Since the 1970s Barry Stroud has been one of the most original contributors to the philosophical study of human knowledge. This volume presents the best of Stroud's essays in this area. Throughout, he seeks to clearly identify the question that philosophical theories of knowledge are meant to answer, and the role scepticism plays in making sense of that question. In these seminal essays, he suggests that people pursuing epistemology need to concern themselves with whether philosophical scepticism is true or (...) false. Stroud's discussion of these fundamental questions is essential reading for anyone whose work touches on the subject of human knowledge. (shrink)

This article examines the theoretical status of the three CSR models of William C. Frederick. Using the method of systematics, it disaggregates the elements of the three models and suggests one integrative means of re-sorting them. The article argues the need to develop a theoretical logic to understand behavior in this area and supplies one in the form of the beginnings of an explicit theory of normative referencing. The processes of normative referencing, including normative selection, normative commitment, normative instruction, normative (...) implementation, normative administration, normative outcomes production, normative accounting, and normative adjustment are described. (shrink)

Network analysis is a fundamental approach to the study of social structure. This chapter traces its development, distinguishing characteristics, and analytic principles. It emphasizes the intellectual unity of three research traditions: the anthropological concept of the social network, the sociological conception of social structure as social network, and structural explanations of political processes. Network analysts criticize the normative, categorical, dyadic, and bounded-group emphases prevalent in many sociological analyses. They claim that the most direct way to study a social system is (...) to analyze the pattern of ties linking its members. By analyzing complex hierarchical structures of asymmetric ties, they study power, stratification, and structural change. (shrink)

The concept of scientific field lacks a definition in a form allowing the distinction of whether a particular academic area of study is or is not a true scientific field. Starting with the classic definition by Whitley of a field as a “reputational work organization,” this essay extracts eleven explicit and implied features of a field from Whitley’s definition and discussion, extending his analysis. The article reviews Hambrick and Chen’s model of field formation as an “admittance-seeking social movement.” Hambrick and (...) Chen argue that strategic management followed that model with success, offering the SIM Division of the Academy of Management as an unsuccessful example. The article notes errors in their assessment of SIM, argues that Hambrick and Chen are really offering a model of what I term condensation and promulgation of a field and that their model cannot be used to determine whether a field exists. The article applies the extended Whitley model of a field to examine three candidate fields within SIM: corporate social responsibility (CSR)/corporate social performance (CSP), stakeholder theory, and corporate political activity (CPA). I conclude that none is technically a field, and considering as well the comments of three senior scholars who contributed to the symposium, the article discusses the potential trajectory of fields in SIM. (shrink)

Although science was once seen as the product of individual great men working in isolation, we now realize that, like any other creative activity, science is a highly social enterprise, influenced in subtle as well as obvious ways by the wider culture and values of its time. Scientific Knowledge is the first introduction to social studies of scientific knowledge. The authors, all noted for their contributions to science studies, have organized this book so that each chapter examines a key step (...) in the process of doing science. Using case studies from cognitive science, physics, and biology to illustrate their descriptions and applications of the social study of science, they show how this approach provides a crucial perspective on how science is actually done. Scientific Knowledge will be of interest not only to those engaged in science studies, but also to anyone interested in the practice of science. (shrink)

Advocates and opponents of Humean Supervenience (HS) have neglected a crucial feature of nomic explanation: laws can explain by generating descriptions of possibilities. Dretske and Armstrong have opposed HS by arguing that laws construed as Humean regularities cannot explain, but their arguments fail precisely because they neglect to consider this generating role of laws. Humeans have dismissed the intuitive violations of HS manifested by John Carroll's Mirror Worlds as erroneous, but distinguishing the laws' generating role from the non-Humean notion that (...) laws govern undermines such responses, and renews the force of Carroll's critique of HS. However, it also undermines the assumption that HS is constitutive of Humeanism. The generating role of laws readily motivates a non-reductive Humeanism that violates HS. An account is sketched, and is seen to provide a novel explanation of the governing intuition. (shrink)

A normative criterion identifying the conditions for a desirable corporate reputation, “reputational optimality,” or “reputational bliss,” is described, and a case developed for its utility and reasonableness as a criterion to apply to real world phenomena. The paper discusses some behavioral patterns under alternative moral positions taken by observers and the firm, critiques some alternative moral principles, and considers some dynamics of moving toward, defending and maintaining, and breaching or breaking reputational bliss.

Bioethics became applied ethics when it was assimilated to moral philosophy. Because deduction is the rationality of moral philosophy, subsuming facts under moral principles to deduce conclusions about what ought to be done became the prescribed reasoning of bioethics, and bioethics became a theory comprised of moral principles. Bioethicists now realize that applied ethics is too abstract and spare to apprehend the specificity, particularity, complexity and contingency of real moral issues. Empirical ethics and contextual ethics are needed to incorporate these (...) features into morality, not just bioethics. The relevant facts and features of problems have to be identified, investigated and framed coherently, and potential resolutions have to be constructed and assessed. Moreover, these tasks are pursued and melded within manifold contexts, for example, families, work and health care systems, as well as societal, economic, legal and political backgrounds and encompassing worldviews. This naturalist orientation and both empirical ethics and contextual ethics require judgment, but how can judgment be rational? Rationality, fortunately, is more expansive than deductive reasoning. Judgment is rational when it emanates from a rational process of deliberation, and a process of deliberation is rational when it uses the resources of non-formal reason: observation, creative construction, formal and informal reasoning methods and systematic critical assessment. Empirical ethics and contextual ethics recognize that finite, fallible human beings live in complex, dynamic, contingent worlds, and they foster creative, critical deliberation and employ non-formal reason to make rational moral judgments. (shrink)

According to Brentano's theory of boundaries, no boundary can exist without being connected with a continuum. But there is no specifiable part of the continuum, and no point, which is such that we may say that it is the existence of that part or of that point which conditions the boundary. - An adequate theory of the continuum must now recognize that boundaries be boundaries only in certain directions and not in others. This leads to consequences in other areas, too.

A milestone in Wittgenstein scholarship, this collection of essays ranges over a wide area of the philosopher's thought, presenting divergent interpretations of his fundamental ideas. Different chapters raise many of the central controversies that surround current understanding of the Tractatus, providing an interplay that will be particularly useful to students. Taken together, the essays present a broader and more comprehensive view of Wittgenstein's intellectual interests and his impact on philosophy than may be found elsewhere.The thirteen chapters treat topics from both (...) periods of Wittgenstein's work: More than half are devoted to his early thought, the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus of 1921, reflecting a growing interest today among philosophers in reexamining this seminal book, while three chapters treat the Philosophical Investigations, published posthumously in 1953. The remaining chapters discuss such "nonstandard" topics as philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and anthropology.Contents: The Early Wittgenstein and the Middle Russell, Kenneth Blackwell; Frege and Wittgenstein, Michael Dummett; Wittgenstein and the Theory of Types, Hide Ishiguro; The So-called Realism of Wittgenstein's Tractatus, Brian McGuinness; The Logical Independence of Elementary Propositions, David Pears; The Rise and Fall of the Picture Theory, Peter Hacker; The Picture Theory and Wittgenstein's Later Attitude to It, Erik Stenius; Wittgenstein's Early Philosophy of Mind, Anthony Kenny; A Theory of Language?, G. E. M. Anscombe; Im Anfang war die Tat, Peter Winch; Wittgenstein's Full Stop, D. Z. Phillips; Quote: Judgments from Our Brain, Paul Ziff; Wittgenstein and the Fire Festivals, Frank Cioffi, Index.Irving Block is Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at The University of Western Ontario. (shrink)

We say "the grass is green" or "lemons are yellow" to state what everyone knows. But are the things we see around us really colored, or do they only look that way because of the effects of light rays on our eyes and brains? Is color somehow "unreal" or "subjective" and dependent on our human perceptions and the conditions under which we see things? Distinguished scholar Barry Stroud investigates these and related questions in The Quest for Reality. In this (...) long-awaited book, he examines what a person would have to do and believe in order to reach the conclusion that everyone's perceptions and beliefs about the color of things are "illusions" and do not accurately represent the way things are in the world as it is independently of us. Arguing that no such conclusion could be consistently reached, Stroud finds that the conditions of a successful unmasking of color cannot all be fulfilled. The discussion extends beyond color to present a serious challenge to many other philosophical attempts to discover the way things really are. A model of subtle, elegant, and rigorous philosophical writing, this study will attract a wide audience from all areas of philosophy. (shrink)

Un mince fil dans la vaste littérature sur Kafka concerne la connaissance qu’avait Kafka de la philosophie, et plus précisément l’utilisation, dans les récits de Kafka, de quelques-unes des idées principales de Franz Brentano. Kafka a suivi des cours de philosophie à l’Université Charles, cours donnés par des étudiants de Brentano, Anton Marty et Christian von Ehrenfels. Il fut aussi, pendant plusieurs années, membre d’un groupe de discussion organisé par des partisans orthodoxes de la philosophie brentanienne à Prague. Le présent (...) essai résume ce que l’on sait des relations entretenues par Kafka avec le mouvement brentanien. Il porte sur les idées brentaniennes qui concernent l’évidence de la perception intérieure, la conscience oblique, l’introspection active, le jugement correct et incorrect et la conscience en tant qu’espèce de tribunal intérieur, dans le but d’éclairer certains aspects centraux de l’œuvre de Kafka, incluant son style. Nous porterons une attention particulière sur Die Verwandlung et Der Prozess , et nous offrirons une interprétation de ce dernier texte selon laquelle le procès de Joseph K. se passe entièrement dans l’esprit de K. lui-même. (shrink)

Theories regarding the nature and achievement of personhood in a communitarian context appear to differ in significant respects in the writings of several contemporary African philosophers. Ifeanyi Menkiti seems to regard ethnic differences as sufficient to warrant a national accommodation of multiculturalism with respect to moralities and attendant beliefs. Kwasi Wiredu argues that there is a substantive universal moral principle that undercuts such apparent and relatively superficial diversity. Communitarianism also seems to provide a better framework for explaining how a human (...) being becomes a person than classical liberal theory as enunciated by someone like John Rawls. (shrink)

Background: The debate over the ethical implications of care robots has raised a range of concerns, including the possibility that such technologies could disrupt caregiving as a core human moral activity. At the same time, academics in information ethics have argued that we should extend our ideas of moral agency and rights to include intelligent machines. Research objectives: This article explores issues of the moral status and limitations of machines in the context of care. Design: A conceptual argument is developed, (...) through a four-part scheme derived from the work of Alasdair MacIntyre. No empirical data are used. Ethical consideration: No primary data were gathered for this study. Secondary sources and authorship have been acknowledged throughout. Findings / discussion: Certain kinds of social experience, including the narrative unity of a life, and the giving and receiving of care, are essential for moral development. Machines, no matter how advanced, cannot participate in such experiences in key respects, and thus cannot develop as practical reasoners. Conclusion: It follows that they cannot be moral agents and that they cannot care. There are, it seems, no such things as care robots. In view of the institutional power of tech companies and commissioning bodies, care practitioners need to take more of a lead in developing new assistive technologies which are appropriate to their practice. (shrink)

When philosophers, social scientists, and politicians seek to determine the justice of institutional arrangements, their discussions have often taken the form of questioning whether and under what circumstances the redistribution of wealth or other valuable goods is justified. This essay examines the different ways in which redistribution can be understood, the diverse political contexts in which it has been employed, and whether or not it is a useful concept for exploring questions of distributive justice.

Abstract of plenary talk Held at GIScience 2000: First International Conference on Geographic Information Science, Savannah, Georgia.

What I want to do in this essay is examine a notorious argument put forward by Galen Strawson. He advocates what he describes as an a priori argument against the possibility of ultimate (moral) responsibility. There have been many attempts at answering Strawson, but whether they have been successful is debatable. I attempt to employ Henri Bergson's approach to the free will debate and assess whether what he says has any purchase in terms of criticism of Strawson's position. I conclude (...) that Bergson's views offer a serious alternative in debates about free will. (shrink)

Of the many problems which evolutionary theodicy tries to address, the ones of animal suffering and extinction seem especially intractable. In this essay, I show how C. D. Broad's growing block conception of time does much to ameliorate the problems. Additionally, I suggest it leads to another way of understanding the soul. Instead of it being understood as a substance, it is seen as a history—a history which is resurrected in the end times. Correspondingly, redemption, I argue, should not be (...) seen as an event which redeems some future portion of time. God's triumph is over all of history, not just some future temporal portion. (shrink)

The influence of Kasimir Twardowski on modern Polish philosophy is all-pervasive. As is well known, almost all important 20th century Polish philosophers went through the hard training of his courses in Lvov. Twardowski instilled in his students an enduring concern for clarity and rigour. He taught them to regard philosophy as a collaborative effort, a matter of disciplined discussion and argument. And he encouraged them to work together with scientists from other disciplines — above all with psychologists, and also with (...) mathematicians — so that the Lvov school of philosophy would gradually evolve into the Warsaw school of logic. (shrink)

Barry Stroud; XV*—The Physical World, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 87, Issue 1, 1 June 1987, Pages 263–277, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotel.

Physicians and institutional providers face expanding liability exposure today, in spite of state tort reform legislation and public awareness of the costs of malpractice for providers. Standards of practice are evolving rapidly; new medical technologies are being introduced at a rapid rate; information is proliferating as to treatment efficacy, patient risk, and diseases generally. Tort standards mirror this change. As medical standards of care evolve, they provide a benchmark against which to measure provider failure. The liability exposure of physicians is (...) affected by the generation of data, including outcomes data usable to profile physician practice, and statistical data that allows for predictions as to treatment efficacy, and patient prognosis; obligations to inform patients and third parties of risk created by contagious disease and other sources of harm; obligations of physicians to disclose risks that the provider creates for the patient; obligations to disclose conflicts of interest arising out of the practice setting; and duties arising from new epidemiological knowledge. (shrink)