Most whistleblowers talk as if they never had a choice about whether to blow the whistle. This doesn't mean they acted suddenly, or impulsively, only that they believe they could not have done otherwise. Trying to make sense of this near universal answer to the question "Why did you do it?" the essay draws on narrative theory. Narrative theory distinguishes between actant and sender—that is, between actor and his or her values. This distinction helps to explain what it means to (...) face a difficult choice over something about which one feels one never had a choice. (shrink)

A study in philosophical logic of the meaning of 'true'. Dr Williams demonstrates the shortcomings of various analyses which interpret 'true' as a predicate or truth as a relational property, and clears up a number of important points about propositions, quantification, definite descriptions and correspondence. This 'deflationary metaphysics' is interwoven with a positive theory of his own, which seeks to develop ideas about the late Arthur Prior. The work is marked throughout by great clarity, precision and thoroughness.

"A rich collection. Since it holds a number of introductory pieces along with advanced essays and review articles, the volume will be accessible to a broad audience and will work well in philosophy of science courses....Essential."--Lawrence Sklar, University of Michigan.

This paper explores Plato and Aristotle 's responses to the pre-Socratic philosopher Parmenides, who paradoxically said that there is no such thing as non-being, and no such things as change. I argue that Plato’s response would have been good enough to defeat the claim in a debate, thereby remedying the political aspects of the Parmenides problem. However, Aristotle ’s answer is required to answer some additional philosophical and scientific aspects. Plato's Sophist is a very difficult dialogue to understand; seeing it (...) in light of Aristotle 's discussion of the same topic helps to explain the complexities of what his teacher Plato wrote. (shrink)

This volume from the _Collected Works of C.G. Jung_ has become known as perhaps the best introduction to Jung's work. In these famous essays he presented the essential core of his system. This is the first paperback publication of this key work in its revised and augmented second edition. The earliest versions of the essays are included in an Appendices, containing as they do the first tentative formulations of Jung's concept of archetypes and the collective unconscious, as well as his (...) germinating theory of types. (shrink)

Volume 1 of the Routledge History of Philosophy covers one of the most remarkable periods in human thought. The essays present the fundamental approaches and thinkers of Greek philosophy in chronological order.

This chapter is written for an audience that is not intimately familiar with the philosophy of animal consumption. It provides an overview of the harms that animals, the environment, and humans endure as a result of industrial animal agriculture, and it concludes with a defense of ostroveganism and a tentative defense of cultured meat.

Chalmers' (2018) meta-problem of consciousness emphasizes unexpected common ground between otherwise incompatible positions. We argue that the materialist should welcome discussion of the meta-problem. We suggest that the core of the metaproblem is the seeming arbitrariness of subjective experience. This has an unexpected resolution when one moves to an interventionist account of scientific explanation: the same interventions that resolve the hard problem should also resolve the meta-problem.

in American Philosophical Quarterly 44 (3), July 2007, pp. 259-72. Argues that epistemically normative claims are made true by the same facts as, but do not mean the same as, certain natural-sounding claims.

Any theory of information needs to comply with what we call the implementation, formalization, and representation constraints. These constraints are justified by basic considerations concerning scientific modelling and methodology. In the first part of this paper, we argue that the implementation and formalization constraints cannot be satisfied because the relation between Shannon information and IIT must be clarified. In the second part of the paper, we focus on the representation constraint. We argue that IIT cannot succeed in satisfying this constraint (...) for semantic contents without offering models for concepts, conceptual roles, and context sensitivity. In the final part of the paper, further complications are raised with respect to the distinction between consciousness and attention, which apply more specifically to the representation constraint. We conclude with some recommendations as to how IIT may succeed in solving these problems, highlighting the advantages and enormous potential of IIT as a scientific theory. (shrink)

Fractal time fluctuations of the spectral “1/f” form are universal in natural self-organizing systems. Neurobiology is uniquely infused with fractal fluctuations in the form of statistically self-similar clusters or bursts on all levels of description from molecular events such as protein chain fluctuations, ion channel currents and synaptic processes to the behaviors of neural ensembles or the collective behavior of Internet users. It is the thesis of this essay that the brain self-organizes via a vertical collation of these spontaneous events (...) in order to perceive the world and generate adaptive behaviors. REM sleep, which coalesces from self-similar clusters of burst-within-burst behavior during ontogeny, is essential to cognitive-emotional function, and has recurrent fractal organization. Empirical fMRI observations further support the association of fractal fluctuations in the temporal lobes, brainstem and cerebellum during the expression of emotional memory, spontaneous fluctuations of thought and meditative practice. Cognitive-emotional integration arises as amygdaloid-brainstem-cerebellar systems harmonize the vertical “1/f” symphony of coupled isochronous cortical oscillations in the pursuit of mindfulness. (shrink)

I present three problems regarding the Problem of the Base. They concern the nature of information, the kind of Platonism that physicalists allegedly confront, and the constraints imposed by causal principles. These problems focus on the notion of information and its relation to the Problem of the Base. I also highlight the importance of Schneider's paper, particularly its relevance for future debates.