Complexity theory challenges educational philosophy to reconsider accepted paradigms of teaching, learning and educational research. However, though attractive, not least because of its critique of positivism, its affinity to Dewey and Habermas, and its arguments for openness, diversity, relationships, agency and creativity, the theory is not without its difficulties. These are seen to lie in terms of complexity theory's nature, status, methodology, utility and contribution to the philosophy of education, being a descriptive theory that (...) is easily misunderstood as a prescriptive theory, silent on key issues of values and ethics that educational philosophy should embrace, of questionable internal consistency, and of limited ‘added value’ in educational philosophy. The paper sets out key tenets of complexity theory and argues that, though it is useful for educational philosophy, it requires new conceptual tools and mind‐sets to comprehend fully its significance. (shrink)

Gerald Grace's (2000) paper Research and the Challenges of School Leadership: the Contribution of Critical Scholarship is applauded for making a powerful case for critical leadership studies to be taken seriously and for providing an exhortation for many educationists to think again about headship. However, this paper suggests that Grace's paper is weakened by:(a) traditionalism (e.g. a false equation of leadership with headship and neglect of more recent discourses of leadership, distributed leadership and complexity theory); (b) reductionism, oversimplification, (...) selectivity and misrepresentation in his consideration of educational management studies; (c) neglect of the considerable overlap between critical leadership studies and educational management studies; (d) an untenably negative view of educational management studies (neglecting their potential for realising the same agenda as critical leadership studies); (e) eurocentrism; and (f) his neglect of foundational issues in, and authors on, critical theory. (shrink)

The core principles of 7th century Korean Buddhist thinker and practitioner Wŏnhyo’s harmonization in non-obstruction thought and Wilberian Integral Theory may help us to understand ourselves and the world better and thus act and live well together accordingly in this contemporary world facing global crises. Whatare particularly noteworthy in Wŏnhyo’s thought and life is that as much as reality is unobstructed (無礙) in its profound calm so can our mode of being and relationships be awakened to its natural (...) harmony free of conflicts (和諍會通). This ideal can be optimally pursued by coming back to the source of One Mind (一心) while extensively benefiting sentient beings. Wŏnhyo consistently pursued and realized this soteriological project through his practice, works, and expediently dedicated life. The most recent version of Wilber’ Integral Theory consists of Integral Approach, Integral Methodological Pluralism, and Integral Post-Metaphysics. Their core principles consist of the AQAL (all quadrants, all levels, all lines, all states, and all types) and holons with their twenty tenets (holonic laws). Extensively utilizing scientific achievements Wilber attempted to map the whole developmental territory of occasions ranging from matter to Spirit or Emptiness and to formulate the Theory of Everything and then apply it to various fields including business, spirituality, and ecology. Within this framework, however, MarkEdwards tried to add an integral epistemology with its interpretive part and to complement Wilber’s more evolutionary ranking ascent with involutionary egalitarian descent. By also critiquing representational—and thus somewhat reifying—tendency of the AQAL framework and proposing to read it as an interpretive lens hesaves Integral Theory from internal conflicts and rendered it more consistent. Being based on experience and vast scholarship both Wŏnhyo’s and Wilberian visions have an integral nature. Whereas Wŏnhyo’s Enlightenment-anchored high vision-logic enabled him to actualize harmonization unobstructedly, backed by scientific achievements as well as his practice Wilber pioneered the AQAL Integral Theory, and then by adding an interpretive dimension Wilber has made it more balanced and consistent system. Now facing the human-caused threats of various global crises as well as the usual complexities of our ordinary life, we need to draw on mankind’s cultural resources including these two spectacular achievements. We may then further develop these soteriological visions in such a way as to satisfy hopefully all justifiable needs of men as well as the world in a futuristic perspective. (shrink)

This paper presents an account of the moral boundaries of organizations. We define an organization’s moral boundary to encompass all of the actions for which it could be held morally responsible. Our theory requires us to view organizations as subjects that act in the world, rather than as objects that are used as tools; that is, it requires us to focus on corporate moral agency. We present a process model for determining whether a given action lies within an organization’s (...) moral boundary, and we discuss how an organization’s moral boundary can be created, destroyed, or modified as a result of deliberate choices by human and organizational actors. Our article contributes to the literature by conceptualizing the distinction between organizations as subjects and organizations as objects, and so clarifying the distinction between legal and moral boundaries; by recentering the discussion of boundaries on organizational actions rather than on contingent institutional features; and by adding nuance to the assignment of moral responsibility in complex organizational networks and in situations where one corporate moral agent depends upon another for its existence. (shrink)

This paper presents an account of the moral boundaries of organizations. We define an organization’s moral boundary to encompass all of the actions for which it could be held morally responsible. Our theory requires us to view organizations as subjects that act in the world, rather than as objects that are used as tools; that is, it requires us to focus on corporate moral agency. We present a process model for determining whether a given action lies within an organization’s (...) moral boundary, and we discuss how an organization’s moral boundary can be created, destroyed, or modified as a result of deliberate choices by human and organizational actors. Our article contributes to the literature by conceptualizing the distinction between organizations as subjects and organizations as objects, and so clarifying the distinction between legal and moral boundaries; by recentering the discussion of boundaries on organizational actions rather than on contingent institutional features; and by adding nuance to the assignment of moral responsibility in complex organizational networks and in situations where one corporate moral agent depends upon another for its existence. (shrink)

Nietzsche challenges the tenets of received political wisdom in a number of ways and his thinking contains resources for revitalising political thinking. Nietzsche and Political Thought offers fresh insights into Nietzsche's relevance for contemporary political thought in light of recent advances in research in the field and key topics in contemporary theorising about politics. An international team of leading scholars provide vital new perspectives on both core and novel topics including justice, democratic theory, biopolitics, the multitude, political (...) psychology, and the Enlightenment. In spite of the controversies, what becomes clear is that Nietzsche is vital for political thought and a more sensitive and nuanced approach than conventional understandings allow is required. Nietzsche continues to have a lively presence in contemporary philosophy and this book reawakens interest in the political dimension of his thinking. (shrink)

Norman Daniels' and Daniel Callahan's recent work attempts to develop and deepen theories of justice in order to accommodate intergenerational moral issues. Elsewhere, I have argued that Callahan's arguments furnish inadequate support for the age rationing policy he accepts. This essay therefore examines Daniel's account of age rationing, together with the complex theory of age-group justice that buttresses it. Sections one and two trace the main features of Daniels' prudential lifespan approach. Section three calls into question the (...) class='Hi'>theory's conformity to liberal tenets. The next section attempts to show that the outcome of the prudential approach fails to match our considered judgments. The brief final section offers a broader perspective on the task of articulating a liberal theory of age-group justice. Keywords: elderly, age-group justice, biomedical model of disease, rationing, liberalism, distributive justice CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

The paper studies the topography of the model landscape of the physics in the Higgs sector both within the Standard Model of Elementary Particle Physics and beyond in the months before the discovery of a SM Higgs boson. At first glance, this landscape appears fragmented into a large number of different models and research communities. But it also clusters around certain guiding ideas, among them supersymmetry or dynamical symmetry breaking, in which representative and narrative features of the models are (...) combined. These models do not stand for themselves, waiting to be experimentally confirmed and elevated to the status of theory. Rather do they, quite in the sense advocated by Morgan and Morrison, enjoy a far-reaching autonomy. Typically models in the Higgs sector entertain three types of mediating relationships. First, they mediate between the SM and the data in those instances where the SM contains some uncertainty in the values of its basic parameters. Second, they mediate between BSM physics and the data by instantiating the core ideas behind these often speculative generalizations of the SM as stories—in Hartmann’s sense—that motivate or justify the respective model. Third, the fact that Higgs models within BSM physics reproduce the SM predictions in the low-energy limit functions as a consistency constraint that does not involve any additional autonomy. Due to the second type of mediating relationship, the representative features of Higgs models BSM are complex. (shrink)

Ken Wilber’s AQAL model offers a way to synthesize the partial truths of many theories across various fields of knowledge such as evolutionary biology and sociology, developmental psychology, and perennial and contemporary philosophy to name only a few. Despite its reconciling power and influence, the model has been validly criticized for its static nature and its overemphasis on the ascendant, versus descendant, path of development. This paper points out areas of Wilber’s writing that suggest a way to overcome these criticisms. (...) Doing so allows for the refinement of AQAL’s Twenty Tenets for an extension of its formal, dynamic features. This is accomplished first by relating Wilber’s original dynamic drives to the quadrants and levels enabling the quadrants and levels to then predict additional drives not specified by Wilber. The full set of drives then suggests clarifications of assumptions and applications of the model regarding transcendence and inclusion in order for the refined model to be internally consistent. The result helps correct for AQAL’s ascending bias, a bias which overemphasizes a linear path from lower to higher stages of development. Instead, more possibilities emerge such as those in which ascending development is overly dependent on a higher capacity with inclusion of only basic, lower core capacities. This is in contrast to more fully realizing the potential for development of individuals or societies in the more fundamental, lower levels, through deeper inclusion within higher capacities. Also, given the other horizontal drives that are predicted by the model, further possibilities are explored for differing directions of, and emphasis in, development. (shrink)

This paper reports key processes in interviewing children in a highly constrained setting in which many features of effective interviewing children were either absent or were contradicted, and in which many aspects of the interview situation rendered them potentially uncomfortable for the children. The children left feeling positive about themselves and the interviews, having given frank and useful research data. The paper reports the strategies used by the interviewers to bring about these positive outcomes. It reports 10 steps, which (...) the interviewers took whilst working within the constraints, to make the interviews effective and positive by rendering the strange familiar and by attending to the all-round quality of the qualitative interviews. The paper makes recommendations for interviewing children and how researchers can operate within children?s frame of reference and their expectations of adult behaviour and the interview situation. (shrink)

Definite descriptions, I shall argue, have two possible functions. 1] They are used to refer to what a speaker wishes to talk about, but they are also used quite differently. Moreover, a definite description occurring in one and the same sentence may, on different occasions of its use, function in either way. The failure to deal with this duality of function obscures the genuine referring use of definite descriptions. The best known theories of definite descriptions, those of Russell and Strawson, (...) I shall suggest, are both guilty of this. Before discussing this distinction in use, I will mention some features of these theories to which it is especially relevant. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HUME'S BUNDLES, SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND KANT Even if we are inclined to view Hume's attempt to explain ascriptions of personal identity as an abysmal failure, we might still be sympathetic toward his proposal to replace the going substance theory of the nature of mind with his bundle account. Thus we might fault Hume for erecting an unachievably high standard for personal identity, or round on him for excluding bodily (...) criteria 2... from his solution, but nonetheless applaud his spiriting away of the Cartesian soul substance leaving his "true idea of the human mind" (261) as a collection of perceptions in its stead. However, Hume's concern to give an account of the idea of the unity of a human mind in terms of related perceptions has run into notoriously rough sledding, not the least of which is the fact that Hume himself in his Appendix to "Of Personal Identity" seems to abandon his bundle theory in despair. In this paper I shall first be concerned to examine the criticism of his bundle theory which Hume brings forth in the Appendix and explain why I think the core difficulty remains insoluble for Hume. I shall then go on to suggest that the unworkability of Húmete bundle theory is directly tied to his failure to appreciate certain features of the peculiarly first person nature of his question about the make-up of minds. In thus emphasizing the place of the first person voice in my interpretation I am stealing a leaf, if not a chapter, from Kant. But this is as it should be since one of the aims of this essay is to provide an interpretation of Hume's difficulties with his account of the nature of mind which explains part of the reason why 'self-consciousness' (or 'apperception') looms so very large in the Critique of Pure Reason attack upon Hume's type of bundle theory. 60. 1. Hume's Second Thoughts In a burst of self criticism at the Appendix to the section on personal identity, Hume brings forth this objection to his own efforts:...Having thus loosen' d all our particular perceptions, when I proceed to explain the principle of connexion, which binds them together, and makes us attribute to them a real simplicity and identity; I am sensible, that my account is very defective, and that nothing but the seeming evidence of the precedent reasonings cou'd have indue' d me to receive it (635). After additional reflections Hume encapsulates his objection thus:...All my hopes vanish, when I come to explain the principles, that unite our successive perceptions in our thought or consciousness (6SS-6). What is the defect Hume calls to our attention? Notice first that the footnote on page 635 explicitly refers us back to that part of his account Hume considers defective; and when we look back to the text of the Treatise in question, page 260, we find it is precisely there that Hume uses the analogy of a republic to sketch his bundle theory of the unity of mind in terms of the two associative principles, resemblance and causation. So it must somehow be that this account in terms of the associative principles is mistaken. But what then is the mistake? According to Hume it is that he cannot 'explain' the principles which unite the discrete percepts. Now it seems to me there are only two possible things Hume could mean in saying this. He could mean either (1) that the principles which connect the percepts of one mind are instances of the associative principles, but he cannot explain them; or (2) there must be other, non-associative, principles which connect the percepts of a single mind and these he cannot explain. 61. I think we can safely conclude (1) cannot represent Hume's misgivings when he says he is unable to explain the uniting principles of the mental bundles. There is first the fact that he does not call into question his general programme of accounting for the nature of the unity of complex things by the principles of causation, resemblance and contiguity — for example, ships, plants, animals, houses and rivers (e.g. 257f) — but only his... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Theory of Bioethics by David DeGrazia and Joseph MillumColin Hoy (bio) and Winston Chiong (bio)Review of David DeGrazia and Joseph Millum, A Theory of Bioethics (Cambridge University Press, 2021)David DeGrazia and Joseph Millum’s A Theory of Bioethics 2021 arrives at a curious time for an ambitious effort at systematic theory construction, seemingly out of step with bioethical fashion. At the same time, a (...) prominent group of philosophical bioethicists authored an article, possibly with a touch of defensiveness, to “make the case that philosophy and philosophers still have a very important and meaningful role to play in contemporary bioethics” (Blumenthal-Barby et al. 2021). Meanwhile, the annual meeting of the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities included several expressions of impatience with the historical privileging of philosophy over more empirical, situated, and community-oriented approaches to moral problems in health.DeGrazia and Millum’s work itself reflects the current state of bioethics and how it has changed since the heyday of grand bioethical theory construction in the late twentieth century. To apply Parfit’s philosophical taxonomy (1984), the general frameworks promulgated by theorists like Veatch, Engelhardt, and Gert, as well as Beauchamp and Childress, were by necessity revisionary. These bioethical theories were whole-cloth alternatives to a conventional and paternalistic medical ethos that was already widely acknowledged as unsatisfactory. Today, however, bioethics is a mature and institutionalized field, with well-established practices and a corpus of accepted tenets (alongside matters of ongoing but generally demarcated controversy). A plausible and fruitful contemporary theory of bioethics must be largely descriptive, in Parfit’s sense, providing an intellectual framework that gives coherence and sense to existing practice, while at the same time clarifying matters of confusion.In contemporary bioethics, a central component of this practice is the application of the four principles of biomedical ethics—non-maleficence, beneficence, justice and autonomy—not merely as originally proposed by Beauchamp and Childress (2019), but in their refined form, following decades of exchange, critique, and revision. DeGrazia and Millum’s theory begins with two core values: well-being and respect for rights holders. [End Page 321] The bulk of the book then applies the method of reflective equilibrium to specify these two values in terms of the canonical four principles, here treated as “mid-level” constructs with readier application to specific cases than the two core values. Experienced bioethicists may have an uncanny sense of setting off from a new trailhead, and yet, eventually finding themselves still walking a familiar path. However, this way of introducing and explicating the four principles will likely be more accessible to a wider audience, including high-level undergraduates and graduate students not already versed in the revisions, refinements, and compromises embedded in Beauchamp and Childress’s discussions.Two other features recommend this book as a resource for trainees and interested non-experts seeking to deepen their understanding of bioethics. First, the clarity of its style and organizational approach provides a welcome orientation for non-specialists. The chapters are structured so that major contending perspectives are outlined before the authors develop arguments for their own positions in that context. Each chapter proceeds by considering applications of the broader theory, showing how it can illuminate potential candidate approaches or policies, as well as demonstrating how to use the tools of ethical analysis to evaluate these proposals in both ideal and non-ideal cases. This didactic approach to the relationship between conceptual argument and practice will be accessible to many who are initially unfamiliar with or intimidated by theory. Second the commendable decision to make the book electronically available and accessible also has the potential to broaden the reach of the work, and in particular, to engage parties in under-resourced settings, which have so often been overlooked in bioethical discourse.As noted above, while the authors’ approach is descriptive in Parfit’s sense, it is not necessarily conservative. In many places, the authors highlight how their theory includes elements or renders conclusions that are not broadly accepted, and following the method of reflective equilibrium, they advocate for these positions both in terms of broad principles and particular judgments about cases. This begins with their dual-value... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rembrandt and Collections of His Art in America: An NEH Curriculum ProjectJoseph M. Piro (bio)IntroductionI have asked myself whether the short time given us would be better used in an attempt to understand the whole of the universe or to assimilate what is within our reach.—Paul CézanneThis issue of the Journal of Aesthetic Education features an arts education curriculum project that was designed to use the oeuvre of (...) Rembrandt van Rijn—seventeenth-century Dutch painter, etcher, and draftsman extraordinaire—as a teaching resource. A partnership of scholars, university professors, museum educators, and classroom teachers designed the project, which uses Rembrandt as the prism through which to diversify teaching of the core content areas of social studies and visual art. Members of this team attempted to expand the boundaries of themes traditionally found in art and other humanities disciplines by linking these with the social sciences, thereby forming what might be called “humanistic social studies.” The final product is a Web site to which teachers and those interested in using this type of instructional approach in their classroom teaching will have access. Funding for this project derived from a National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Curriculum Materials Development grant designed to promote the teaching of the humanities and support projects that can serve as national models.1In the eyes of many, Rembrandt is viewed primarily as a “European” artist. Although it is true that many of his major works are found in museums across Europe, he is generously represented in the holdings of collections across America. Yet for many teachers in the United States he remains an enigmatic figure; knowledge about his art is limited, and the U.S. museum collections of his work remain untapped for classroom application. To broaden the appeal and teaching potential of his work, the project team [End Page 1] mined this collection of “American” Rembrandts. Specifically, the project, targeted at secondary art and social studies teachers (grades 6 through 12), is committed to building and increasing the capacities of teachers to network knowledge of Rembrandt’s art with their classroom practice. Further, with its grounding in aesthetic education theory within a humanities framework, the project endeavors to promote instructional innovation and encourage teachers to break new ground in high-impact classroom pedagogy. The timing of the project and its ongoing development was not accidental. They converged with events held in 2006 to commemorate the four hundredth anniversary of Rembrandt’s birth. These events ranged from worldwide museum exhibitions to publications of books containing new insights on Rembrandt, all of this aimed at celebrating an artist whose achievements many consider to be a zenith of world culture.Why Rembrandt: The Rationale for the ProjectWhy is Rembrandt the artist at the center of this project? There are any number of good reasons, but the project’s rationale centers around three in particular. First, to borrow a term from Peter Kivy, Rembrandt is the ultimate “aesthetic symbol,”2 an indisputably blue-chip figure who produced some of the greatest masterworks of world art, many of which students find both intellectually engaging and psychologically insightful. Traditionally, teachers have striven to enrich the aesthetic lives of their students with exemplars of the human mind, and the genius of Rembrandt provides a potent opportunity to do so.3 By studying an artist of such stature teachers can develop students’ cultural intelligence and visual literacy and present opportunities to observe and decode substantive, challenging masterworks of art. In this context, Rudolf Arnheim describes a painting by Rembrandt as containing a network of “visual arrows” that communicate multiple experiences about the human condition, including love, tenderness, and desire, among others. Arnheim speaks of the additive nature of the experience, how the viewer—almost like a mathematician—needs to learn how to add up the clues and arrive at a solution. He does not intend, of course, for the viewer to have an impersonal, “clinical” experience. Rather, he writes, “art... is one of the most powerful instruments available to us for the fulfillment of life. To withhold this benefit from human beings is to deprive them indeed.”4Second, there is a cognitive complexity embedded in... (shrink)

This paper argues for a version of metalinguistic descriptivism, the Mill-Frege view, comparing it to a currently popular alternative, predicativism. The Mill-Frege view combines tenets of Fregean views with features of the theory of direct reference. According to it, proper names have metalinguistic senses, known by competent speakers on the basis of their competence, which figure in ancillary presuppositions. In support of the view the paper argues that the name-bearing relation—which predicativists cite to account for the properties (...) that they take names to express—depends on acts of naming with a semantic significance. Acts of naming create particular words specifically designed for referential use, which they perform whether or not the language has other words articulated with the same sound or orthography. Like other forms of metalinguistic descriptivism, the Mill-Frege view affords responses to Kripke’s semantic and epistemic arguments against descriptivism. The view is prima facie more complex than predicativism; but the additional complexity is independently attested in natural languages and well-motivated. Finally, the Mill-Frege proposal deals well with Kripke’s modal argument, and accounts for modal intuitions about names, both issues that pose serious trouble to predicativism. (shrink)

Quassim Cassam has argued that psychological and epistemological analyses of conspiracy theories threaten to overlook the political nature of such theories. According to Cassam, conspiracy theories are a form of political propaganda. I develop a limited critique of Cassam's analysis.This paper advances two core theses. First, acceptance of conspiracy theories requires a rejection of epistemic authority that renders conspiracy theorists susceptible to co-option by certain political programs while insulating such programs from criticism. I argue that the contrarian nature of (...) conspiracy theories partially accounts for the prominence of such theories in populist movements.Second, the contrarian nature of conspiracy theories partially accounts for their attractiveness, especially among those to whom populism already appeals. I argue that for those who resent what appears from their perspective as the shaping of the epistemic landscape by alien perspectives, conspiracy theorizing may facilitate the reassertion of epistemic autonomy. (shrink)

The main concepts of the free energy (FE) neuroscience developed by Karl Friston and colleagues parallel those of Freud's Project for a Scientific Psychology. In Hobson et al. ( 2014 ) these include an innate virtual reality generator that produces the fictive prior beliefs that Freud described as the primary process. This enables Friston's account to encompass a unified treatment—a complexity theory—of the role of virtual reality in both dreaming and mental disorder. In both accounts the brain operates (...) to minimize FE aroused by sensory impingements—including interoceptive impingements that report compliance with biological imperatives—and constructs a representation/model of the causes of impingement that enables this minimization. In Friston's account (variational) FE equals complexity minus accuracy, and is minimized by increasing accuracy and decreasing complexity. Roughly the brain (or model) increases accuracy together with complexity in waking. This is mediated by consciousness-creating active inference—by which it explains sensory impingements in terms of perceptual experiences of their causes. In sleep it reduces complexity by processes that include both synaptic pruning and consciousness/virtual reality/dreaming in REM. The consciousness-creating active inference that effects complexity-reduction in REM dreaming must operate on FE-arousing data distinct from sensory impingement. The most relevant source is remembered arousals of emotion, both recent and remote, as processed in SWS and REM on “active systems” accounts of memory consolidation/reconsolidation. Freud describes these remembered arousals as condensed in the dreamwork for use in the conscious contents of dreams, and similar condensation can be seen in symptoms. Complexity partly reflects emotional conflict and trauma. This indicates that dreams and symptoms are both produced to reduce complexity in the form of potentially adverse (traumatic or conflicting) arousals of amygdala-related emotions. Mental disorder is thus caused by computational complexity together with mechanisms like synaptic pruning that have evolved for complexity-reduction; and important features of disorder can be understood in these terms. Details of the consilience among Freudian, systems consolidation, and complexity-reduction accounts appear clearly in the analysis of a single fragment of a dream, indicating also how complexity reduction proceeds by a process resembling Bayesian model selection. (shrink)

This essay elucidates special features of I Eonjeok’s Jungyong gugyeong yeonui and Yeonui byeoljip, mainly in comparison with Zhu Xi’s interpretation of the Zhongyong. It also explores the significance of these two works in I Eonjeok’s entire thoughts on Confucian classics. I Eonjeok understands the Daxue in accordance with Neo-Confucianism, especially when he regards the investigation of the principle [窮理] as the precondition for correcting the mind [正心]. In addition, he interprets ‘one’ [一] as the sincerity [誠] of the (...) way of Heaven and discusses it in the context of the theory of the heavenly principle and human desire [天理人欲論]. I Eonjeok understands that reverence [敬], one of the core concepts of Neo-Confucian moral cultivation, is in line with sincerity and the sagely mind. In the Jungyong gugyeong yeonui, I Eonjeok emphasizes the Nine Rules [九經] of the Zhongyong as the key principles on which one governs the world. He believes that one can fulfil this task through sincerity, and as a way of cultivation, he recommends the investigation of things, expansion of knowledge, sincerity, and correcting the mind [格致誠正] instructed in the Daxue. According to him, sincerity is construed as the way of Heaven and the King can observe the Nine Rules by getting a firm grasp of the way of Heaven. The Jungyong gugyeong yeonui was intended to be presented to the King; therefore, it exhibits strong characteristics as the disciplines of kingship [帝王學]. The Jungyong gugyeong yeonui and Yeonui byeoljip, both of which explain the Nine Rules, provide complementary explanations to each other. I Eonjeok interprets Confucius’ saying that the King should appoint a person who has the virtue of cherishing people's lives as emphasizing that the King is able to benefit the people with pity only when he is assisted by the subject with this virtue. He stresses the significance of appointing the prime minister and other ministers from the perspective of the disciplines of kingship. In addition, he believes that fortune or misfortune from Heaven depends on whether the King has consistent virtue or not. I Eonjeok is under the influence of Zhu Xi’s Neo-Confucianism in that he contrasts the heavenly principle and human desire when discussing the virtue of the King. Besides, his interpretation of the Nine Rules is deemed as the disciplines of kingship in that he underlines the pure mind of the King. (shrink)

In this impressive second edition of Theory of Knowledge, Keith Lehrer introduces students to the major traditional and contemporary accounts of knowing. Beginning with the traditional definition of knowledge as justified true belief, Lehrer explores the truth, belief, and justification conditions on the way to a thorough examination of foundation theories of knowledge,the work of Platinga, externalism and naturalized epistemologies, internalism and modern coherence theories, contextualism, and recent reliabilist and causal theories. Lehrer gives all views careful examination and (...) concludes that external factors must be matched by appropriate internal factors to yield knowledge. This match of internal and external factors follows from Lehrer’s new coherence theory of undefeated justification. In addition to doing justice to the living epistemological traditions, the text smoothly integrates several new lines that will interest scholars. Also, a feature of special interest is Lehrer’s concept of a justification game.This second edition of Theory of Knowledge is a thoroughly revised and updated version that contains several completely new chapters. Written by a well-known scholar and contributor to modern epistemology, this text is distinguished by clarity of structure, accessible writing, and an elegant mix of traditional material, contemporary ideas, and well-motivated innovation. (shrink)

In a brief section of The Theory of Moral Sentiments that has often been overlooked, we find a fascinating discussion of the phenomenon of moral luck. This article argues that Adam Smith’s discussion is important for two reasons: first, for what it tells us about the role our psychology, including some of its more ‘irregular’ features, plays in allowing us to reap the benefits of social cooperation and, second, for the novel solution it suggests to the problem of (...) moral luck. (shrink)

The goal of this essay is to analyse the influence of Johann Bernhard Basedow and Rousseau on Kant’s cosmopolitanism and concept of cosmopolitan education. It argues that both Basedow and Kant defined cosmopolitan education as non-denominational moral formation or Bildung, encompassing—in different forms—a thin version of moral religion following the core tenets of Christianity. Kant’s encounter with Basedow and the Philanthropinum in Dessau helps to understand the development of Kant’s concept of cosmopolitanism and educational theory ‘in weltbürgerlicher (...) Absicht’. Rousseau’s role is more complex: he clearly influenced Kant; he is usually considered a precursor of modern nationalism and national education; and recent studies have stressed the cosmopolitan dimension of his educational programme. I claim that the dilemma of education according to Rousseau is that one has to choose between education of homme or education of citoyen, and that there is no way to avoid or go beyond this stark alternative. Kant’s reinterpretation of Rousseau is favourable and creative and has found many followers up to the present, but is misleading, as he ignores the dilemma and imposes his own conception of cosmopolitanism, of cosmopolitan education and of (possible) progress in history on Rousseau while claiming that this was actually Rousseau’s message. (shrink)

Constructivism has been a key referent for research into the learning of science for several decades. There is little doubt that the research into learners’ ideas in science stimulated by the constructivist movement has been voluminous, and a great deal is now known about the way various science topics may commonly be understood by learners of various ages. Despite this significant research effort, there have been serious criticisms of this area of work: in terms of its philosophical underpinning, the validity (...) of its most popular constructs, the limited scope of its focus, and its practical value to science teaching. This paper frames this area of work as a Lakatosian Research Programme (RP), and explores the major criticisms of constructivism from that perspective. It is argued that much of the criticism may be considered as part of the legitimate academic debate expected within any active RP, i.e. arguments about the auxiliary theory making up the ‘protective belt’ of the programme. It is suggested that a shifting focus from constructivism to ‘contingency in learning’ will allow the RP to draw upon a more diverse range of perspectives, each consistent with the existing hard core of the programme, which will provide potentially fruitful directions for future work and ensure the continuity of a progressive RP into learning science. (shrink)

This article argues that productive work represents a mode of human flourishing unfortunately neglected in much current political theorizing. Focusing on Habermasian critical theory, I contend that Habermas’s dualist theory of society, with its underpinning distinction between communicative and instrumental reason, excludes work and the economy from ethical reflection. To avoid this uncritical turn, we need a concept of work that retains a core emancipatory referent. This, I claim, is provided by Alasdair MacIntyre’s notion of ‹practice’. The (...) notion of ‹practice’ is␣significant in suggesting an alternative conception of human productivity that is neither purely instrumental nor purely communicative, but rather both simultaneously: a form of activity which issues in material products and yet presumes a community of workers engaged in intersubjective self-transformation. However, we can endorse MacIntyre’s notion of ‹practice’ only if we reject his totalizing anti-modernism and insist on the emancipatory potentialities of modern institutions. (shrink)

Schmitt's study provides strong support for sexual strategies theory (Buss & Schmitt 1993) – that men and women both have evolved a complex menu of mating strategies, selectively deployed depending on personal, social, and ecological contexts. It also simultaneously refutes social structural theories founded on the core premise that women and men are sexually monomorphic in their psychology of human mating. Further progress depends on identifying evolved psychological design features sensitive to the costs and benefits of pursuing (...) each strategy from the menu, which vary across mating milieus. These design features, like many well-documented mating adaptations, are likely to be highly sex-differentiated. (shrink)

One of the hallmarks of Kantian philosophy, especially in connection with its characterization of scientific knowledge, is the importance of unity, a theme that is also the driving force behind a good deal of contemporary high energy physics. There are a variety of ways that unity figures in modern science—there is unity of method where the same kinds of mathematical techniques are used in different sciences, like physics and biology; the search for unified theories like the unification of electromagnetism and (...) optics by Maxwell; and, more recently, the project of grand unification or the quest for a theory of everything which involves a reduction of the four fundamental forces under the umbrella of a single theory. In this latter case it is thought that when energies are high enough, the forces , while very different in strength, range and the types of particles on which they act, become one and the same force. The fact that these interactions are known to have many underlying mathematical features in common suggests that they can all be described by a unified field theory. Such a theory describes elementary particles in terms of force fields which further unifies all the interactions by treating particles and interactions in a technically and conceptually similar way. It is this theoretical framework that allows for the prediction that measurements made at a certain energy level will supposedly indicate that there is only one type of force. In other words, not only is there an ontological reduction of the forces themselves but the mathematical framework used to describe the fields associated with these forces facilitates their description in a unified theory. Specific types of symmetries serve an important function in establishing these kinds of unity, not only in the construction of quantum field theories but also in the classification of particles; classifications that can lead to new predictions and new ways of understanding properties like quantum numbers. Hence, in order to address issues about unification and reduction in contemporary physics we must also address the way that symmetries facilitate these processes. (shrink)

Continuing Keith Ward's series on comparative religion, this book deals with religious views of human nature and destiny. The beliefs of six major traditions are presented: the view of Advaita Vedanta that there is one Supreme Self, unfolding into the illusion of individual existence; the Vaishnava belief that there is an infinite number of souls, whose destiny is to be released from material embodiment; the Buddhist view that there is no eternal Self; the Abrahamic belief that persons are essentially (...) embodied souls; and the materialistic position that persons are complex material organisms. Indian ideas of rebirth, karma, and liberation from samsara are critically analysed and compared with semitic belief in the intermediate state of Sheol, Purgatory or Paradise, the Final Judgement and the resurrection of the body. The impact of scientific theories of cosmic and biological evolution on religious beliefs is assessed, and a form of 'soft emergent materialism' is defended, with regard to the soul. In this context, a Christian doctrine of original sin and atonement is presented, stressing the idea of soterial, as opposed to forensic, justice. Finally, a Christian view of personal immortality and the 'end of all things' is developed in conversation with Jewish and Muslim beliefs about judgement and resurrection. (shrink)

Inheritance and variation were a major focus of Charles Darwin’s studies. Small inherited variations were at the core of his theory of organic evolution by means of natural selection. He put forward a developmental theory of heredity (pangenesis) based on the assumption of the existence of material hereditary particles. However, unlike his proposition of natural selection as a new mechanism for evolutionary change, Darwin’s highly speculative and contradictory hypotheses on heredity were unfruitful for further research. They attempted (...) to explain many complex biological phenomena at the same time, disregarded the then modern developments in cell theory, and were, moreover, faithful to the widespread conceptions of blending and so-called Lamarckian inheritance. In contrast, Mendel’s approaches, despite the fact that features of his ideas were later not found to be tenable, proved successful as the basis for the development of modern genetics. Mendel took the study of the transmission of traits and its causes (genetics) out of natural history; by reducing complexity to simple particulate models, he transformed it into a scientific field of research. His scientific approach and concept of discrete elements (which later gave rise to the notion of discrete genes) also contributed crucially to the explanation of the existence of stable variations as the basis for natural selection. (shrink)

This chapter argues that Hegel is a major (albeit unrecognized) epistemologist: Hegel’s Introduction provides the key to his phenomenological method by showing that the Pyrrhonian Dilemma of the Criterion refutes traditional coherentist and foundationalist theories of justification. Hegel then solves this Dilemma by analyzing the possibility of constructive self- and mutual criticism. ‘Sense Certainty’ provides a sound internal critique of ‘knowledge by acquaintance’, thus undermining a key tenet of Concept Empiricism, a view Hegel further undermines by showing that a series (...) of non-logical a priori concepts must be used to identify any particular object of experience. Most importantly, Hegel justifies a semantics of singular cognitive reference with important anti-skeptical implications. ‘Perception’ extends Hegel’s criticism Concept Empiricism by exposing the inadequacy of Modern theories of perception (and also sense data theories) which lack a tenable concept of the identity of perceptible things. Hegel demonstrates that this concept is a priori and integrates two counterposed sub-concepts, ‘unity’ and ‘plurality’. Hegel’s examination of this concept reveals his clear awareness of what is now called the ‘binding problem’ in neurophysiology of perception, a problem only very recently noticed by epistemologists. ‘Force and Understanding’ exposes a fatal equivocation in the traditional concept of substance which thwarts our understanding of force and causal interaction. Hegel’s disambiguation of that concept enables us to comprehend how relations can be essential to physical particulars. Hegel contends that Newtonian universal gravitation shows that gravitational relations are essential to physical particulars, and he criticizes a series of attempts—including the infamous ‘inverted world’—to avoid this conclusion. Hegel’s cognitive semantics supports Newton’s Fourth Rule of philosophizing, which rejects mere logical possibilities as counter-examples to empirical hypotheses. This is an important anti-Cartesian, also anti-empiricist, insight. Finally, Hegel’s cognitive semantics reveals a previously unnoticed link between Pyrrhonian and Cartesian skepticism and empiricist anti-realism about causality within philosophy of science: all three appeal to premises, hypotheses, or counter-examples which, as mere logical possibilities, lack in principle fully determinate, cognitively legitimate meaning. ‘Consciousness’ thus establishes basic principles and features of human cognition to which Hegel returns throughout the Phenomenology. The chapter concludes by summarizing Hegel’s over-arching epistemological analysis in the Phenomenology. (shrink)

In this book, Morrison discusses the process of aesthetic education, as defined by Johann Joachim Winckelmann on the basis of his status as arbiter of classical taste and as applied to his teaching of two pupils. Morrison identifies the key features of Winckelmann's treatment of classical beauty and elucidates how Winckelmann taught the appreciation of beauty. He argues that Winckelmann's practice of aesthetic education fell short of his aesthetic theory. Morrison concludes by looking at Goethe's aesthetic self-education, which (...) was strongly influenced by Winckelmann. (shrink)

The paper is an attempt to connect the primary concerns of an extensionalist to a solution to the problems raised by the apparent intensionality of contents involving the propositional attitudes. The author begins with an overview of what the extensionalist is, At bottom, Committed to ("hard-Core extensionalism") and its connection with a theory of truth. He considers the attitude of belief as generating problems for such commitments and rejects various solutions to these problems. He outlines a proposal which (...) may be viewed as both consistent with hard-Core extensionalism and our intuitions about belief. The account shares features with fodor's and field's accounts of belief. (shrink)

This paper is intended as an extension to some of the recent discussion in the philosophical literature on the nature of experimental evidence. In particular I examine the role of empirical evidence attained through the use of deductions from phenomena. This approach to theory construction has been widely used throughout the history of science both by Newton and Einstein as well as Clerk Maxwell. I discuss a particular formulation of maxwell's electrodynamics, one he claims was deduced from experimental facts. (...) However, the deduction is problematic in that it is not immediately clear that one of the crucial parameters of the theory, the displacement current, can be given an empirical foundation. In outlining Maxwell's argument and his attempts to arrive on an empirically based account of the electromagnetic field equations I draw attention to the philosophical implications of the constraints on theory that arise in this particular case of deduction from phenomena. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 64.4 (2003) 599-618 [Access article in PDF] The "Herbert Butterfield Problem" and its Resolution Keith C. Sewell Dordt College Herbert Butterfield (1900-1979) 1 published The Whig Interpretation of History in 1931, a year after he became a Lecturer in the University of Cambridge. 2 He became Professor of Modern History in the university in 1944, the same year in which he published (...) The Englishman and His History. 3 This discussion addresses what J.G.A. Pocock referred to as das Herbert Butter-fieldproblem—that is, the problem of ascertaining the precise relationship between the arguments presented in these volumes. 4The Whig Interpretation of History of 1931 (hereafter, The Whig Interpretation) was a sustained critique of the motivation, methods and fallacious conclusions of the "Whig" practice of staging historiographical narratives anachronistically so as to produce a ratification of the present, or justification of a position currently espoused by the author. 5 The term "Whig," as Butterfield used it in 1931, referred to the nineteenth-century school of historiography that praised "progress," "protestantism," and "liberty" and that generally attributed the triumph of such principles to the beliefs and activities of generations of Whig politicians. 6 [End Page 599]The Whig Interpretation argued that the judgments concerning both progressive and reactionary individuals and movements in Whig historiography were anachronistic, in that they were based on general propositions held by the Whig historian in the present. To correct this error Butterfield argued that historiography should not be based upon any general propositions. Basing historiographical narratives on general propositions purporting to be of universal and unchanging validity was seen as inevitably placing them on an anachronistic basis. In The Whig Interpretation Butterfield required the historian to represent past "life itself " but to avoid doing so on the basis of a view or "interpretation" of past human experience and action. Historiographical narration should be free of any interpretative standpoint and equally open to any possible subsequent interpretation. For Butterfield "the historian carries us away from the world of general ideas. It is not for him to give a philosophical explanation of what happens in time and space"; "any history that he writes ought to be as capable of varied philosophical interpretation as life itself seems to be... the historian's explanation... is not a piece of general reasoning," and "if at any point we need further elucidation all that he can do is to take us into greater detail." 7 It seems appropriate to refer to this as Butterfield's "neutrality postulate." Butterfield subsequently used the term "technical history" to denote this methodological concept. 8As might be expected, such a neutrality postulate was replete with problems, however valid Butterfield's strictures towards Whig historiographical anachronism. How is the historian to abridge for the purposes of narration and explanation without interpreting? Butterfield argued that we are right to demand of the historian that "he shall not change the meaning and purport of the historical story in the mere act of abridging it." No theory should intrude. As the detailed complexity is abridged, there should be no loss of "the purport and tenor of the whole." 9 Abridgment was to be accomplished without interpretative perspective, even though sympathy and imagination are indispensable. 10 Such was Butterfield's prescribed antidote. Yet the exercise he recommended requires more than a specific statement of the concrete, the individual, and the particular. It also requires a general idea of the "meaning" of "the whole" that the historian is called upon not to distort. Indeed, Butterfield drew attention to the basis of his historical thinking when he asserted that while historical research does not provide proof of the existence of a providential order, it nevertheless provides evidence of how profound and mysterious are its workings. 11In The Whig Interpretation no attempt was made to reconcile the advocacy of a non-interpretative neutrality dealing exclusively with the individual, the [End Page 600] concrete and the particular, and Butterfield's actual belief in a providential order to which the historical process is subject. After 1931... (shrink)

This book features more than 20 papers that celebrate the work of Hajnal Andréka and István Németi. It illustrates an interaction between developing and applying mathematical logic. The papers offer new results as well as surveys in areas influenced by these two outstanding researchers. They also provide details on the after-life of some of their initiatives. Computer science connects the papers in the first part of the book. The second part concentrates on algebraic logic. It features a range (...) of papers that hint at the intricate many-way connections between logic, algebra, and geometry. The third part explores novel applications of logic in relativity theory, philosophy of logic, philosophy of physics and spacetime, and methodology of science. They include such exciting subjects as time travelling in emergent spacetime. The short autobiographies of Hajnal Andréka and István Németi at the end of the book describe an adventurous journey from electric engineering and Maxwell’s equations to a complex system of computer programs for designing Hungary’s electric power system, to exploring and contributing deep results to Tarskian algebraic logic as the deepest core theory of such questions, then on to applications of the results in such exciting new areas as relativity theory in order to rejuvenate logic itself. (shrink)

This dissertation reassesses the complex philosophical relationship between Sartre and psychoanalysis. Most scholarship on this topic focuses on Sartre’s criticisms of the unconscious as anathema both to his conception of the human psyche as devoid of any hidden depths or mental compartments and, correlatively, his account of human freedom. Many philosophers conclude that there is little common ground between Sartrean existentialism and psychoanalytic theory. I argue, on the contrary, that by shifting the emphasis from concerns about the nature of (...) the unconscious to questions about the role of imagination in psychical life, we can see that Sartre and Freudian-Lacanian psychoanalytic theory develop strikingly similar accounts of human subjectivity. After establishing the historical background of Sartre’s career-long engagement with psychoanalysis, I demonstrate the proximity of Sartre and Lacan on the nature of unconscious thought. I proceed to develop the claim that there is a homology between the concept of unconscious fantasy in psychoanalysis and the concept of the imaginary in Sartre’s philosophical corpus. Despite the concept of fantasy being one of the more structuralist-inspired aspects of Lacan’s metapsychology, I show that Sartre’s concept of the imaginary is likewise a structural feature of the psyche, one which establishes the coordinates within which the subject engages with the world. For Sartre, Freud, and Lacan fantasies form the core of subjectivity, giving form to the basic patterns of one’s character. Taken together, these three thinkers furnish a nuanced view of fantasy/the imaginary. On the one hand it is determining insofar as it is responsible for many of the psychopathologies met with in psychoanalysis. On the other hand, it is liberating insofar as the agency of the subject is implicated in the formation of fantasy. I thereby show that Sartre does not fit the caricatured picture of a radical voluntarist that is often attributed to him and that psychoanalysis can accommodate a conception of human freedom. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Inspiration and Institution in John of Rupescissa's Liber Ostensor XI1Graziana S. CiolaIntroductionThe present study proposes a philosophical analysis of John of Rupescissa's Liber Ostensor [=LO], Treatise XI. John of Rupescissa (OFM, 1310 ca. – 1366)2 is a particularly interesting, eclectic and somewhat extraordinary [End Page 7] author writing around the second third of the 14th century in the wake of the Spiritual Franciscan movement in the South of France.3 (...) In LO XI, Rupescissa theorizes and systematically articulates a complex relationship between inspired knowledge and the normative portrait of what he believes the Franciscan Order should ideally be; he does so against the background of his eschatological concerns. Per Rupescissa's style of exposition and argumentation, these different elements — i.e., inspired epistemology, eschatology, and ecclesiology — are tightly intertwined on a theoretical and foundational level that goes beyond that of mere rhetorics.These themes are both recurrent and pivotal throughout Rupescissa's extremely prolific intellectual output, which counts numerous theological, ecclesiological, eschatological and alchemical treatises.4 LO, composed in [End Page 8] 1356 during Rupescissa's own "Avignon Captivity," is in many ways a sum of Rupescissa's prophetical and eschatological thought within the framing of the author's self-apologetic aims and of his ecclesiological views, in particular concerning the future of the Franciscan Order.5 [End Page 9]Treatise XI is undoubtedly the most theoretical book in LO; with its 489 paragraphs, it is also the longest. While this extremely dense text broaches on a great variety of topics, it is first and foremost about and for Spiritual Franciscans. Overall, LO XI is both a great portrayal of the Franciscan order as it is and as it should be, as well as a handbook addressed to the elect among the Spirituals, in order to help them face the eschaton and the tribulations to come. Per Rupescissa's eschatological views, such trials would affect the Franciscan Order the hardest and for the longest — hence the need for a detailed guide. At its core, then, LO XI is a deeply ecclesiological treatise and as such it is complementary to the larger systematization established in the Sexdequiloquium.6 It is in this framework that LO XI offers a complex theory of prophecy and illuminative knowledge as they should be embodied in the practices of a true Franciscan.7Given its highly abstract nature and cardinal function within one the most complex works of Rupescissa's maturity, LO XI, combining relevant insights on Rupescissa's ecclesiological, epistemological and prophetical positions, constitutes the ideal case study in order to assess Rupescissa's most refined and articulated account on inspired knowledge, particularly insofar as true and actual prophecy is concerned. This inspired knowledge, according to Rupescissa, is an indispensable tool for the elect to be able to victoriously face the imminent end of times. In the account presented in LO XI, such knowledge is possible exclusively through a form of institutional embedding: divine inspiration, culminating in true prophecy, is in service of the Franciscan Order's soteriological role within the Church as a whole, and can only be achieved by those who are faithful to the spirit of Francis's Rule.8 [End Page 10]Here, I analyze Rupescissa's theory of evangelical poverty and its role as a necessary condition for inspired knowledge, following the internal articulation of LO XI.Overall, in Rupescissa's view, Franciscan poverty and inspiration are two inseparable sides of the same coin. On the one hand, inspired knowledge is only achievable through a rigorous practice and thorough understanding of Franciscan poverty. On the other hand, the true institutional role of the Franciscan Order and its soteriological aims can be fulfilled exclusively by the true Spiritual Franciscans, whose moral, spiritual and epistemic perfection is divinely inspired. For Rupescissa, not only is poverty the source of all virtues both for the Franciscan Order and for the rest of the Church, but it also constitutes the ideal moral and social model, tout court. But most importantly, evangelical poverty has a genuinely epistemic role; this role is essential for Rupescissa's illuminative epistemology and for his account of prophetical exegesis — or exegetical prophecy. In turn, the... (shrink)

The paper defends an interactive theory of the distinctiveness of criminal law. It argues that criminal law’s distinctive behavior can be connected to the interaction between five traits: it is an institutional practice administered by a large and special bureaucracy, playing a substantial role in authorizing the use of coercive police force, leading to a harsh sanctioning regime linked, at least in part, with core wrongs and notions of personal responsibility. Although none of these features is exclusive (...) to criminal law, their interaction leads to modes of behavior that set it apart from other institutions. The paper argues that putting attention on the effects of this interaction provides us with powerful tools to both understand and asses the value and problems of criminal law. (shrink)

This essay examines Deleuze’s relation to new materialism through an engagement with new materialist claims about the human and nonhuman relation and about agency. It first considers the work of Elisabeth Grosz and then moves on to a consideration of Deleuze’s own conception of a new materialism/new naturalism. I seek to show that Deleuze is an ethically motivated naturalist concerned with an ethical pedagogy of the human, which he derives from his reading of Spinoza. I seek to illuminate some of (...) the principal features of this ethically guided materialism/naturalism and show that even in his later work with Felix Guattari, which situates all life, human and nonhuman, on a plane of immanence, there remains a recognition that the human animal is ethically distinguished as the inventive species par excellence. My main claim, then, is that Deleuze’s project cannot be aligned with a new materialism that supposes a flat ontology and that does away with an ethical distinction between the human and the nonhuman. Although Deleuze bequeaths a complex legacy to post-modern thought in his thinking about the human, it should not be supposed that he has no affinities with aspects of a humanist position and pedagogy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.4 (2002) 697-716 [Access article in PDF] "La Mère Humanité":Femininity in the Romantic Socialism of Pierre Leroux and the Abbé A.-L. Constant Naomi J. Andrews Humanity, my mother, since you have led me, by so many paths, to conceive this design, support me, inspire me, affirm me. —Pierre Leroux, "Invocation to my Muse." 1It was during the July Monarchy in France, in the (...) era immediately preceding the Revolution of 1848, that the ideology we call socialism became more than an abstraction held by isolated intellectuals and conspirators. 2 A series of individuals, loose-knit associations, and more formal écoles were active during the 1830s and 1840s, developing a varied agenda of social reform, economic cooperation, or association, mystical Christianity, and women's liberation. Roughly lumped under the pejorative rubric of utopian socialism, and perhaps more accurately called romantic socialism, this movement was ultimately unsuccessful in achieving its diverse goals, but contributed significantly to the political discourse of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. 3Socialism at this stage of its development overlapped in many ways with republicanism, both being, to quote one historian of the latter, "an amalgam of responses to the Enlightenment, the 1789 Revoluation and above all economic [End Page 697] change." 4 Many early socialists were also republicans, and socialist ideas influenced the ideology articulated by republicans such as Alexandre Ledru-Rollin and Auguste Blanqui. Louis Blanc, perhaps the best-known socialist of the decade surrounding the 1848 revolution, was and is known as a Jacobin socialist. 5From a certain perspective republicanism and socialism shared common origins and assumptions during the July Monarchy. Most socialists had come out of the political milieu of republicanism, whether through the carbonarist movement, opposition political clubs such as Droits de l'Homme and Les Amis du Peuple, or through the influential journalism trade of the Bourbon Restoration and early July Monarchy. Pierre Leroux, for one, had been a co-founder of the widely read journal le Globe, a bastion of liberalism, which he later turned over to the Saint-Simonians upon his conversion to their "church." 6 Although diverse in many ways, the left of this era did share certain core tenets, chief among them opposition to the Orleanist monarchy and, to varying degrees the belief in more democratic rule of the French nation.To say this, however, might erroneously imply a unity that was certainly not a feature of socialism during this period. In fact socialism, despite its near mystical devotion to ideas of unity, was anything but singular during its pre-Marxian phase. The spectrum of socialist thinkers and groups ranged widely. Standing closest to the republicans in their beliefs about politics and the revolutionary tradition were Jacobin socialists, most usually associated with Louis Blanc. Blanc and others articulated a social philosophy that sought "to unite two distinct ideologies: Jacobin democracy and co-operative socialism." 7 Thus Jacobin socialism combined republican political priorities and commitment to national political processes in general and to a centralized state in particular with attention to economic change, to reforming the distribution process along more equitable lines and to putting the situation of working people at the center of political change. In this goal Jacobin socialism reflected, as did other strains of socialism, the economic instability of the era and the emergence of an organized working class movement which followed the aborted revolution of 1830. 8At the other end of the spectrum one might put the Saint-Simonians and the Fourierist École Sociétaire. 9 Vehemently anti-republican, these groups shared [End Page 698] very little with the Jacobin socialists, other than a certain concern with the emerging working class, one of the few consistent features of early socialism. Unlike Jacobin socialists, these groups focused their theories of community at a very low level, having a strongly utopian component to their thinking. As a result, they tended to see national politics as irrelevant to the situation of ordinary people and even as a... (shrink)

This collection of twenty essays, of which five are in French, written by leading English and French literary and historical scholars, deconstructs the ethical and political framework supporting and circumscribing the actions of a powerful elite in France between the early 1600s and the final years of Louis XIV's reign. Reflecting a diversity of individual concerns, the essays, which offer a radical double questioning of the absolute values in which were founded the authority of Church, King and nobility, have been (...) divided into two interrelated parts in acknowledgement of the complex tensions between codes of behaviour and political practice in the different theatrical spaces of government in the real and imaginary world. The dual political and moral theme of this study is not new, but it is one which has always been highly regarded by historians and literary specialists alike. It is in fact one of the 'classics' of seventeenth-century studies, the one to which critics must always return, and to which students must always address themselves, if they are to comprehend the intellectual core of seventeenth-century French studies. (shrink)

The proliferation of AI systems across all domains of life as well as the complexification and opacity of algorithmic techniques, epitomised by the bourgeoning field of Deep Learning (DL), call for new methods in the Humanities for reflecting on the techno-human relation in a way that places the technical operation at its core. Grounded on the work of the philosopher of technology Gilbert Simondon, this paper puts forward individuation theory as a valuable approach to reflect on contemporary information (...) technologies, offering an analysis of the functioning of deep neural networks (DNNs), a type of data-driven computational models at the core of major breakthroughs in AI. The purpose of this article is threefold: (1) to demonstrate how a joint reading of Simondon’s mechanology and individuation theory, foregrounded in the Simondonian concept of information, can cast new light on contemporary algorithmic techniques by considering their situated emergence as opposed to technical lineage; (2) to suspend a predictive framing of AI systems, particularly DL techniques, so as to probe into their technical operation, accounting for the data-driven individuation of these models and the integration of potentials as functionality; and finally, (3) to argue that individuation theory might in fact de-individuate AI, in the sense of disassembling the already-there, the constituted, paving the way for questioning the potentialities for data and their algorithmic relationality to articulate the unfolding of everyday life. (shrink)

Quantum indistinguishability directly relates to the philosophical debate on the notions of identity and individuality. They are crucial for our understanding of multipartite quantum systems. Furthermore, the correct interpretation of this feature of quantum theory has implications that transcend fundamental science and philosophy, given that quantum indistinguishability is a resource in quantum information theory. Most of the conceptual analysis of quantum indistinguishability is restricted to studying the permutational invariance of quantum states, the concomitant quantum statistics and their entanglement. (...) Here, we analyse the role of indistinguishability and non-individuality in other areas of quantum theory. We start by analysing how a very peculiar use of indistinguishability underlies Feynman’s rules for summing amplitudes in interference phenomena. Next, we study how quantum indistinguishability is underestimated in several topics of debate in the quantum physics literature, such as the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen argument, Bell’s inequalities and the Bell–Kochen–Specker theorem. Finally, we argue that an ontology of truly indistinguishable entities can serve as a basis for a quantum ontology that can give interesting answers to the interpretational problems of quantum mechanics. We claim that, in addition to superposition, contextuality and entanglement, indistinguishability (understood in a robust ontological sense) is one of the central features of quantum physics. -/- . (shrink)

Scientific understanding as a subject of inquiry has become widely discussed in philosophy of science and is often addressed through case studies from history of science. Even though these historical reconstructions engage with details of scientific practice, they usually provide only limited information about the gradual formation of understanding in ongoing processes of model and theory construction. Based on a qualitative ethnographic study of an ecological research project, this article shifts attention from understanding in the context of historical case (...) studies to evidence of current case studies. By taking de Regt’s contextual theory of scientific understanding into the field, it confirms core tenets of the contextual theory suggesting a normative character with respect to scientific activities. However, the case study also shows the limitations of de Regt’s latest version of this theory as an attempt to explain the development of understanding in current practice. This article provides a model representing the emergence of scientific understanding that exposes main features of scientific understanding such as its gradual formation, its relation to skills and imagination, and its capacity for knowledge selectivity. The ethnographic evidence presented here supports the claim that something unique can be learned by looking into ongoing research practices that can’t be gained by studying historical case studies. (shrink)

The Ethics of Teaching provides a frank discussion of the most frequently encountered ethical dilemmas that can arise in educational settings, as well as tips on how to avoid these predicaments and how to deal with them when they do occur. The goal is to stimulate discussion and raise faculties' consciousness about ethical issues. Ethical dilemmas are presented as short, engaging case scenarios, most of which are based on actual situations, so as to furnish more realistic and interesting stimuli for (...) individual reflection and group discussion. These scenarios offer the opportunity to consider the subtle complexities inherent in the social and psychological contexts in which educator-student interactions occur and the effects of those complexities on ethical decision making. Each case is followed by a detailed analysis and advice. The book's 195 cases are grouped into 22 chapters representing topics, such as the controversial classroom presentations and assignments, debatable testing and grading practices, problematic student-faculty interactions, dual-role relationships with students, collegial conflicts, managing very difficult students, and confidentiality dilemmas. The Ethics of Teaching: A Casebook, Second Edition: *focuses on commonly encountered ethical "gray areas" that have no clear solution; *includes questions to stimulate discussion of related ethical issues; *concludes with a chapter on prevention, peer mentoring, and intervention; and *serves as excellent "assigned reading" to stimulate group discussion in teaching workshops and faculty development programs. The first edition of this book evolved by collecting a variety of teaching situations that commonly occur in college and university settings. The authors then created responses to the situations and circulated both the cases and the responses to reviewers from a number of departments across the country. As a result, the vast majority of the cases are "discipline free." The second edition features many new cases to reflect recent trends and events related to academic ethics. Questions were added to stimulate discussion and to further elaborate the issues. The Ethics of Teaching: A Casebook is ideal for college and university faculty, graduate assistants, and administrators involved in workshops, graduate teaching assistant courses, and faculty development and new faculty orientation programs. As a result of the book's cross-disciplinary development, it will be beneficial to faculty from a broad spectrum of disciplines. (shrink)

In this thesis, I investigate realist, anti-realist and pluralist views in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of complexity. The philosophy of science can inform the philosophy of complexity and vice versa because we can consider scientific inquiry to largely involve the study of complex systems. I however find that the relevant realist, anti-realist and pluralist views are problematic in various ways, and that a version of pragmatism suggests a promising alternative. This version of pragmatism incorporates elements (...) of pluralism, but maintains a commitment to epistemic hierarchy, convergence and progress. The way to develop such a version of pragmatism is, I argue, by rebooting William Whewell’s 19th century philosophy of science. Whewell however held to the following two transcendental claims: 1. Empirical inquiry undertaken in science properly practiced can reveal necessary truths. 2. The revelation of such necessary truths grants us a glimpse of the mind of God. Such transcendental claims are obviously at odds with pragmatism. There are however core features of Whewell’s view that are notably pragmatist in nature, features that explicitly inspired Charles Sanders Piece’s convergent pragmatism. These are as follows: 3. Subject and object (or mind and world) are inextricably entwined during scientific inquiry; they are not separated by anything like a correspondence relationship. 4. Science progresses via what Whewell calls the consilience of inductions (an ongoing merging of scientific theories, a merging that increases our understanding of the world over time). I modify Whewell’s view by stripping away its transcendental elements while maintaining its pragmatist elements. What remains is, I argue, a robust and novel kind of pragmatism suitable for being introduced into the contemporary philosophy of science. Whewell suitably-pragmatised can offer new insights into ongoing debates, particularly those around the nature of scientific progress, scientific truth and scientific understanding. (shrink)

In this book, VP builds upon his previous study by shifting focus from the motivation for the ti esti question, to the motivation for the commitment to what is designated by an adequate and true answer to such questions. VP’s aim in this study is to show that what are usually called ‘Forms’ (eidē), rather than being things that have essences, simply are those essences designated by adequate and true answers to ti esti questions. This book is highly recommended for (...) scholars, students, and anyone wishing to understand the core of Plato’s philosophy and its motivations from the ground upwards. (shrink)

The essays in this collection explore the implications of Alasdair MacIntyre's critique of liberalism, capitalism, and the modern state, his early Marxism, and the complex influences of Marxist ideas on his thought. A central idea is that MacIntyre's political and social theory is a form of revolutionary--not reactionary--Aristotelianism. The contributors aim, in varying degrees, both to engage with the theoretical issues of MacIntyre's critique and to extend and deepen his insights. The book features a new introductory essay by (...) MacIntyre, "How Aristotelianism Can Become Revolutionary," and ends with an essay in which MacIntyre comments on the other authors' contributions. It also includes Kelvin Knight's 1996 essay, "Revolutionary Aristotelianism," which first challenged conservative appropriations of MacIntyre's critique of liberalism by reinterpreting his Aristotelianism through the lens of his earlier engagement with Marx. "This is an excellent collection. Its particular strength is its sustained focus on Alasdair MacIntyre's political thought, in particular MacIntyre's complicated relation and indebtedness to Marxism. In their introduction, the co-editors say that the reception of MacIntyre within political philosophy has largely been reductive and one-sided, namely, that he is simply viewed as a conservative communitarian. In focusing on MacIntyre's radical heritage, this volume helps correct that simplistic misperception. --_Keith Breen, Queen's University Belfast_. (shrink)

Pediatric critical careCritical care refers to the health care of children with life-threatening illness or following major surgery or severe injury. This care is offered in different contexts across the globe. In well-resourced environments, critical careCritical care may be provided in pediatric intensive care units, which provide highly complex medical care with advanced, potentially expensive technological devices aimed primarily at sustaining life; whereas in poorly resourced regions, only primary care may be available for critically ill or injured childrenInjured children. Even (...) where PICU facilities are available, they are a scarce and expensive resource. The knowledge and ability to sustain a critically ill or injured child’sInjured children life, potentially with effects on the child and family’s quality of lifeQuality of life and at the expense of other children’s health care, leads to frequent ethical challenges. Ethical issues related to how best to ensure optimal quality of lifeQuality of life and the fair distribution of scarce resources are common. In-depth knowledge and understanding of the individual patient’s medical, scientific and psychosocial context, through interdisciplinary discussion and collaboration; as well as familiarity with the overriding, relevant ethico-legal policiesPolicy and principles is essential for appropriate decision-makingDecision-making. Truthful communicationCommunication with the family is essential, using a shared decision-makingDecision-making process, and the child’s best interestBest interest must be central to every decision. This chapter presents an overview of the recommended approach to, and important considerations for, ethical decision-makingDecision-making in the PICU, using a hypothetical case example. (shrink)

It was Heine who cynically suggested that Kant introduced the postulates of practical reason to comfort his manservant Lampe. Kant's view of morality is teleological, in that it sees obedience to the moral law as, at the same time, the fulfilment of human perfection. The legislation of the moral law which man himself creates is the true expression of man's autonomy and superiority over the sensuous bounds nature has set him. It is in such legislation that he begins to realise (...) his transcendentally free nature and fulfil himself as a distinctively human person. The law of duty is thus known, practically, as supremely authoritative. An intelligible ethical theory can certainly be extracted from the Kantian metaphysical context. Indeed, his doctrine is so complex that a number of alternative methods of demythologisation present themselves, depending largely upon the interests of the interpreter. (shrink)

Robert Pippin's masterful account of rational agency in Hegel emphasizes important dimensions of freedom and independence, where putative independence is always bound up with a profound dependence on others. This insistence on the complex relationships between freedom, dependence and independence raise an important question that Pippin does not consider: is Hegel a republican? This is especially significant given the fact that modern republicanism has explored this same conceptual terrain. I argue that a form of republicanism is in fact an important (...) aspect of Hegel's theory of freedom, and this should lead us to moderate Pippin's account of the conservative side of Hegel's conception of social dependence. These affinities mean that even if Hegel does not fully endorse contemporary versions of republicanism (such as that of Philip Pettit), he shares core features of the republican view of domination and freedom. In fact, Hegel is a republican to the extent that he shares what Pippin calls ?that noble nineteenth century idea that my freedom depends upon the freedom of others?. Or, to put it in a more directly republican way typical of the eighteenth century, the freedom of each is dependent upon the freedom of all and thus freedom exists only if it is shared. As developed by Pippin, Hegel's conception of shared freedom is inadequate to the extent that it cannot give a full account of the possibilities of domination and dependence in modern institutions, I illustrate this difficulty through examples taken from Hegel's Philosophy of Right, including marriage, markets, and political deliberation. (shrink)