Palestinian teachers at the pre-collegiate level who participate in the CEEPAT programme will, it is hoped, learn to place new emphasis on enhancement of their students' analytical skills and discourage an identification of knowledge with memorisation. For their part, Palestinian professors who have been trained to teach in the programme will presumably constitute a growing reservoir of talent which may be expected to raise the quality of Palestinian university education. Plans are now under way to give all Palestinians teaching under (...) the auspices of CEEPAT an opportunity to attend an annual, three-week winter seminar in Gaza and/or a summer seminar in the United States, both of which will focus on issues of pedagogy and methodology. Such professors can be expected to “pass on their new understanding of teaching via discussion to their colleagues and to their university students, thereby spreading an important pedagogical method to other segments of the Palestinian... community”. 7 CEEPAT clearly has the potential to make a significant contribution to the elevation of educational standards in Palestine at a time of major historical change.In Palestine, higher education of quality is obviously a very serious business. It is understood that it underlies any possibility of individual betterment, economic development, or the evolution of an independent Palestinian state. If ever the Israeli occupation is completely terminated and the present financial crisis of the universities is solved, Palestinian university and post-baccalaureate training may reasonably be expected to become fully competitive on an international scale. (shrink)

Bearing witness is a familiar if diversely employed concept. On the one hand, it concerns the accuracy and validity of practical affairs, for example in a court of law, at a wedding, or in a law office. On the other hand, the term can embody powerful religious, social, and/ or moral meaning, whether in bearing witness to historical trauma and human suffering, or in paying heed to everyday, seemingly ordinary aspects of nature and of human life. In this article, we (...) address the question of what renders a witness trustworthy. We characterize ethical and epistemic constituents of witnessing. We examine the work of several exemplary witnesses: W. G. Sebald, Saidiya Hartman, Jonathan Lear, Etty Hillesum, and John Berger alongside Jean Mohr. These sources help us think about the education of a person who aspires to bear witness, whether it be to traumatic events or to quotidian life in educational or other settings. We present criteria of trustworthiness that can support reflection on what we take to be the important place of bearing witness in educational inquiry and practice. (shrink)

In this article, we present the contemporary conceptualization of metamemory as beliefs, accurate and naive, about memory. We discuss the implications of metamemory for memory construction in general and for suggestibility and the recovery of memories in particular. We argue that beliefs about memory influence the probability that suggestions will be incorporated into memory and judgements about the veracity of subsequent recollections. Implications for research on the role of beliefs in suggestibility and memory recovery are outlined.

Nineteenth-century catalogues of nebulae and star clusters Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 1-3 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9593-6 Authors Woodruff T. Sullivan, Department of Astronomy, University of Washington, Box 351580, Seattle, WA 98195, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

The Metacognitive, Affective, Cognitive Experience questionnaire was designed to assess metacognition across sleep and waking . The present research evaluates the psychometric properties of the MACE. Data from two recent studies were used to assess the inter-item consistency, test–retest reliability, and factorial, convergent, and discriminant validity of the MACE. Results show that the MACE is a reliable measure with good construct validity. Exploratory factor analyses revealed one self-regulation and two monitoring factors. One monitoring factor emphasized monitoring internal conditions; the other (...) emphasized monitoring external conditions. This factor structure is consistent with the Metacognitive Model . Tests of convergent and discriminant validity suggest that the MACE is assessing metacognition and is appropriately related to similar constructs such as mindfulness and self-consciousness. The implication of these findings as well as suggestions for research and clinical applications of the MACE are discussed. (shrink)

Quentin Smith contends that modern science provides enough evidence ‘to justify the belief that the universe began to exist without being caused to do so.’ There was a time when such a claim would have been dismissed because it conflicts with a principle absolutely fundamental to all human thought, including science itself. As Thomas Reid expressed the matter: That neither existence, nor any mode of existence, can begin without an efficient cause is a principle that appears very early in the (...) mind of man; and it is so universal, and so firmly rooted in human nature, that the most determined scepticism cannot eradicate it. (shrink)

Vacillating and mixed emotional experiences are often difficult to explore and understand because they confront the limits of our language's ability to capture private experiences in extreme or abnormal circumstances. In this paper, we build upon remarks by Wittgenstein (1953) to present a conceptual-discursive perspective based on naturalistic examples of individuals vacillating between pride and other emotions. This perspective is used to show how relevant emotion theories contain conceptual errors of the sort identified by Wittgenstein. The “assembled reminders” of shifts (...) between pride and other emotions are presented in contrast to analyses that focus on people's identification of causes of emotions, an approach which leads to theoretical speculation about underlying appraisal set changes or discussion of the empirical justification of cognitive ontology. We bypass a direct confrontation on these issues by examining how people's talk about the content of vacillating and mixed emotional experiences (i.e., aspect shifts) augments a shared “emotionology” with creative expressions and poetic comparisons. This last point is illustrated by the emotional instability experienced by individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Support for the conceptual-discursive perspective is provided by the success of a particular therapeutic approach, the Conversational Model, in ameliorating the developmental disruption of BPD by encouraging participation in empathic conversations. We conclude that a conceptual-discursive perspective undermines the cognitive appraisal “picture” of vacillating emotions and adds to our understanding. (shrink)

Last year marked the 20th anniversary of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977. The FCPA is the first and only statute prohibiting bribery and other corrupt business practices by U.S. citizens and companies conducting business overseas. This paper provides an overview of the FCPA during the two decades of its existence. More specifically, the objectives of this paper are four-fold. First, the paper provides background information about the FCPA of 1977 and subsequent amendments in 1988. Second, the paper (...) discusses the enforcement of the FCPA since its passage by examining the number of cases prosecuted under the FCPA and the respective penalties imposed. Third, the paper discusses the economic impact of the FCPA by addressing whether the FCPA places U.S. firms at a competitive disadvantage. Fourth, the paper provides public policy recommendations to expand the reach and scope of the FCPA. It covers efforts to criminalize bribery through multilateral organizations, such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the Organization of American States (OAS). It also covers bilateral arrangements and efforts by non-governmental organizations such as Transparency International. (shrink)

In a historical moment when cross-cultural communication proves both necessary and difficult, the work of comparative philosophy is timely. Philosophical resources for building a shared future marked by vitality and collaborative meaning-making are in high demand. Taking note of the present global philosophical situation, this collection of essays critically engages the scholarship of Roger T. Ames, who for decades has had a central role in the evolution of comparative and nonwestern philosophy. With a reflective methodology that has produced creative translations (...) of key Chinese philosophical texts, Ames-in conjunction with notable collaborators such as D.C. Lau, David Hall, and Henry Rosemont Jr.-has brought China's philosophical traditions into constructive cross-cultural dialogue on numerous ethical and social issues that we face today. The volume opens with two parts that share overlapping concerns about interpretation and translation of nonwestern texts and traditions. Parts III and IV-"Process Cosmology" and "Epistemological Considerations"-mark the shift in comparative projects from the metaphilosophical and translational stage to the more traditionally philosophical stage. Parts V and VI-"Confucian Role Ethics" and "Classical Daoism"-might best be read as Chinese contributions to philosophical inquiry into living well or "ethics" broadly construed. Lastly, Part VII takes Amesian comparative philosophy in "Critical Social and Political Directions," explicitly drawing out the broader dimensions of social constitution and the ideal of harmony. The contributors-scholars working in philosophy, religious studies, and Asian studies-pursue lines of inquiry opened up by the work of Roger Ames, and their chapters both clarify his ideas and push them in new directions. They survey the field of Chinese philosophy as it is taking shape in the wake of Ames's contributions and as it carries forward a global conversation on the future of humanity. (shrink)

For the most of us, work is an entirely non-discretionary activity, an inescapable and irreducible fact of existence. According to E. F. Schumacher one of the darkest aspects of contemporary work life is the existence of an appalling number of men and women condemned to work which has no connection with their inner lives, no meaning for them whatever. Work for too many people is perceived as down-time, something that has to be done, but seldom adding to who they are. (...) And yet recent surveys indicate that 74% of the work force would chose to work even if they were not financially required to do so. Why?This paper contends that people want to work because they are intuitively aware that work, be it bad or good, helps to shape them. It gives them a sense of direction and allows them the opportunity for personal creativity and fulfillment. Work is the axis of human self-making. Work molds the person and work is the mark of a person. Satisfaction with life seems to be related to satisfaction with our work and the quality of our lives seems dependent on the quality of work that we do. (shrink)

Adaptive training adjusts a training task with the goal of improving learning outcomes. Adaptive training has been shown to improve human performance in attention, working memory capacity, and motor control tasks. Additionally, correlations have been observed between neural EEG spectral features (4–13 Hz) and the performance of some cognitive tasks. This relationship suggests some EEG features may be useful in adaptive training regimens. Here, we anticipated that adding a neural measure into a behavioral-based adaptive training system would improve human performance (...) on a subsequent transfer task. We designed, developed, and conducted a between-subjects study of 44 participants comparing three training regimens: Single Item Fixed Difficulty (SIFD), Behaviorally Adaptive Training (BAT), and Combined Adaptive Training (CAT) using both behavioral and EEG measures. Results showed a statistically significant transfer task performance advantage of the CAT-based system relative to SIFD and BAT systems of 6 and 9 percentage points, respectively. Our research shows a promising pathway for designing closed-loop BCI systems based on both users' behavioral performance and neural signals for augmenting human performance. (shrink)

In The Racial Contract, Charles Mills introduces the notion of an ‘inverted epistemology,’ an epistemology that construes social and racial ignorance as knowledge (p.18). As Mills points out, such ignorance can be used to oppress people by creating alternate realities or ‘white mythologies’ about race (p. 19). If the racial contract results in a society that oppresses people of color and supports white supremacy, then the question of how to correct an inverted epistemology becomes critical. Mills proposes the correction of (...) history and the racist thinking underwriting it as a solution to the problem. Others, like Alison Bailey, seek to confront racial ignorance with active resistance by suggesting that individuals from historically marginalized groups exploit what members of dominant society don’t know (p. 77). While Bailey’s solution, referred to as strategic ignorance, may originate from good intentions, I argue that it is in general inappropriate for Indigenous people. Strategic ignorance is a product of the Western worldview, and it privileges Western values. In fact, both solutions offered by Mills and Bailey fail to consider Indigenous values. Mills’ proposed solution, however, is less objectionable. Instead of either solution, a more suitable form of resistance – one that embraces connectedness, balance, and harmony – would be ideal for the Indigenous communities of Turtle Island. (shrink)

While gender and race often are considered socially constructed, this book argues that they are physiologically constituted through the biopsychosocial effects of sexism and racism. This means that to be fully successful, critical philosophy of race and feminist philosophy need to examine not only the financial, legal, political and other forms of racist and sexism oppression, but also their physiological operations. Examining a complex tangle of affects, emotions, knowledge, and privilege, The Physiology of Sexist and Racist Oppression develops an understanding (...) of the human body whose unconscious habits are biological. On this account, affect and emotion are thoroughly somatic, not something "mental" or extra-biological layered on top of the body. They also are interpersonal, social, and can be transactionally transmitted between people.Ranging from the stomach and the gut to the hips and the heart, from autoimmune diseases to epigenetic markers, Sullivan demonstrates the gastrointestinal effects of sexual abuse that disproportionately affect women, often manifesting as IBS, Crohn's disease, or similar functional disorders. She also explores the transgenerational effects of racism via epigenetic changes in African American women, who experience much higher pre-term birth rates than white women do, and she reveals the unjust benefits for heart health experienced by white people as a result of their racial privilege. Finally, developing the notion of a physiological therapy that doesn't prioritize bringing unconscious habits to conscious awareness, Sullivan closes with a double-barreled approach for both working for institutional change and transforming biologically unconscious habits. The Physiology of Sexist and Racist Oppression skillfully combines feminist and critical philosophy of race with the biological and health sciences. The result is a critical physiology of race and gender that offers new strategies for fighting male and white privilege. (shrink)

The paper contains an argument against functionalist theories of consciousness. The argument exploits an intuition to the effect that parts of an individual's brain that are not in use at a time t, can have no bearing on whether that individual is conscious at t. After presenting the argument, I defend it against two possible objections, and then distinguish it from two arguments to which it appears, on the surface to be similar.

ABSTRACT There is currently a great deal of enthusiasm for projects known sometimes as “amelioration” and sometimes as “conceptual engineering.” Such projects advocate either the revision of existing concepts, or the intentional creation of new concepts. It is held by advocates of amelioration that projects of this sort are necessary for the accomplishment of a variety of social justice goals. So, for example, many feminist theorists hold that the concept WOMAN must be revised if we are to properly characterize and (...) struggle against women’s oppression. With regard to these projects, I will argue for three theses: 1) Amelioration/Conceptual Engineering is impossible, because there is no conception of concepts which satisfies all the prerequisites for either change or intentional replacement; 2) Amelioration/Conceptual Engineering is undesirable, because if it were possible it would amount to pernicious thought-control; and 3) Amelioration/Conceptual Engineering is unnecessary, because our political goals can be conceived using existing concepts – having a concept of WOMAN does not commit us to any particular beliefs about women. (shrink)

The concept of randomness has been unjustly neglected in recent philosophical literature, and when philosophers have thought about it, they have usually acquiesced in views about the concept that are fundamentally flawed. After indicating the ways in which these accounts are flawed, I propose that randomness is to be understood as a special case of the epistemic concept of the unpredictability of a process. This proposal arguably captures the intuitive desiderata for the concept of randomness; at least it should suggest (...) that the commonly accepted accounts cannot be the whole story and more philosophical attention needs to be paid. 1. Randomness in science1.1Random systems1.2Random behaviour1.3Random sampling1.4Caprice, arbitrariness and noise2. Concepts of randomness2.1Von Mises/church/martin-löf randomness2.2KCS-randomness3. Randomness is unpredictability: preliminaries3.1Process and product randomness3.2Randomness is indeterminism?4. Predictability4.1Epistemic constraints on prediction4.2Computational constraints on prediction4.3Pragmatic constraints on prediction4.4Prediction defined5. Unpredictability6. Randomness is unpredictability6.1Clarification of the definition of randomness6.2Randomness and probability6.3Subjectivity and context sensitivity of randomness7. Evaluating the analysis[R]andomness … is going to be a concept which is relative to our body of knowledge, which will somehow reflect what we know and what we don't know. Henry E. Kyburg, Jr ([1974], p. 217)Phenomena that we cannot predict must be judged random. Patrick Suppes ([1984], p. 32). (shrink)

There will be a surprise party for Mark tonight. He loves surprise parties, because he loves the surprise—but he'll feel terrible if the surprise is spoiled, and not want to go. He has a reason to go to the party—the surprise—; but if he knew or even believed what that reason was, he would have a reason not to go. It looks like in this case there can be really good reasons for someone without the person being aware of what (...) those reasons are (and in this case, it wouldn't even be a reason to go anymore if he was aware of it). Now presumably this reason isn't motivating Mark to go to the party. But it is a fact that counts in favour of Mark's going to the party even without motivating him to do it. (shrink)

"Contemporary Mind - Some Modern Answers" is a fantastic collection of essays by English science writer John W. Sullivan. They deal with a range of subjects, ranging from mysticism and immortality to the relationship between science and art. John William Navin Sullivan (1886 - 1937) was a literary journalist and popular science writer most famous for his study of Beethoven. He is also responsible for having written some of the earliest non-technical accounts of Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, (...) and he was acquainted with many important writers in London in the 1920s, including John Middleton Murry, Aldous Huxley, Wyndham Lewis, Aleister Crowley and T. S. Eliot. Other notable works by this author include "Aspects of Science" (1923), "Aspects of Science: Second Series" (1926), and An Outline of Modern Knowledge (1931). Contents include: "The Balanced Life," "The Problem of Suffering," "The Necessity of Mysticism," "Human Immortality," "A Dissertation on Beethoven," "The Scientific Outlook," "A Dissertation on Maxwell," "New Principles," "A Dissertation on Newton," "Science and Art," "Mathematics and Culture," "Sir Josiah Stamp," "Mr. Aldous Huxley," etc. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with the original text and artwork. (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic provides the newest example of staunch polarization in the epistemic community, providing ample opportunity for profound disagreements on its origin and the international resp...

Metaphysics, having long since recovered the logical positivist/empiricist objections that were supposed to signal its death, is once again coming under sustained criticism, and from a similar direction. Once it was realised that speculative systematic metaphysics needn’t be abandoned in light of empiricist scruples, metaphysics flourished. But it’s become increasingly clear that, even if the logical empiricists didn’t exactly get their objections right, there is something worrying about the evidential basis for contemporary metaphysics. Not that metaphysicians are unaware of this. (...) There is lots of recent activity in metametaphysics, and much of this research is more or less connected to worries about whether we can have evidence in favour of a metaphysical hypothesis. Roughly: there are alternative views according to which metaphysical disputes variously.. (shrink)

The Heythrop Journal, Volume 63, Issue 2, Page 326-329, March 2022.

In this paper we see that the answer of this question is affirmative. We prove this for Dco-algebras and as special case we obtain the result for Positive Implication algebras. First we give, without proof, the properties of Dco-algebras and S-algebras and their connection with Positive Implication algebras and Implication algebras. These results can be found in [T] and [IT].

I begin this paper by claiming that commentators who regard the Groundwork as Kant's final word on ethics inevitably misunderstand his moral theory. In support of this claim I focus on how Kant portrayed the role of inclinations in the morally virtuous life. A person who reads only the Groundwork will surely be struck by Kant's negative treatment of desires in that book: they are completely irrelevant to the rightness of our moral judgments, and the only specifically moral motive is (...) dutifulness, excluding all influence of the emotions, which function as the main rival to moral motivation.Kant left a thorough discussion of his division of duties for his Metaphysics of Morals, and there, when he discusses imperfect duties as well as morally permissible activities, we find that the categorical imperative is an indeterminate guide to the majority of our decisions. That is, in such matters, pure practical reason must be supplemented by both prudential judgments and motives grounded on inclinations. Then inclinations operate, not as a crutch to induce us to do our duty, but as a complement to the Categorical Imperative.The Categorical Imperative, therefore, has a more limited role in most of our decisions than appears to be the case in the Groundwork. Yet the all-encompassing role enjoyed by the moral law means that which permissible activities we engage in and exactly how we fulfil positive obligations still both need to be recognized as expressions of a person's character. Contrary a common misinterpretation, then, the criterion of effectiveness can therefore be both relevant to and even mandated by the moral law and so function as a moral category in Kant's theory. Instances in which practice goes amiss in these areas are failures of prudence, and such "faults," as Kant called them, are not necessarily incompatible with a person's ultimate moral commitment.We now can see how misled are those who describe Kant's moral theory as totally rule-bound and excessively rigoristic. That his theory leaves vast areas of our life open to prudential judgments is but another reflection of the way in which he was faitful to the thinking of ordinary people. Zu Beginn meines Beitrags behaupte ich, daß Autoren, die die Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten als sein letztes Wort zur Ethik ansehen, Kants Moraltheorie unvermeidlich mißverstehen. Um diese Behauptung zu begründen, richte ich meinen Blick in erster Linie auf die Frage, wie Kant die Rolle der sinnlichen Antriebe und Neigungen in einem moralisch tugendhaften Leben schildert. Demjenigen, der sich auf die Grundlegung beschränkt, wird die negative Behandlung dieser sinnlichen Antriebe und Neigungen in diesem Buch sicherlich auffallen. Für die Richtigkeit unserer moralischen Urteile spielen sie keine Rolle. Im Gegenteil: Die spezifisch moralische Triebfeder ist allein die Pflicht selbst. Die Gefühle sind von jedem Einfluß ausgeschlossen; statt dessen fungieren sie als die hauptsächlichen Rivalen eines eigentlich moralischen Antriebs.Kant hat die eingehende Erörterung der Einteilung der Pflichten auf die Metaphysik der Sitten verschoben, und wenn er dort sowohl unvollkommene Pflichten als auch moralisch erlaubte Handlungen diskutiert, dann sehen wir, daß der Kategorische Imperativ für die Mehrzahl unserer Entscheidungen nur eine unbestimmte Anleitung liefert. Das heißt, in diesen Bereichen bedarf die reine praktische Vernunft einer Ergänzung, durch Klugheitsurteile wie auch durch Motive, die von unseren Neigungen abhängig sind. Die Neigungen sind in der Metaphysik der Sitten nicht eine Krücke, um uns zu pflichtgemäßem Handeln zu bringen, vielmehr dienen sie der Vervollständigung des Kategorischen Imperativs.Die Rolle, die der Kategorische Imperativ bei den meisten unserer Entscheidungen spielt, ist deshalb viel eingeschränkter, als es in der Grundlegung erscheint. Das bedeutet, daß die Art und Weise, wie wir unsere positiven Verpflichtungen erfüllen, und die Auswahl der erlaubten Handlungen, auf die wir uns einlassen, immer noch als Ausdruck des Charakters unserer Person anerkannt werden müssen, obwohl und weil das moralische Gesetz über allem steht. Entgegen einem gewöhnlichen Mißverständnis kann auch das Kriterium der Effektivität für das moralische Gesetz relevant und vom moralischen Gesetz sogar vorgeschrieben sein und so in Kants Theorie als eine moralische Kategorie fungieren. Soweit diese Überlegungen reichen, erweisen sich Mängel in unserer Praxis als Fälle, in denen unsere Klugheit versagt hat, und derartige "Fehler", wie Kant sie nennt, sind nicht notwendigerweise unvereinbar mit einem Selbstverständnis, daß das moralische Gesetz für mich letztendlich die entscheidende Rolle spielt.Wir sehen nun, wie falsch eine Interpretation ist, die Kants Moraltheorie als vollständig an Regeln gebunden und übertrieben rigoristisch beschreibt. Daß seine Theorie große Bereiche unseres Lebens für Klugheitsentscheidungen offen läßt, ist nur ein anderer Aspekt seiner Bindung an die "gemeine Menschenvernunft". (shrink)

In this chapter, I’ll provide an introduction to the mathematics of probability theory.1 The philosophy of probability doesn’t require much mathematical sophistication, at least not to get a good grip on the main problems and views. Nothing in this chapter is particularly complicated, and even the mathematically shy should, with a little effort, find it easy to follow. I do assume familiarity with the basics of an elementary logic course, and some basic facility with the notion of a set.

Some philosophers have been attracted to the idea that the norm of belief is truth that is, a belief that p is correct i p is true. But this idea is problematic in view of some very common• place re ections on what one should believe about paradoxical sentences like the Truthteller. Interestingly, these re ections don't seem to trouble the rival knowledge norm for belief, and this may provide indirect support for that alternative norm.

Louise Antony explains a variety of naturalisms, and why she doesn't believe in God.

relevant alternatives: I take it that a process is reliable in the actual world iff, in the actual set of outcomes (i.e. beliefs being formed), the frequency of successes (those beliefs being true) is much greater than the frequency of failures (those beliefs being false). One may wish to run a more sophisticated kind of reliabilism, where one demands that a reliable process also be reliable in counterfactual situations, but one need not, and I won’t here. If perception is a (...) reliable belief forming process, then I can know things on the basis of perception. So let’s say I know p on the basis of perception. To know that I know p involves, first, knowing that I believe p, and second, knowing that I believe p on the basis of a reliable belief forming process, by the definition of knowledge. But can I know either of these things? (shrink)

In this paper I consider the project of offering an evolutionary debunking explanation for transparency in doxastic deliberation. I examine Nicole Dular and Nikki Fortier’s (2021) attempt at such a project. I suggest that their account faces a dilemma. On the one horn, their explanation of transparency involves casting our mechanisms for belief formation as solely concerned with truth. I argue that this is explanatorily inadequate when we take a wider view of our belief formation practices. I show that Dular (...) and Fortier overstate the extent to which adaptive non-evidentially supported beliefs are rare, and the implausibility of disjunctive evolutionary systems. They should allow a role for the non-truth directed behaviour of our mechanisms of belief formation. On the other hand, we might restrict the explanation offered by Dular and Fortier to the deliberative context, that is, we might understand them as allowing for non-evidential belief formation outside of the deliberative context, but as identifying the key to explaining transparency in the truth-directed evolutionary mechanisms as they operate in the deliberative context. However, this would land them on the second horn of the dilemma: we would then have no different an explanation to one I have offered elsewhere (2018), an explanation which Dular and Fortier explicitly put aside as engaged in a project different from their own. I finish by briefly considering some broader implications relating to explaining transparency, the nature of belief, and the prospects for pragmatism. I conclude that Dular and Fortier’s debunking explanation of transparency bestows an implausible role for truth in fixing our beliefs, or, if it doesn’t, then we simply have the restatement of a view explicitly disavowed by the authors. We are left, then, with an explanation we ought not want, or an explanation we already had. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Awakening to Race: Individualism and Social Consciousness in America by Jack TurnerShannon SullivanJack Turner Awakening to Race: Individualism and Social Consciousness in America Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2012. xv + 199pp, incl. index.Don’t let the size of this slim volume fool you: Awakening to Race is chock-full of fresh insights and original arguments regarding individualism and race in the American democratic tradition. Individualism in America often (...) takes atomistic forms that are antithetical to a rich sense of the social constitution of the self. For that reason, individualism often is viewed as antithetical to a critical consciousness of how race and white racism operate. In Awakening to Race, Jack Turner boldly takes the bull of American individualism by its horns. He argues that the rhetoric of individualism can be used against, rather than in service of an allegedly colorblind society in which independent, post-racial individuals pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. The result of Turner’s skillful intervention into American political philosophy is to take back individualism from conservative forces and refashion it into a progressive tool for racial justice movements.Turner sets the stage for his intervention in chapter one, which provides an overview of the book. Beginning with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Awakening to Race proceeds to focus on Frederick Douglass and Ralph Ellison and concludes with James Baldwin. One of the primary tasks of chapter one is to outline the book’s major Emersonian theme, which is that an individualist notion of self-reliance should lead a person to become more, rather than less aware of structural and social injustices. Properly understood, individualism should lead to an awakening to race, as Turner’s book is aptly titled, not to ignoring or failing to see it. An individual who wishes to be self-reliant should be wary and watchful of the ways in which she depends on social structures, including those of social injustice. An atomistic notion of the individual is not adequate to this task; an Emersonian democratic individual is needed instead. As Turner explains with reference to adherents of atomistic individualism, “their failure to awaken to the socially indebted nature of the self desensitizes them to structural—and thus racial—injustice” (11).Chapter two turns to Tocqueville, Emerson, and (to a lesser extent) Thoreau to flesh out this idea. In this chapter, Turner develops [End Page 170] Emerson’s notion of self-reliance as “a politically dynamic ethical ideal, one that can motivate and energize democratic political action” rather than withdrawal from society (29). To do so, Turner references Tocqueville’s analysis of race in the United States, which reveals an affinity between white individualism and white supremacy. White individuals could contrast themselves with black slaves to reassure themselves that they were free while simultaneously ignoring their dependence on social and legal structures of white supremacy to ensure their psychological and personal sense of personhood. Individual self-sufficiency can operate as a racialized marker of freedom that is in bad faith because it evades its dependence on race and racism. With Emerson, Turner argues that genuine self-sufficiency requires reckoning with all sorts of ways that one is dependent on and complicit with societal structures, including those of white supremacy. Drawing on Emerson’s anti-slavery addresses, Turner develops a theory of democratic individual responsibility that requires of genuine self-reliance that it not interfere with the self-reliance of others. This requirement obligates the individual to take political and other forms of action to ensure that his or her free, self-reliant life is not dependent on the exploitation of others (45).In addition to its nonexploitation obligation, democratic individualist responsibility includes a democratic egalitarian obligation. Turner develops the latter idea in chapter three through the work of Frederick Douglas. While Douglas’s notion of self-help often is read as atomistically individualist, Turner shows how it is instead tied to social responsibility. In the case of Douglasian self-help, “ought implies can” and so requiring of people that they help themselves means ensuring that they have the resources available to do so (62). While dominant notions of self-help have been used in the United States... (shrink)

La question du nihilisme a une longue histoire. Elle émerge au sein de l'idéalisme allemand, se déploie ensuite dans l'intelligentsia et la littérature russes, puis trouve chez Nietzsche et Heidegger ses explorations les plus influentes. Si le mot semble moins courant depuis un demi-siècle -- comme d'autres termes aussi chargés, pensons à celui d'aliénation -- les enjeux qu'il soulève demeurent toutefois au cœur de la pensée contemporaine. Les risques environnementaux nourrissent d'ailleurs plus que jamais l'inquiétante intuition que de puissantes dynamiques (...) de dévalorisation du réel sont à l'œuvre dans les sociétés modernes. Ces douze essais, qui font largement entendre la voix d'une nouvelle génération, n'ont pourtant pas pour but de défendre une thèse commune. Ils explorent plutôt les multiples aspects du nihilisme et se confrontent à ses grandes interprétations. Sont ainsi proposées autant de pistes pour rejoindre les débats sur le capitalisme, la technique, l'éducation, le patriarcat, le roman ou la démocratie. Pluralité revendiquée, qui illustre néanmoins un même ancrage dans les défis du monde actuel. (shrink)

L'anthropologie pascalienne de la "misère de l'homme sans Dieu" frappe par sa pertinence : aucun apologiste chrétien n'a exprimé avec tant de justesse le point de vue d'un incroyant sur le monde et sur sa propre nature. C'est le point de départ de son argumentation apologétique, que cet ouvrage suit pas à pas, en précisant ses sources cartésiennes et gassendistes, en examinant le statut du sentiment et en restituant la cohérence de la foi de la "seconde nature". Les Pensées constituent (...) l'expression complexe d'une philosophie chrétienne et la cohérence de l'argumentation représente un témoignage privilégié sur le libertinage tel que Pascal le concevait. Le profil intellectuel de son libertin apparaît entre les lignes de l'argumentation apologétique."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

The premodern history of the European university can be divided into two triads of three centuries: the medieval university and the ‘medieval’ university of the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. During these last three centuries Europe’s Christian university was a ‘confessional’ university: the catholic, Lutheran, reformed and Anglican university and the dissenter university of New England. The reformed university of these centuries offered a distinctive way of systematic thought. A specific doctrine of God was connected with a distinct ontology and (...) this combination constituted the theoretical framework of its philosophy and theology. What are the main distinctive features of this scholastic way of thought and can a specific traditionhistorical background be identified ? I– The key concept of this systematic way of thought is God’s free knowledge . This free knowledgeis here understood to be God’s knowledge of future states of affairs – see section 7 for the main lines of Turrettini’s doctrine of God. This free knowledge of future states of affairs is also called definite , because future states of affairs are definite on the basis of God’s certain will. Thus God’s free knowledge is partly based on divine will, but the other pillar of God’s free knowledge is that divine knowledge which is structurally prior to an act of divine will: God’s ‘natural’ knowledge . This natural or necessary knowledge of God encompasses all possible states of affairs. This structure turning around the notion of scientia libera is vital for understanding Western thought, because Aristotelianism and latin Averroism, Thomism and nominalism do not dispose of this notion of scientia libera. Such a free knowledge doctrine of God is married to a specific type of ontology, namely a contingency ontology– see section 8. This type of ontology centres on the notion of fundamental possibility. All possible states of affairs enjoy the status of possibility . This status of possibility is constituted by logical possibility. Turrettini joins Duns Scotus in defining the logicum possibile: If a state of affairs is possible, then it is not inconsistent that it obtains. Therefore, the twin concept of fundamental possibility is logical IMpossibility: What is logically impossible, is inconsistent and self-contradictory, because it includes contradictory predicates. This approach leads to the central ontological notion of synchronic contingency. Turrettini’s key term is even almost the same as this modern invention to name this crucial device: simultas potentiae. When is an event contingent in this sense? An event e is synchronically contingent at time t, if e is the case at time t – therefore eis possible – while it is possible too that e is not the case at the same time t. Because of the simultaneity of the possibility of the opposite, reality is not necessary. It is open. Thus, the tool of implicative necessity is essential to Turrettini’s methodology. It does not only govern his doctrine of God, but also his theory of true freedom of the human will. II – In contrast to traditional descriptions of reformed scholasticism, Turrettini’s theology is a theology of will and radical contingency in general and a theology of freedom and grace in particular. I have already indicated that Turrettini followed Scotism in vital respects and Duns Scotus stood on the shoulders of Henry of Ghent and of Bonaventure . The ontological infrastructure was delivered by Duns Scotus’ way of thinking structured by synchronic contingency, but the basics of this type of doctrine of God’s knowledge are already conspicuous in the so-called Summa fratris Aleandri . Thomas Aquinas substantially borrowing from Aristotle consciously deviates from this tradition built on the legacy of Augustine and Anselm, the Victorines and Alexander of Hales by ignoring the new theory of divine knowledge put forward by John of La Rochelle. This new approach develops a new relationship between God’s notitia simplex and notitia visionis on the one hand and his potentia absoluta and potentia ordinata on the other hand. (shrink)

Dispositional essentialists are typically committed to two claims: that properties are individuated by their causal role (‘causal structuralism’), and that natural necessity is to be explained by appeal to these causal roles (‘dispositional actualism’). I argue that these two claims cannot be simultaneously maintained; and that the correct response is to deny dispositional actualism. Causal structuralism remains an attractive position, but doesn’t in fact provide much support for dispositional essentialism.