Journal of Political Philosophy, EarlyView.

Kit Fine has proposed a new solution to what he calls ‘a familiar puzzle’ concerning modality and existence. The puzzle concerns the argument from the alleged truths ‘It is necessary that Socrates is a man’ and ‘It is possible that Socrates does not exist’ to the apparent falsehood ‘It is possible that Socrates is a man and does not exist’. We discuss in detail Fine’s setting up of the ‘puzzle’ and his rejection, with which we concur, of two mooted solutions (...) to it. (One of these uses standard, Kripkean, notions, and the other rests on work done by Arthur Prior.) We set out, and reject, the philosophy of modality underlying Fine’s new solution, and we defend an alternative response to the alleged puzzle. Our solution follows the work of David Wiggins in distinguishing between the sentential operator ‘It is necessary that’ and the predicate modifier ‘necessarily’. We briefly provide this distinction with a possible- world semantics on which it is neither a necessary truth, in some sense, that Socrates exists nor true, in some sense, that Socrates necessarily exists. (shrink)

When young children first come to school they bring with them a depth of being; the authors suggest that the educational community should respond to children with a pedagogy that is capable of nurturing this depth. The authors of this paper are teachers of many years’ experience. Their own work in classrooms has shown them that, paradoxically, depth in pedagogy is most surely to be found when teachers follow the light in the eyes of children. The authors draw upon a (...) selection of vignettes and narratives taken from classroom experiences to describe how this is done. They also show how children and teachers can approach the complex learning that requires transcendence of the known. Notions of relational consciousness (), as well as ethical and spiritual sensibility () are developed through reference to a range of educators including Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, John Dewey, Stanley Cavell, Maxine Greene, Nell Noddings, Vivan Paley and Arthur Vogel. The broader educational community is reminded that school experiences should balance the measurable and the immeasurable. The authors question some aspects of the, sharing their concern that it may focus teachers’ attention too tightly on ‘that which is formed from without’. The authors suggest that the weight of this legislation may result in the neglect of some very important aspects of learning. The broader educational community is invited to consider the implications of a pedagogy of depth, to become more aware of the skill of transcending known limitations through coming to shared understanding, and to find ways to reconcile the potential violence of legislated structures with the being‐in‐the‐world of children in schools. (shrink)

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

The Cellular Basis of Consciousness theory places the first appearance of sentience at the emergence of life. It makes the radical, and previously unexplored, claim that prokaryotes, like bacteria, possess a primitive form of consciousness. The implications of the theory for the philosophy of mind, cell-biology, and cognitive neurosciences are explored.

THE CONCEPT of basic action rests upon a not especially controversial observation and a standard sort of philosophical argument. The observation is that there occur a great many actions in which what is said to be done—say a—is not done directly but rather through the agent doing something b, distinct from a, which causes a to happen. Thus I move a stone by pushing against it, and the pushing, itself an action, causes the locomotion of the stone when all relevant (...) conditions are supposed benign. Sometimes an agent m performs an action in which b is done and another occurrence a is caused by b, but as a is only a consequence of b and is not itself said to be done, such cases fall outside the circumference of the observation just described. What falls within that circumference I designate nonbasic actions, leaving it open that there may be species of nonbasic actions other than those specified by this observation. (shrink)

Visual experience is shaped by a number of factors that are independent of the external objects that we perceive—factors like lighting, angle of view, and the sensitivities of photoreceptors in the retina. This paper seeks to catalog, analyze, and explain the fluctuations in visual phenomenology that are due to such factors.

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 first major study since the 1930s of the relationship between American Transcendentalism and Asian religions, and the first comprehensive work to include post-Civil War Transcendentalists like Samuel Johnson, this book is encyclopedic in scope. Beginning with the inception of Transcendentalist Orientalism in Europe, Versluis covers the entire history of American Transcendentalism into the twentieth century, and the profound influence of Orientalism on the movement--including its analogues and influences in world religious dialogue. He examines what he calls "positive Orientalism," which (...) recognizes the value and perennial truths in Asian religions and cultures, not only in the writings of major figures like Thoreau and Emerson, but also in contemporary popular magazines. Versluis's exploration of the impact of Transcendentalism on the twentieth-century study of comparative religions has ramifications for the study of religious history, comparative religion, literature, politics, history, and art history. (shrink)

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)

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.

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)

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.

A strong case can be made that the cognitive system is designed for guiding action, not, for example, symbol manipulation. I review empirical work demonstrating the link between action and cognition with special attention to the processes of language comprehension. Next, I sketch an embodied cognition framework for integrating work on language understanding with a more general approach to cognition and action. This general approach considers contributions to action of bodily states, emotions, social and cultural processes, and learning within a (...) framework that generates a dynamic system. This framework is used to consider the notion of distributed cognition and the prospects that technology might induce substantial changes in cognition. My assessment is that such changes are unlikely. (shrink)

In one of the few widely discussed passages in the Doctrine of Right, Kant makes the surprising claim that a shipwrecked sailor who dislodges another from a plank that will support only one of them is "culpable, but not punishable." Many commentators regard this passage as a sort of smoking gun that shows that, in extremis, Kant resorts to the very sort of empirical and consequentialist reasoning that he claims to do without.2 My aim in this paper is to defend (...) his analysis, by showing both that it can be generalized, and that it provides a satisfying account of the normative boundary between justification and excuse in the criminal law. After explaining Kant ’s remark in light of the context in which he makes it, my main strategy of defense will be to show how it applies not only to the specific example Kant considers, but also to cases in which a person responds to danger by damaging property, and those in which a person whose own life is not in danger breaks the law to save the life of another. I will also use his account to illustrate the difficulties with the leading alternatives. (shrink)

We explore Woodin's Universality Theorem and consider to what extent large cardinal properties are transferred into HOD (and other inner models). We also separate the concepts of supercompactness, supercompactness in HOD and being HOD-supercompact. For example, we produce a model where a proper class of supercompact cardinals are not HOD-supercompact but are supercompact in HOD. Additionally we introduce a way to measure the degree of HOD-supercompactness of a supercompact cardinal, and we develop methods to control these degrees simultaneously for a (...) proper class of supercompact cardinals. Finally, we also produce a model in which the unique supercompact cardinal is also the only strongly compact cardinal, no cardinal is supercompact up to an inaccessible cardinal, level by level inequivalence holds and the unique supercompact cardinal is not HOD-supercompact. (shrink)

In order to operate effectively, modern capitalism depends on agents who evince a rather morally undemanding type of moral character; one that is acquisitive, pecuniary, recognition-seeking and merely prudent. Adam Smith is considered to have been the key legitimiser of this archetype. In this paper I respond to the view that Smith is actually sceptical about the value of material acquisition and explore whether he really believed that the pursuit of tranquillity and virtue—especially beneficence—offers a superior route to happiness than (...) the commercial world of materialist acquisition. I approach these issues partly by considering the roles of beneficence and sympathy in Smith's system and partly by analysing the story of ‘The Poor Man's Son’ related in Book IV of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. As he narrates this story, Smith seems highly critical of the unrelenting drive for worldly success. But what is the real moral of the story? Should people contain their ambition for recognition and material succe... (shrink)