors. Yet, there is a strong prevalence of misrepresentations. When it comes to potential methodological improvements, those that are skeptical about the empirical body of work being published see merit in replication studies. Yet, a sizeable majority of editors and authors eschew open data policies, which (...) points to hidden costs and limited incentives for data sharing in management research. (shrink)

This essay takes on two tasks. First it updates the standard list of eighteenth-century British reviews of Hume's writings by providing references to additional reviews which do not appear in the Hume literature. To Jessop's list of eighteen British reviews, thirteen new reviews are listed for first edition publications of Hume's writings and eight new reviews are listed for eighteenth-century abridgments and collections containing Hume's writings. Second, this essay presents a history of the early British review journals and a discussion (...) of the scholarly merits of the Hume reviews. (shrink)

Scholars who debate the cause of and solutions for the decline in civic engagement have suggested that Americans have increasingly withdrawn from community organizations, reducing their political activity such as voting and interest in the political world, and generally failing to place the common good over individual self-interest. Their analyses are steeped in a tradition that is largely gender blind and consequently ignores care work. We infuse feminist analyses of paid labor and citizenship, which emphasize the merits and burdens of (...) care work, into the civic engagement debate. We argue that care work, predominantly performed by women, paradoxically limits, enhances, and even constitutes a vital form of civic activity. We call for a fuller slate of social policies that will both redistribute the burden of care work and reinvigorate civic engagement. (shrink)

Scholars have extensively debated the family’s place within liberalism, generally, and specific attention and critique has been given to the family in Rawls’ work. What has received less focus are the requirements of parents in a Rawlsian polity and, further, what those requirements might imply for the one case where states explicitly regulate the process of becoming parents: adoption. This paper seeks to discover what might be required of parents, adoptive or otherwise, in a Rawlsian social contract state. Second, it (...) considers adoptive parent selection in light of these requirements as well as Rawls’ arguments regarding merit and fair equality of opportunity. Finally, it considers what such a merit-based selection of adoptive parents implies for the disputed rights of same-sex couples to adopt children. Further, because the question of merit in this case will hinge upon what it means to be a “fit parent,” it also draws upon relevant empirical social science studies regarding gay and lesbian parents. The paper, then, evaluates both the theoretical and empirical validity of generalized claims that same-sex couples are less fit to be parents than are heterosexual couples. (shrink)

In this paper I propose a new theoretical framework to analyse socio‐technical epistemic practices and systems on the Web and beyond, and apply it to the topic of web‐based scientific publishing. This framework is informed by social epistemology, science and technology studies (STS) and feminist epistemology. Its core consists of a tripartite classification of socio‐technical epistemic systems based on the mechanisms of closure they employ to terminate socio‐epistemic processes in which multiple agents are involved. In particular I distinguish three mechanisms (...) of closure, integration, aggregation and selection, and argue that they correspond to three different types of epistemic sociality. Different systems can employ different mechanism of closure or combinations thereof. Yet each mechanism has its own epistemic merits, depends on specific social, technical and epistemic prerequisites, has different strengths and weaknesses, and is optimal for different epistemic tasks. The aim of my analysis is twofold. Distinguishing different modes of epistemic sociality is a way for me not only to put forward a more nuanced framework for analysing socio‐epistemic practices, such as web‐based scientific publishing and scholarly communication. It can also serve as the theoretical basis for improving them. (shrink)

Distinguished scholars evaluate the contribution pragmatism can make to a viable naturalism, exploring what distinguishes pragmatic naturalism from other naturalisms. They examine pragmatism's distinctive form of nonreductive naturalism and consider its merits for the study of religion, democratic theory, and as a general philosophical orientation.

Since scholarly interest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) has primarily focused on the synergies between social and economic performance, our understanding of how (and the conditions under which) companies use CSR to produce policy outcomes that work against public welfare has remained comparatively underdeveloped. In particular, little is known about how corporate decision-makers privately reconcile the conflicts between public and private interests, even though this is likely to be relevant to understanding the limitations of CSR as a means of (...) aligning business activity with the broader public interest . This study addresses this issue using internal tobacco industry documents to explore British-American Tobacco’s (BAT) thinking on CSR and its effects on the company’s CSR Programme. The article presents a three-stage model of CSR development, based on Sykes and Matza’s theory of techniques of neutralization, which links together: how BAT managers made sense of the company’s declining political authority in the mid-1990s; how they subsequently justified the use of CSR as a tool of stakeholder management aimed at diffusing the political impact of public health advocates by breaking up political constituencies working towards evidence-based tobacco regulation; and how CSR works ideologically to shape stakeholders’ perceptions of the relative merits of competing approaches to tobacco control. Our analysis has three implications for research and practice. First, it underlines the importance of approaching corporate managers’ public comments on CSR critically and situating them in their economic, political and historical contexts. Second, it illustrates the importance of focusing on the political aims and effects of CSR. Third, by showing how CSR practices are used to stymie evidence-based government regulation, the article underlines the importance of highlighting and developing matrices to assess the negative social impacts of CSR. (shrink)

Would you want to be operated on by a surgeon trained at a medical school that did not evaluate its students? Would you want to fly in a plane designed by people convinced that the laws of physics are socially constructed? Would you want to be tried by a legal system indifferent to the distinction between fact and fiction? These questions may seem absurd, but there are theories being seriously advanced by radical multiculturalists that force us to ask such questions. (...) These scholars assert that such concepts as truth and merit are inextricably racist and sexist, that reason and objectivity are merely sophisticated masks for ideological bias, and that reality itself is nothing more than socially constructed mechanism for preserving the power of the ruling elite. In Beyond All Reason, liberal legal scholars Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry mount the first systematic critique of radical multiculturalism as a form of legal scholarship. Beginning with an incisive overview of the origins and basic tenets of radical multiculturalism, the authors critically examine the work of Derrick Bell, Catherine MacKinnon, Patricia Williams, and Richard Delgado, and explore the alarming implications of their theories. Farber and Sherry push these theories to their logical conclusions and show that radical multiculturalism is destructive of the very goals it wishes to affirm. If, for example, the concept of advancement based on merit is fraudulent, as the multiculturalists claim, the disproportionate success of Jews and Asians in our culture becomes difficult to explain without opening the door to age-old anti-Semitic and racist stereotypes. If historical and scientific truths are entirely relative social constructs, then Holocaust denial becomes merely a matter of perspective, and Creationism has as much "validity" as evolution. The authors go on to show that rather than promoting more dialogue, the radical multiculturalist preferences for legal storytelling and identity politics over reasoned argument produces an insular set of positions that resist open debate. Indeed, radical multiculturalists cannot critically examine each others' ideas without incurring vehement accusations of racism and sexism, much less engage in fruitful discussion with a mainstream that does not share their assumptions. Here again, Farber and Sherry show that the end result of such thinking is not freedom but a kind of totalitarianism where dissent cannot be tolerated and only the naked will to power remains to settle differences. Sharply written and brilliantly argued, this book is itself a model of the kind of clarity, civility, and dispassionate critical thinking which the authors seek to preserve from the attacks of the radical multiculturalists. With far-reaching implications for such issues as government control of hate speech and pornography, affirmative action, legal reform, and the fate of all minorities, Beyond All Reason is a provocative contribution to one of the most important controversies of our time. (shrink)

As scholars have commonly observed, a central difference between epistemic and practical normativity is the fact that the reasons of the former kind balance prohibitively, while reasons of the latter kind do so permissively. To explain the prohibition to believe or disbelieve in the face of tied evidence, several scholars have appealed to normative reasons in favour of a third doxastic option, the suspension of judgement. However, the question remains as to what happens if these latter reasons are defeated. In (...) such cases, one seems to be stuck in an impasse: either one is forced into an epistemic dilemma– where neither of one’s doxastic options seems permissible– or one must relax the prohibitive balancing principle– where there might be, after all, situations in which believing in the face of tied evidence is rationally permissible. In this paper, I discuss different ways to derive this puzzle of defeated suspension, as well as the most common strategy in responding to it. I argue that an appeal to undefeated reasons to suspend judgement comes with significant downsides and, thus, one should seek a different response: in extreme forms of the puzzle of defeated suspension, a form of higher-order suspension becomes rational. If one treats higher-order suspension as an additional doxastic option, one can avoid the puzzle in its entirety. Furthermore, an analogue puzzle of higher-order doubt merits the same treatment. (shrink)

Many scholars of philosophy, aesthetics, religion, history or social science have ventured to offer a comprehensive explanation of music, one of the most intangible and elusive phenomena in the world. A palaeoanthropological approach, which places music into an evolutionary paradigm, can add important perspectives to our understanding of this phenomenon. To begin with, the question whether music is an adaptation that has survival value in the classical Darwinian sense is contemplated. Views on the origin of music in conjunction with the (...) emergence of language and as a domain for the expression of emotion, linked to music’s benefits for social coherence, are discussed. More recent views on the emergence of consciousness, on semiosis and on music as a manifestation of biocultural co-evolution, especially in conjunction with ritual, are then presented. Finally, the merit of exploiting the concept of play to help account for the systematicity of music’s semiosis is examined.Contribution: In line with the intent of this special collection of articles, the above considerations are placed into the context of materialist versus nonmaterialist perspectives on the emergence of the human mind. The overarching argument is that music contributes crucially to what it means to be human. (shrink)

Several scholars argue that Aristotle's character friendship occurs only between completely virtuous moral agents. Oppositely, others seem to be more skeptical about such an interpretation. Especially John Cooper (1980) has given to us an original and creative understanding of the matter at hand. Particularly, he argues that not only the completely virtuous agents can engage in virtuous friendship; less morally developed agents can do so as well. The key advantage of Cooper’s account is that it allows agents of unequal moral (...) development to take part in character friendship. That is, if an agent A has advanced high in the levels of moral excellence, this does not mean that he necessarily has to find someone with the same level of moral excellence to befriend. I will argue that this agent can also be friends with a less morally developed agent. I will call this relationship: character friendship between unequally developed moral agents. In fact, I will not only follow Cooper’s argument, but I will also try to extend it. Specifically, I will argue that the most significant upshot of his argument is that Aristotle has found a way for the less morally developed agents to improve in moral excellence, throughout the help of their friends of higher moral status. I will suggest then, that this interpretation of character friendship, can not only give an answer to scholars that support the ‘completely virtuous agents’ presupposition; and especially those who reject character friendships between unequally developed agents (Cocking & Kennett, 1998). Cooper’s interpretation can be the stepping stone in understanding character friendship as a mechanism in Aristotle’s hands for his less morally developed agents to further advance in virtue. If we accept the ‘completely virtuous agents’ argument about character friendship then the circumstance just mentioned is impossible. In order for Cooper’s argument to work, however, we have to give a solution to what I will call the Reciprocity Problem. Unfortunately, he does not discuss this matter. I will suggest though, that Aristotle covers this potential gap of Cooper’s theory in his discussion based on superiority. In this manner we can have a less problematic version of the extended view of character friendship. I will thus deploy this paper in the subsequent order. I will first explore the ‘completely virtuous agents’ view of character friendship. I will argue there that despite the merits of such an interpretation, Aristotle seems to offer a more extended view of character friendship. My next task will be to demonstrate why Cooper’s position covers this extended view. Before I move one, I will give a solution to the Reciprocity Problem. After that, I will try to show that Cooper’s view can be extended, so as to explain the prospect of less morally developed agents to advance in the sphere of virtue, by participating in character friendship between unequally developed moral agents. Lastly, I will try to show how the extended view of character friendship can work as an anti-luck shield against the vulnerability of the human character. (shrink)

The scholar who translated The Edicts of Ashoka into English has now set out to present and critically analyze some of "The Great Ideas of Indian Culture." While apparently engaging in a search for the ever-elusive "Perennial Philosophy" by invoking Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, et al., the author's comparative statements come off as being little more than decorative paraphernalia. He submits too completely to the mystique of the Socratic dialogue in claiming that "the outstanding characteristic of Indian thought is dialogue". (...) We can agree that one does find a type of verbal exchange which might merit the designation of "conversation," but not dialogue. At no place in either the Upanisads or Gïta does the student ever feel the slightest compulsion to question or contradict the words of his guru. Nikam also commits the grave philosophical indiscretion of using Platonic language about "universals" to speak of the Vedäntin "Universal Absolute,". This sort of cross-cultural comparison is extremely misleading in cases where the ideas being compared are similar or identical in appearance but dissimilar in substance. Even so, the book is extremely informative, and, in places, inspiring, in its illumination of the subtler dimensions of Indian thought. Western philosophers and interested lay-students should find this small volume most helpful in gaining a succinct but comprehensive presentation of the "Great Ideas of Indian Culture."--J. B. L. (shrink)

Scholars agree that the environmental and societal impacts of consumption require greater attention, and need examining in more diverse market contexts. This editorial essay focuses on the nascent area of ethical/sustainable luxury, and critically considers how the scope of ethical/sustainable consumption can be broadened in the luxury sector. We address the compatibility of ethicality/sustainability and luxury by examining a range of opportunities and inherent tensions in relation to improving the ethical/sustainable consumption practices within the luxury sector. We also introduce several (...) original articles published as part of this Thematic Symposium, whose arguments underscore both the merits, and flaws, of ethical/sustainable luxury. On the basis of this and prior research, we present a balanced perspective by identifying various factors that facilitate or inhibit the acceptance and furtherance of ethicality/sustainability within sector. Thus, this essay serves as a springboard for further research and development in ethical/sustainable luxury whilst simultaneously highlighting the importance of the topic in general. (shrink)

Several scholars advance the ‘LR-LP thesis’: the claim that American Legal Realism presupposes Legal Positivism. Brian Leiter and Frederick Schauer, prominent scholars of Realism, delimit that thesis to a Razian version of Exclusive Legal Positivism (‘ELP’). This article nevertheless argues that Leiter and Schauer’s respective accounts of Legal Realism are difficult to square with Razian ELP. Indeed, the Realist hypotheses about alternative drivers of official decision, concerning ‘working’ rules, ‘real’ rules, and ‘situation-types’, if correct, actually threaten Razian ELP. -/- Problems (...) arise for the LR-LP thesis (as delimited to Razian ELP) irrespective of whether those three Realist alternative drivers are classified as legal or non-legal norms. If they are non-legal, merits-based norms, then (a) those alternative drivers do much more work within official decision than ELP suggests is the case for those sorts of norms, and (b), Inclusive Legal Positivism may better, and might even be required, to explain them. Alternatively, if those Realist alternative drivers are better understood as source-based legal norms, then they cannot fulfil (or even be claimed by the law to fulfil) certain core functions that ELP attributes to legal norms. (shrink)

The French scholar Jacques Ellul is nearly forgotton in German-speaking theology. The author presents Ellul's book of 1946 in which he developed a theological foundation of law, puts it in its historical context and tries a theological evaluation. In spite of some fundamental Iacks, particularly in the comprehension of revelation, at least three ideas still merit consideration: no sphere of human reality is independent of God; therefore, theology comprehends an investigation of the inner structures of society; in this, it (...) is focused on the Christan hope. (shrink)

Feminist scholars have critically analyzed the effects of sex segregation in numerous social institutions, yet sex-segregated sport often remains unchallenged. Even critics of sex-segregated sport have tended to accept the merits of women-only teams at face value. In this article, we revisit this issue by examining the underlying assumptions supporting women’s and girls’ teams and explore how they perpetuate gender inequality. Specifically, we analyze the 14 U.S. court cases wherein adolescent boys have sought to play on girls’ teams in their (...) respective high schools. The courts’ decisions reveal taken-for-granted, essentialist assumptions about girls’ innate fragility and athletic inferiority. While the courts, policy makers, and many feminist scholars see maintaining teams for girls and women as a solution to the problem of boys’ and men’s dominance in sport, the logic supporting this form of segregation further entrenches notions of women’s inferiority. (shrink)

Scholars believe that cosmopolitans—individuals who are open to foreign cultures—contribute to the adoption of Euro-American conceptions of food in the Global South. However, there remains a dearth in our understanding of the links between globalization, cosmopolitanism, and the reproduction of food and food cultures more broadly. In this paper, I draw from the sociology of translation to examine the mechanisms by which cosmopolitans reproduce food across space and time, a conceptual approach I refer to as ‘cosmopolitan translations of food.’ This (...) approach focuses on how human and non-human actants (mostly cosmopolitans themselves) mediate and translate the discursive and material elements of food as they travel from one geographic context to another. The broader history, socio-culture, and political economy where cosmopolitan actants are situated further influence these translations, resulting in diverse expressions of food globalization. I illustrate the merits of this approach by examining the emergence of alternative food in Manila, the capital of the Philippines. Based on qualitative research, I find that alternative food in Manila has striking similarities to and notable differences from its counterparts in the United States. I purport that these similarities and differences can be attributed to Filipino cosmopolitans’ unconscious and intentional translations of what they understand as alternative food. Mediating these layers of translations are Filipino cosmopolitans’ mobilities and access to new media, as well as the colonial histories and postcolonial encounters that define their consumption tastes. (shrink)

When studying science contexts, scholars typically position charismatic authority as an adjunct or something that provides a meaning-laden boost to rational authority. In this paper, we re-theorize these relationships. We re-center charismatic authority as an interpretive resource that allows scientists and onlookers to recast a professional conflict in terms of a public drama. In this mode, both professionals and lay enthusiasts portray involvement in the scientific process as a story of suppression and persecution, in which only a few remarkable figures (...) can withstand scrutiny and take on challengers with dignity. Description and elaboration of these figures and the folklore surrounding them sets in motion the interpretive processes by which some actors become charismatic leaders and others charismatic followers within science, ultimately providing alternative symbolic resources for an embattled research agenda to accrue legitimacy. To illustrate, we use the case of Arthur Jensen – a deceased intelligence researcher and the intellectual father to contemporary texts like The Bell Curve – and the circles of hero worship that admirers inside and outside academia have created to praise him. Using this perspective to study Jensen and his admirers demonstrates how the perennial race and intelligence debates gain a kind of symbolic power, unrelated to their scientific merit or racist appeal, which enables such debates to thrive and persist in the public sphere. More generally, our approach identifies contemporary processes by which scientific ideas can gain public authority even when their intellectual merit has been deemed dubious. (shrink)

Has biopolitics actually become thanatopolitics, a field of study obsessed with death? Is there something about the nature of biopolitical thought today that makes it impossibile to deploy affirmatively? If this is true, what can life-minded thinkers put forward as the merits of biopolitical reflection? These questions drive Improper Life.Campbell argues that a "crypto-thanatopolitics" can be teased out of Heidegger's critique of technology and that some of the leading scholars of biopolitics---including Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Peter Sloterdijk---have been substansively (...) influenced by Heidegger's thought, particularly his reading of proper and improper writing. In fact, Campbell shows how all of these philosophers have pointed toward a tragic, thanatopolitical destination as somehow an inevitable result of technology. But in Improper Life he articulates a corrective biopolitics that can begin with rereadings of Foucault, Freud, and Gilles Deleuze. Throughout Improper Life, Campbell insists that biopolitics can become more positive and productively asserts an affirmation techne not thought through thanatos but rather through bios. (shrink)

Would you want to be operated on by a surgeon trained at a medical school that did not evaluate its students? Would you want to fly in a plane designed by people convinced that the laws of physics are socially constructed? Would you want to be tried by a legal system indifferent to the distinction between fact and fiction? These questions may seem absurd, but these are theories being seriously advanced by radical multiculturalists that force us to ask them. These (...) scholars assert that such concepts as truth and merit are inextricably racist and sexist, that reason and objectivity are merely sophisticated masks for ideological bias, and that reality itself is nothing more than a socially constructed mechanism for preserving the power of the ruling elite. In Beyond All Reason, liberal legal scholars Daniel A. Farber and Suzanna Sherry mount the first systematic critique of radical multiculturalism as a form of legal scholarship. Beginning with an incisive overview of the origins and basic tenets of radical multiculturalism, the authors critically examine the work of Derrick Bell, Catherine MacKinnon, Patricia Williams, and Richard Delgado, and explore the alarming implications of their theories. Farber and Sherry push these theories to their logical conclusions and show that radical multiculturalism is destructive of the very goals it wishes to affirm. If, for example, the concept of advancement based on merit is fraudulent, as the multiculturalists claim, the disproportionate success of Jews and Asians in our culture becomes difficult to explain without opening the door to age-old anti-Semitic and racist stereotypes. If historical and scientific truths are entirely relative social constructs, then Holocaust denial becomes merely a matter of perspective, and Creationism has as much "validity" as evolution. The authors go on to show that rather than promoting more dialogue, the radical multiculturalist preferences for legal storytelling and identity politics over reasoned argument produces an insular set of positions that resist open debate. Indeed, radical multiculturalists cannot critically examine each others' ideas without incurring vehement accusations of racism and sexism, much less engage in fruitful discussion with a mainstream that does not share their assumptions. Here again, Farber and Sherry show that the end result of such thinking is not freedom but a kind of totalitarianism where dissent cannot be tolerated and only the naked will to power remains to settle differences. Sharply written and brilliantly argued, this book is itself a model of the kind of clarity, civility, and dispassionate critical thinking which the authors seek to preserve from the attacks of the radical multiculturalists. With far-reaching implications for such issues as government control of hate speech and pornography, affirmative action, legal reform, and the fate of all minorities, Beyond All Reason is a provocative contribution to one of the most important controversies of our time. (shrink)

In 1933 the philosopher Martin Heidegger declared his allegiance to Hitler. Ever since, scholars have asked to what extent his work is implicated in Nazism. To address this question properly involves neither conflating Nazism and the continuing philosophical project that is Heidegger's legacy, nor absolving Heidegger and, in the process, turning a deaf ear to what he himself called the philosophical motivations for his political engagement. It is important to establish the terms on which Heidegger aligned himself with National Socialism. (...) On the basis of an untimely but by no means unprecedented understanding of the mission of the German people, the philosopher first joined but then also criticized the movement. An exposition of Heidegger's conception of Volk hence can and must treat its merits and deficiencies as a response to the enduring impasse in contemporary political philosophy of the dilemma between liberalism and authoritarianism. (shrink)

Jean Baudrillard, the scholar and critic of postmodernity, struggled with questions of postmodern ontology: representation of the real through the semioticprocess of signification is threatened with the rise of simulacra, the simulated real. With this rise, seductive semiotic relationships between signs replace any traditional ontological representamen. This struggle has implications for environmentalism since the problems of contemporary environmental philosophy are rooted in problems with ontology. Hence the question of postmodern ecology: can the natural survive postmodern simulation? Baudrillard’s communicative analysis of (...) semiotic postmodernity can both support and extend ecosemiotic theses in response to these questions, questions that must be answered in order to explore our paradoxical understandings of the natural and confirm an understanding of environmentalism for postmodernity. In this paper I will argue for the merit of a semiotic understanding of postmodernity, develop the idea of ecology in this context, and then compare Baudrillard’s approach to the contemporary development of ecosemiotics. (shrink)

Despite the recent growth of studies in virtue epistemology, the intellectual virtue of epistemic collaborativeness has been overlooked by scholars working in virtue theory. This is a significant gap in the literature given the import of well-motivated and skillful epistemic collaboration for the flourishing of human societies. This paper engages in an in-depth examination of the intellectual virtue of epistemic collaborativeness. It argues that the agent who possesses this acquired character trait is (i) highly motivated to engage in epistemic collaboration (...) (out of her rational desire for intellectual ends), (ii) competent at the characteristic activity of epistemic collaborativeness and (iii) has good judgement as to when and with whom it is epistemically appropriate to engage in epistemic collaboration. Furthermore, this paper discusses the place of epistemic collaborativeness among the virtues and argues that it is an overarching virtue—i.e. it presupposes certain other intellectual virtues although it remains distinguishable from them. Theoretical and practical merits of this virtue are also presented and considered. The virtue of collaborativeness highlights the social dimension of intellectual virtues and could be of significant value for contemporary virtue-based approaches to education. (shrink)

I argue for the merits of studying historical moral revolutions to inform moral and political philosophy. Such a research program is not merely of empirical, historical interest but has normative implications. To explain why, I situate the proposal in the tradition of naturalized epistemology. As Alison M. Jaggar and other scholars have argued, a naturalistic approach is characteristic of much feminist philosophy. Accordingly, I argue that the study of moral revolutions would be especially fruitful for feminist moral and political philosophers.

In recent years, there has been renewed interest in Pyrrhonism among both philosophers and historians of philosophy. This skeptical tradition is complex and multifaceted, since the Pyrrhonian arguments have been put into the service of different enterprises or been approached in relation to interests which are quite distinct. The diversity of conceptions and uses of Pyrrhonism accounts for the diversity of the challenges it is deemed to pose and of the attempts to meet them. The present volume brings together twelve (...) essays by leading specialists which explore the history and philosophical significance of this form of skepticism: they discuss some thorny questions concerning ancient Pyrrhonism, explore its influence on certain modern thinkers, and examine it in relation to contemporary analytic philosophy. The essays combine historical and exegetical analysis with an assessment of the philosophical merits of the Pyrrhonian outlook, with the aim of understanding it both in its historical context and in connection with contemporary concerns. This volume, the first entirely devoted to a detailed study of the Pyrrhonian tradition, is intended to open up new exegetical and philosophical perspectives on Pyrrhonism and to motivate further examination of certain difficult issues. It will be a valuable resource for scholars of ancient philosophy, historians of modern philosophy, and epistemologists, as well as for graduate students interested in skepticism. (shrink)

This monograph offers a critique of arguments for the existence of a specifically Christian God advanced by prominent scholar William Lane Craig. The discussion incorporates philosophical, mathematical, scientific, historical, and sociological approaches. The author does not seek to criticize religion in general, or Christianity specifically. Rather, he examines the modern and relatively sophisticated evidential case for Christian theism. Scholars have been arguing for theism or naturalism for centuries, and there seems little to add to the discussion, especially from the theistic (...) side. However, to assume that either theism or naturalism obtains is a false dichotomy. There are alternatives to both that merit consideration. Employing a probabilistic approach, the author advances this discussion. His work uniquely utilizes not only naturalistic hypotheses to argue against theism. It also presents supernaturalistic hypotheses. This leaves no question that theism is almost certainly false, even if some form of divine reality exists. This project seeks not to argue that Christianity or any other faith or religion is undesirable, but only to critically examine evidentialist claims posited by Christianity’s learned apologists. In fact, a major secondary aim is to consider alternative god-conceptions, such as polytheism and pantheism. This work aims to highlight that Christian theism is often granted special privileges by theistic philosophers of religion, which seems doubly inappropriate when certain alternative god-conceptions may even prove to be more plausible. (shrink)

This article assesses the role of Immanuel Kant’s ideas in the historical philosophy of Gustav Shpet (1879—1937). This theme has been largely ignored by Shpet scholars who have concentrated on comparing his logical-methodological theories with the ideas of representatives of phenomenology (E. Husserl, R. Ingarden and others) and hermeneutics (F. Schleiermacher, W. Dilthey, H. Lipps, H.-G. Gadamer and others). Accordingly, the authors consistently reconstruct “the sphere of conversation” within which Shpet’s concept of “historical philosophy” was formed and reveal the place (...) and role of Kant’s ideas in Shpet’s theories (with particular focus on the Plato-Kant antithesis). Among Shpet’s “interlocutors” with whom he discusses Kant and thus “ploughs” the field of historical philosophy are G. I. Chelpanov and E. Husserl, B. Bolzano and A. Trendelenburg, F. Heman and M. Frischeisen-Kohler. We have attached Shpet’s notes on Kant in the archive of his family. Shpet’s attitude to Kant was controversial (while of course largely critical) and yet he was aware that Kant was the foundation of European philosophy and that his efforts to resolve the epistemological problem merit a second, thorough examination and a retracing of the path followed by Kant. The authors show that Shpet’s notes on Kant have more than historical-philosophical relevance. They enable us to take a new look at many theoretical and cognitive problems and, even more importantly, make us rethink the fundamental tenets of philosophy and the methodology of scientific cognition. (shrink)

This paper explores the possibility that Zhuangzi can be fruitfully interpreted as a fictionalist. It proceeds in four parts. Part one discusses two distinct and very general types of fictionalism—force and content—that might prove useful for an interpreter of the Zhuangzi. The former type of view would have it that the expressions in question—that is, the expressions that Zhuangzi is held to advocate using and interpreting non-literally—are not best seen as used in a way that aims at, e.g., truth, whereas (...) the latter type of view would have it that the expressions in question are best seen as used in a way that aims at truth, if in a non-literal fashion. Part two surveys evidence in favor of the claim that Zhuangzi can be interpreted in terms of one or the other of these two types of fictionalism and argues that he is better characterized as endorsing a version of the former. Part three explains how interpreting Zhuangzi as a fictionalist can help to resolve notable tensions in the text and briefly explores a few additional merits of this reading of the Zhuangzi: namely, that it can give us a clearer idea of what Zhuangzi’s positive project is, unify seemingly disparate scholarly interpretations of it, and reconcile objectivist and non-objectivist strands in his work. Finally, part four concludes by gesturing toward how the interpretation proposed here might bring the Zhuangzi into productive dialogue with two longstanding philosophical questions: specifically, the question of how we should respond to skeptical arguments, and the question of how aesthetic features of works of art—and in particular, literature—might be related to their cognitive or epistemic value. (shrink)

Some notable scholars argue that traditional African worldview is a backward-looking belief system that proves to be irreconcilable with mainstream science. The contention is such that unlike the principles of mainstream science which demystifies our understanding of the universe through the search for discoverable laws of nature, traditional African worldview rather mystifies the nature of our universe by rendering explanations based on metaphysical belief systems. Using the method of concept analysis, we argue, however, that the salient advances in mainstream science (...) provide a sufficient ground to challenge what we consider to be a mischaracterization of African worldview. We do so by showing that the sound interpretations of salient developments in mainstream science demonstrate appreciable compatibility with the African worldview. Therefore, because there is no contradiction but diversity emanating from cultural differences, the claim of backwardness relative to African worldview is without merit. (shrink)

In recent years some scholars have sought to apply the techniques of modern analytic philosophy to Plato’s writings. This has involved recasting portions of the dialogues as concisely stated deductive arguments, exploring questions relating to validity as well as to truth, exposing contradictions and equivocations, and making explicit all essential assumptions. The rationale behind this approach, as Gregory Vlastos has explained, is that ‘By means of these techniques we may now better understand some of the problems Plato attempted to solve (...) and we are, therefore, better equipped to assess the merits of his solutions.’ Even in Plato’s more literary dialogues it has proven useful to consider what views may have been established through the use of argument. The clearest instance is the Symposium where attention to details of setting and characterization combines with the presentation of philosophical arguments to produce an extraordinary account of love and its relation to beauty. -/- . (shrink)

Tackling a host of myths and prejudices commonly leveled at atheism, this captivating volume bursts with sparkling, eloquent arguments on every page. The authors rebut claims that range from atheism being just another religion to the alleged atrocities committed in its name. An accessible yet scholarly commentary on hot-button issues in the debate over religious belief Teaches critical thinking skills through detailed, rational argument Objectively considers each myth on its merits Includes a history of atheism and its advocates, an (...) appendix detailing atheist organizations, and an extensive bibliography Explains the differences between atheism and related concepts such as agnosticism and naturalism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Theologian's Doubts:Natural Philosophy and the Skeptical Games of GhazālīLeor HaleviIn the history of skeptical thought, which normally leaps from the Pyrrhonists to the rediscovery of Sextus Empiricus in the sixteenth century, Abū Ḥāmid Muḥammad al-Ghazālī (1058-1111) figures as a medieval curiosity. Skeptical enough to merit passing acknowledgment, he has proven too baffling to be treated fully alongside pagan, atheist, or materialist philosophers. As a theologian defending certain (...) Muslim dogmas, Ghazālī has not met what historians consider the mark of the true skeptic, a mind doubting the possibility of all systems of knowledge. But what is fascinating about him is that he brought into practical operation the tools of what I call "functional skepticism."1He denied the claims to truth of Aristotelian physics—whose basis he showed to rest on groundless belief—then turned and argued for the possibility of the Resurrection tooth and nail. The scholarly debate on The Incoherence of the Philosophers (Tahāfut al-falāsifa) has concentrated on the extent to which Ghazālī qua Ashcarite theologian was seduced into Aristotelian philosophy despite himself.2 In my view this debate has been misguided in the attempt to distill the [End Page 19] essence of Ghazālī from the book's eclectic theology; I will argue for a different view of Ghazālī on the basis of a close reading of key passages. In the unusual sections where Ghazālī applies Aristotelian language to a world not following the ordinary laws of physics, some have found Ghazālī slipping, unconsciously perhaps, into an Aristotelian frame of mind. I will show that, as a skeptical theologian with a dialogic imagination, he was rather deconstructing Aristotelian discourse while playing a Wittgensteinian sort of language game.Natural Philosopher or Speculative Theologian?The disagreement about the extent to which philosophy infected Ghazālī is ancient. Ghazālī might have studied philosophy only in order to refute it. He himself defended his philosophizing with the claim that one cannot deconstruct a system of thought until one has understood it so deeply as to elaborate upon its fundamental principles.3 His Maqāṣid al-falāsifa was in fact received, especially in trans-Pyrenean Europe, as a philosopher's genuine summary of the object of philosophy.4 The book strikes me as suspiciously creative in its representation of philosophical discourse, but it appears in any case as an expert and surprisingly unbiased treatment.5 Arabic readers knew that Ghazālī had also written a polemical treatise against philosophy, Tahāfut al-falāsifa, but they still wondered about his engagement with the ideas he challenged. Abū Bakr Ibn al-cArabī, for example, commented that Ghazālī had been unable to extricate himself from philosophy.6 Other philosophers pondered whether or not he had been a closeted member of their charmed circle and sought in his writings traces of esoteric philosophy.7Averroës's own sober sense of distance between philosophy and theology was partially a reaction to what he perceived as Ghazālī's dangerous and carefree mixture of the two sciences.8 He attacked Ghazālī's book in The Incoherence [End Page 20] of the Incoherence to restore philosophy's sense of purity, an aim he sought to accomplish by separating religious concerns from the philosopher's field of inquiry.9 Ironically, such a separation is precisely what Ghazālī might have wished to provoke by crisscrossing and blurring the line between religion and philosophy.The modern debate on chapter 17 of Tahāfut al-falāsifa has concentrated on defining Ghazālī as either a natural philosopher or an occasionalist theologian. In his defense of the possibility of miracles Ghazālī presented two theories of causation, one denying the logical basis of Aristotelian notions of natural causality, and the other more or less adopting these notions. Jointly, the two theories have seemed incompatible, and for this reason scholars have attempted to sort Ghazālī out of the apparent confusion. In 1978 L. E. Goodman argued persuasively that Ghazālī exploited rather than denied the philosophers' ideas of causality. In two articles Michael Marmura challenged Goodman, contending... (shrink)

This book draws together the latest work from scholars around the world using subjective well-being data to understand and compare well-being across countries and cultures. Starting from many different vantage points, the authors reached a consensus that many measures of subjective well-being, ranging from life evaluations through emotional states, based on memories and current evaluations, merit broader collection and analysis. Using data from the Gallup World Poll, the World Values Survey, and other internationally comparable surveys, the authors document wide (...) divergences among countries in all measures of subjective well-being, The international differences are greater for life evaluations than for emotions. Despite the well-documented differences in the ways in which subjective evaluations change through time and across cultures, the bulk of the very large international differences in life evaluations are due to differences in life circumstances rather than differences in the way these differences are evaluated. (shrink)

Before Tony La Vopa had joined Nick Phillipson and me in founding Modern Intellectual History in 2004, Tony had successfully traveled in the spiral spirit of Vico's philosophy of history. Born in the Bronx to a Catholic Italian-American father and Irish-American mother, educated at the Jesuit Boston College and later at Cornell University, Tony launched his scholarly career as an intellectually inflected social historian with his book Grace, Talent, and Merit: Poor Students, Clerical Careers, and Professional Ideology in (...) Eighteenth-Century Germany . Then, while much of the historical profession was abandoning social history for the seemingly more capacious field of cultural history, he deepened further his strongly intellectual and social history approach in his Mosse Prize-winning rendering of the identity and career of a single poor but tremendously ambitious young philosopher. In Fichte: The Self and the Calling of Philosophy, 1762–1799 , he embedded his striving scholar in a thick web of political and religious discourses, which Fichte tried both to penetrate and transcend through his rigorously soaring philosophy of the Transcendental “I.” Currently, Tony is completing a manuscript titled Manly Thoughts. The Labor of the Mind and the Specter of Effeminacy in Enlightenment Cultures . Promising to offer a fascinating further extension of his socio-intellectual method, the book will serve as a timely capstone of his career as one of the Enlightenment's preeminent historians working today. (shrink)

This article reflects on the author's modest experience as an expert witness in two trials: Osheroff vs. Greenspan (1983), and In the Matter of Baby K (1994). Bioethicists' expertise as scholar-teachers and consultants on particular issues merits qualification by judges as expert witnesses. The article argues that a different kind of expertise – strong moral advocacy – is required to be an effective expert witness. The major lessons of expert witnessing for the author concern the demands and strains on the (...) bioethicist's role as scholar, teacher, and consultant. The Baby K case is analyzed in some detail, due to its importance for bioethics, ethics consultation, and the testimony of bioethicists on either side of the case. Rules of thumb are offered to guide decisions as to choices regarding expert witnessing, as well as a discussion of the interaction of law and bioethics. (shrink)

Basic income and basic capital are two common ideas for redesigning distribution. Basic income provides people with a regular income from government. Basic capital provides people with a lump-sum grant. An important part of scholarly debate concentrates on the merits of basic income versus basic capital. This paper claims that these debates are too narrow. First, current debates overlook the way that a chief inspiration for both ideas, Thomas Paine, wanted basic capital and basic income to be complements not (...) substitutes. Second, it is more instructive to compare basic capital or basic income with a wider set of alternatives than with each other. Widening the debates would benefit the discussion of a basic capital or basic income. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:174 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY (960-1279) was in many aspects one of the most brilliant eras in Chinese history. One sees in this period the improvement of the bureaucratic system, the flourishing of a new poetic genre, the tz'u, a fresh approach to the study of Confucian cla~ics, the advancement of historiography and the rise of Neo-Confucianism. Ou-yang Hsiu (1907-1072) pioneered in all these magnificent political, cultural, and literary achievements. (...) Inevitably, he became a controversial figure to his contemporaries, and to later generations as well. There has not been a complete and balanced study, however, of this well-known and well-remembered man. Perhaps he was too broad and diverse a historical figure to be approached and studied easily. Professor Liu's book deserves our congratulations not merely for its well organized and scholarly presentation, but also for its successful approach to the subject from various angles. Ou-yang Hsiu was an official, a classicist, a political theorist, a historian, an essayist, and a poet. Accordingly this book gives separate chapters on Ou-yang Hsiu the classicist, the his= torian, the political theorist, the master of Sung literature, etc. With profound knowledge and sure control, the author organizes his materials so that the reader will not lose sight of the main points of the study. The best feature of this book (this reviewer feels) is that the author gives equal recognition to Ou-yang Hsiu the man and to the period in which he lived. Professor Liu ably and thoughtfully presents the historical characteristics of the Sung dynasty through Ou-yang Hsiu, and evaluates the merits and shortcomings, accomplishments and hmitations of Ouyang Hsiu against the peculiarity of his time. The subtitle of this book, An Eleventh=Century Neo=Con]ucianist, is most suitable. NeoConfucianism has always been studied abstractly as a philosophy, but Professor Liu's book shows us how this philosophy has been embodied in, substantialized, and practiced by "a key historical figure" who "gives us a finer perspective of his whole era." CONSTAN~II~.TUNG Pomona College Oeuvres philosophiques. u II (1638-1642). By Ren~ Descartes. Textes ~tablis, pr~sent~s et annot~s par Ferdinand Alqui~. ]~dition illustr~e. (Paris: Gamier Fr~res, 1967. [Classiques Gamier.] Pp. 1148.12 plates. Fr 29.-) Opere scientifiehe di Ren$ Descartes. A cura di Gianni Micheli. Vol. I: La Biologia. (Torino: Unione Tipographico-Editrice Torinese, 1966. Pp. 520. 6 plates.-Classici della scienza, ed. Ludovico Geymonat, No. 6/I. L 6,000.) The second volume of the Edition Alqui~ confirms what was said here when Volume I appeared (JHP, II [1964], 260f.): this edition supersedes all currently available study editions. Volume II continues the rigorously chronological arrangement which singularly suits the philosophical writings of Descartes' "metaphysical period." Like no other edition, this one illuminates the often forgotten character of Descartes' philosophizing as an interaction between an ongoing dialogue (correspondence and replies to critics) and rigorously systematic thought. Imbedded in the stream of letters we find the Meditations not as a monolithic block, but as a sequence of three publications: the Latin text inserted at the time-point of its completion, April 1640; the French text with the first six Objections and Responses, August 1641; and at the end of the volume, the Seventh Objections and Responses and the letter to Diner. Only the Objections of Gassendi and Bourdin have been slightly cut. The volume concludes with the Recherche de la v~rit~ of unascertainable date (Aliqui~ thinks that it fits best into the 1641-42 context, without insisting on his conjecture). We thus have an edition that allows us to read the Meditations as Descartes' contemporaries---friends and adversaries --did. Once again the editor's notes are admirable, and there are brief but important critiques of the revised AT volume containing the Meditations, based on source studies by the editor, Henri Gouhier, and by Leslie J. Beck. Since the Edition Alqui$ covers only the philosophical works, it is a pleasure to report a new Italian collection and translation of Descartes' scientific works by Professor Gianni BOOK REVIEWS 175 Micheli of the Institute of History of Philosophy at the University of Milan. The first volume contains... (shrink)

There is a longstanding debate about genetics research into intelligence. Some scholars question the value of focusing on genetic contributions to intelligence in a society where social and environmental determinants powerfully influence cognitive ability and educational outcomes. Others warn that censoring certain research questions, such as inquiries about genetic differences in intellectual potential, compromises academic freedom. Still others view interest in this subject as a corollary to a long and troublesome history of eugenics research. The dawn of a new era (...) in genome sequencing as a commodity will sustain scientific interest in the genetics of intelligence for the foreseeable future, but deep‐rooted challenges threaten the scientific merit of the research. The use of imprecise definitions of study populations, the difficult nature of studying the environment, and the potential of researcher bias are inextricably linked with concerns about the trustworthiness and utility of research in this area. Leadership by the genetics community is essential to ensure the value and trustworthiness of these studies. (shrink)

In this paper, I ask feminist philosophers and science studies scholars to consider the goals of developing critical analyses of evolutionary psychology. These goals can include development of scholarship in feminist philosophy and science studies, mediation of the uptake of evolutionary psychology by other academic and lay communities, and improvement of the practices and products of evolutionary psychology itself. I evaluate ways that some practices of feminist philosophy and science studies facilitate or hinder meeting these goals, and consider the merits (...) of critical engagement with some of the scientists themselves. Finally, I describe a community of feminist evolutionary psychologists with whom it might be both fruitful and interesting to engage, and identify ways that these interactions may benefit the science and the study of the science. (shrink)

We discuss how the law and scholars have approached three questions. First, what acts count as acts of entrapment? Secondly, is entrapment a permissible method of law-enforcement and, if so, in what circumstances? Thirdly, what must criminal courts do, in response to the finding that an offence was brought about by an act of entrapment, in order to deliver justice? While noting the contrary tendency, we suggest that the first question should be addressed in a manner that is neutral about (...) the answers to the other two. On the second question, we summarize various arguments about the permissibility of entrapment, while remaining largely neutral about their merits. With regard to the third question, we summarize the approaches to entrapment in various jurisdictions, and we note some patterns, across the jurisdictions here surveyed, concerning shifts from one sort of entrapment remedy to another. (shrink)

This book is a critical introduction to the long-standing debate concerning the conceptual foundations of quantum mechanics and the problems it has posed for physicists and philosophers from Einstein to the present. Quantum theory has been a major infulence on postmodernism, and presents significant problems for realists. Keeping his own realist position in check, Christopher Norris subjects a wide range of key opponents and supporters of realism to a high and equal level of scrutiny. With a characteristic combination of rigour (...) and intellectual generosity, he draws out the merits and weaknesses from opposing arguments. In a sequence of closely argued chapters, Norris examines the premises of orthodox quantum theory, as developed most influentially by Bohr and Heisenberg, and its impact on varous philosophical developments. These include the ideas developed by W.V Quine, Thomas Kuhn, Michael Dummett, Bas van Fraassen, and Hilary Puttnam. In each case, Norris argues, these thinkers have been influenced by the orthodox construal of quantum mechanics as requiring drastic revision of principles which had hitherto defined the very nature of scientific method, causal explanati and rational enquiry. Putting the case for a realist approach which adheres to well-tried scientific principles of causal reasoning and inference to the best explanation, Christopher Norris clarifies these debates to a non-specialist readership and scholars of philosophy, science studies and the philosophy of science alike. Quantum Theory and the Flight From Realism suggests that philosophical reflection can contribute to a better understanding of these crucial, current issues. (shrink)

"This is a very creative piece of work which merits the highest praise. It should be of great value for students and for the general reader."—I. Bernard Cohen, author of Guide to Newton's "Principia" "Finocchiaro has done a superb job of presenting Galileo to the modern reader. The Dialogue is a work of extreme difficulty, requiring a compendious introduction, careful selection, translation and analysis of texts, and thoughtful evaluation of its impact on Western culture. With his well-known logical ability and (...) a feel for pedagogy rare among scholars, Finocchiaro meets these demands in an exceptional way. His is a classic introduction to Galileo's masterpiece."—William A. Wallace, author of Galileo's Logic of Discovery and Proof "I recommend Galileo on the World Systems for any course on Galileo. The introduction does a fine job of situating the book in the intellectual climate of the time, and the notes make Galileo's prose and arguments thoroughly accessible."—Albert Van Helden, translator of Galileo's Sidereus Nuncius. (shrink)

The study of presumptions has intensified in argumentation theory over the last years. Although scholars put forward different accounts, they mostly agree that presumptions can be studied in deliberative and epistemic contexts, have distinct contextual functions, and promote different kinds of goals. Accordingly, there are “practical” and “cognitive” presumptions. In this paper, I show that the differences between practical and cognitive presumptions go far beyond contextual considerations. The central aim is to explore Nicholas Rescher’s contention that both types of presumptions (...) have a closely analogous pragmatic function, i.e., that practical and cognitive presumptions are made to avoid greater harm in circumstances of epistemic uncertainty. By comparing schemes of practical and cognitive reasoning, I show that Rescher’s contention requires qualifications. Moreover, not only do practical and cognitive presumptions have distinct pragmatic functions, but they also perform different dialogical functions and, in some circumstances, cannot be defeated by the same kinds of evidence. Hence, I conclude that the two classes of presumptions merit distinct treatment in argumentation theory. (shrink)