Using Kierkegaard's later religious writings as well as his earlier philosophical works, David Gouwens explores this philosopher's religious and theological thought, focusing on human nature, Christ, and Christian discipleship. He helps the reader approach Kierkegaard as someone who both analysed religion and sought to evoke religious dispositions in his readers. Gouwens discusses Kierkegaard's main concerns as a religious and, specifically, Christian thinker, and his treatment of religion using the dialectic of 'becoming Christian', and counters the interpretation of his religious thought (...) as privatistic and asocial. Gouwens appraises both the edifying discourses and the pseudonymous writings, including the particular problems posed by the latter. Between foundationalism and irrationalism, Kierkegaard's ideas are seen to anticipate the end of 'modernity', while standing at the centre of the Christian tradition. (shrink)

Uniformitarianism is a dual concept. Substantive uniformitarianism (a testable theory of geologic change postulating uniformity of rates or material conditions) is false and stifiqng to hypothesis formation. Methodological uniformitarianism (a procedural principle asserting spatial and temporal invariance of natural laws) belongs to the definition of science and is not unique to genic~~. Methodological uniformitarianism enabled Lyell to exclude the miraculous from geologic explanation; its invocation today is anachronistic since the question of divine intervention is no longer an issue in science. (...) Substantive uniformitarianism, an incorrect theory, should be abandoned. Methodological uniformitarianism, now a superfiuous term, is best confined to the past history of geology. (shrink)

This book is nominally about linguistic representation. But, since it is we who do the representing, it is also about us. And, since it is the universe which we represent, it is also about the universe. In the end, then, this book is about everything, which, since it is a philosophy book, is as it should be. I recognize that it is nowadays unfashionable to write books about every thing. Philosophers of language, it will be said, ought to stick to (...) writing about language; philosophers of science, to writing about science; epis temologists, to writing about knowing; and so on. The real world, however, perversely refuses to carve itself up so neatly, and, although I recognize that the real w,orld is nowadays also unfashionable, in the end I judged that one might get closer to the truth of various matters by going along with it. So I have done so. lt was Wilfrid Sellars who initially convinced me of the virtues of this way of proceeding. At this point one normally says something like "The debt that this book owes him is immense". I would say it too, were it not to understate the case, From Wilfrid, I learned to think about things. If the upshot of my thinking tends, as it obviously does, to show a general con silience with the upshot of his, it is primarily because he is so very good at it - and he had a head start. (shrink)

Over a decade ago, John Sowa did the AI community the great service of introducing it to the Existential Graphs of Charles Sanders Peirce. EG is a formalism which lends itself well to the kinds of thing that Conceptual Graphs are aimed at. But it is far more; it is a central element in the mathematical, logical, and philosophical thought of Peirce; this thought is fruitful in ways that are seldom evident when we first encounter it. In one of his (...) major works on Existential Graphs, Peirce remarks that. (shrink)

It is time to update Deleuze and Guattari's contrast between Chess and Go in the ‘Nomadology’ Plateau with a discussion of AlphaGo, the artificial intelligence that revolutionised Go in 2016. I focus less on the political issues in Go nomadology, central as they are, and more on smooth space and time. I explain and speculate on some details in Go strategy, as well as some processes of machine learning. The relations between human Go, computer Go, and smooth-time nomadology remain unsettled, (...) in my view, but many resources for nomadological analysis open up for readers who learn to play, and program, Go. (shrink)

Conceptual Foundations of Radical Behaviorism is intended for advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate students in courses within behavior analytic curricula dealing with conceptual foundations and radical behaviorism as a philosophy. Each chapter of the text presents what radical behaviorism says about an important topic in a science of behavior, and then contrasts the radical behaviorist perspective with that of other forms of behaviorism, as well as other forms of psychology.

Sellars’s views on the Myth of the Given and the ontological status of secondary qualities, one would have thought, are well-known, even if not always well-understood. One would not have expected his Carus Lectures, then, to offer anything radically new and exciting. The ground that they cover is, after all, familiar—from “Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind”, from “Philosophy and the Scientific Image of Man”, from “The Identity Approach to the Mind-Body Problem”, and from the ensuing debates with Cornman and (...) with Firth. One would not really have anticipated many surprises. But one would have been wrong. (shrink)

_Sweet Reason: A Field Guide to Modern Logic, 2nd Edition_ offers an innovative, friendly, and effective introduction to logic. It integrates formal first order, modal, and non-classical logic with natural language reasoning, analytical writing, critical thinking, set theory, and the philosophy of logic and mathematics. An innovative introduction to the field of logic designed to entertain as it informs Integrates formal first order, modal, and non-classical logic with natural language reasoning, analytical writing, critical thinking, set theory, and the philosophy of (...) logic and mathematics Addresses contemporary applications of logic in fields such as computer science and linguistics A web-site linked to the text features numerous supplemental exercises and examples, enlightening puzzles and cartoons, and insightful essays. (shrink)

In a recent issue of Philosophy East and West Douglas Berger defends a new reading of Mūlamadhyamakakārikā XXIV : 18, arguing that most contemporary translators mistranslate the important term prajñaptir upādāya, misreading it as a compound indicating "dependent designation" or something of the sort, instead of taking it simply to mean "this notion, once acquired." He attributes this alleged error, pervasive in modern scholarship, to Candrakīrti, who, Berger correctly notes, argues for the interpretation he rejects.Berger's analysis, and the reading of (...) the text he suggests is grounded on that analysis, is insightful and fascinating, and certainly generates an understanding of Nāgārjuna's enterprise that is welcome .. (shrink)

Hume raises the issue of how common life and philosophy are related. He presents the possibility that they are irreconcilably opposed, that philosophy rigorously and honestly pursued must lead to skepticism. I discuss some prominent interpretive issues about Hume in light of this opposition between common life and philosophy. I also argue that this opposition is a deep and general philosophical problem, and sketch an approach to this problem. ;These are my interpretive claims: I argue that Hume has constructive aims (...) in his epistemology, and that he is surprised when his naturalism subverts these constructive aims and leads to skepticism. I argue that Hume does not entertain a moral skepticism similar to his skepticism about the external world and causal relations, but that he should have entertained such a skepticism. I argue that, in the Dialogues, Philo does not concede that religious belief is natural and therefore secure despite its unreasonableness. Rather, Philo contends that religious belief is not natural, and contends that this lack of naturalness gives us principled grounds for preferring causal and moral beliefs to natural ones. However, I argue, the problem of general philosophical skepticism keeps this religious skepticism from being satisfactory. ;I use the interpretation of Hume to clarify and deepen Hume's Problem, and to begin working toward a solution of that problem. I argue that there is a perspective we can take up that makes skepticism about the status of our physical and moral beliefs and practices seem inevitable. To resolve Hume's Problem, we must show that this perspective is the wrong perspective on human life, or at least that there is some alternative perspective that does not lead to skepticism but is no less rational than the perspective that does lead to skepticism. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The Anglo-Saxon saints, like the Anglo-Saxons as a whole, once seemed to have suffered immensely because of the Norman Conquest. Respected historians, among them David Knowles and Frank Stenton, left colorful images in the historical imagination of bigoted Norman churchmen treating with contempt the old English saints who rested in the communities over which they took charge. But now, in large part because of the work of Susan Ridyard, our perceptions have altered dramatically. Norman churchmen now appear to have accepted (...) readily, rather than to have condemned suspiciously, their new saints. The present article will address these issues but will focus on a specific community—Christ Church, Canterbury. Events at Christ Church obviously have implications beyond the walls of Canterbury. As the see of Archbishop Lanfranc , it lay at the center of the Anglo-Norman ecclesiastical reform. As home to the hagiographer and historian Eadmer , it had an exceptionally rich collection of narrative sources. Hagiographic practice at Christ Church can thus tell us about the ecclesiastical thought of Lanfranc and the historical thought of Eadmer and, most interestingly, about how the two systems affected and shaped each other. (shrink)

Frost's critique reveals the limitations of the reverse-engineering approach to cognitive modeling – the style of psychological explanation in which a stipulated internal organization explains a relatively narrow set of phenomena. An alternative is to view organization as both the explanation for some phenomena and a phenomenon to be explained. This move poses new and interesting theoretical challenges for theories of word reading.

Wilfrid Sellars' conclusion in "Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind" that "the Given" is a "Myth" quickly elicited philosophical opposition and remains contentious fifty years later. William Alston has challenged that conclusion on several occasions by attempting to devise an acceptable account of perception committed to the givenness of perceived objects. His most recent challenge advances a "Theory of Appearing" which posits irreducible non-conceptual relations, ostensibly overlooked by Sellars, e.g., of "looking red", between the subject and the object perceived, that (...) can playa justificatory role vis-à-vis the corresponding beliefs, e.g., that the object is red. I argue that Alston undermines his positive plausibility arguments by first blurring and then ignoring crucial differencesamong various looks-concepts, and that his own putative "phenomenal" looks-concept demonstrably cannot play the justificatory role that he envisions for it. Both his critique of Sellars' arguments and his own alternative proposal thus fail on all fronts. (shrink)

According to Hume, the idea of a persisting, self-identical object, distinct from our impressions of it, and the idea of a duration of time, the mere passage of time without change, are mutually supporting "fictions". Each rests upon a "mistake", the commingling of "qualities of the imagination" or "impressions of reflection" with "external" impressions (perceptions), and, strictly speaking, we are conceptually and epistemically entitled to neither. Among Kant's aims in the First Critique is the securing of precisely these entitlements. Like (...) Hume, he acknowledges the correlativity of the notions of temporal duration and persisting self-identical objects (i.e., continuant substances). Unlike Hume, however, he undertakes to establish the legitimacy or objective validity of the schematized category of substance and, correspondingly, of the representation of time as a formal unity with duration as one of its modes. (shrink)

The roughly two and a half millennia over which we can trace the development of mathematics as a discipline have seen ups and downs in its study; the "ups" have involved varying emphases and interests depending on the problems and the temper of the time. The 19th Century may be characterized as a period of development of rigor and attention to the axiomatic method in mathematics. This focus on the deductive process in mathematics was accompanied by the application of mathematics (...) in the study of the deductive process itself. It is safe, I think, to say that the best-known and most influential of the lines of.. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to critique some of the limitations of dominant school reform discourses in education, drawing upon the work of Michel Foucault, Michael Apple, Maxine Greene, and Dennis Carlson, in addition to writers in the emerging field of what might be called ?eco-progressivism.? The intersections between ecology and education can help construct a distinct counternarrative of progressive educational reform that is informed by ecological discourses, movements, and zeitgeists. Through the field of conservation biology, I hope to connect (...) both ecology and education as crisis disciplines and suggest that the reform discourse in the field of biology utilizes a much different framework than that of current school reform orthodoxy. These differences have powerful and real consequences for the ways in which children and teachers experience school. Utilizing the well documented case of the failure of the Biosphere 2 research project as a grounding metaphor and cautionary tale, I plan to show not only the severe limitations of the current school reform orthodoxy but the ways in which the normalization of what I call the ?biospheric number? functions as a technology of power. Finally, I hope to position the emerging worldview of eco-progressivism as a useful framework for reconsidering school reform specifically and the progressive education movement more broadly. (shrink)

This article applies the analytic rigor of philosophy to the vexed topic of business strategy, and uses the objective, public evidence of business strategy as an existence proof for the possibility of free will and purpose in the private realm of subjective intentionality. The first part distinguishes three types of intentionality in philosophy—purposive intentionality, referential intentionality, and the problematic intentionality of a godlike, miraculous “inner intender.” After rejecting this third type of intentionality, and noting that its rejection saves the first (...) two types of intentionality from guilt by association, the second part draws parallels with three types of strategy in business: purposive, referential, and godlike. The first defines the goals and objectives of a company; the second picks out and targets consumers in market driven strategy; and the third, with the help of philosophical reflections, demands a rethinking of the function of leadership without reliance on a single, godlike leader. In the third part of this article, the existence proof from the public world of business is used to shed light on the possibility of intentionality in the private world of subjective intentionality. Finally, the article draws conclusions for its three audiences: for the philosophers, with credit to Nietzsche who saw it all, a greater clarity about intentionality and free will; for business people, greater clarity about the importance of purposiveness and strategic intent; and for business philosophers, a demonstration showing how—through strategy and intentionality—we can both create value and give meaning to the lives of our employees, ourselves, and our customers. (shrink)

Discusses epistemic foundationalism. Examines the confrontation between Wilfrid Sellars's critique of the ‘Myth of the Given’ and William Alston's defence of ‘immediate knowledge’, and explores and endorses Sellars's strong epistemic internalism and the integrated normative accounts of justification, language‐mastery, concept‐possession, and perceptual experience that support it. The proceduralist thesis that the activity of justifying is prior to the state of being justified is elucidated and defended.

During his atomistic period, Russell felt compelled to include negative facts in his ontology. In this essay, I diagnose the grounds of that compulsion, Assess the cogency of an ontology which includes negative facts, And, Finding it inadequate, Consider finally alternative solutions within the atomistic framework to the root problems of negation.

I develop one account of propositions as pictures sharing logical form with what they depict. Two concepts of simplicity in the "tractatus" are then isolated. Since characterization of sachverhalten as configurations of referential simples does not entail their inferential simplicity, By rejecting the tractarian theory of inference, I retain the picture theory without commitment to atomistic ontology. Interpretation of inference as performance then gives rise to a second sense of picturing.

he landscape of every career contains a few crevasses, and usually a more extensive valley or two—for every Ruth's bat a Buckner's legs; for every lopsided victory at Agincourt, a bloodbath at Antietam. Darwin's Origin of Species contains some wonderful insights and magnificent lines, but this masterpiece also includes a few notable clunkers. Darwin experienced most embarrassment from the following passage, curtailed and largely expunged from later editions of his book: In North America the black bear was seen by Hearne (...) swimming for hours with widely open mouth, thus catching, like a whale, insects in the water. Even in so extreme a case as this, if the supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted competitors did not already exist in the country, I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale. Why did Darwin become so chagrined about this passage? His hypothetical tale may be pure speculation and conjecture, but the scenario is not entirely absurd. Darwin's discomfort arose, I think, from his failure to follow a scientific norm of a more sociocultural nature. Scientific conclusions supposedly rest upon facts and information. Speculation is not entirely taboo, and may sometimes be necessary faute de mieux. But when scientists propose truly novel and comprehensive theories—as Darwin tried to do in advancing natural selection as the primary mechanism of evolution—they need particularly good support, and invented hypothetical cases just don't supply sufficient confidence for crucial conclusions. (shrink)