Von der Antike bis in die Gegenwart. Verständlich und anschaulich geschrieben, führt der Klassiker durch die wichtigsten Stationen des philosophischen Denkens. Die 4. Auflage wurde um die philosophischen Entwicklungen seit den 1990er Jahren ergänzt. Dazu gehören u. a. Analytische Philosophie, Ethik, Virtuelle Realität, Philosophie der Gefühle und Philosophie als Lebensform. Eine Besonderheit ist das umfangreiche Kapitel über die Philosophie des Ostens: Indien, China, Japan.

Name der Zeitschrift: Frühmittelalterliche Studien Jahrgang: 36 Heft: 2 Seiten: 335-346.

Unified explanations seek to situate the traits of human beings in a causal framework that also explains the trait values found in nonhuman species. Disunified explanations claim that the traits of human beings are due to causal processes not at work in the rest of nature. This paper outlines a methodology for testing hypotheses of these two types. Implications are drawn concerning evolutionary psychology, adaptationism, and anti-adaptationism.

Re-Engineering Philosophy for Limited Beings is about new approaches to many of the big topics in philosophy of science today, but with a very different take. To begin with, we are urged to reject the received Cartesian-Laplacean myths: Descartes’ certainty and Laplace’s computational omniscience. Instead, Wimsatt re-engineers a philosophy for human beings with all their cognitive limitations. His approaches find their starting point in the actual practices of scientists themselves, which he strongly identifies with engineering practices as the source of (...) researchers’ solutions for dealing with a complex world. He aims to construct an understanding of scientific methodology around the central role of reduction. But he dismisses eliminative reductionism in favor of a heuristic-based realist view. Wimsatt’s world is a complex one, and this means that science needs to do away with all the absolute and simple answers, because they do not reflect the world we are living in. A complex world requires the mindset and tinkering of an engineer to uncover its reality. The appropriate response must be heuristics all the way down as we constantly seek out reliable inferences on often shifting ground. To this end, we aim for models and theories that are robust, just as engineers aim to build robust machines. And although errors occur and approaches are fallible, they allow us to continually adapt the heuristics applied and sharpen our perceptions so as to develop more refined tools for investigating and understanding the world. (shrink)

This article offers a typologically-driven and corpus-based analysis of the historical present (HP) “active participle” qātēl in Biblical Aramaic. The authors argue that qātēl instantiates the HP category quite neatly and provide three main arguments. First, qātēl complies with the definition of a progredient/propulsive HP that emerges from crosslinguistic literature: while, in its prototypical use, qātēl expresses some type(s) of present, it may also be employed in narrative to introduce past perfective events. Second, when used as an HP, qātēl exhibits (...) functions that are consistent with tendencies attested across languages: stylistically, the HP qātēl is often associated with expressivity, mirativity, and dramatism, while discourse-pragmatically, it is predominantly related to the progression (rarely, the climax) and atomization of the plot. Third, most other properties exhibited by the HP qātēl also harmonize with the behavior of HPs observed in linguistic typology; these concern types of clauses in which the HP qātēl appears, and subjects and verbs used. Overall, the HP qātēl can be viewed as a highlighting narrative device—subjective although linguistically constrained. (shrink)

This paper clarifies and defends my account of the rights forfeiture theory of punishment in response to analyses by Michelle Madden Dempsey and Gerald Lang.

The notion of societal boundaries aims to enhance the debate on planetary boundaries. The focus is on capitalist societies as a heuristic for discussing the expansionary dynamics, power relations, and lock-ins of modern societies that impel highly unsustainable societal relations with nature. While formulating societal boundaries implies a controversial process – based on normative judgments, ethical concerns, and socio-political struggles – it has the potential to offer guidelines for a just, social-ecological transformation.

New concepts may prove necessary to profit from the avalanche of sequence data on the genome, transcriptome, proteome and interactome and to relate this information to cell physiology. Here, we focus on the concept of large activity-based structures, or hyperstructures, in which a variety of types of molecules are brought together to perform a function. We review the evidence for the existence of hyperstructures responsible for the initiation of DNA replication, the sequestration of newly replicated origins of replication, cell division (...) and for metabolism. The processes responsible for hyperstructure formation include changes in enzyme affinities due to metabolite-induction, lipid-protein affinities, elevated local concentrations of proteins and their binding sites on DNA and RNA, and transertion. Experimental techniques exist that can be used to study hyperstructures and we review some of the ones less familiar to biologists. Finally, we speculate on how a variety of in silico approaches involving cellular automata and multi-agent systems could be combined to develop new concepts in the form of an Integrated cell (I-cell) which would undergo selection for growth and survival in a world of artificial microbiology. (shrink)

In the process of challenging epistemological assumptions that preclude relationships between knowers and the objects of knowing, feminist epistemologists Lorraine Code and Donna Haraway also can be interpreted as troubling forms of argumentation predicated on positivist-derived logic. Against the latter, Christopher Tindale promotes a rhetorical model of argument that appears able to better engage epistemologies of situated knowledges. I detail key features of the latter from Code, especially, and compare and contrast them with relevant parts of Tindale’s discussion of (...) context on the rhetorical model, and I suggest ways that his work could be expanded to accommodate rhetorical implications of situated knowledges. (shrink)

The planetary boundaries concept has profoundly changed the vocabulary and representation of global environmental issues. The article starts by highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of planetary boundaries from a social science perspective. It is argued that the growth imperative of capitalist economies, as well as other particular characteristics detailed below, are the main drivers of the ecological crisis and exacerbated trends already underway. Further, the planetary boundaries framework can support interpretations that do not solely emphasize technocratic operational approaches and costs, (...) but also assume that these alone can be the solution. (shrink)

In his Rights Forfeiture and Punishment, Christopher Heath Wellman argues that his preferred ‘strong’ version of rights forfeiture theory makes the moral rights of due process and a fair trial null and void for guilty offenders. They may still possess legal rights to due process, but these are not strong pre-institutional moral rights. I explain here why I disagree with Wellman. I also suggest that he is not entitled, by his own lights, to affirm strong forfeiture theory, at least (...) in our social world. (shrink)

En vue de réhabiliter la philosophie comme théorie critique de la science, Lange se propose de lever les principales objections formulées contre la première Critique, qui se concentrent sur le statut problématique de l’a priori. Il prétend sauver le caractère nécessaire des formes a priori du connaître en les inscrivant dans la constitution physico-psychique de l’homme. En faisant de l’espace la forme fondamentale de la pensée humaine, Lange engage un profond remaniement de la logique transcendantale.

In Laws and Lawmakers: Science, Metaphysics, and the Laws of Nature, Marc Lange has presented an engagingly written, tightly argued, and novel philosophical account of the laws of nature. One of the intuitions behind the notion of a law of nature is, roughly, that of the many regularities we observe in the world there are some which appear to be due to mere happen-stance (“accidental” regularities, in the philosopher’s jargon), while others, which we call “laws,” seem to be possessed of (...) a degree of necessity. For example, if the only music ever to come out of my stereo system during the entirety of its existence were that of James Brown, we would term this an accidental regularity: it seems that it could have been otherwise had the world been different, perhaps by the stereo having a different owner or my having different tastes. On the other hand, the various relations and properties that determine the electrical functioning of my stereo seem more necessary and lawlike: presumably Ohm’s law would have held even had my stereo never been built.1 But even if Ohm’s law is somehow necessary, it seems less necessary than other “broadly logical” truths. Certainly Ohm’s law could have been different, perhaps by a factor of two, yet it seems unreasonable to say that the number 6 could have been prime. Although many philosophers, and certainly most scientists, will readily agree that there is a difference between logical, law-like, and accidental regularities, spelling out the nature of this difference has proved a remarkably difficult task. It is precisely this puzzle which Lange intends Laws and Lawmakers to address. In this review I shall first give a quick and broad outline of Lange’s account of natural laws as I understand it, followed by a brief summary of the contents of the book, and then close with a few critical comments. (shrink)

At the forefront of almost all governmental and ecclesiastical policies on peace and war is the question of what to do about nuclear weapons. While this question remains unresolved in the world today, New Zealand's response in the 1980s has recently gained traction again as the new Nuclear Weapon Ban Treaty was passed in July 2017. New Zealand proposed its answer in 1987 when it enacted its 'Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Act'. The impetus for that legislation was (...) the popular support for Prime Minister David Lange's Oxford Union address in 1985. Lange's speech moved the nation's position beyond the political sphere into social, ethical and religious circles. This paper revisits that speech and the rationale behind New Zealand's decision in light of fundamental Catholic moral theology. It highlights common moral ideals between the New Zealand Catholic Church and government, points of agreement between the Catholic Church's moral teaching and New Zealand's nuclear-free policy, from the time of New Zealand's nuclear-free movement as early as the late 1950s, through David Lange's Oxford Union address, and the government's enactment of its nuclear-free legislation in 1987, up until today. Specifically, it seeks to exhibit how the logic of Prime Minister Lange's position corresponds to Catholic moral thought, evidencing an example of political - religious unity and a common church - state purpose for those people who are interested in moral, social, and political - religious cohesion. No critical analysis of arguments for and against nuclear weapons is intended, but rather simply the evidence of a positive co-relation between New Zealand's government and the Catholic Church on the nature and potential use of nuclear weapons. (shrink)

Klappentext: Hegels theoretische Philosophie erlebt gegenwärtig eine Renaissance: Galt sie lange und gerade in der Analytischen Philosophie als bestenfalls von historischem Interesse, finden sich Hegelsche Argumente nun im Zentrum systematischer Debatten auf dem Gebiet der Ontologie, Semantik, Epistemologie und der Philosophie des Mentalen wieder. Philosophen wie etwa Robert B. Random und John McDowell berufen sich auf Hegel als zentrale Inspirationsquelle. Dabei ergeben sich in bezug auf die Deutung von Hegels System fur die Hegel-Forschung überraschende neue Perspektiven und Fragestellungen. Dieser Band (...) versammelt Beitrage von Hauptvertretern der Gegenwartsphilosophie und von führenden Hegel-Forschern und bietet einen umfassenden Überblick über die aktuellen Versuche, Hegels Erbe nicht nur antiquarisch zu bewahren, sondern philosophisch anzutreten. (shrink)

Color adjectives have played a central role in work on language typology and variation, but there has been relatively little investigation of their meanings by researchers in formal semantics. This is surprising given the fact that color terms have been at the center of debates in the philosophy of language over foundational questions, in particular whether the idea of a compositional, truth-conditional theory of natural language semantics is even coherent. The challenge presented by color terms is articulated in detail in (...) the work of Charles Travis. Travis argues that structurally isomorphic sentences containing color adjectives can shift truth value from context to context depending on how they are used and in the absence of effects of vagueness or ambiguity/polysemy, and concludes that a deterministic mapping from structures to truth conditions is impossible. The goal of this paper is to provide a linguistic perspective on this issue, which we believe defuses Travis’ challenge. We provide empirical arguments that color adjectives are in fact ambiguous between gradable and nongradable interpretations, and that this simple ambiguity, together with independently motivated options concerning scalar dimension within the gradable reading accounts for the Travis facts in a simpler, more constrained, and thus ultimately more successful fashion than recent contextualist analyses such as those in Szabó (Perspectives on semantics, pragmatics and discourse: A festschrift for Ferenc Kiefer, 2001) or Rothschild and Segal (Mind Lang, 2009). (shrink)

Hans J. Morgenthau (1904-1980) gilt als einer der Grundervater einer theoretisch-systematischen Analyse der Internationalen Politik. Sein machtzentrierter, aber auch machtskeptischer Ansatz wurde in Deutschland lange vernachlassigt oder einseitig interpretiert. Dieser Band ist der erste politikwissenschaftlich umfassende Sammelband im deutschen Sprachraum, der das vielseitige und komplexe Denken Morgenthaus abbildet und dabei auch sein Verstandnis innerstaatlicher politischer Prozesse inkorporiert. Im Dialog mit den Disziplinen der Jurisprudenz, der Geschichte und Politik hat Morgenthau ein Gedankengebaude errichtet, das Machtskepsis einerseits und einen hohen normativen Anspruch (...) an politische Herrschaft andererseits miteinander verbindet. In diesem Band werden die staatsrechtlichen Aspekte im Denken Morgenthaus, seine Kritik am Akteur Staat sowie seine Uberlegungen zur Uberwindung einer staatszentrierten internationalen Ordnung dargestellt. (shrink)

In einem Brief nennt Adorno die "Negative Dialektik" kurz nach ihrem Erscheinen unter seinen Schriften "das philosophische Hauptwerk, wenn ich so sagen darf“. Dieser herausgehobenen Bedeutung, die das Werk für Adorno hatte, entspricht nicht nur die lange Zeit, die er mit der Abfassung des Buchs beschäftigt war, sondern auch die lange Geschichte, die ihre zentralen Motive in seinem Denken haben. Philosophische Begriffsklärung, die Arbeit an "Begriff und Kategorien“ einer negativen Dialektik, versteht Adorno dabei als dialektischen Übergang in inhaltliches Denken – (...) und so betreibt er sie auch hier. Das hat Konsequenzen für die Form des kooperativen Kommentars, der in diesem Band versucht wird. Adornos "Negative Dialektik" zu kommentieren, kann nur in dem Bewußtsein der unüberbrückbaren Kluft gelingen, die den Kommentar von diesem Text trennt. (shrink)

Als geronnene Wiederholungen prägen Rituale unseren Alltag und unser Zusammenleben maßgeblich. Nicht von ungefähr galten sie lange Zeit als Inbegriff des Konservativen, Starren und Förmlichen. Eine gänzlich durchritualisierte Welt wäre zweifellos eine unfreie Welt. Im Zeitalter der Deregulierung, der Hyperaktivität und des Aufmerksamkeitsdefizits wird nun ihre Halt gebende und strukturierende Seite wiederentdeckt.Die AutorInnen reflektieren gesellschaftskritisch Theorien und psychoanalytische Erfahrungen rund um das Thema Rituale und widmen sich den folgenden Fragen: Werden Rituale zu Widerstandsnestern gegen die allgemeine Flüchtigkeit? Können sie als (...) Angelpunkte des Innehaltens und als Wegbahner unbeirrten Denkens eine neue kritische Potenz erhalten?Mit Beiträgen von Thomas Dietzel, Gesa Foken, Dirk Hofmeister, Katharina Lacina, Konrad Paul Liessmann, Nina Reis Saroldi, Elisabeth Rohr, Jochen Schade, Hans-Ernst Schiller, Edgar Weiß, Laura Wolf und Carsten Wonneberger. (shrink)

Bis vor kurzem wurden die Namen Alfred North Whitehead und Bertrand Russell zumeist in einem Atemzug genannt. Im Anschluss an die gemeinsam verfassten Principia Mathematica gingen beide jedoch dezidiert eigene philosophische Wege. Wahrend Russell maageblich zur Entstehung der analytischen Philosophie beitrug, markiert Whiteheads spate Philosophie den Beginn der bis heute virulenten prozessmetaphysischen Tradition. Stand Whitehead dabei lange im Schatten seines langjahrigen Freundes und Kollegen, zeichnet sich spatestens seit Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts ein bemerkenswerter Umschwung ab. Der vorliegende Band nimmt die (...) Entwicklung zum Anlass, um Gemeinsamkeiten und Differenzen der beiden Klassiker der angelsachsischen Philosophie neu zu sondieren. (shrink)

Von der Thematik des Alters in der mittelalterlichen Philosophie haben wir nach wie vor ein eher lückenhaftes Bild. Die Rezeptionsgeschichte philosophischer Altersverständnisse und –konzeptionen der Epoche folgt einem Grundmuster, das die Rezeptionsgeschichte ihrer Philosophie insgesamt widerspiegelt: Wie das Mittelalter lange ein vergleichsweise wenig erforschtes Gebiet der Geistesgeschichte darstellte, so bleibt nun die Erforschung philosophischer Altersverständnisse und –konzeptionen hinter der antiker und neuzeitlicher Altersverständnisse und -konzeptionen zurück. Und so wie lange die Philosophie des Mittelalters von ihren antiken Voraussetzungen her und in (...) ihren Impulsen für neuzeitliches Denken rezipiert wurde, so entwickelt sich unser Zugang zu hier einschlägigen mittelalterlichen Konzeptionen, wenn überhaupt, dann anhand der Koordinaten antiker und neuzeitlicher Philosophie. (shrink)

Ein Leben lang leidet der Mensch an der nie zu überwindenden Endlichkeit seiner Vernunft, die ihn heftig mit Fragen bedrängt, zu deren Beantwortung sie selbst gar nicht in der Lage ist. Im Blick auf den Versuch, dieses Paradoxon aufzulösen, dass nämlich einerseits das metaphysische Bedürfnis der Vernunft zwar von dieser nicht aus eigener Kraft zufriedengestellt werden kann, andererseits aber diese Einsicht keineswegs ihr bohrendes Fragen zum Schweigen bringt, wird die Verführung nachvollziehbar, das Kind mit dem Bade auszuschütten und der (...) Vernunft rundweg und grundsätzlich eine tragfähige lebens- und handlungsleitende Kraft abzusprechen. Grosse Teile der Postmoderne sind von diesem tiefen Misstrauen, das den Abschied von aller Vernunft zu rechtfertigen scheint, geprägt. Die Alternative zu ihrer Verabschiedung im Aufweis der Möglichkeit - ja Notwendigkeit - von Metaphysik auch und gerade angesichts einer stets in ihrer Endlichkeit gefangenen Vernunft wird in diesem Buch gezeichnet."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Innerhalb der Kritischen Theorie der Frankfurter Schule hatten anerkennungsbezogene Überlegungen lange Zeit eine randständige Existenz. Geprägt wurde die Arbeit der Schule zunächst durch marxistische Theoreme und später durch Theorien der sozialen Evolution, die vor allem auf Fragen der kommunikativen Rationalisierung und der systemischen Steuerung bezogen waren. Umso bemerkenswerter ist es, dass sowohl Max Horkheimer als auch Jürgen Habermas weitreichende anerkennungsbezogene Überlegungen entwickelt haben. Diese Überlegungen werden in den ersten beiden Hauptteilen der vorliegenden Untersuchung erörtert. Im Anschluss daran wird die von (...) Axel Honneth vorgenommene Neuausrichtung der Kritischen Theorie, mit der „Anerkennung“ zu dem zentralen Konzept der Frankfurter Schule wird, rekonstruiert und in ihren Folgen diskutiert. (shrink)

This book is about fundamental questions in normative ethics. It begins with the idea that we often respond to ethical theories according to how principled or pragmatic they are. It clarifies this contrast and then uses it to shed light on old debates in ethics, such as debates about the rival merits of consequentialist and deontological views. Using the idea that principled views seem most appealing in dilemmas of acquiescence, it goes on to develop a novel theory of pattern-based reasons. (...) These are reasons to play one’s part in some larger pattern of action because of the goodness or rightness of that pattern. Existing accounts of pattern-based reasons usually assume that such reasons can exist only in cooperative contexts. This book rejects that assumption, and claims instead that we can have pattern-based reasons even when the other agents involved in the pattern are wholly unwilling to cooperate. The result is a pluralist teleological structure for ethics, with similarities to some forms of Rule Consequentialism. Woodard claims that this structure achieves an attractive balance between the two virtues of being pragmatic and being principled. (shrink)

Can we understand what makes someone the same person without understanding what it is to be a person? Prereflectively we might not think so, but philosophers often accord these questions separate treatments, with personal-identity theorists claiming the first question and free-will theorists the second. Yet much of what is of interest to a person—the possibility of survival over time, compensation for past hardships, concern for future projects, or moral responsibility—is not obviously intelligible from the perspective of either question alone. Marya (...) Schechtman encourages us to adopt a more unified perspective. (shrink)

Georg Lukács wrote that "there is autonomy and 'autonomy.' The one is a moment of life itself, the elevation of its richness and contradictory unity; the other is a rigidification, a barren self-seclusion, a self-imposed banishment from the dynamic overall connection." Though Lukács' concern was with the conditions for the possibility of art, his distinction also serves as an apt description of the way that Hegel and Hegelians have contrasted their own interpretations of self-determination with that of Kant. But it (...) has always been difficult to see how elevation is possible without seclusion, or how rigidification can be avoided without making the boundaries of the self so malleable that its autonomy looks like a mere cover for the power of external forces. Yeomans explores Hegel's own attempts to grapple with this problem against the background of Kant's attempts, in his theory of virtue, to understand the way that morally autonomous agents can be robust individuals with qualitatively different projects, personal relations, and commitments that are nonetheless infused with a value that demands respect. In a reading that disentangles a number of different threads in Kant's approach, Yeomans shows how Hegel reweaves these threads around the central notions of talent and interest to produce a tapestry of self-determination. Yeomans argues that the result is a striking pluralism that identifies three qualitatively distinct forms of agency or accountability and sees each of these forms of agency as being embodied in different social groups in different ways. But there is nonetheless a dynamic unity to the forms because they can all be understood as practical attempts to solve the problem of autonomy, and each is thus worthy of respect even from the perspective of other solutions."Everyone recognizes the importance of Hegel's critique of Kantian morality as empty, but until now there has not been a fully worked out presentation of how Hegel's views in his discussion of Sittlichkeit actually provide the missing content. Yeomans has finally provided us with a reconstruction of Hegel's mature position that makes good on all the promissory notes that Hegel gives in his famous descriptions of his alternative to Kantian ethics. Yeomans offers a compelling account of Hegel's view of individuality, societal differentiation and its roots in Kantian and Fichtean moral theory. The book will be a major contribution to the scholarship on Hegel's practical philosophy." - Dean Moyar, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Johns Hopkins University -/- "Yeomans' book is a subtle, detailed and original explication of some key ideas having to do with how Hegel's general philosophy of action relates to his social and political philosophy. It is attentive to Hegel's texts, and it ties its discussions into all the relevant contemporary themes in philosophy. It is very ambitious in its attempt to make Hegel's theory into a real competitor to other views that are currently in wide play in the philosophical world. It will very likely become one of the key texts in the secondary literature on Hegel." - Terry Pinkard, University Professor of Philosophy, Georgetown University. (shrink)

"Is higher education a right, or a privilege? This author argues that all citizens in a free and open society should have an unconditional right to higher education. Such an education should be costless for the individual and open to everyone regardless of talent. A readiness and willingness to learn should be the only qualification. It should offer opportunities that benefit citizens with different interests and goals in life. And it should aim, as its foundational moral purpose, to help citizens (...) from all walks of life live better, freer lives. Using concepts and ideas from liberal political philosophy the author argues that access to educational goods and services is something to which all citizens have a right over a full life. Such goods, it is argued, play a key role in helping citizens realize self-determined goals. Higher education should therefore be understood a basic social institution responsible for ensuring that all citizens can access such 'autonomy-supporting' goods. The book examines the implication of this justification of the right to higher education for questions of educational justice, political authority, distributive justice, civic education, and personal autonomy"--. (shrink)

Quantum Information Theory and the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics is a conceptual analysis of one of the most prominent and exciting new areas of physics, providing the first full-length philosophical treatment of quantum information theory and the questions it raises for our understanding of the quantum world. -/- Beginning from a careful, revisionary, analysis of the concepts of information in the everyday and classical information-theory settings, Christopher G. Timpson argues for an ontologically deflationary account of the nature of quantum (...) information. Against what many have supposed, quantum information can be clearly defined (it is not a primitive or vague notion) but it is not part of the material contents of the world. Timpson's account sheds light on the nature of nonlocality and information flow in the presence of entanglement and, in particular, dissolves puzzles surrounding the remarkable process of quantum teleportation. In addition it permits a clear view of what the ontological and methodological lessons provided by quantum information theory are; lessons which bear on the gripping question of what role a concept like information has to play in fundamental physics. Topics discussed include the slogan 'Information is Physical', the prospects for an informational immaterialism (the view that information rather than matter might fundamentally constitute the world), and the status of the Church-Turing hypothesis in light of quantum computation. -/- With a clear grasp of the concept of information in hand, Timpson turns his attention to the pressing question of whether advances in quantum information theory pave the way for the resolution of the traditional conceptual problems of quantum mechanics: the deep problems which loom over measurement, nonlocality and the general nature of quantum ontology. He marks out a number of common pitfalls to be avoided before analysing in detail some concrete proposals, including the radical quantum Bayesian programme of Caves, Fuchs, and Schack. One central moral which is drawn is that, for all the interest that the quantum information-inspired approaches hold, no cheap resolutions to the traditional problems of quantum mechanics are to be had. (shrink)

According to the doctrine of the Incarnation, one person, Christ, has both the attributes proper to a human being and the attributes proper to God. This claim has given rise to the coherence objection, i.e., the objection that it is impossible for one individual to have both sets of attributes. Several authors have offered responses which rely on the idea that Christ has the relevant human properties in virtue of having a concrete human nature which has those properties. I show (...) why such responses should be rejected and, in light of that, propose an alternative response to the coherence objection. (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.

In Rights Forfeiture and Punishment, Christopher Heath Wellman argues that those who seek to defend the moral permissibility of punishment should shift their focus from general justifying aims to moral side constraints. On Wellman's view, punishment is permissible just in case the wrongdoer has forfeited her right against punishment.

Natural Law Today gives a strong voice to classical natural law theory as the best answers to the fundamental questions of ethics and as the best framework for political and social life. It explains various aspects of that theory and defends it against common misperceptions and criticisms.