In the analysis of Aquinas, instrumental causation is central to his doctrine of providence, yet their connection is not widely understood. On the one hand, early modern thinkers like Nicolas Malebranche claim that any notion of instrumental causation is unintelligible as a mode of divine operation. Alternatively, certain Thomists commit Aquinas to the doctrine of premotion, which partially resolves the problem of instrumental causation, but only at the cost of eliminating the causal freedom of creatures. In this paper I address (...) these two issues. After providing an outline of Aquinas’s position on instrumental causation, I first argue that Thomistic instrumentalism is not the target of Malebranche’s objections, for Malebranche endorses a view very much like that of Aquinas. Secondly, I discuss the doctrine of premotion and offer some reasons for thinking that Aquinas was not a premotionist. (shrink)

Modern industrial societies have achieved a level of economic prosperity undreamed of in earlier times, but in the view of the contemporary environmental movement, the prosperity has come at the cost of serious degradations to the natural world. For environmental advocates, problems such as resource depletion, air and water pollution, global warming and the loss of biodiversity represent due threats to the well-being of human societies and the planet itself. But just how serious are these threats and how should we (...) go about confronting them? Do environmental problems call for more extensive government controls over industrial activity, energy policy and the like, or is it possible to find solutions by harnessing the incentives of the free market? The essays in this collection address these questions and explore related issues. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the article “I Can’t Yet and Growth Mindset” by Fiona Murphy & Hugh Gash.: What Murphy and Gash are attempting to do is to solve a significant problem some students have being successful in school, one that is not often addressed in any significant way. The language used to describe the lessons has some significant departures from radical constructivism. It is, no doubt, beneficial that the students in the study may have developed improvements in self-image, but, (...) as seen in other work, the application of radical constructivism to develop and extend the work started in the study could result in more and more lasting improvements. (shrink)

Purpose: This contribution to the Festschrift honoring Ernst von Glasersfeld gives some insight into the perpetual problem of understanding radical constructivism (RC). Parallels with the Middle Way school of Buddhism appear to shed light on this challenge. Conclusion: The hegemony realism has over the thinking of even the most highly educated in our civilization plays a major role in their failure to understand RC. Those still subject to realism in their thinking interpret statements by those in RC in ways incompatible (...) with RC. Until realists disequilibrate over mismatches between realist expectations and experiences, no alternative way of thinking is accessible to them and misinterpretations of RC will continue. Practical implications: While we cannot change someone else's understanding, in our interactions with them we can focus on creating situations in which those who do not understand us might disequilibrate. If we are successful, they are likely to begin to escape the domination of realism in their thinking. Original value: This insight may enable eventual success in our assisting others to understand RC. (shrink)

This chapter explores the view that religious claims have no legitimate place in the public forum. This exploration involves a critical re-examination of the public versus private distinction that would place religious commitments and grounds for action in a sphere isolated from that of public discourse and public choice. In the process, this chapter brings into question John Rawls's defense of a public discourse that seeks to marginalize religious commitments.

Although Kant introduced the analytic/synthetic distinction, and although this distinction has been immensely influential, very few philosophers find Kant’s formulation of the distinction acceptable. Quine, for example, rejects Kant’s characterization of analyticity on the grounds that “it appeals to a notion of containment which is left at a metaphorical level.” This criticism is, I believe, unwarranted, for, although Kant is not as clear about the notion of conceptual containment as one would like, in both the Critique of Pure Reason and (...) the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics he offers intentional characterizations of this notion which, I hope to show, can be given a clear and precise formulation. Moreover, I shall argue that the notion of conceptual containment can be used to provide both an adequate characterization of analyticity and a nonlinguistic solution to the paradox of analysis. (shrink)

This text is an interview given by Prof. Dr. Alfredo Pereira Jr. to Leonardo Ferreira Almada, on the occasion of the call for publication of interviews with different Brazilian philosophers. In response to the goal of the Trans/Form/Ação journal call, we sought to carry out an interview in which a PhD professor with an established career presents some elements of his personal and academic stories, as well as clarifies important points of his research, some of his theses and vision of (...) the world based on questions asked by another professor, a historical research partner, and in-depth knowledge of the interviewee’s career. (shrink)

This book provides a systematic exploration of the relation between knowledge and factual awareness, arguing that knowledge is but one species of factual awareness and that we can understand the possession of objective reasons, the normativity of knowledge, and the nature of knowledge in terms of factual awareness. In this way, the state of factual awareness is, structurally and substantively, a more basic type of state than knowledge. If correct, this undermines a number of ways in which knowledge has been (...) regarded as ‘first’ in recent epistemology. (shrink)

Charles Griswold has written a comprehensive philosophical study of Smith's moral and political thought. Griswold sets Smith's work in the context of the Enlightenment and relates it to current discussions in moral and political philosophy. Smith's appropriation as well as criticism of ancient philosophy, and his carefully balanced defence of a liberal and humane moral and political outlook, are also explored. This 1999 book is a major philosophical and historical reassessment of a key figure in the Enlightenment that will be (...) of particular interest to philosophers and political and legal theorists, as well as historians of ideas, rhetoric, and political economy. (shrink)

Interpreting Figurative Meaning critically evaluates the recent empirical work from psycholinguistics and neuroscience examining the successes and difficulties associated with interpreting figurative language. There is now a huge, often contradictory literature on how people understand figures of speech. Gibbs and Colston argue that there may not be a single theory or model that adequately explains both the processes and products of figurative meaning experience. Experimental research may ultimately be unable to simply adjudicate between current models in psychology, linguistics and philosophy (...) of how figurative meaning is interpreted. Alternatively, the authors advance a broad theoretical framework, motivated by ideas from 'dynamical systems theory', that describes the multiple, interacting influences which shape people's experiences of figurative meaning in discourse. This book details past research and theory, offers a critical assessment of this work and sets the stage for a new vision of figurative experience in human life. (shrink)

When a belief is self-fulfilling, having it guarantees its truth. When a belief is self-defeating, having it guarantees its falsity. These are the cases of “self-impacting” beliefs to be examined below. Scenarios of self-defeating beliefs can yield apparently dilemmatic situations in which we seem to lack sufficient reason to have any belief whatsoever. Scenarios of self-fulfilling beliefs can yield apparently dilemmatic situations in which we seem to lack reason to have any one belief over another. Both scenarios have been used (...) independently to challenge Evidentialism, on which what we may rationally believe is all and only what fits our current evidence. Here we tie the two scenarios together and explore what a knowledge-sensitive evidentialist approach to one implies for the other. (shrink)

Do factive mental states come in degrees? If so, what is their underlying structure, and what is their theoretical significance? Many have observed that ‘knows that’ is not a gradable verb and have taken this to be strong evidence that propositional knowledge does not come in degrees. This paper demonstrates that the adjective ‘aware that’ passes all the standard tests of gradability, and thus strongly motivates the idea that it refers to a factive mental state that comes in degrees. We (...) will explore a range of structural questions that have been overlooked in regard to our awareness of facts, showing that the degreed structure of awareness has significant implications for our understanding of knowledge. (shrink)

Using the writings of slaves and former slaves, as well as commentaries on slavery, Between Slavery and Freedom explores the American slave experience to gain a better understanding of six moral and political concepts—oppression, paternalism, resistance, political obligation, citizenship, and forgiveness. The authors use analytical philosophy as well as other disciplines to gain insight into the thinking of a group of people prevented from participating in the social/political discourse of their times. Between Slavery and Freedom rejects the notion that philosophers (...) need not consider individual experience because philosophy is "impartial" and "universal." A philosopher should also take account of matters that are essentially perspectival, such as the slave experience. McGary and Lawson demonstrate the contribution of all human experience, including slave experiences, to the quest for human knowledge and understanding. (shrink)

The project of articulating a coherent, canonical, content-full, secular morality-cum-bioethics fails, because it does not acknowledge sin, which is to say, it does not acknowledge the centrality of holiness, which is essential to a non-distorted understanding of human existence and of morality. Secular morality cannot establish a particular moral content, the harmony of the good and the right, or the necessary precedence of morality over prudence, because such is possible only in terms of an ultimate point of reference: God. The (...) necessity of a rightly ordered appreciation of God places centrally the focus on holiness and the avoidance of sin. Because the cardinal relationship of creatures to their Creator is worship, and because the cardinal corporate act of human worship is the Liturgy, morality in general and bioethics in particular can be understood in terms of the conditions necessary, so as worthily to enter into Eucharistic liturgical participation. Morality can be summed up in terms of the requirements of ritual purity. A liturgical anthropology is foundational to an account of the content-full morality and bioethics that should bind humans, since humans are first and foremost creatures obliged to join in rightly ordered worship of their Creator. When humans worship correctly, when they avoid sin and pursue holiness, they participate in restoring created reality. (shrink)