En este artículo se analizan una serie de ideas filosóficas y de perspectivas interpretativas que el cuyano Damián Hudson utilizó para construir su obra Recuerdos históricos sobre la provincia de Cuyo (1864-1874), la cual se inscribe en los inicios de la historiografía erudita argentina. Se explora su idea de progreso, concepto que Hudson identifica con la providencia, potencia histórica incremental que despliega un desarrollo universal que hace avanzar a la humanidad y la nación hacia el bienestar y (...) el desarrollo. Ese sentido de la historia encarnaría una verdad histórica que es menester develar por quienes estudian el pasado, pero no por vía de la neutralidad valorativa, sino posicionándose de una manera crítica y reflexionando filosóficamente sobre los procesos de desenvolvimiento histórico provincial y nacional. Se concluye con unas reflexiones sobre los cruces interpretativos entre la historia como proceso y la historia escrita como ejercicio intelectual, conceptos que tienden a combinarse en la época objeto de estudio. (shrink)

This paper provides a novel reconstruction of Kant’s argument for transcendental idealism in the Transcendental Aesthetic. This reconstruction relies on two main contentions: first, that Kant accepts the then-ubiquitous view that all cognition is either from grounds or consequences, a view he props up by drawing a distinction between logical and real grounds; second, that Kant, like most of his contemporaries, holds that our representations are the most immediate grounds of our cognition. By stressing these elements, the most threatening objection (...) to Kant’s argument can be avoided, namely, the claim that Kant ignores the possibility that our representations of space and time are subjective in origin, but objective as regards their applicability. My reconstruction shows that this so-called neglected alternative objection is based on a conceptual confusion about the nature of a priori cognition. (shrink)

This book argues that language is a network of concepts which in turn is part of the general cognitive network of the mind. It challenges the widely-held view that language is an innate mental module with its own special internal organization. It shows that language has the same internal organization as other areas of knowledge such as social relations and action schemas, and reveals the rich links between linguistic elements and contextual categories. Professor Hudson presents a new theory of (...) how we learn and use our knowledge of language. He puts this to work in a series of extended explorations of morphology, syntax, semantics, and sociolinguistics. Every step of his argument and exposition is illustrated with examples, including the kind mainstream theory finds it hard to analyse. He introduces the latest version of his influential theory of Word Grammar and shows how it can be used to explain the operations of language and as a key to understanding the associated operations of the mind. (shrink)

For a free filter F on $$\omega $$ ω, endow the space $$N_F=\omega \cup \{p_F\}$$ N F = ω ∪ { p F }, where $$p_F\not \in \omega $$ p F ∉ ω, with the topology in which every element of $$\omega $$ ω is isolated whereas all open neighborhoods of $$p_F$$ p F are of the form $$A\cup \{p_F\}$$ A ∪ { p F } for $$A\in F$$ A ∈ F. Spaces of the form $$N_F$$ N F constitute the (...) class of the simplest non-discrete Tychonoff spaces. The aim of this paper is to study them in the context of the celebrated Josefson–Nissenzweig theorem from Banach space theory. We prove, e.g., that, for a filter F, the space $$N_F$$ N F carries a sequence $$\langle \mu _n:n\in \omega \rangle $$ ⟨ μ n : n ∈ ω ⟩ of normalized finitely supported signed measures such that $$\mu _n(f)\rightarrow 0$$ μ n ( f ) → 0 for every bounded continuous real-valued function f on $$N_F$$ N F if and only if $$F^*\le _K{\mathcal {Z}}$$ F ∗ ≤ K Z, that is, the dual ideal $$F^*$$ F ∗ is Katětov below the asymptotic density ideal $${\mathcal {Z}}$$ Z. Consequently, we get that if $$F^*\le _K{\mathcal {Z}}$$ F ∗ ≤ K Z, then: (1) if X is a Tychonoff space and $$N_F$$ N F is homeomorphic to a subspace of X, then the space $$C_p^*(X)$$ C p ∗ ( X ) of bounded continuous real-valued functions on X contains a complemented copy of the space $$c_0$$ c 0 endowed with the pointwise topology, (2) if K is a compact Hausdorff space and $$N_F$$ N F is homeomorphic to a subspace of K, then the Banach space C(K) of continuous real-valued functions on K is not a Grothendieck space. The latter result generalizes the well-known fact stating that if a compact Hausdorff space K contains a non-trivial convergent sequence, then the space C(K) is not Grothendieck. (shrink)

Advancing public health equity requires a broad view of factors that influence well-being, including not only physical but also social determinants of health. In “A Public Health Ethics Framework f...

In this article, I take on a classic objection to Kant’s arguments in the Antinomy of Pure Reason: that the arguments are question-begging, as they draw illicit inferences from claims about representation to claims about reality. While extant attempts to vindicate Kant try to show that he does not make such inferences, I attempt to vindicate Kant’s arguments in a different way: I show that, given Kant’s philosophical backdrop, the inferences in question are not illicit. This is because the transcendental (...) realists that Kant was arguing against have certain philosophical commitments about the nature of ground which, if true, warrant the inferences that Kant draws. This historical corrective not only allows us to better understand Kant’s own thinking in the Antinomies but it also has important upshots for our understanding of Kant’s transcendental idealism. (shrink)

Traditional Marxists hold that capitalist modes of production are unjustly exploitative. In 'Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality' G. A. Cohen argues that this ``exploitation charge'' commits traditional Marxists to the thesis that people own themselves (``self-ownership''). If so, then traditional Marxism is vulnerable to a libertarian challenge to its commitment to equality. Cohen, therefore, recommends that Marxists abandon the exploitation charge. This paper undermines Cohen's case for the alleged link between the exploitation charge and self-ownership primarily by defending an account of (...) the exploitation charge that does not involve self-ownership or compromise the Marxist commitment to equality. (shrink)

In attempting to debunk moral realism through an appeal to evolutionary facts, debunkers face a series of problems, which we label the problems of scope, corrosiveness, and post‐hoc justification. To overcome these problems, debunkers must assume certain metaphysical or epistemological positions, or otherwise pre‐establish them. In doing so, they must assume or pre‐establish the very conclusion they seek in advancing the argument. This means that such debunking arguments either beg the question against the moral realist or are undermined as standalone (...) metaethical arguments. (shrink)

This early work by William Henry Hudson was originally published in 1894 and we are now republishing it. 'An Introduction to the Philosophy of Herbert Spencer' is a book that examines Spencer's ethics, sociology, and synthetic philosophy. Herbert Spencer was born on 27th April 1820, in Derby, England. In 1851 he published 'Social Statics' to great acclaim and his quietly influential 'Principles of Psychology' in 1955. These were followed by numerous works of sociology, psychology, and philosophy, which led him (...) to become a prominent intellectual of his day. He also wrote 'The Developmental Hypothesis' (1852) which described the theory of evolution seven years before Charles Darwin's 'Origin of Species'. He even popularised the term "Evolution" and coined the phrase "Survival of the fittest," but his works did not contain the comprehensive theoretical system that Darwin's did, which is why his theory was not taken seriously at the time. Spencer's most famous idea was that of "Social Darwinism." He saw the process of organic evolution as being analogous to that of society, an idea influenced many intellectuals of the day. (shrink)

Contemporary naturalism is changing and scientific reductionism is under challenge from those who advocate a more comprehensive outlook. This special issue of Telos, based on the first Telos Australia Symposium held at Swinburne University in Melbourne in February 2014, introduces some of the key questions in the current debates. It also poses the question of whether more satisfactory political and social thought can be produced if scientific reductionism is replaced by a richer and more hermeneutical naturalism, one that takes more (...) account of philosophical anthropology, actual co-involvements of human beings and their environments, and the potential of more naturalistically grounded approaches to culture. (shrink)

Critical thinking is often nominated as a graduate attribute, a learning outcome, and is even offered as a discrete subject in schools and universities. Therefore, it is important to gain clarity about the fundamental goal or purpose of critical thinking education. What should instructors be aiming at when they seek to instil critical thinking in their students? In this paper, we argue that the aim of critical thinking is the achievement and maintenance of intellectual autonomy. In setting out our argument (...) for this conclusion, we investigate the three most plausible candidates for the goal of critical thinking practice. The first such candidate is successful inquiry: inquiry that succeeds in obtaining epistemic goods such as knowledge, true belief, or empirically adequate explanation. The second candidate is epistemically virtuous inquiry, i.e. inquiry that exhibits the full range of epistemic virtues, including the skills and capacities needed to support them. The third candidate is intellectual autonomy. We develop an account of intellectual autonomy as a form of self-respect attached to one’s epistemic and intellectual life and argue that only intellectual autonomy in this sense does full justice to the practice of critical thinking. (shrink)

In this chapter, my aim is to present an account of Immanuel Kant’s transcendental idealism that centers his view of propositions as mental acts. As I intend to show, Kant’s strategy in the Critique of Pure Reason is only intelligible under the assumption that the fundamental bearers of truth are mental entities.

El artículo plantea algunas de las relaciones filosóficas entre España y América Latina desde el siglo XVI hasta el siglo XX. Contra la narrativa de la historiografía filosófica corriente, según la cual España no aportó nada a la filosofía moderna, el artículo argumenta que los debates en torno a la humanidad de los indígenas americanos y la guerra justa contribuyeron a expandir la idea de género humano a la vez que se realizaron aportes al derecho internacional; igualmente, que la filosofía (...) política de Francisco Suárez contribuyó a fundamentar la idea de contractualismo y contrato social a la modernidad. Finalmente, se sostiene que vista desde América, La Ilustración española, el krausismo y los aportes de Ortega y Gasset permitieron el ingreso de Nuestra América a la modernidad filosófica europea y su tradición. (shrink)

_Machiavelliana_ is the first comprehensive study of the uses and abuses made of Niccolò Machiavelli’s name in management, primatology, leadership, power, as well as in novels, plays, commercial enterprises, television dramas, operas, rap music, children’s books, and more.

Una de las obras fundamentales para entender el pensamiento de Max Scheler lleva por título la expresión angustiniana "ordo amoris". ¿Se trata de una mera coincidencia o se puede estrechar la relación entre ambos pensadores? El artículo muestra que un análisis exhaustivo de la cuestión nos lleva a concluir que existe una profunda influencia del santo de Hipona en Scheler, revelada explícitamente en las citas agustinianas de Scheler, e implícitamente en nociones centrales del pensamiento scheleriano, como la "Gesinnung" o "disposición (...) del ánimo". (shrink)

En este ensayo muestro las causas de la poca recepción del pensamiento filosófico de Xavier Zubiri en Colombia, entre ellas, el hecho de que su obra no fue publicada, lo que implicó la ausencia de discusión con su pensamiento. Al mismo tiempo, la corta influencia de Zubiri en los filósofos exiliados en 1939. Otras razones fueron el magisterio de Ortega y Gasset en América quien ocultó a Zubiri; la fobia por el pensamiento español que los filósofos universalistas crearon, y la (...) existencia de un culto acrítico en las universidades confesionales. Explico las razones históricas de esa escasa recepción y propongo superar esas dificultades para expandir el horizonte de nuestra filosofía. (shrink)

Hud Hudson presents an innovative view of the metaphysics of human persons according to which human persons are material objects but not human organisms. In developing his account, he formulates and defends a unique collection of positions on parthood, persistence, vagueness, composition, identity, and various puzzles of material constitution. The author also applies his materialist metaphysics to issues in ethics and in the philosophy of religion. He examines the implications for ethics of his metaphysical views for standard arguments addressing (...) the moral permissibility of our treatment of human persons and their parts, fetuses and infants, the irreversibly comatose, and corpses. He argues that his metaphysics provides the best foundation in the philosophy of religion for the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the body. Hudson addresses a broad range of metaphysical issues, but among his most strikingly original contributions are his defense of the "Partist" view and his argument for the compatibility of Christianity with a materialistic theory of human persons. (shrink)

In this paper, I present an interpretation of Kant’s view that reason’s hypostasis of the idea of a sum-total of reality is dogmatic and illegitimate. In the section on the ‘Transcendental Ideal’, the second section of the Ideal of Pure Reason chapter in the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant starts by describing reason’s procedure from the affirmation of the principle of thoroughgoing determination to the hypostasis in question. According to the interpretation I defend, the argument for hypostasis deployed in this (...) section constitutes an improvement upon an argument defended by the pre-critical Kant himself in his 1673 essay “The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God”. By making reference to the concept of omnitudo realitatis, the argument in the ‘Transcendental Ideal’ section presents a much more radical and convincing interpretation of the thesis that ‘possibility presupposes actuality’. Second, I present transcendental idealism and its related distinction between objects of sense and objects in general as the main dissuasive argument of the critical philosopher against hypostasis. Finally, I consider an argument against hypostasis that is independent of transcendental idealism: the threat of set-theoretical paradoxes if we hypostatize the relevant idea, intended as the concept of an absolutely comprehensive totality. (shrink)

One of the enduring contributions of Descartes to philosophy is Descartes’ response to the challenge of scepticism. In addressing the challenge of scepticism Descartes understood that scepticism was a philosophical challenge which needed to be answered by taking into account its inner logic. It is not surprising therefore that Descartes sought to demonstrate as a counter-point to scepticism that there is at least one truth we can know with certitude, namely, the truth of the self. By fulfilling the demand of (...) indubitability the emergence of the truth of the self, as it were, signals certain victory for Descartes in his fight against scepticism. Yet so far as we cannot say that the truth of the cogito is objective unless God guarantees its objectivity, it remains to be seen whether Descartes’ victory over scepticism is conclusive. Consequently, while the discovery of the cogito represents a key moment in Descartes’ effort to contain scepticism so far as it furnishes him with an indubitable foundation, his effort to reconstruct the edifice of knowledge ends in failure so far as it witnesses a resurgence of scepticism in respect of our knowledge of the external world. The argument of this paper is that Descartes’ appeal to God as the guarantor of the objective certainty of the truth of the cogito grossly undermines the overall success of Descartes’ response to the challenge of scepticism. (shrink)

This essay outlines a hierarchical framework of Reality that allows for degrees of Reality. I use Reality (with a capital “R”) to designate reality in a primitive, metaphysical sense. Reality, grounding, and essence are the key elements of the framework presented here. I assume that Reality must have a fundamental level and all fundamental phenomena must be Real. Moreover, I postulate that everything non-fundamental is ultimately grounded in the fundamental Real. But what about the Reality of the non-fundamental? I argue (...) that it is possible for non-fundamental phenomena to be Real, Unreal, or Semi-Real. The framework developed here accommodates these possibilities and illuminates them using the notion of essence. I argue that the essential nature of a phenomenon determines its degree of Reality. The framework does not assume that Reality must have degrees but only that it may have degrees. Its theoretical attractiveness consists in its ability to accommodate many diverse intuitions about grounding, help us better understand and classify theories about grounding, and illuminate Reality and its possible degrees. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article, the first author provides a summary and translation from the Latin of an important early medical lecture on vampires by Nils Retzius. The lecture was delivered in Sweden, at Lund University, in 1737, and was published almost immediately thereafter. This important text has been overlooked by modern scholars of vampires. This article will bring the lecture back into circulation in its first English translation. The second author then offers an analysis of the intellectual background to this (...) rational debunking of vampires. He demonstrates how Retzius’s attempt at a comprehensive rational explanation for vampires, typical of much Enlightenment thinking, nevertheless employs a fusion of Galenic medical thinking with more modern medical and psychosomatic notions of medicine, as well as certain Lutheran notions concerning the devil and the spirit world. His argument scotches the belief in the idea of sympathetic magic affecting the dreams of the living, while emphasising the psychosomatic effects of the imagination on the physical body. (shrink)

I define two metaphysical positions that anti-physicalists can take in response to Jonathan Schaffer’s ground functionalism. Ground functionalism is a version of physicalism where explanatory gaps are everywhere. If ground functionalism is true, arguments against physicalism based on the explanatory gap between the physical and experiential facts fail. In response, first, I argue that some anti-physicalists are already safe from Schaffer’s challenge. These anti-physicalists reject an underlying assumption of ground functionalism: the assumption that macrophysical entities are something over and above (...) the fundamental entities. I call their position “lightweight anti-physicalism.” Second, I go on to argue that even if anti-physicalists accept Schaffer’s underlying assumption, they can still argue that the consciousness explanatory gap is especially mysterious and thus requires a special explanation. I call the resulting position “heavyweight anti-physicalism.” In both cases, the consciousness explanatory gap is a good way to argue against physicalism. (shrink)

The Renaissance sceptic and medical doctor Francisco Sanchez has been rather unduly neglected in scholarly work on Renaissance scepticism. In this paper I discuss his scepticism against the background of the ancient distinction between Academic and Pyrrhonian scepticism. I argue that Sanchez was a Pyrrhonist rather than, as has been claimed in recent years, a mitigated Academic sceptic. In keeping with this I shall also try to show that Sanchez was crucially influenced by the ancient medical school of empiricism, a (...) school closely allied with Pyrrhonism. (shrink)

How should business deal with society's increasing demands for ethical and social responsibility? In plain language this book considers these and other ethical questions of direct relevance to business in the 1990s. It discusses the nature of ethics, ethical reasoning, the use of stakeholder analysis, and other central concepts used in business ethics. Using mainly, but not exclusively, Australian cases and specific examples, the book covers issues such as fairness in business dealings, advertising ethics, discrimination, and codes of ethics.

This book sets out in plain language ethical questions of direct relevance to business today. This new edition expands the range of issues covered and includes a chapter on international business ethics, drawing extensively from Asian examples.

The subject of the article is the philosophical narratives of secularization and their importance for the study of religion in modern society. I am focusing in particular on Charles Taylor’s narrative presented in his monumental A Secular Age. Contrary to some of Taylor’s critics, especially Ian Hunter, I argue that the philosophical approach to secularity presented by the Canadian thinker cannot be equated with ideologically marked “combat concepts” that characterize the emergence of modernity as a result of either the overcoming (...) of religion by autonomous reason or as the “self-alienation of Christianity”. The “conditions of belief” analyzed by Taylor indicate the mutual mediation of religion and secularity and provide a hermeneutical framework thanks to which we can criticize both the Enlightenment narratives about the triumph of religion over reason and religious visions, which perceive modernity as a theological phenomenon in its essence (John Milbank). Referring to David Martin’s considerations, I also draw attention to the heuristic dimension of Taylor’s narrative and its relevance to the research on religion. (shrink)

Czy określenie współczesnego świata zachodniego mianem świeckiego jest zasadne? Biorąc pod uwagę upadek „tezy sekularyzacyjnej”, zakładającej ścisły związek między powstaniem nowoczesności a atrofią wiary, a także obserwowane w wielu społeczeństwach zachodnich zjawisko „deprywatyzacji” religii, taka diagnoza współczesności musi wydać się co najmniej wątpliwa. Dlaczego zatem Charles Taylor, uważany za jednego z najwybitniejszych współczesnych filozofów, w taki właśnie sposób określa czasy, w których żyjemy? Czy bliższy prawdy nie jest – głoszony przez przedstawicieli nauk humanistycznych i społecznych – pogląd o nastaniu porządku (...) postświeckiego? Prezentowana książka omawia podstawowe cechy współczesnej kultury, które, w przekonaniu kanadyjskiego myśliciela, świadczą o jej świeckim charakterze. Zwraca się tu szczególną uwagę na wyartykułowany przez Taylora filozoficzny wymiar świeckości, który dotyczy nie tyle naszych przekonań, ile warunkującego je i tym samym bardziej od nich podstawowego „kontekstu rozumienia”. Autor pokazuje, że takie ujęcie problemu pozwala Taylorowi wyjść poza negatywne rozumienie świeckości, postrzegające ją jako residuum powstałe wskutek upadku religii, i nie tylko wskazać na wzajemne zapośredniczenie tych kategorii, lecz także odsłonić historyczny, moralny i społeczny wymiar tego, co świeckie. Uchwycenie historycznego oraz strukturalnego powiązania świeckości z religią umożliwia także dokonanie krytyki niektórych wersji postsekularyzmu. (shrink)

There is a tendency in recent development literature to couple the concept of good governance with the concept of sustainable development. The coupling of the two concepts witnesses to the correlation that subsists between good governance and sustainable development, such that given that sustainable development is a function of good governance, where there is good governance, we should not only expect that there will be progress, but, more importantly, we should also expect that the progress is sustainable, so that the (...) situation is one of growing from strength to strength rather than one of progress today and retrogression tomorrow. Yet paradoxically just as sustainable development is predicated on good governance, good governance itself is a function of effective communication, so that where there is lack of effective communication the result is always bad governance, which, in turn, means the possibility of sustainable development is impeded, as we cannot maximize the resources at our disposal, but wallow in endless recrimination and negativities that fail to contribute to our overall well being. Our aim is to show that there is a direct correlation between diplomacy and good governance on the one hand and good governance and sustainable development on the other, so that the best way to promote sustainable development in every sphere of life is to ensure an effective management of the resources at our disposal such as to satisfy all legitimate and competing interests. (shrink)

Se aborda la cuestión normativa del bienestar social en su relación con la utilización que de esta noción se hace en la medición de la desigualdad económica. El asunto, que interesa a varias disciplinas, se aborda a través de un enfoque estrictamente filosófico. El tema central de toda la obra es :¿cómo es posible hacer un juicio fiable sobre la desigualdad de las distribuciones de renta y riqueza? Primeramente se trata la posibilidad de una valoración social del bienestar tal y (...) como se la plantea la teoría de la elección social. Luego se tratan los problemas específicos de la desigualdad económica. (shrink)