Most theisms and atheisms share an assumption about what divine action would look like; if God is real and acts in the world, then God acts through intervention, invading the mechanistic world as an alien agent. Whitehead's Religious Thought takes dead aim at this contention, arguing that such conceptions of divine intervention emerge from and reinforce a problematic dualism that permeates western theological discourse. Throughout his text Daniel A. Dombrowski links dualistic conceptions of human experience with metaphysical dualism, but (...) also argues that materialistic or mechanistic conceptions of the universe all presume the same basic constituents: machines and ghosts. Materialism rids the world of ghosts and... (shrink)

Michael Raposa's long career as a preeminent interpreter of Peirce's writings on religion has taken a surprising turn and he has done what Peirce, in his most famous essays from 1877–78, suggested could not be done. Though Peirce early on cautioned against construing thought as having any legitimate function beyond the fixation of belief and the production of "thought at rest," and warned explicitly against thinking as a form of amusement,1 throughout Theosemiotic Raposa highlights an additional dimension of thought as (...) "something more than doubt's removal, much more than the fixation of belief ". Thought as musement need not, according to Raposa, be so linear and singularly directed towards the ends of... (shrink)

The Neglected Argument for the Reality of God is something of a Rorschach test for scholars of Peirce.1 Some see a creative presentation of his mature philosophy of inquiry, while others find evidence that Peirce was unable to free himself of his conservative religious milieu. As the editors of The Essential Peirce collection noted: “Whether this paper is an elaboration of or an offense against pragmatism is an unsettled question.”2 The primary import of the essay, I contend, is not to (...) defend God’s reality but rather to highlight continuities between religion and science. In doing so, Peirce aims to show theologians how they might better do their jobs. My aim in this paper is to take Peirce’s advice seriously and.. (shrink)

Terminological debates are often circular and unproductive, so it is a pleasure to investigate the terminology of LeRon Shults, who argues with clarity, defines his terms, and offers reasons for preferring one term over another. I would not, however, waste the readers' time if my aim were merely to challenge some of Shults's nomenclature. When one sets out, as does Shults, to intervene in the process of theogonic reproduction, terminological and metaphorical choices matter a great deal insofar as the semiotic (...) tools one deploys carry emotional and affective baggage that can deeply influence the efficacy of the hoped-for intervention. As I argue below, there is much to commend... (shrink)

David Macarthur has assembled not only a fascinating collection of essays from Hilary Putnam and Ruth Anna Putnam that spans two decades but also a collection that makes a compelling series of arguments about what pragmatism has been, is, and may yet become. This is all the more impressive since it weaves together the voices of two scholars who shared both an intellectual commitment and a life. As a longtime admirer of Hilary Putnam’s work, I was excited to take a (...) deep dive into the thought of Ruth Anna Putnam, and, truth be told, her essays in this volume deliver the stronger notes. Not only do readers gain a glimpse into the fascinating conversations that took place between these two philosophers over the years... (shrink)

Conservatism is part of the legacy of the pragmatic tradition’s deep respect for the continuity of inquiry. Despite his commitment to open and fallible inquiry, Charles Sanders Peirce remained his entire life a kind of religious conservative, arguing for a community that would be, in Douglas Anderson’s words “conservative in its practice and liberal in its theory.”1 The following argument is largely about Peirce’s career-long struggle to reconcile conservative practice and liberal theory, especially as they impact his philosophy of inquiry. (...) He offers hints at a solution, what I am calling his “hopeful monster,” but remains ambivalent about this strategy, as should we, his contemporary readers. As described below, a... (shrink)

This book examines the ways in which religious communities experimentally engage the world and function as fallible inquisitive agents, despite frequent protests to the contrary. Using the philosophy of inquiry and semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce, it develops unique naturalist conceptions of religious meaning and ultimate orientation while also arguing for a reappraisal of the ways in which the world’s venerable religious traditions enable novel forms of communal inquiry into what Peirce termed “vital matters.” Pragmatic inquiry, it argues, is a (...) ubiquitous and continuous phenomenon. Thus, religious participation, though cautiously conservative in many ways, is best understood as a variety of inhabited experimentation. Religious communities embody historically mediated hypotheses about how best to engage the world and curate networks of semiotic resources for rendering those engagements meaningful. Religions best fulfill their inquisitive function when they both deploy and reform their sign systems as they learn better to engage reality. (shrink)

LeRon Shults and Palgrave MacMillan are happy to announce the arrival of Postpartum Theology!Shults has changed his guiding metaphors during the short interval between the publication of Iconoclastic Theology: Gilles Deleuze and the Secretion of Atheism and Theology After the Birth of God. While Iconoclastic Theology emphasized the iconoclastic potential of theology with the help of Deleuze’s well-struck hammer blows, Theology After the Birth of God adopts natal imagery. The gods, Shults argues, were conceived in the human mind, born into (...) the world as a result of human cognitive errors, and continue to be borne in diverse cultures. Prophets who have announced the death of God have little impacted our continued... (shrink)

While scholars of religion have explored Peirce's philosophy of religion and extensively mined his groundbreaking work in semiotics, other aspects of Peirce's religious and theological thought have been largely ignored within religious studies. In particular, Peirce's theory of inquiry offers several potentially important insights that scholars of religion would do well to consider more fully. These insights are best realized through conceiving of religious participation as a form of inquiry, continuous with but importantly different from other forms of human inquiry. (...) By focusing on the dynamics of belief, doubt, and inquiry that pervade all human endeavors, religious participation can be conceptualized as a... (shrink)

Can opium's tendency to induce sleep be explained by appeal to a "dormitive virtue"? If the label merely references the tendency being explained, the explanation seems vacuous. Yet the presence of a label could signal genuinely explanatory content concerning the (causal) basis for the property being explained. In Experiments 1 and 2, we find that explanations for a person's behavior that appeal to a named tendency or condition are indeed judged to be more satisfying than equivalent explanations that differ only (...) in omitting the name. In Experiment 3, we find support for one proposal concerning what it is about a name that drives a boost in explanatory satisfaction: named categories lead people to draw an inference to the existence of a cause underlying the category, a cause that is responsible for the behavior being explained. Our findings have implications for theories of explanation and point to the central role of causation in explaining behavior. (shrink)

History from Loss challenges the common thought that 'history is written by the winners' and explores how history makers in different times and places across the globe have written histories from loss, even when this has come at the threat to their own safety. A distinguished group of historians from around the globe offer an introduction to different history-makers' lives and ideas, and important extracts from their works which highlight various meanings of loss: from physical ailments to social ostracism, exile (...) to imprisonment, and from dispossession to potential execution. Throughout the volume consideration of the information 'bubbles' of different times and places helps to show how information has been weaponised to cause harm. In this way, the text helps to put current debates about the biases and weaponization of platforms such as social media into global and historical perspective. In combination, the chapters build a picture of history from loss which is global, sustained, and anything but a simple mirror of history made by victors. The volume also includes an Introduction and Afterword which draw out the key meanings of history from loss, and which offer ideas for further exploration. History from Loss provides an invaluable resource for students, teachers, and general readers who wish to put current debates on bias, the politicization of history, and threats to history makers into global and historical perspective. (shrink)

In this introduction to part 4 of the Common Knowledge symposium “Peace by Other Means,” the journal's editor assesses the argument made by Peace, the spokesperson of Erasmus in his Querela Pacis, that the desire to impute and avenge wrongs against oneself is insatiable and at the root of both individual and social enmities. He notes that, in a symposium about how to resolve and prevent enmity, most contributions have to date expressed caveats about how justice and truth must take (...) precedence over peace, how recovery from ill treatment may be impossible, how quietism is not a moral option, and how realism demands a national policy and a personal strategy of, at best, contingent forgiveness. He concedes that the attitudes of those opposed to quietism are healthy but suggests that there may be goods worthier than health of human devotion. This essay concludes that the main differences between what it terms “judgmental” and “irenic” regimes are disagreements over anthropology and metaphysics. The presumptions that truths are objectively knowable and that human beings are moral and rational agents characterize judgmental regimes; irenic regimes are characterized by disillusionment with those assumptions. (shrink)

This paper consists of commentaries about and the reprint of an autobiographical essay authored by Italian medium Eusapia Palladino and published in 1910. The details of the essay are discussed in terms of the writings of other individuals about the life and performances of the medium. The essay conveys a view of Palladino as a person who has suffered much in life and has a mission to help scientific research into mediumship. Typical of the positive emphasis in autobiographies in general, (...) the medium did not discuss negative aspects of her performances. Due to the fact that the essay appeared during Palladino's visit to New York City in which many authors branded her as a fraud, it may be speculated that the purpose of this autobiography was to elicit sympathy from the American public. While some of the statements that Palladino made about phenomena are consistent with the statements of other authors who have written about her, there are several statements that show alternate or incomplete versions of particular events in her life. The differences suggests that Palladino's essay and other discussions about the medium's life are not reliable when it comes to specific details and to biographical accuracy. (shrink)

As a result of recent legislative developments and greater ease of accessibility, the Human Resources Manager (HRM) faces the challenge of not only maintaining records but also that of protecting employees from misuse of personal information contained in their individual personnel files. The widespread use of computers for maintaining employee records has resulted in new ethical dimensions and/or challenges for the HRM. Serious questions regarding accessibility to and dissemination of such personal information now confront the HRM. Unless policies are developed (...) by organizations for dealing with such questions, eventually government will mandate such policies in order to protect employee rights. (shrink)

Connaissez-vous Daniel S. Milo? Il dit lui-même être « le seul témoin ici de [ses] propres exploits ». Il conviendrait donc de faire les présentations d’usage. Mais suffit-il de dire que l’homme est historien, romancier et philosophe, maître de conférences à l’École des hautes études en sciences sociales à Paris? Difficile, car malgré tout on en vient vite à s’écrier, sur le ton de parents excédés par l’insubordination de leur rejeton : « Qu’est-ce qu’il...

This book is conceived as part of a systematic philosophy of values. Neither philosophies of value nor systematic philosophies are in fashion. It is hoped that this work will make a contribution toward their reappraisal. Classically, political philosophy was considered a part of philosophic systems, as the basic ideas of the philosophy applied to politics. Its relative neglect by the predominant school of philosophy in America and Britain has meant that certain ideas and issues in philosophy are in danger of (...) erasure by default. The neglect of political philosophy has meant, however, that ideologies dominate political discussion. The field of political discourse has, in effect, been yielded or ceded to the ideologues. Their views, concepts, statements of the issues, and solutions—in a word, the ultimate legitimacy of their approach—have been tacitly accepted. Many philosophers have never discussed ideology in relation to, and in the context of political philosophy in our time. More importantly, the connection between ideology and contemporary events has not received serious philosophic examination. One basis for this attitude may be the ideal of a "value free" social science. The well known thesis of Daniel Bell's book, "the end of ideology," has diverted attention from its study. Yet ideological politics is still with us in the form of ideologically defined political parties and political conflicts in which the ideology of the conflicting groups define the issues. Part I examines the link between ideology, totalitarianism and Plato’s ideal of the “philosopher-king.” Ideology is articulated by intellectuals seeking power, or attached to a party or faction seeking power. It is applied totalistically through bureaucracy and technology. We will go on in Part II to a critique of political essentialism. Essential models, combined with political motives and ideological formulas are the basis for total politicization. Thus totalitarianism will have been analyzed into root essential models, articulated into totalistic ideologies, by politically minded intellectuals, using a formula which politicizes all categories. Chapter five contrasts the moral values of political philosophy with the politicized standards of ideology. Chapter six contrasts the privacy and freedom requisite to evaluation of personal values, and to genuine happiness, with the total publicity of ideology. An entirely new grounding relation for politics is explicated in this book. (shrink)

Résumé: Ce chapitre porte sur les théories de la justice distributive entre générations. La première partie discute trois défis à la possibilité même de parler d’obligations de justice intergénérationnelle : le problème de la non-existence, le problème de la non-identité, la conclusion répugnante. La deuxième partie discute la justification et la définition des obligations de justice à l’égard des générations futures, à partir de trois théories : le suffisantisme, le welfarisme, le principe de juste épargne de Rawls. Cette discussion conclut (...) que : (i) la version la plus plausible du suffisantisme prôné par le célèbre rapport Brundtland est un suffisantisme multiniveaux, qui permet de prioriser la satisfaction des besoins de base des différentes générations tout en reconnaissant l’importance de garantir les aspirations dans un second temps. (ii) Le problème de la malléabilité des préférences futures semble de prime abord une objection décisive contre le welfarisme intergénérationnel : même si nous leur léguions très peu de ressources et un environnement dégradé, nous pourrions apprendre aux générations suivantes à adapter leurs préférences à cette situation. Nous montrons que le welfarisme peut répondre à cette objection. (iii) Une interprétation à la fois suffisantiste et limitiste du principe de juste épargne rawlsien est proposée : l’épargne intergénérationnelle est requise jusqu’à ce que le capital accumulé suffise à maintenir les institutions justes ; sous la forme de croissance des richesses matérielles, l’épargne intergénérationnelle est prohibée au-delà d’une certaine limite car elle érode le sens de la justice. La troisième partie aborde la question de la mise en œuvre de la justice intergénérationnelle en contexte non-idéal. -/- Abstract This chapter is about distributive justice between generations. The first part discusses three challenges to the meaningfulness of talking about obligations of intergenerational justice: the non-existence problem, the non-identity problem, the repugnant conclusion. The second part discusses the justification and definition of justice obligations towards future generations, according to three theories: sufficientarianism, welfarism, Rawls’s just savings principle. This discussion reaches three conclusions. (i) The most plausible version of Brundtland’s sufficientarianism is multilevels sufficientarianism, which enables us to prioritize meeting the basic needs of each generation over the fulfilment of their aspirations, without denying the importance of realizing these aspirations once needs are being met. (ii) At a first glance, the fact that future preferences are malleable seems a problem for intergenereational welfarism and a decisive objection against it. Even if we bequeathed very little resources and a degraded environment to the next generation, we could teach them to adapt their preferences to this situation. We argue that welfarism can answer this objection. (iii) We propose an interpretation of Rawls’s just savings principle that is both sufficientarian and limitarian. Intergenerational savings are required until enough capital is accumulated to maintain just institutions over time. Intergenerational savings in the form of material wealth growth is prohibited beyond a certain limit because it erodes the sense of justice. The third part addresses how to implement intergenerational justice in a non-ideal context. (shrink)

Coleman Hughes argues for a "colorblind" approach to morality and policy: we should try to treat people without regard to race. I argue that colorblindness is less feasible, and less desirable, than it sounds. Hughes conceives of race as being skin-deep, not the sort of thing one should care about. But in American politics, "races" are often really ethnic groups, defined by a shared culture and history -- two things that we might reasonably care about. A colorblind ethos (...) asks ethnic minorities not to be partial towards their group and to instead join in the "melting pot." Understandably, not everyone will want to do this, and the result is both a moral and practical challenge for colorblind politics. (Currently rewriting this to submit to the Journal of American Affairs; comments welcome.). (shrink)

The aim of Brandon Daniel-Hughes’s book is to explore the following provocative hypothesis: religious communities are communities of inquiry. As suggested by the title, the writings of C. S. Peirce provide the primary resources and rationale for this claim; his ideas on belief, habit, community, continuity, pragmatism, semiotics, and inquiry are deeply constitutive of the project. And for the most part, Daniel-Hughes’s integration produces a compelling read; however, that is not always the case, especially concerning the (...) notion of religious inquiry’s “primary referent”. Nonetheless, Daniel-Hughes brings forth a fascinating and fecund interpretation of religious practice that will be valuable to... (shrink)

L'intitulé du présent ouvrage a été choisi pour faire écho à la critique formulée naguère par Jean-François Lyotard à l'encontre d'Adorno : Lyotard réclamait, pour aborder les musiques qu'il estimait susceptibles de participer authentiquement à la " réécriture de la modernité ", que l'on abandonnât l'" alternative " définie par cet auteur ; n'étant " ni apparence, musica ficta, ni connaissance laborieuse, musica fingens ", l'œuvre (ou la non-œuvre) " littérale ", povera, serait " jeu métamorphique d'intensités sonores, travail parodique (...) de rien, musica figura ". On s'est donc efforcé, d'enquêter sur l'élaboration de la " catégorie postmodernité " prise in statu nascendi, c'est-à-dire à sa source musicale. Cela permettait de faire droit à la relative complexité sémantique du mot fiction. Celui-ci n'est pas seulement synonyme de " fabrication ", car au latin fabricare, le fingere ajoute la nuance d'une " feinte ". Et " feinte " nous expédie vers l'eirôneia des Grecs " ironie " et postmodernité ne peuvent que s'entendre. Mais le premier des ironistes postmodernes n'est autre que le premier musicien vraiment répétitif : Nietzsche. Son Fragment an sich, un morceau de piano de 22 mesures daté de 1871, comporte en effet un Da Capo non chiffré : illimité! La fiction musicale de la postmodernité, ne serait-ce pas dès lors la ritournelle, figure (figura) de l'éternel retour? (shrink)

In the January 2020 issue of this journal, Rory Misiewicz penned an excellent review of Brandon Daniel-Hughes's book. His one complaint is that Daniel-Hughes appeals to my theory that the Ultimate is "entirely indeterminate and absolute nothingness that contextualizes all things." This he claims to be inconsistent with Peirce. I do not want to defend Daniel-Hughes's use of my idea, although I surely congratulate him. I do want to correct Misiewicz's understanding of it, however.My (...) idea is that all thought is determinate, at least in part, and is therefore consequent to its creation. I give long, convoluted, but utterly persuasive arguments that the existence of any determinate things is the... (shrink)

This article explores the problem of justice between age-groups. Specifically, it presents a challenge to a leading theory in this field, Norman Daniels' Prudential Lifespan Account. The challenge relates to a key assumption that underlies this theory, namely the assumption that all individuals live complete lives of equal length. Having identified the roles that this assumption plays, the article argues that the justifications Daniels offers for it are unsatisfactory and that this threatens the foundation of his position, undermining his claim (...) that ‘the fact that we all age’ makes age a special problem of distributive justice. This shows that the problem of justice between age-groups is not special in the way Daniels proposes; rather it involves the same irreducibly interpersonal distributive decisions as other problems of justice. The consequences of this argument are several-fold. Most importantly, it shows that the Rawlsian account of justice to which Daniels hopes to attach his theory to requires significantly greater benefits to be conferred on those in earlier age-groups relative to those in later age-group, not a distribution similar to simultaneous equality as Daniels proposes. (shrink)

Successful tutoring depends in part on child tutors’ ability to recognise and interpret accurately signals of misunderstanding by their tutees. Age- and gender-related differences were investigated in a study which exposed 80 children to a video-recorded episode involving a target child receiving ambiguous instructions in her attempts to move a model car along a designated route on a playmat roadway from one destination to another. The results showed that explicit, general and facial modes of displaying puzzlement by the target child (...) were judged as equally powerful expressions of degree of puzzlement, but 8-10 year olds judged the target child as significantly more puzzled than did 7 year olds. Older children were also more likely to attribute the puzzlement of the target child to the ambiguous instructions than to her verbal or facial expression of puzzlement. Girls were generally more accurate than boys in judging facial expressions and less likely than boys to give wrong or alternatively ambiguous responses when given the opportunity to correct the video-recorded ambiguous instructions. The results throw some light on the developing sensitivities of boys and girls in recognising and attributing failures of understanding by other children. (shrink)

A smoothly running automobile is one of life’s delights; it enables you to get where you need to get, on time, with great reliability, and for the most part, you get there in style, with music playing, air conditioning keeping you comfortable, and GPS guiding your path. We tend to take cars for granted in the developed world, treating them as one of life’s constants, a resource that is always available. We plan our life’s projects with the assumption that of (...) course a car will be part of our environment. But when your car breaks down, your life is seriously disrupted. Unless you are a serious car buff with technical training you confront your dependence on a web of tow-truck operators, mechanics, car dealers, and much more. At some point, you decide to trade in your increasingly unreliable car and start afresh with a brand new model. Life goes on, with hardly a ripple. (shrink)

What does it mean to understand religious traditions most fundamentally as communities of inquiry? This is the question raised by Brandon Daniel-Hughes' Pragmatic Inquiry and Religious Communities, which uses Peirce's writings on inquiry to frame religious traditions as "large-scale hypotheses, expressed in religious symbols, narratives, and rituals that work to signify reality…by cultivating beliefs and rules for action that may truly indicate the real world and orient believers with it by guiding them into more harmonious relations with one (...) another and their environments". Academic interest in Peirce and religion has been steady for several decades, and has perhaps even grown in recent years. Such... (shrink)

Le philosophe Anton Wilhelm Amo (c.1703-c.1759), qui a grandi en Allemagne où il a enseigné sa discipline dans les universités de Halle et d'Iena avant de retourner en Afrique et de mourir en sa terre natale du Ghana, a très tôt été célébré comme un exemple. Ou plutôt un contre-exemple portant un démenti au préjugé que la philosophie, cette manifestation par excellence d'une humanité accomplie, ne pouvait concerner les Africains. C'est ainsi que l'Abbé Grégoire parle de lui au début du (...) XIXe siècle tandis qu'aujourd'hui le philosophe ghanéen Kwasi Wiredu invite à voir en lui un auteur qui a apporté une perspective africaine au problème philosophique de la relation du corps à l'esprit. Il s'imposait, pour celui qui est devenu une figure majeure de la philosophie africaine, de revenir à son principal ouvrage pour étudier avec soin la relation que sa réflexion entretient avec les philosophes mais aussi et surtout les médecins de son temps. Car montrer que sa pensée s'inscrit dans le climat intellectuel allemand de son époque et l'éclaire est un préalable nécessaire à l'étude du sens qu'elle donne à l'expression 'philosophie africaine '. C'est ce que réalise ici Daniel Dauvois, un historien de la philosophie en France et en Allemagne aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, avec la précision et la minutie requises. (shrink)

What is a self? Since Descartes in the 17th Century we have had a vision of the self as a sort of immaterial ghost that owns and controls a body the way you own and control your car.

I am extremely grateful to Brandon Daniel-Hughes and Jeffrey Speaks for their careful reading of my proposals in Theology after the Birth of God and Practicing Safe Sects and for their insightful suggestions for clarifying the project and following out its social implications. Both essays were instructive and provocative, providing exactly the kind of critical and constructive commentary that authors hope their work will evoke. We share a great deal in common, including a robustly naturalist metaphysics, an appreciation (...) for the pragmatic philosophical tradition, and a deep concern about the psychological and political shape of future human communities. Instead... (shrink)

This study of Plato’s hypothetical method is a more than welcome addition to the literature on philosophical method in Plato’s middle dialogues. Benson’s study is remarkable for unusual care and thoroughness in the development of its arguments, and the fairness of its treatment of rival interpretations. One can safely predict that future work on the topic will have to come to grips with his arguments and original interpretations.Benson begins with a careful analysis of the brief descriptions of the method in (...) Meno and Phaedo, then examines its application there and in relevant Republic passages. Benson finds the method a way of conducting what he calls ‘de novo inquiry’ aimed at acquiring knowledge. In Meno the.. (shrink)

The potential development of self-driving cars (also known as autonomous vehicles or AVs – particularly Level 5 AVs) has called the attention of different interested parties. Yet, there are still only a few relevant international regulations on them, no emergency patterns accepted by communities and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), and no publicly accepted solutions to some of their pending ethical problems. Thus, this paper aims to provide some possible answers to these moral and practical dilemmas. In particular, we focus on (...) what AVs should do in no-win scenarios and on who should be held responsible for these types of decisions. A naturalistic perspective on ethics informs our proposal, which, we argue, could represent a pragmatic and realistic solution to the regulation of AVs. We discuss the proposals already set out in the current literature regarding both policy-making strategies and theoretical accounts. In fact, we consider and reject descriptive approaches to the problem as well as the option of using either a strict deontological view or a solely utilitarian one to set AVs’ ethical choices. Instead, to provide concrete answers to AVs’ ethical problems, we examine three hierarchical levels of decision-making processes: country-wide regulations, OEM policies, and buyers’ moral attitudes. By appropriately distributing ethical decisions and considering their practical implications, we maintain that our proposal based on ethical naturalism recognizes the importance of all stakeholders and allows the most able of them to take actions (the OEMs and buyers) to reflect on the moral leeway and weight of their options. (shrink)

People tend to contribute more—and think they have stronger obligations to contribute more—to rescuing an identified victim rather than a statistical one. Indeed, they are often disposed to contribute more to rescuing a single identified victim than a greater number of statistical ones. By an “identified victim,” I mean Terry Q., lying injured in the passenger seat of the wrecked automobile on the corner of Main Street and Broadway, or Jessica McClure, the child who fell into the Texas well in (...) 1987 and whose family was sent $700,000 in donations for her. We need not know their names, however, and we can accept a very minimal form of identification. By a “statistical victim,” I mean the person who, extrapolating from traffic records, will be in a similar, serious car accident tomorrow (and may then be identified), or the children who will fall into wells next year if we do not cap them better than we did the well that trapped Jessica. Does this disposition (or perceived obligation) have any normative force? I initially thought there could be no such normative force, but consequentialist and nonconsequentialist arguments, pro and con, have convinced me that reasonable people can disagree with each other. This disagreement poses a problem for political philosophy: how should policy choices take such disagreement into account? (shrink)

Daniel, Michael E Review(s) of: Australians and the Christian god: An historical study, by Hugh Jackson, (Preston: Mosaic Press, 2013), pp.209, $37.95.

" L'homme a beau s'étendre autant qu'il peut par sa connaissance, a écrit Nietzsche ; il a beau s'apparaître aussi objectivement qu'il le veut ; il n'en retire cependant pour finir que sa propre biographie. " S'il appartient au biographe d'éclairer, voire d'" expliquer " l'œuvre par l'homme, peu d'écrivains ou de philosophes justifient autant que Nietzsche cette ambition et cette méthode. Car il en est peu, comme le montre Daniel Halévy, chez qui l'œuvre adhère aussi étroitement à la (...) biographie intérieure. A cet égard, l'ouvrage que Daniel Halévy consacra au philosophe du Gai Savoir, voici déjà un demi-siècle, reste un modèle du genre. Et, à l'heure où l'on célèbre le centenaire de la mort de Nietzsche, il s'ira pose comme un classique indispensable à la compréhension d'une œuvre trop souvent dénaturée par ses interprètes. (shrink)

As the expansion of the Internet and the digital formatting of all kinds of creative works move us further into the information age, intellectual property issues have become paramount. Computer programs costing thousands of research dollars are now copied in an instant. People who would recoil at the thought of stealing cars, computers, or VCRs regularly steal software or copy their favorite music from a friend's CD. Since the Web has no national boundaries, these issues are international concerns. The contributors-philosophers, (...) legal theorists, and business scholars, among others-address questions such as: Can abstract ideas be owned? How does the violation of intellectual property rights compare to the violation of physical property rights? Can computer software and other digital information be protected? And how should legal systems accommodate the ownership of intellectual property in an information age? Intellectual Property is a lively examination of these and other issues, and an invaluable resource for librarians, lawyers, businesspeople, and scholars. (shrink)

Professeure d’histoire à l’université de Wisconsin (États-Unis), Mary Louise Roberts est l’auteure du classique Civilization without Sexes : reconstructing gender in Postwar France, 1917-1927, paru en 1994. Passant du premier au deuxième après-guerre, elle livre aujourd’hui une analyse de la sexualité des GIs dans la France libérée de 1944 où elle s’attache à démontrer le caractère profondément politique de leur vie sexuelle (p. 11). Car pour elle, loin d’être une affaire privée, celle-ci a é...

How do people adapt to technology? This study examines one mechanism people may be using to personalize technology—talking to machines. Communicating to machines is similar to other forms of personalization and can be explained using attribution theory. Characteristics of machines (such as relationship to emotions, predictability, and familiarity) may affect people's willingness to communicate. A survey study that examined people's communication to machines showed that people do communicate to some machines, and hypotheses about the characteristics of machines were supported. A (...) second survey study examined the differences between communicating with cars and computers, comparing issues such as frequency, emotionality, and the perceived gender of the machines. Overall, these studies show some of the ways people are adapting to their increasingly computerized, technological environment. (shrink)

In this article I deal with the topic of perceptual self-awareness, focusing on whether a plausible account of sensory self-perception having exterior sensations as its objects requires sensible species representing these acts. I first introduce Aristotle’s two distinct views from On the Soul and On Sleep and Waking as defining the scholastic status quaestionis, then bring in Francisco Suárez’s, Bartholomeo Mastri’s and Bonaventura Belluto’s, and Hugh McCaghwell’s accounts. I show, first, that Suárez’s view, which cannot be substantiated by Scotus’s littera, (...) is rejected by Mastri/Belluto and by McCaghwell in one of his conclusions. Second, I argue that McCaghwell’s second tenet is to be assessed as Suarezian. This shows that Suárez’s philosophy of perception was positively received also by seventeenth-century Scotists. (shrink)