Since the 1970’s there has been a major increase in adventure sports participation but it seems that engagement in such sports comes with a stigma: adventure sports participants are often regarded as reckless ‘daredevils’. We approach the questions about people’s perception of risk and recklessness in adventure sports by combining empirical research with philosophical analysis. First, we provide empirical evidence that suggests that laypeople tend to assess the danger of adventure sports as greater than more mundane sports and judge adventure (...) sports participants as more reckless than participants in non-adventure sports. We contextualise these findings within existing psychological risk perception paradigms and outline new philosophical explanations of the identified pattern in laypeople’s risk perception. (shrink)

Health services internationally struggle to ensure health care is “person-centered” (or similar). In part, this is because there are many interpretations of “person-centered care” (and near synonyms), some of which seem unrealistic for some patients or situations and obscure the intrinsic value of patients’ experiences of health care delivery. The general concern behind calls for person-centered care is an ethical one: Patients should be “treated as persons.” We made novel use of insights from the capabilities approach to characterize person-centered care (...) as care that recognizes and cultivates the capabilities associated with the concept of persons. This characterization unifies key features from previous characterisations and can render person-centered care applicable to diverse patients and situations. By tying person-centered care to intrinsically valuable capability outcomes, it incorporates a requirement for responsiveness to individuals and explains why person-centered care is required independently of any contribution it may make to health gain. (shrink)

Ubiquitous healthcare is an emerging area of technology that uses a large number of environmental and patient sensors and actuators to monitor and improve patients' physical and mental condition. Tiny sensors gather data on almost any physiological characteristic that can be used to diagnose health problems. This technology faces some challenging ethical questions, ranging from the small-scale individual issues of trust and efficacy to the societal issues of health and longevity gaps related to economic status. It presents particular problems in (...) combining developing computer/information/media ethics with established medical ethics. This article describes a practice-based ethics approach, considering in particular the areas of privacy, agency, equity and liability. It raises questions that ubiquitous healthcare will force practitioners to face as they develop ubiquitous healthcare systems. Medicine is a controlled profession whose practise is commonly restricted by government-appointed authorities, whereas computer software and hardware development is notoriously lacking in such regimes. (shrink)

Tigard (2019) suggests that the medical community would benefit from continuing to promote notions of individual responsibility and blame in healthcare settings. In particular, he contends that blame will promote systematic improvement, both on the individual and institutional levels, by increasing the likelihood that the blameworthy party will ‘own up’ to his or her mistake and apologise. While we agree that communicating regret and offering a genuine apology are critical steps to take when addressing patient harm, the idea that medical (...) professionals should continue to ‘take the blame’ for medical errors flies in the face of existing science and threatens to do more harm than good. We contrast Dr Tigard’s approach with the current literature on blame to promote an alternative strategy that may help to create lasting change in the face of unfortunate error. (shrink)

Modal logic is one of the most widely applied logical formalisms. Systems of modal logic are being used in many disciplines, ranging from artificial intelligence, computer science, mathematics, formal grammar and semantics to philosophy. This volume presents substantial recent advances in the relational and the algorithmic treatment of modal logics. It contains papers from the fifth conference on "Advances in Modal logic," held in Manchester (UK) in September 2004. Written by leading experts in the field, the present book is indispensable (...) for any advanced student and researcher in pure and applied modal logic. (shrink)

What could someone represent that would enable her to track, at least within limits, others' perceptions, knowledge states and beliefs including false beliefs? An obvious possibility is that she might represent these very attitudes as such. It is sometimes tacitly or explicitly assumed that this is the only possible answer. However, we argue that several recent discoveries in developmental, cognitive, and comparative psychology indicate the need for other, less obvious possibilities. Our aim is to meet this need by describing the (...) construction of a minimal theory of mind. Minimal theory of mind is rich enough to explain systematic success on tasks held to be acid tests for theory of mind cognition including many false belief tasks. Yet minimal theory of mind does not require representing propositional attitudes, or any other kind of representation, as such. Minimal theory of mind may be what enables those with limited cognitive resources or little conceptual sophistication, such as infants, chimpanzees, scrub-jays and human adults under load, to track others' perceptions, knowledge states and beliefs. (shrink)

In this response to the commentary by Michael and Christensen, we first explain how minimal mindreading is compatible with the development of increasingly sophisticated mindreading behaviours that involve both executive functions and general knowledge, and then sketch one approach to a minimal account of goal ascription.

Human embryonic stem cell research has generated considerable discussion and debate in bioethics. Bioethical discourse tends to focus on the moral status of the embryo as the central issue, however, and it is unclear how much this reflects broader community values and beliefs related to stem cell research. This paper presents the results of a study which aims to identify and classify the issues and arguments that have arisen in public discourse associated with one prominent policy episode in the United (...) States: the 2004 Californian Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative. The findings show that public discourse about Proposition 71 is characterised by a broader range of issues than those usually addressed in scholarly publications and public policy documents. While attention to the moral status of the embryo is an important issue in stem cell research, making it the main focus of public discourse has a polarising effect. This also limits opportunities to identify shared values, understand how political alliances are forged, and develop social consensus. Implications for future research and policy are discussed. (shrink)

Contents: John A. HALL and Ian JARVIE: Preface. John A. HALL and Ian JARVIE: The Life and Times of Ernest Gellner. PART 1 INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND. Ji_i MUSIL: The Prague Roots of Ernest Gellner's Thinking. Chris HANN: Gellner on Malinowski: Words and Things in Central Europe. Tamara DRAGADZE: Ernest Gellner in the Soviet East. PART 2 NATIONS AND NATIONALISM. Brendan O'LEARY: On the Nature of Nationalism: An Appraisal of Ernest Gellner's Writings on Nationalism. Kenneth MINOGUE: Ernest Gellner and the Dangers of (...) Theorising Nationalism. Anthony D. SMITH: History and Modernity: Reflection on the Theory of Nationalism. Michael MANN: The Emergence of Modern European Nationalism. Nicholas STARGARDT: Gellner's Nationalism: The Spirit of Modernisation? PART 3 PATTERNS OF DEVELOPMENT. Peter BURKE: Reflections on the History of Encyclopaedias. Alan MACFARLANE: Ernest Gellner and the Escape to Modernity. Ronald DORE: Sovereign Individuals. Shmuel EISENSTADT: Japan: Non-Axial Modernity. Marc FERRO: l'Indépendance Telescopée: De la Décolonisation a l'Impérialisme Multinational. PART 4 ISLAM. Abdellah HAMMOUDI: Segmentarity, Social Stratification, Political Power and Sainthood: Reflections on Gellner's Theses. Henry MUNSON, Jr.: Rethinking Gellner's Segmentary Analysis of Morocco's Ait cAtta. Jean BAECHLER: Sur le charisme. Charles LINDHOLM: Despotism and Democracy: State and Society in the Premodern Middle East. Henry MUNSON, Jr.: Muslim and Jew in Morocco: Reflections on the Distinction between Belief and Behavior. Talal ASAD: The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam. PART 5 SCIENCE AND DISENCHANTMENT. Perry ANDERSON: Science, Politics, Enchantment. Ralph SCHROEDER: From the Big Divide to the Rubber Cage: Gellner's Conception of Science and Technology. John DAVIS: Irrationality in Social Life. PART 6 RELATIVISM AND UNIVERSALS. John SKORUPSKI: The Post-Modern Hume: Ernest Gellner's 'Enlightenment Fundamentalism'. John WETTERSTEN: Ernest Gellner: A Wittgensteinian Rationalist. Ian JARVIE: Gellner's Positivism. Raymond BOUDON: Relativising Relativism: When Sociology Refutes the Sociology of Science. Rod AYA: The Devil in Social Anthropology; or, the Empiricist Exorcist; or, the Case Against Cultural Relativism. PART 7 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. William MCNEILL: A Swan Song for British Liberalism? Andrus PARK: Gellner and the Long Trends of History. Eero LOONE: Marx, Gellner, Power. Rosaire LANGLOIS: Coercion, Cognition and Production: Gellner's Challenge to Historical Materialism and Postmodernism. Ernest GELLNER: Reply to Critics. Ian JARVIE: Complete Bibliography of Gellner's Work. Name index. Subject index. (shrink)

ABSTRACTPrevious research has outlined high anxiety in connection with gamma modulation, identifying that gamma-band activity correlates with processing of threat perception, attention...

heories of embodied cognition (e.g., Perceptual Symbol Systems Theory; Barsalou, 1999, 2009) suggest that modality specific simulations underlie the representation of concepts. Supporting evidence comes from modality switch costs: participants are slower to verify a property in one modality (e.g., auditory, BLENDER-loud) after verifying a property in a different modality (e.g., gustatory, CRANBERRIES-tart) compared to the same modality (e.g., LEAVES-rustling, Pecher et al., 2003). Similarly, modality switching costs lead to a modulation of the N400 effect in event-related potentials (ERPs; Collins (...) et al., 2011; Hald et al., 2011). This effect of modality switching has also been shown to interact with the veracity of the sentence (Hald et al., 2011). The current ERP study further explores the role of modality match/mismatch on the processing of veracity as well as negation (sentences containing “not”). Our results indicate a modulation in the ERP based on modality and veracity, plus an interaction. The evidence supports the idea that modality specific simula- tions occur during language processing, and furthermore suggest that these simulations alter the processing of negation. (shrink)

This paper offers an overview of the philosophical work on epistemic injustices as it relates to psychiatry. After describing the development of epistemic injustice studies, we survey the existing literature on its application to psychiatry. We describe how the concept of epistemic injustice has been taken up into a range of debates in philosophy of psychiatry, including the nature of psychiatric conditions, psychiatric practices and research, and ameliorative projects. The final section of the paper indicates future directions for philosophical research (...) of epistemic injustices and psychiatry, concerning neurocognitive disorders, identity prejudices in psychiatric illness, concepts of epistemic privilege in psychiatry, and the prospects for combining phenomenological psychopathology and epistemic justice. We argue that much remains to be done in the conceptualization of these epistemic injustices and suggest that this future work should be multidisciplinary in character and sensitive to the phenomenology of psychiatric conditions. (shrink)

This paper offers an analysis of the structure of epistemic vice-charging, the critical practice of charging other persons with epistemic vice. Several desiderata for a robust vice-charge are offered and two deep obstacles to the practice of epistemic vice-charging are then identified and discussed. The problem of responsibility is that few of us enjoy conditions that are required for effective socialisation as responsible epistemic agents. The problem of consensus is that the efficacy of a vice-charge is contingent upon a degree (...) of consensus between critic and target that is unlikely or impossible where vice-charging is most likely to be provoked. It emerges that a robust critical practice of vice-charging is possible in principle, but very difficult in practice. (shrink)

Cross-cultural sex differences in mobility and harm avoidance have been widely reported, often emphasizing fitness benefits of long-distance travel for males and high costs for females. Data emerging from adults in small-scale societies, however, are challenging the assumption that female mobility is restricted during reproduction. Such findings warrant further exploration of the ontogeny of mobility. Here, using a combination of machine-learning, mixed-effects linear regression, and GIS mapping, we analyze range size, daily distance traveled, and harm avoidance among Hadza foragers during (...) middle childhood and adolescence. Distance traveled increased with age and, while male adolescents had the longest daily ranges, average daily distance traveled by each sex was similar. We found few age- or sex-related patterns in harm-avoidant responses and a high degree of individual variation. When queried on the same issues, children and their parents were often in alignment as to expectations pertaining to harm avoidance, and siblings tended to behave in similar ways. To the extent that sex differences in mobility did emerge, they were associated with ecological differences in physical threats associated with sex-specific foraging behaviors. Further, we found no strong association between harm avoidance and mobility. Young Hadza foragers of both sexes are highly mobile, regardless of how harm avoidant they are. Taken together, our findings indicate that the causal arrows between harm avoidance and mobility must be evaluated in ecologically specific frameworks where cultural expectations of juvenile mobility can be contextualized. (shrink)

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-021-09403-x.

Bringing together important writings not easily available elsewhere, this volume provides a convenient and stimulating overview of recent work in the philosophy of science. The contributors include Paul Feyerabend, Ian Hacking, T.S. Kuhn, Imre Lakatos, Laurens Laudan, Karl Popper, Hilary Putnam, and Dudley Shapere. In addition, Hacking provides an introductory essay and a selective bibliography.

Charitable interpreters of David Hume set aside his sprinkles of piety. Better to read him as lying than as clumsily inconsistent. We argue that the attribution of lies can pay dividends in historical scholarship no matter how strongly the theorist condemns lying. Accordingly, we show that our approach works even with one of the strongest condemners of lying: Immanuel Kant. We argue that Kant lied in his scholarly work and even in the first Critique. And we defend the claim that (...) this lie attribution, strange as it may sound, amounts to a kind of scholarly charity. (shrink)

We investigate differences in perceived danger and recklessness judgements by experts (experienced skiers, N=362) and laypeople (N=2080) about participation in adventure sports across the same judgemental task using a third person perspective. We investigate the relationship between danger and recklessness and the extent to which fatality frequency, as well as other contextual factors such as gender, dependants, competence, and motivations of the sports participant affect expert and laypeople judgements respectively. Experienced skiers gave lower overall danger and recklessness ratings than non-skiers. (...) Experienced skiers’ judgements were also more sensitive than non-skiers’ to variations in the fatality rate of the activity and the competence level of the participant, yet were less sensitive to whether the event was done for external benefit such as a charity. Recklessness judgements were overall more sensitive to changes in activity descriptions than danger judgements. Our findings support the emerging picture of adventure sports participants as rational and sensitive to risk-relevant features rather than somehow pathological in their risk perception. (shrink)

Linda Martín Alcoff and others have emphasised that the discipline of philosophy suffers from a ‘demographic problem’. The persistence of this problem is partly the consequence of various forms of resistance to efforts to address the demographic problem. Such resistance is complex and takes many forms and could be responded to in different ways. In this paper, I argue that our attempts to explain and understand the phenomenon of resistance should use a kind of explanatory pluralism that, following Quassim Cassam, (...) I call multidimensionalism. I describe four general kinds of resistance and consider varying explanations, focusing on those focused on vices and social structures. I argue that vice-explanations and structural- explanations are both mutually consistent and mutually entailing. If so, there is no need to choose between vice explanations and structural explanations or any other kinds of explanation. We can and should be multidimensionalists: using many together is better. (shrink)

`The work develops and articulates a brilliant and original central thesis; namely that modern individuals are best understood as complex bodies of thought, as embodied symbolic and material beings. Future work on mind, self, body, society and culture will have to begin with Burkitt's text' - Norman K. Denzin, University of Illinois `After his excellent Social Selves, Ian Burkitt has produced a new theory of embodiment which will become required reading for those working in the areas of social theory, sociology, (...) cultural studies and social psychology. Steering between constructionist and realist theories of the social actor, Bodies of Thought provides an innovative assessment of Foucaultian, Eliasian, and feminist approaches to the body and a sustained critique of Cartesian notions of the subject' - Chris Shilling, Department of Social and Historical Studies, University of Portsmouth In this incisive and truly impressive book, Ian Burkitt critically addresses the dualism between mind and body, thought and emotion, rationality and irrationality, and the mental and the material, which haunt the post-Cartesian world. Drawing on the work of contemporary social theorists and feminist writers, he argues that thought and the sense of being a person is inseparable from bodily practices within social relations, even though such active experience may be abstracted and expanded upon through the use of symbols. Overcoming classic dualisms in social thought, Burkitt argues that bodies are not purely the constructs of discourses of power: they are also productive, communicative, and invested with powerful capacities for changing the social and natural worlds. He goes on to consider how such powers can be developed in more ethical forms of relations and activities. Bodies of Thought will be essential reading for students and academics in social theory, social psychology, cultural studies, feminist theory and the sociology of the body. (shrink)

Recent debates in the philosophy of dance have focused on the relationship between motor response and dance appreciation. Some philosophers argue that motor responses to dances are an important part of dance appreciation. Proponents of such a claim are often backed with support from cognitive science. But it has not remained uncontroversial. Despite its controversy, the concept of motor response remains under-analyzed. As a result, assumptions about the idea and purpose of motor response get borrowed from cognitive science. I argue (...) that one such assumption, that motor response is supposed to be veridical, runs us into several problems. It runs us into something of a paradox, where it is claimed that motor responses happen as part of our general perception of movement. However, few people experience such responses. Furthermore, it seems that the motor responses that are appropriate for a dance might not be the ones the dancer is feeling. As a result, we should prefer an account of motor response that emphasizes its flexibility and its ability to change and adapt to the movement we see. (shrink)

Psychology is meant to help people cope with the afflictions of modern society. But how useful is it? Ian Parker argues that current psychological practice has become part of the problem rather than the solution. Ideal for undergraduates, this book unravels the discipline to reveal the conformist assumptions that underlie its theory and practice. Psychology focuses on the happiness of "the individual." Yet it neglects the fact that personal experience depends on social and political surroundings. Parker argues that a new (...) approach to psychology is needed. He offers an alternative vision, outlining how debates in the discipline can be linked to political practice and how it can become part of a wider progressive agenda. Parker's groundbreaking book is at the cutting edge of current thinking on the discipline and should be required reading in all psychology courses. (shrink)

Threshold- and signal-detection-based models have dominated theorizing about recognition memory. Building upon these theoretical frameworks, we have argued for a dual-process model in which conscious recollection and familiarity contribute to memory performance. In the current paper we assessed several memory models by examining the effects of levels of processing and the number of presentations on recognition memory receiver operating characteristics . In general, when the ROCs were plotted in probability space they exhibited an inverted U shape; however, when they were (...) plotted inzspace they exhibited a U shape. An examination of the ROCs showed that the dual-process model could account for the observed ROCs, but that models based solely on either threshold or signal-detection processes failed to provide a sufficient account of the data. Furthermore, an examination of subjects' introspective reports using the remember/know procedure showed that subjects were aware of recollection and familiarity and were able to consistently report on their occurrence. The remember/know data were used to accurately predict the shapes of the ROCs, and estimates of recollection and familiarity derived from the ROC data mirrored the subjective reports of these processes. (shrink)

This first-of-its-kind national survey of 485 psychiatrists in nine states and the District of Columbia finds substantial evidence of clinicians being uninformed, misinformed, and misinforming patients of their gun rights regarding involuntary commitments and voluntary inpatient admissions. A significant percentage of psychiatrists did not understand that an involuntary civil commitment triggered the loss of gun rights, and the majority of psychiatrists in states with prohibitors on voluntary admissions and emergency holds were unaware that patients would lose gun rights upon voluntary (...) admission or temporary commitment. Moreover, the survey found evidence that psychiatrists may use gun rights to negotiate “voluntary” commitments with patients: 15.9% of respondents reported telling patients they could preserve their gun rights by permitting themselves to be voluntarily admitted for treatment, in lieu of being involuntarily committed. The results raise questions of whether psychiatrists obtained full informed consent for voluntary patient admissions, and suggest that some medical providers in states with voluntary admission prohibitor laws may unwittingly deprive their patients of a constitutional right. The study calls into question the fairness of state prohibitor laws as policy, and — at minimum — indicates an urgent need for psychiatrist training on their state gun laws. (shrink)

An intro. to Didaktic (the heart of thinking about teaching/teacher educ in Germany) for English-speaking readers, drawing on a range of writings assoc. w/ this tradition. Throws light on assumptions, characteristics, & weaknesses of curriculum thought.

According to the ancient Greek Stoics, the cosmos regularly transitions between periods of conflagration, during which only fire exists, and periods of cosmic order, during which the four elements exist. This paper examines the cosmogonic process by which conflagrations are extinguished and cosmic orders are restored, and it defends three main conclusions. First, I argue that not all the conflagration’s fire is extinguished during the cosmogony, against recent arguments by Ricardo Salles. Second, at least with respect to the cosmogony, it (...) is not necessary to posit the existence of proto-elements. Third, while scholars such as Salles and David Hahm have argued that Cleanthes held a distinct theory of cosmogony from Zeno and Chrysippus, I argue that each of these Stoics endorse the same cosmogonic theory. (shrink)

This essay assesses the account of truth presented in Wiggins's 2002 paper ‘An indefinibilist cum normative view of truth and the marks of truth'. I agree with Wiggins that we should seek, not to define truth, but to elucidate it by unfolding its connections with other basic notions. However, I give reasons for preferring an elucidation based on Ramsey's account of truth to Wiggins's Tarski-inspired approach. I also cast doubt on Wiggins's thesis that convergence is a mark of truth, arguing (...) instead that a claim which is up for assessment as true or false must be one to which different speakers/hearers can attach, and know that they are attaching, the same sense. I use this principle to rule out an account of indicative conditionals, and bring some considerations to bear on the question of whether those conditionals have truth values. An appendix revisits a debate about the determinateness of distinctness. (shrink)

This paper reassesses the role of sceptical thinking in the emergence of the new science of the seventeenth century, in the context of the seminal but contestable History of Scepticism by Richard Popkin. It investigates the anti-sceptical essay by Galen De optimo modo docendi, which was retranslated in the sixteenth century by Erasmus and later published as an adjunct to the works of Sextus Empiricus, in order to highlight the currency of ideas about hyperbolic doubt, and links this to the (...) long tradition of free enquiry in which doubting authority is seen as a profitable exercise closely associated with the independence of philosophy from theological domination; and it argues that this long tradition played an important role in the emergence of the new science. (shrink)

Several decades of research converge on the formulation that individuals diagnosed with major depressive disorder exhibit negative biases in their processing of emotional information. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that traditional between-group comparisons have obscured the substantial heterogeneity of cognitive and affective dysfunction that is associated with depressive symptomatology. In this article, we review the findings of research examining attention to and memory for negative emotional information using a more dimensional perspective on depression. Specifically, we explore studies that assess (...) cognitive biases along a continuum of depressive symptom severity and consider the influence of co-occurring dimensions of functioning, in particular the severity of anxiety symptoms. Finally, we identify critical empirical questions and issues in this growing literature. (shrink)

This volume brings scholarly attention to the Midwest and to how broader concerns of environmental ethics manifest. Consisting of eight essays, a wide range of topics is covered, such as agrarian ethics and Stoicism, the Dakota access pipeline and Indigenous women's activism, philosophy of law and species classification, environmental justice and the Flint water crisis, hog farming and anti-microbial drug resistance, science education standards and climate change education, virtue ethics and ecological restoration, and environmental pragmatism and the Clear Water Act; (...) and more. Each accessibly written chapter brings multidisciplinary complexity to bear on this complex region. The authors include philosophers working in environmental ethics and other subfields of philosophy, and together with scholars in fields such as environmental sociology, American Indian studies, and environmental studies, they provide a fresh and necessary perspective on the American Midwest. (shrink)

Peter Mandler’s Return from the Natives examines Margaret Mead mid-career when she devoted much energy to promoting anthropology and anthropologists to government and industry and positioned herself as a prominent social commentator. By the time she returned to the field after an interlude of 14 years, something had happened to her professionally: she was treated as a bit of an embarrassment, no longer a scientific heavyweight, and much of this stems from the rather hare-brained “culture cracking” she engaged in during (...) the war. So while honors and kudos enhanced her official image, behind the scenes, she complained of being neglected and shunted aside. Her discipline became radicalized, and her balanced and accommodating approach was rejected. (shrink)

Philip Jourdain put this question to Frege in a letter of 28 January 1909. Frege had, indeed, next to nothing to say about ordinals, and in this respect Bob Hale has followed the master. As I hope this chapter will show, though, the topic is worth addressing. The natural abstraction principle for ordinals combines with full, impredicative second-order logic to engender a contradiction, the so-called Burali-Forti Paradox. I shall contend that the best solution involves a retreat to a predicative logic. (...) Such a retreat has implications for other neo-Fregean theories, including the cardinal arithmetic on which Hale has focused. The discussion will touch on a topic which has been at the centre of Hale’s more recent work—namely, the interpretation of plural and higher-order quantifiers. (shrink)

Opinions have varied wildly as to whether the roots of language run extremely deep in the human lineage, or, alternatively, whether this unprecedented capacity is a recent acquisition. The question has been exacerbated by the fact that language itself does not preserve, so that its possession by earlier hominids has had to be inferred from indirect material proxies. Here I argue that while most technological putative proxies from the Paleolithic are certainly evidence of highly complex cognitive states among our precursors, (...) virtually none of them can reliably be taken as witness to the specific symbolic cognitive style that human beings share today—and with which language is intricately intertwined. Symbolic reasoning can only be confidently inferred from explicitly symbolic objects. These latter only became integral to hominid societies within the tenure of anatomically modern Homo sapiens, and their appearance marked an extreme inflection in the tempo of change as seen in the archaeological record. I thus suggest that the neural capacity for symbolic reasoning and language was acquired during the major developmental reorganization that gave rise to the highly anatomically distinctive H. sapiens some 200 thousand years ago, but that that the new potential was not exploited until about 100 thousand years later, when it was released by what was necessarily a cultural stimulus. Most probably, this stimulus was the spontaneous invention of externalized structured language. This brings the origin of language into the realm of exaptation and emergence—both of them familiar evolutionary phenomena requiring no special explanation—and excludes the long-term fine-tuning of language and human reasoning by natural selection. (shrink)

This book brings together scholars from a variety of epistemological perspectives to explore the multiple ways in which sexuality does indeed matter in the arena of public education.

Rather than a history of seventeenth-century natural law, then, this chapter offers an outline of several different contextual uses of the language of natural law, as it was used in formulating the intellectual architecture for rival constructions of political and religious authority.

The best-known fact about the interaction of the Republican Roman poet Gaius Lucilius (c.180–103/102b.c.e.), the inventor of the genre of Roman verse satire, with the doctrine of Scepticism is probably a statement of Cicero: that Clitomachus the Academician dedicated a treatise to the poet (Cic.Luc. 102). Diogenes Laertius makes much of that writer's, Clitomachus’, industry (τὸ φιλόπονον, 4.67), with the comment: ‘to such lengths did his diligence (ἐπιμελείας) go that he composed more than four hundred treatises’. This phraseology surely reminds (...) those interested in Lucilius’ influence on later Latin poetry of Horace's disparaging comment,in hora saepe ducentos, | ut magnum, uersus dictabat(‘as a bravura display, he would often dictate two hundred verses in an hour’,Sat.1.4.9–10); moreover, Horace shortly afterwards calls his predecessorgarrulus atque piger scribendi ferre laborem(‘talkative and too lazy to bear the work of writing’, 1.4.12). Yet, a sceptical view of Horace's critique might have to think of Lucilius as hard-working, like his putative friend the Academic philosopher, Clitomachus. (shrink)

This article is a response to Fredric Jameson's criticisms of the author's 'The History of Theory'. For Jameson's article, 'How Not to Historicise Theory', see Critical Inquiry, 34, Spring 2008. The author situates Jameson's arguments in the context of the historicisation of theory, treating them as an example of the theoretical program to think the historical determinations of thought. It is argued that this program is an instrument for the formation of the privileged intellectual persona of the theorist.

In treating human nature as a ‘moral entity’, imposed by God for reasons into which man could have no direct insight, Samuel Pufendorf reconfigured the architecture of natural law thought in a fundamental way. For this meant that rather than deducing norms from a nature in which they had been embedded by God and could be discerned by self-reflective reason, man had to derive them by observing the requirements of the exigent condition in which he happened to find himself; and (...) it further meant that such observation would be gathered via erudite citation of humanist authorities, rather than from philosophical reflection or introspection. As a result of this reconstruction, Pufendorfian natural law was opened to the normative structure of historically existing juridical-constitutional orders, for which it supplied both a propaedeutic and an abstract rationale. At the same time, however, theological and philosophical forms of natural law, based on normative moral anthropologies, continued unabated, this giving rise to a partitioning of the field into an introspective philosophy of law, and an observational legal humanism. (shrink)