The first four essays in this guide are devoted to the study of Wittgenstein′s own ideas about philosophy. The remaining six apply his ideas to the work of other thinkers.

Introspective evidence is still treated with great suspicion in cognitive science. This work is designed to encourage cognitive scientists to take more account of the subject's unique perspective.

An authoritative exposition of Aristotle's teaching on the subject of happiness, which is of vital importance to the question of the relevance of his ethics today. Kenny helped to set the terms of the debate 25 years ago. In his latest book, he refines his view on the relationship between the Nichomachean Ethics and the Eudemian Ethics.

Short Arguments: Some General Rules Arguments begin by marshaling reasons and organizing them in a clear and fair way. Chapter I offers general rules for ...

We briefly describe ways in which neuroeconomics has made contributions to its contributing disciplines, especially neuroscience, and a specific way in which it could make future contributions to both. The contributions of a scientific research programme can be categorized in terms of (1) description and classification of phenomena, (2) the discovery of causal relationships among those phenomena, and (3) the development of tools to facilitate (1) and (2). We consider ways in which neuroeconomics has advanced neuroscience and economics along each (...) line. Then, focusing on electrophysiological methods, we consider a puzzle within neuroeconomics whose solution we believe could facilitate contributions to both neuroscience and economics, in line with category (2). This puzzle concerns how the brain assigns reward values to otherwise incomparable stimuli. According to the common currency hypothesis, dopamine release is a component of a neural mechanism that solves comparability problems. We review two versions of the common currency hypothesis, one proposed by Read Montague and colleagues, the other by William Newsome and colleagues, and fit these hypotheses into considerations of rational choice. (shrink)

The article tries to show that what is often called 'Moderate Deontology' is incoherent.

This timely volume addresses urgent questions about the nature of war crimes, nationalism, ethnic cleansing and collective responsibility from a variety of moral, political and legal perspectives.

This paper examines the strategies for the legitimisation of power in courtroom encounters. It focuses on how discourse becomes the instrument for power and control during the judicial process of witness examination in a Nigerian courtroom context. Legitimisation, as used in this study, therefore, provides more insight into how language use within an institutionalised setting becomes the locus of social interactions designed to achieve specific social goals. Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) was adopted as the theoretical framework to undergird the description (...) and discussion of the data. The data for this study was drawn from the proceedings of two regional Election Petition Tribunals in South-western and North-eastern Nigeria in 2007 and 2011 respectively. The legal contexts provide the adversarial space for the use of discourse as power and control. The findings reveal that various legitimisation strategies such as confrontational move, circumlocution and pleading forgetfulness along with such traditional strategies as authorisation, moralisation and rationalisation are deployed by the discourse participants to legitimise and delegitimise power in this institutional setting. The paper shows that language is crucial in the judicial process and should be carefully handled so that litigants can have sufficient confidence in the process and be reassured of effective resolution to their legal matters. (shrink)

Rawls criticizes utilitarianism for not taking the distinction between persons seriously, and suggests that his own theory: justice as fairness, does. I argue that justice as fairness aims to take the distinction seriously at four levels, ranging from the content of its principles to its conception of political philosophy, and that doing so at each stage is of fundamental importance in working out the basis of a conception of justice for a democratic society. Understanding Rawls’s theory in this way points (...) to a clearer understanding of how to go on doing political philosophy after Rawls. (shrink)

I. INTRODUCTIONIs Jesus the perfect human being? An affirmative response seems unavoidable for classical Christology. Indeed, at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, the gathered bishops and representatives of the church across Africa, Asia, and Europe agreed that Jesus Christ was “perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity”: teleion…en Theótæti kai teleion…en anthropótæti.Theologians and patristics scholars alike often sort through the second part of this formula in the way that the remainder of the conciliar definition itself seems to indicate, interpreting (...) it to mean that nothing that belongs to the humanity we share can be lacking in the humanity of Jesus, and nothing belongs to Him that would compromise the human form. He does not, for instance, have a body animated by a divine spirit in place of a human will, or a superhuman ability to translocate. This is theologically appropriate as far as it goes, but it does not go far enough. (shrink)

This article contributes to a recent debate between Barnett and Block : 711–716, 2009), Bagus and Howden : 399–406, 2009), Barnett and Block, Cachanosky and Bagus and Howden regarding the conceptual distinction between demand deposits and time deposits. It is argued that from an economic perspective there is nothing inherently fraudulent or illegitimate about deposit accounts that are available ‘on demand’, but that this relies on certain contractual provisions. Particular attention is drawn to option clauses and withdrawal clauses, which “solve” (...) the problems raised by Barnett and Block, and Bagus and Howden. Previous authors have also neglected the asset side of banks balance sheets, and this is shown to further justify the legitimacy of fractional reserve banking. (shrink)

Causally committed properties are properties which require that their instances have a cause (or an effect) of a certain kind. Sunburn, for instance, must be caused by the sun. Causal relevance is a contingent dependency relation between properties of events. The connection between a causally committed property and the property to which it is committed is not contingent. Hence a pair consisting of a causally committed property and the property to which it is committed should not be in the causal (...) relevance relation. I formulate conditions on the causal relevance relation designed to rule out causally committed properties. These conditions entail that being a propositional attitude is not causally relevant to being an action. (Nevertheless reasons can cause actions.). (shrink)

The author of this paper was managing editor of the Journal of Consciousness Studies from its launch in 1994 until this year. As he steps down from the post, he reflects on the role of the editor, who has by turns to encourage, support, cajole, and even threaten, the team of contributors and reviewers, whose servant and master he is. What follows may be taken both as an apologia for his time in office, addressed to the consciousness community, and a (...) word of caution and advice addressed to his successor. (shrink)

Religion and Dialectics carries to a new level, the critical dialogue between religious belief, dialectical thinking, and socialist practice, which has given birth, among other things, to the theology of liberation and to a new Marxist sociology of religion.

Acquaintance with the Absolute is the first collected volume of essays devoted to the thought of Yves r. Simon, a thinker widely regarded as one of the great teachers and philosophers of our time. Each piece in this collection of essays thoughtfully complements the others to offer a qualifiedly panoramic look at the work and thought of philosopher Yves R. Simon. The six essays presented not only treat some major areas of Simon’s thought, pointing out their lucidity and originality, but (...) also his underpinning metaphysics, so central to his thought. Rather than attempt to present all aspects of this patient, careful, and penetrating thinker, these essays select enough to situate Simon’s philosophical excavations – especially his moral, political and action theory – among contemporary Thomistic philosophy. In defending philosophy as a valid way of knowing, Simon gives us an approach we can use to avoid contemporary dilemmas in the philosophy of science. Simon holds that philosophical truths both justify scientific method as a way of knowing the real and provide a basis for distinguishing what is ontologically significant in a scientific theory from what is not. This view allows us to avoid the apparently irrational conclusions of quantum mechanics without reducing scientific theories to being mere projections of our conceptual systems. Though aspects of some of the essays are suited for students of Simon’s thought, the essays as a whole introduce the less familiar reader to this great thinking and, further, invite him or her to pursue Simon’s own texts. The volume is enhanced by the inclusion of a definitive Yves R. Simon bibliography 1923-1996. The annotated bibliography is cross-reference in detail, revealing the astonishing variety of topics Simon treated. (shrink)

There are two broad opposing classes of attitudes to reality with corresponding attitudes to knowledge. I argue that these attitudes can be compatible, and that quantum theory requires us to adopt both of them.

"Renewal" is the expression Edmund Husserl used for the social, political, and ethical transformation of human culture (1922-1924). Considering the concept of renewal in the "generative" becoming of a culture, I first explain the phenomenological background in which Husserl approached the enterprise of renewal. I then describe Husserl's concept of renewal as an ethical task. Next, I take up the process of renewal as accomplishing "the best possible." Following this, I discuss the concept of critique advanced in the "Kaizo" articles. (...) My conclusion interprets Husserl's emphases on the urgency of critique and renewal in relation to the generation of a culture. (shrink)

Matthias Steup (Steup 2008) has recently argued that our doxastic attitudes are free by (i) drawing an analogy with compatibilism about freedom of action and (ii) denying that it is a necessary condition for believing at will that S's having an intention to believe that p can cause S to believe that p . In this paper, however, I argue that the strategies espoused in (i) and (ii) are incompatible.

The Politics of Well-Being argues that the relationship between well-being and ethical life has been overlooked. The more specific argument of the book is that ethical life requires political engagement, and the emergence of a society committed to critical thinking. It is argued that these conditions allow for our ordination and confirmation as ethical subjects. While well-being can be experienced in different ways, it is claimed that, after experience of ethical life, a more sustainable form of it is revealed to (...) us, a form which we would be drawn to preserve, a form which can be constituted as an object of hope. While the book draws on philosophical themes, its main focus is political. This is because its primary objective is to identify and to examine what needs to be done in order to realise ethical life. Its main focus in this respect is the identification and examination of the barriers which need to be overcome if ethical life is to be realised. It is acknowledged that this will not be an easy task. Indeed, it may be an impossible task. However, despite these barriers, and despite the dark days we are living through, the book is a call to hope rather than a surrender to despair. This book will be of interest to students of politics, psychology, cultural studies, philosophy and sociology, as well as anyone else interested in exploring new ideas about how the make the world a better place. (shrink)

This article develops a cross-cultural and historical theory of antifeminist movements. Such movements are composed of two elements, which often involve very different types of people: vested-interest groups and voluntary associations. Five predictions concerning the social composition of antifeminist vested-interest groups and voluntary organizations and antifeminist movement ideology are derived from the theory. Evidence taken from existing literature pertaining to both first-wave and second-wave antifeminist movements in a variety of nations is reviewed. Substantial support is found for all five predictions. (...) We conclude that antifeminist movement adherents are responding to realistic threats. For men and vested-interest groups, the threat is primarily class based, but also extends to their status as family head; for women, it is primarily status based as wives and mothers, but also class-based inasmuch as their husbands' economic interests are threatened. (shrink)

In his recent review of my book, The Structure of Social Theory , Karsten Stueber rejected my criticisms of contemporary social theory. Against my "hermeneutic" sociology which prioritizes human social relations, he advocates a return to a dualistic ontology of structure and agency. This reply addresses Stueber’s criticisms to re-affirm the ontology of social relations against ontological dualism. Key Words: structure • agency • hermeneutics • social relations.

At the end of the nineteenth century, the manual training (MT) movement was a major concern for educators, industrialists, and politicians, and this included John Dewey. For Dewey. his unique version of MT, or "occupations," was a method of learning by doing that was at the center of the curriculum and had equal weight with other studies. It was also a key component of a pedagogy that considered the psychology of the child,1 liberal studies, and the social dimension of learning; (...) however, it was not trade or vocational education.2Nevertheless, over the years what Dewey meant by occupations has been either misinterpreted or ignored for a plethora of reasons and, at times, seen as synonymous with vocational .. (shrink)

This article argues that criminal justice and health institutions under settler colonialism collude to create and sustain “truths” about First Nations lives that often render them as “bare life,” to use the term of Giorgio Agamben. First Nations peoples’ existence is stripped to its sheer biological fact of life and their humanity denied rights and dignity. First Nations people remain in a “state of exception” to the legal order and its standards of care. Zones of exception place First Nations people (...) in a separate and diminished legal order. Medical and health agencies have been instrumental in shaping colonial “biopower,” both in and beyond carceral settings to ensure that First Nations lives are managed in accordance with the colonial settler state project. This project is able both to threaten First Nations rights to live and to maintain settler self-perceptions of decency and care. We illustrate this discussion with reference to the tragic and unnecessary deaths in custody of twenty-two-year-old Yamatji woman Ms Dhu in 2014 in South Hedland Police Station, Western Australia, and twenty-six-year-old Dunghutti man David Dungay Jnr in Long Bay jail in Sydney, NSW, in 2015. Health professionals and police demonstrated callous disregard to Ms Dhu and Mr Dungay—treating them as “bare life.”. (shrink)