A reply to contemporary skepticism about intuitions and a priori knowledge, and a defense of neo-rationalism from a contemporary Kantian standpoint, focusing on the theory of rational intuitions and on solving the two core problems of justifying and explaining them.

The infusion of the internet technologies into schools introduces a new instantiation of text into the everyday experiences of students, teachers, and administrators. Given the dialectic interaction between organizations, cognitions, and technologies, hypertext, primarily delivered through interaction with the World Wide Web, will likely have far reaching implications. The decentered, complex, and open nature of hypertext promotes multiculuralism and multivocality, questioning the efficacy of accountability-based learning, the authority of the textbook, a particular interpretation of texts, the curriculum, and the policy (...) that heretofore validated the typical educational experience. This article argues that the result of this challenge will be movement in the direction of more localized and fluid solutions to problems confronting students and educators, and more reliance on expertise from nontraditional sources. Ultimately, the introduction of hypertext into the daily “vocabulary” of education will effect change in the domains of educational policy, organizational structures, and institutional authority. (shrink)

This is an excerpt from a report on the workshop on multisensory integration at the University of Toronto, on May 9th and 10th, 2014, written by Kevin Connolly, Aaron Henry, Zoe Jenkin, and Andrew MacGregor, and available at: http://networksensoryresearch.utoronto.ca/Events_%26_Discussion.html This excerpt explores the question: What can multisensory processing tell us about multisensory awareness?

The intellectual relationship between Henry James and his father, who was a philosopher and theologian, proved to be an influential resource for the novelist. Andrew Taylor explores how James's writing responds to James Senior's epistemological, thematic and narrative concerns, and relocates these concerns in a more secularised and cosmopolitan cultural milieu. Taylor examines the nature of both men's engagement with autobiographical strategies, issues of gender reform, and the language of religion. He argues for a reading of Henry (...) James that is informed by an awareness of paternal inheritance. Taylor's study reveals the complex and at times antagonistic dialogue between the elder James and his peers, particularly Emerson and Whitman, in the vanguard of mid nineteenth-century American Romanticism. Through close readings of a wide range of novels and texts, he demonstrates how this dialogue anticipates James's own theories of fiction and selfhood. (shrink)

I read Henry David Thoreau as an environmental virtue theorist. In this paper, I use Thoreau’s work as a tool to explore the relation between the virtue of greatness of soul and environmental virtues. Reflecting on connections between Thoreau’s texts and historical discussions of greatness of soul, or magnanimity, I offer a novel conception of magnanimity. I argue that (1) to become magnanimous, most individuals need to acquire the environmental virtue of simplicity; and (2) magnanimous individuals must possess the (...) environmental virtue of benevolence in order to achieve their goals. (shrink)

A leading author, philosopher, and activist, Thoreau’s call to simple living has enticed readers for over one hundred years. Selections from Thoreau’s most influential texts are analyzed in this book in order for students to better grasp Thoreau’s life and the historical events that shaped his ideas.

BackgroundFew studies have examined factors associated with willingness of people living with HIV to participate in HIV treatment clinical trials in Sub-Saharan Africa. We assessed the factors associated with participation of PLHIV in HIV treatment clinical trials research at a large urban clinical and research facility in Uganda.MethodsA mixed methods study was conducted at the Infectious Diseases Institute, adult HIV clinic between July 2016 and January 2017. Data were collected using structured questionnaires, focused group discussions with respondents categorised as either (...) participated or never participated in clinical trials and key informant interviews with IDI staff. A generalized linear model with a logit link function was used for multivariate analyses while the qualitative data were summarized using a thematic approach.ResultsWe enrolled a total of 202 and analysed 151 participants, 77 of whom were male with mean age of 41 years. The majority 127 expressed willingness to participate in treatment clinical trials if given an opportunity. At bivariate analysis, willingness to participate was significantly associated with respondents’ perception of a satisfactory compensation package, special status accorded and belief that their health status would improve while on the clinical trial. At multivariate analysis, a satisfactory compensation package and special status accorded in clinical trials remained significant. The qualitative data analysis confirmed these findings as participants valued the privilege of jumping the clinic waiting queues and spending less time in clinic, the wide range of free tests offered to trial participants, unrestricted access to senior physicians and regular communication from study team. Additionally, free meals offered during clinic visits meant that participants were not in a hurry to go back home. Barriers to participation included the perception that new drugs were being tested on them, fear of side effects like treatment failure and the uncertainty about privacy of their data.ConclusionWe found overwhelming willingness to participate in HIV treatment clinical trials. This was largely extrinsically influenced by the perceived material and health-related benefits. Investigators should pay attention to participants’ concerns for benefits which may override the need to understand study procedures and risks. (shrink)

John Cage and Henry David Thoreau draw attention to the indeterminacy of wild nature and imply humans cannot entirely control the natural world. This paper argues Cage and Thoreau each encourages his audience to recognize their own human limitations in relation to wildness, and thus each helps his audience to develop greater humility before nature. By reflecting on how Thoreau’s theory relates to Cage’s music, we can recognize how Cage’s music contributes to audiences’ environmental moral education. We can appreciate (...) the role of music in helping audiences to develop values conducive to environmentally sustainable practices. (shrink)

In a well-known passage in his Apologia, Newman’s recognition of himself as a latter-day Monophysite marked a pivotal step towards his conversion. This recognition, however, was preceded by another painful anagnorisis: his realization, as a result of a stinging article by Nicholas Wiseman, that he was a latter-day Donatist. This essay examines how Wiseman’s article exposed Newman’s ecclesial ambivalence and highlights the role that St. Augustine’s writings played, not only in confirming Newman’s schismatic identity, but also in ultimately suggesting how (...) to move beyond it. (shrink)

Henry E. Dudeney (1857-1930) was, according to pure mathematician G. H. Hardy (1877-1947), one of England’s “better makers of puzzles”. His “Perplexities” column, a regular feature in The Strand Magazine between 1910 and 1930, not only gave recreational mathematicians what they wanted – an “intellectual ‘kick’” – but also occasioned the odd sparkling display of intellect from professionals. Dudeney’s geometrical dissection puzzles are a case in point, though his ingenious solutions sometimes betray a lack of clarity about the difference (...) between a mathematical proof and an empirical procedure. His equilateral triangle to square dissection and the equally stunning regular octagon to square dissection sent to him by Hardy’s colleague G. T. Bennett (1868-1943) are both here demonstrated visually – process and result an evident unity. (shrink)

Paideia is a word that signifies education or culture—two concepts that are only apparently distinct in Ancient Greek thinking. The performance of poetry, philosophy, rhetoric, drama, dance, and even athletics functioned simultaneously as education and culture. They entertained and unified communities by affirming shared heritage and interrogating common values. This process had special importance in Sicily and Southern Italy, where Hellenism was often a matter of education rather than ancestry. This volume explores the intersection of education and cultural performance in (...) a variety of disciplines and from a variety of perspectives. Authors discussed include Sappho, Empedocles, Gorgias, Plato, and Aristotle. Contexts range from choral dance, to epideictic oratory, theatrical performance, philosophical dialogue, and gymnastic exercise. Taken together, these diverse essays reveal a cultural paideia aimed at realizing an ideal of human potential—not least by questioning human reality. Edited by Henry C. Curcio, Mark Ralkowski, and Heather L. Reid, the volume includes essays by Audrey L. Anton & Erika N. Brown, Paloma Flávio Betini, Michał Bizoń, L.M.J. Coulson, Mateo Duque, Jurgen R. Gatt & Andrew Debono Cauchi, Michael Goyette, Veronika Konrádová, Georgios Mouratidis & Heather L. Reid, Kristian Sheeley, and Colin C. Smith. (shrink)

The aesthetics of everyday life, originally developed by Henri Lefebvre and other modernist theorists, is an extension of traditional aesthetics, usually confined to works of art. It is not limited to the study of humble objects but is rather concerned with all of the undeniably aesthetic experiences that arise when one contemplates objects or performs acts that are outside the traditional realm of aesthetics. It is concerned with the nature of the relationship between subject and object. One significant aspect of (...) everyday aesthetics is environmental aesthetics, whether constructed, as a building, or manipulated, as a landscape. Others, also discussed in the book, include sport, weather, smell and taste, and food. (shrink)

The papers in this volume originated in a workshop on externalism and conceptual change held at the University of St. Andrews in June 2018. The discussion of conceptual change was driven largely by...

This anthology contains revised versions of selected papers presented at the fourth bi-annual international deontic logic conference, DEON’98. This volume includes our substantial introduction, and an article from me as a contributor. The volume includes papers from all four distinguished invited speakers, David Makinson, Donald Nute, Claudio Pizzi, and the founder of deontic logic, Georg Von Wright. Other notables among the authors are Dov Gabbay (co-editor of the Handbook on Philosophical Logic vols.1-4, and editor of a number of logic book (...) series); Lars Lindahl (author of Position and Change: A Study in Law and Logic); Andrew Jones (past editor of the Norwegian Journal of Philosophical Logic, and the co-author of the entry “Deontic Logic and Contrary-to-Duties” in the 2nd edition of Handbook on Philosophical Logic); and Marek Sergot (a leading researcher at the interface of deontic logic and computer science.). (shrink)

The article criticizes arguments by Henry Shue, Cass Sunstein, and Stephen Holmes that rights entail enforceable positive duties.

This paper offers a composite portrait of the concept of magnanimity in nineteenth-century America, focusing on Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, and Henry David Thoreau. A composite portrait, as a method in the history of philosophy, is designed to bring out characteristic features of a group's philosophizing in order to illuminate characteristic features that may still resonate in today's philosophy. Compared to more standard methods in the historiography of philosophy, the construction of a composite portrait de-privileges the views of (...) individual authors. These philosophers saw the virtue of magnanimity as a remedy for a number of modern ills. American philosophers suggest that the best sort of magnanimity is acquired by adopting the correct relation to the natural world, including new forms of inquiry, or by adopting a life of voluntary poverty. Magnanimous individuals are critics of capitalism and offer themselves as exemplars of a better, experimental life. (shrink)

In this paper I suggest that one of Kant's motives in framing the account of artistic genius that he presents in the Critique of Judgment was to respond to Herder's veneration of Shakespeare. Kant agreed with Herder that Shakespeare was an exemplary artistic genius, but he disagreed with him about the relationship between genius and philosophy. Herder shared Kant's view that beautiful art should not infringe on the boundaries of the sciences, but in Kant's view Herder's own speculative metaphysics violated (...) this principle. Kant accused Herder of allowing his genius to interfere with his philosophy – that is, of philosophizing in a Shakespearean manner. Instead of attempting to adjudicate this debate, I try to show how Herder could have defended his position by reading Kant through the lens of Shakespeare's Henry IV Part 1. I conclude by briefly indicating how the debate between Kant and Herder came to inform the analytic/continental division, which in light of this debate can be understood as a meta‐argument about the nature of philosophical arguments. (shrink)

Most studies deny that Kritik der Urteilskraft played a significant role in the early reception of Kant’s philosophy in England. In this paper, I examine the notebooks, letters and lectures of several members of British medical and scientific institutions to tell a different story. Drawing from the writings of Thomas Beddoes, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Joseph Henry Green and William Whewell, I identify a line of reception in which Kant’s critique of judgement’s power of reflection was used to establish the (...) consilience of the mind’s anticipation of systematic order and the organization of natural bodies. Each discovered in Kant’s Kritik der Urteilskraft a shared principle for judgements of taste and scientific inquiry, made available through the mind’s affective response to the appearance of contingent order in nature. Their writings, I contend, evince a more sophisticated reception of Kant’s philosophy in England than has hitherto been recognized. (shrink)

The writings of William H. Whyte do not loom large in the literature of my field: environmental ethics, the branch of ethics devoted to consideration of whether and how there are moral reasons for protecting non-human animals and the larger natural environment. Environmental ethics is a very new field of inquiry, only found in academic philosophy departments since the early 1970s. While there is no accepted reading list of indispensable literature in environmental ethics, certainly any attempt to create such a (...) list would begin with Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, and a more recent handful of senior scholars who had been writing on these topics early on, such as J. Baird Callicott, Val Plumwood, Peter Singer, Richard Sylvan, Tom Regan, and Holmes Rolston III (for a review of contemporary environmental ethics, see Light 2002, Palmer 2003, and Wenz 2001). (shrink)

The first two sections of this paper are devoted respectively to the criticisms of my views raised by Stephen Engstrom and Andrews Reath at a symposium on Kant's Theory of Freedom held in Washington D.C. on 28 December 1992 under the auspices of the North American Kant Society. The third section contains my response to the remarks of Marcia Baron at a second symposium in Chicago on 24 April 1993 at the APA Western Division meetings. The fourth section deals with (...) some general criticisms of my treatment of Kant's theory of freedom and its connection with transcendental idealism that have been raised by Karl Ameriks, who was also a participant in the second symposium, in an earlier piece published in Inquiry and by Paul Guyer in a review. The paper as a whole is thus an attempt to reformulate and clarify some of the central claims of my book in light of the initial critical reaction. (shrink)

This paper takes up a more so-called ‘austere’ argument for objectivity derived, for the most part, from P. F. Strawson’s Bounds of Sense. It is austere in the sense that its conclusion is reached by transcendental means but without transcendental idealism. Readers familiar with Henry Allison’s Kant’s Transcendental Idealism will know that in his view arguments of this general kind cannot be separated from Kant’s idealism. The motivation for this position and for Allison’s interpretation and defense of transcendental idealism (...) more generally is, I argue, the threat of a particular kind of scepticism. I go on to explore how we might retrospectively understand the more austere argument as one meant to uncover the indispensability of objectivity for the very possibility of thought or experience. Such a status would not guarantee the truth of objectivity, but it would provide a kind of invulnerability against the scepticism Allison is worried about. (shrink)

REASON, SKEPTICISM, REVOLUTION, AND COMMON SENSE--these are the four characteristics which Henry F. May has found to designate the four categories, or stages, in the development of the Enlightenment in Europe and America. These categories, useful for the classification, description, and analysis of the copious intellectual and cultural materials which comprise the Enlightenment, overlap in the formulation of basic documents--the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights, which are fundamental American laws. The (...) interweaving of reason and revolution in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States has been examined by direct references to the European philosophers whose ideas were employed, with modifications, and implemented by means of newly invented institutions on the part of the American founders. The ideas of Locke, Montesquieu, Burlamaqui, Hutcheson, Hume, and many other thinkers, became instruments of political change in the hands of the Americans. Revolution, moderated by reason and common sense, led to constitution, in order to secure the gains of revolution. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the issue of forgiveness of oneself by looking at the writings of two postwar French philosophers: Georges Gusdorf and Vladimir Jankélévitch. Gusdorf believes that forgiving oneself is necessary for being able to forgive others. On the other hand, Jankélévitch sees no possibility of forgiveness for oneself and for similar reasons is very suspicious of traditional views of the role accorded to repenting and penitence. In short, the main view that separates the thinkers is, quite literally, (...) whether work on oneself—such as repentance and penitence—comes first before forgiveness, or whether repentance and penitence are the result of some prior gracious act, such as forgiveness. Somewhat ironically, their views, when all is said and done, may not really be all that far apart from each other, especially in light of how each views the nature of the self. In the end, the main factor dividing the two thinkers is metaphysical allegiances. Reflecting a tendency that is shown in most—if not all—of his early works, Gusdorf views the self more from the perspective of anthropology. Jankélévitch, like his mentor Henri Bergson, has faith in science and does not have a supernatural view of the human soul. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dei Filius IV:On the Development of DogmaAndrew MeszarosIntroductionHistorically, it is indisputable that the intention of the latter part of chapter 4 of Dei Filius was to restate the substantial immutability of the deposit of faith, not for the sake of rejecting doctrinal development, but for the sake of establishing parameters for a certain profectus fidei—progress or development in the faith—which no Catholic theologian doubted, not even nineteenth-century neo-Scholastics. Then-contemporary (...) (e.g., John Henry Newman and the Tübingen school) and subsequent (e.g., Yves Congar and Henri de Lubac) theologians' theories that were more thoroughly worked out presupposed this immutability.The argument here is simple: Dei Filius's teaching on the immutability of dogma not only did serve as the necessary foundation for any sound (i.e., Catholic) theory of doctrinal development, but continues to do so. While the teaching of Dei Filius itself is limited and incomplete, it is essential. Furthermore, its key feature of dogmatic immutability is not compromised by even the most dramatic of doctrinal developments.To establish the ongoing relevance of Dei Filius for contemporary discussions on doctrinal development, I will first draw out certain key similarities between the nineteenth-century, modernist, and contemporary contexts. This will be followed by a presentation of the relevant portions of Dei Filius. Finally, in the longest section, I will discuss what is at stake in the teaching of Dei Filius and offer some different examples of how doctrines develop in ways that uphold the fundamental-theological principle laid out [End Page 909] in Dei Filius: namely, that all doctrinal development is homogenous with, or in continuity with, the deposit of faith.Anton Günther and Theology TodayWe can identify two major factors that led to the Vatican Council having to address dogmatic development. The first, and perhaps most important, factor is the implication that Anton Günther's (1783–1863) understanding of faith and reason had on dogma and its immutability. The second factor is simply the fact that, in the midst of these pervasive philosophical and theological disputes over faith and reason, Pius IX not only managed to define the Immaculate Conception as dogma, but did so by papal definition: the 1854 definition was the freshest example of what would later be defined in 1870.1 A brief examination of the thought of Günther will help us better understand why the paragraph on development (i.e., the immutability and progress of dogma) pertains to the faith–reason relationship and, hence, appears in the fourth chapter. 2Günther's major concern is a noble one: namely, to respond to the Kantian critique of supernatural religion. To do so, he sees it as necessary not only to defend rationally but also to explain rationally—according to the philosophical systems of Schelling and Hegel—Christian dogma. Günther is no brash and pure rationalist. He believes in the history of supernatural revelation. He acknowledges that reason alone could never discover supernaturally revealed truths; but, as a so-called semi-rationalist, he believes that, once made known to it, reason can then penetrate and, indeed, prove these revealed truths.3 [End Page 910]But if revealed mysteries are discoverable by human reason, then those same mysteries have to be interpreted in such a way that is, indeed, within the reach of reason using its proper resources.4 Not Scholasticism but German idealism—especially its category of self-consciousness—was Günther's vehicle for giving an account of the faith. Such a re-interpretation of Christian dogma according idealism's categories naturally alters the original understanding of that dogma. But for Günther, this reinterpretation is necessary if revelation is to be accessible to reason.So, for example, because modern psychology cannot make sense of a distinction between "person" and "nature" that is not coterminous, we must conclude, against Ephesus, that Christ is in fact a unity of two persons. Nor, for that matter, is the human person a composite of body and soul as defined by the Council of Vienne (1311–1312). Because God is self-conscious spirit, there is a process of trebling in God that tends toward... (shrink)

Shakespeare was easily the most inventive writer using the English language. His plays give us intricacies of vocabulary and usage that have enriched us immeasurably. This book provides a series of analytical essays on the marginalia relating to the plays. Each of them is a searching and authoritative account, packed with details, of some of the more peculiar conditions under which Shakespeare and his peers composed their playbooks. Among the essays are two completely new contributions. Altogether they reveal fresh details (...) about the input of the playing companies, playhouses, individual players and even their controller, the Revels Office, to the complex fragments that we now have of the Shakespearean world. Gurr examines Shakespeare's own choice between playwriting and poetry, the requirements of working in a playhouse that wraps itself around the stage, and its impact on the creation of such figures as Henry V, Shylock, Isabella, King Lear and Coriolanus. (shrink)

REASON AND REVOLUTION, to which Henry F. May has called attention in his noteworthy book, The Enlightenment in America, mentioned in the first article in the present series, marks the period of American colonial history from 1763 to 1776. The Declaration of Independence, I have maintained, is a consummate expression of these Enlightenment features, influenced by the thought of John Locke and others in philosophy. From cautious moderation the American movement of protest against British rule climaxed in a revolution. (...) The dynamic structure of the epoch unfolded as a kind of sorites, of which the major premises are a general philosophy of rights and a particular theory of the British Empire, the minor premises are numerous allegedly factual violations of these theoretical premises, and the conclusion is a decisive act of separation or independence. Since, however, the Enlightenment mode of revolution rested, to reiterate May's statement, on "the belief in the possibility of constructing a new heaven and earth out of the destruction of the old," the moment in history expressed by the Declaration of Independence logically leads to other moments, one of which is the formation of the American republic as both a federal and national union. This singular moment is crystallized in the Constitution of the United States, a document equal in importance to the Declaration of Independence as a symbol of the Enlightenment. (shrink)