Romanticism fabricated a poet of vast oracular powers largely from superstitious notions and suspicious philosophies which the Renaissance had gathered up somewhat by chance with the rational part of the Graeco-Roman legacy. The model was surely an imposture and, historically considered, a scandal. Seer, sage, prophet, mage—the pretensions varied, but all were titles to transcendent disclosure in times increasingly committed, at least officially, to a unified scientific view. That the poet could be confirmed to any degree in this anachronistic role (...) was probably owing to the circumstance that the general cultural reflex following the Enlightenment reawakened widespread interest in those dark and excluded passages of the human spirit which mystics and seers were thought to frequent. Poets who pretended to voyance benefited from the muffled but persistent rumor of profound mysteries accessible to the high priests of Kabbala and the Corpus Hermeticum, to Illuminists, Rosicrucians, and Neopythagoreans. Western Europe had never ceased to acknowledge, even in such unlikely periods as the later Middle Ages, the aboriginal priestly and prophetic functions of the poet; but romanticism contrived—out of occultism and neoplatonism, antirationalism and anticlassicism—such a warrant for unabashed oracular saying as Antiquity had scarcely imagined. While perhaps none of the romantic was actually prepared to grant the poet his ancient powers in full measure, few seemed inclined to diminish the stature of the heroic abstraction, who symbolically contested the claims of naturalism and positivism. (shrink)

Hume held that we have no rational justification for our inductive beliefs. A more radical view is that we have no rational justification for any of our beliefs. This dissertation has two goals pertaining to this more radical view. // The first goal is to find a basis for constructive epistemology that is consistent with this view. This goal is first sought by considering externalist theories of knowledge since these do not require rational justification for knowledge. Externalist theories are defended (...) against the usual objections, partly via a strategy of immunizing them from counterexample-based objections by arguing that epistemologies can be successful even if they fail to explicate ordinary epistemic notions. But a new objection to externalist theories is then brought to light. The objection begins as an attack against a dogma of contemporary epistemology, that the chief benefit of possessing knowledge is having a true belief. It is argued that there are many other benefits to having knowledge , and that externalist theories are defective because externalist knowledge lacks these benefits. A mixed internalist/externalist theory, bilevel reliabilism, is then presented as a solution to this difficulty. //The second goal is to provide an explanation of the function and origin of human epistemic practices that is consistent with the no-rational-justification view. Providing such an explanation is problematic for holders of this view because, if it is correct, it seems, prima facie, that there is no reason to have epistemic practices. This goal is achieved by arguing that epistemic practices, despite appearing to have rational justification as their goal, chiefly function to promote the existence of bilevel reliabilist knowledge, a very useful type of belief that is not rationally justified. It is then argued that the explanation of the origin of epistemic practices is that they arise from natural human inductive tendencies. (shrink)

The majority of people show persistent poor performance in reasoning about “stock-flow problems” in the laboratory. An important example is the failure to understand the relationship between the “stock” of CO2 in the atmosphere, the “inflow” via anthropogenic CO2 emissions, and the “outflow” via natural CO2 absorption. This study addresses potential causes of reasoning failures in the CO2 accumulation problem and reports two experiments involving a simple re-framing of the task as managing an analogous financial budget. In Experiment 1 a (...) financial version of the task that required participants to think in terms of controlling debt demonstrated significant improvements compared to a standard CO2 accumulation problem. Experiment 2, in which participants were invited to think about managing savings, suggested that this improvement was fortuitous and coincidental rather than due to a fundamental change in understanding the stock-flow relationships. The role of graphical information in aiding or abetting stock-flow reasoning was also explored in both experiments, with the results suggesting that graphs do not always assist understanding. The potential for leveraging the kind of reasoning exhibited in such tasks in an effort to change people's willingness to reduce CO2 emissions is briefly discussed. (shrink)

G. E. Moore attended Russell’s lectures on Leibniz in 1899 and kept detailed notes which have been preserved among his papers. The present article prints his notes in their entirety with annotations.

Moore's autobiography.--Descriptive and critical essays on the philosophy of G. E. Moore.--The philosopher replies.--Bibliography of the writings of G. E. Moore (to November, 1942) compiled by Emerson Buchanan and G. E. Moore (p. 679-689).

Unconditionals are syntactic conditionals whose affirmation affirms their consequent, unconditionally. Prominent instances were addressed by J.L. Austin ('There are biscuits if you want some') and Nelson Goodman (even-if 'semifactuals'). Their detailed features are explained in a Decision-Theoretic Semantics (DTS) which extends, by certainty and relevance conditions, the "CCCP" conditional probability construal of conditionals due to Ernest Adams and others. The construal of assertions of conditionals as conditional acts, defended by Keith DeRose and Richard Grandy in 1999 against objections arising from (...) Austin's unconditionals, is shown to be incompatible with any known version of CCCP. However, an ad-hoc decision-theoretic construal of their proposal is seen to work for Austin's unconditionals, albeit for these only. The DTS account of unconditionals hinges on stochastic independence or irrelevance conditions. For Austin's variant, it also involves changes in the expectations of non-indicator random variables, i.e. properly valuational relevance relations. The widely assumed speaker's knowledge presumption for assertion in general is reconstrued non-transcendently as a proposal to update to ostensible common certainty. This imperative replaces the factive 'T-axiom', KA-> A, of modal logical explications of knowledge to yield an doxastically imperatival, but evidence-sensitive theory of assertoric truth claims. On such a basis, Max Black's and G.E. Moore's ostensibilist account of assertors representing themselves as knowing is defended against Tim Williamson's 1996 and Igor Douven's 2006 respective deontic proposals for a knowledge or rational credibility requirement. Moreover, ostensibly unconditional, unhedged assertion is reconciled with a reality of dimly perceived potential defeaters on recognizing it to be a tacit semifactual, if need be. (shrink)

This contribution to the debate over Marx's theory of value gives an account of his concept of ?abstract labour?. Contrary to Stanley Moore {Inquiry, Vol. 14 [1971]), Marx never abandons his early critique of the Hegelian ?Concept'; for he gives a material basis to the conception of social labour as concretely universal. If, in analysing the commodity form of the product of labour, Marx characterizes the labour that forms the substance of value as ?abstractly universal labour?, the priority of (...) the abstract over the concrete at this point is not due to the influence of Hegel's Logic on Marx's work, but reflects the material process of abstraction occurring in commodity exchange. We show that Marx takes up a critical stance to this reality. (shrink)

Henry Habberley Price, who published as H. H. Price, was born in 1899. From 1935 to 1959 he was Wykeham Professor of Logic at Oxford University. Price was a major figure in his lifetime well-known especially for the “clarity and elegance of style”, which, according to Martha Kneale (1996: xix), make his works readable in spite of changing fashions in philosophy. Many people’s acquaintance nowadays with Price’s philosophical work derives from his being a target in Austin’s (1962) famous attack on (...) the sense-datum theory. This restricted acquaintance with his output is one reason that Price has been ignored in recent philosophy. -/- Mainstream philosophy neglected him after the Second World War, perhaps partly because, when articulating his ideas, he mainly engaged with philosophers of the past, such as Locke and Hume. His thought was, however, valued by fellow philosophers such as Broad, Moore, Ayer, and generations of his students at Oxford, including Sellars, Armstrong, and Anscombe. -/- Although Price is seen mainly as a philosopher of perception, only two of his six books are about perception and he had a major influence, also publishing many articles, on a variety of topics, including some we cannot focus on here, e.g., our evidence of other minds (1938; 1930b: 195) and psychical research (1940c; 1953b; 1972; 1995; an interest he claims to share with Neo-Platonists [1968a: 447]). We can only provide a sketch of his rich contributions. After briefly sketching his life (§1), we discuss his philosophy’s general features (§2), contributions to the studies of perception (§3), properties (§5.1), recognition (§5), belief (§6), religious belief (§6.8), his revival and serious study of Hume (§4), and some remarkable anticipations (§7). (shrink)

This book presents Robert S. Hartman’s formal theory of value and critically examines many other twentieth century value theorists in its light, including A.J. Ayer, Kurt Baier, Brand Blanshard, Paul Edwards, Albert Einstein, William K. Frankena, R.M. Hare, Nicolai Hartmann, Martin Heidegger, G.E. Moore, P.H. Nowell-Smith, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Charles Stevenson, Paul W. Taylor, Stephen E. Toulmin, and J.O. Urmson.

This book is a fundamental and unique masterpiece which reflects the discussions on business and economic ethics over decades in German-speaking countries, and ...

F. D. Maurice was a distinguished Christian theologian, much respected by academics and artists of his day and afterwards. This volume, originally published in 1951, contains the text of seven lectures delivered in his honour in 1942 by Arthur Ramsey, later Archbishop of Canterbury, and covers Maurice's career and his impact on later students of theology. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Christian socialism or in Maurice's wider work.

If scientists can successfully clone sheep, will humans be next? Today's headlines read like a science fiction novel! Due Consideration takes a poignant look at the rapidly changing field of biomedicine and the consequences it will have on our lives. Arthur Caplan, one of this nation's leading bioethicists, explores these issues and analyzes moral questions including: * Will we retain our essential humanity if we modify our biological blueprint? * Would it be irresponsible to procreate without a thorough genetic (...) examination? * Who will decide if physical traits like short stature and baldness are considered diseases? * Can biomedicine make our lives better? You'll also learn about the most current and controversial topics such as: * Cloning, abortion and assisted suicide. * Genetically engineering a human to be immune from infectious diseases. * The ability to "design" our children from head to toe. * Diagnosing and treating illnesses during fetal development. * Programs to prevent the transmission of HIV. No other book on the market today combines this analytic clarity with the latest from medical journals and media headlines. Now, you can decide for yourself what the future ought to hold in store. (shrink)

The overall subject of the essays in _The Body/Body Problem_ is the traditional one of what our ultimate makeup is, as creatures with minds and bodies. The central thesis is that we are beings who represent—and misrepresent—actual and possible worlds. Addressing philosophical questions of mental representation, Danto presents his distinctive approach to some of the most enduring topics in philosophy. He is concerned with the nature of description, the status of the external world, action theory, the philosophy of history, and (...) the philosophical status of psychoanalytic explanation. Representation is a central concept in philosophy, says Danto, with differences among philosophers arising in the ways they account for how representations connect to the world or to the individuals possessing them, and how they connect with one another to form systems of beliefs, feelings, and attitudes. In these essays Danto's own voice, with his arguments and speculations, provides rich philosophical pleasures that will endure, to borrow from Santayana, "under whatever sky." Arthur C. Danto is one of the most original and multitalented philosophers writing today, a thinker whose interests traverse the boundaries of traditional understandings of philosophy. Best known for his contributions to the philosophy of art and aesthetics, Danto is also esteemed for his work in the history of philosophy, the philosophy of history, philosophical psychology, and action theory. These two volumes, each with an introduction by the author, contain essays spanning more than twenty-five years that have been selected to highlight the inseparability of philosophy and art in Danto's work. Together they present the thinking of Arthur C. Danto at his very best. (shrink)

This essay argues that the affective component inherent in the enthymeme is the essence of aristotle's concept of the enthymeme as practical reasoning. 'affective component' refers to emotions and feelings. The three proofs of the thesis are the etymology of 'enthymeme', Aristotle's works on human action and practical wisdom, And aristotle's rhetoric. These sources show the inherent relation between enthymemes and phronesis, Or practical reasoning, Not nous, Or abstract intellect.

1. Bd. Vier Bücher, nebst einem Anhange, der die Kritik der kantischen Philosophie enthält -- 2. Bd. Welcher die Ergänzungen zu die den vier Büchern des ersten Bandes enthält.

Companies often benefit from others’ attributions of moral conviction for prosocial behavior, for example, attributions that a company has a sincere moral desire to improve the environment when behaving sustainably. Across four studies, we explored how organizations’ changing resource positions influenced people’s attributions for the motivations underlying prosocial organizational behaviors. Observers attributed less moral conviction following prosocial behavior when they believed an organization was losing economic resources. This effect was primarily a “penalty” assessed against organizations that were losing resources, as (...) opposed to a “reward” given to organizations gaining resources. Finally, we found that this effect occurred because people perceive organizations that are losing resources as more situationally constrained, leading them to attribute less dispositional moral conviction. We discuss theoretical and practical implications stemming from how changes in resource access can lead people to be more skeptical of organizations’ motivations following prosocial behavior. (shrink)

The research project described in this report represents one of the most extensive studies of character education ever undertaken, including over 10,000 students and 255 teachers in schools across England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales. Research techniques consisted of a mixture of surveys, moral dilemmas and semi-structured interviews. This report explores: - The current situation in character education, both in the UK and internationally - How developed British students are with respect to moral character and the extent to which they (...) are able to understand and apply moral virtues, especially those aged 14 and 15 - How teachers in the UK understand their role in terms of students’ moral and character development - What helps or hinders the development of children’s characters according to teachers in UK schools. (shrink)