Is it correct to accept an anthopological dimension in Baruch Spinoza’s doctrine? Regardless of the answer we may suggest for this point, how could be this connected to the prevailing Humanism of the immediately previous period in which our author lived? Our proposal points to a positive stance in relation to the presence of an anthropological perspective in Spinoza’s thought; perspective that may be seen as a reaction to that kind of Renaissance humanism that sees the human being in Nature (...) a privileged kind. Therefore, in this paper we are going to analyse the way the concept of man evolves from this to the Spinozian formulation as a foundation in which it can be possible to accept the study of a certain Anthropology in his work. (shrink)

Is it correct to accept an anthopological dimension in Baruch Spinoza’s doctrine? Regardless of the answer we may suggest for this point, how could be this connected to the prevailing Humanism of the immediately previous period in which our author lived? Our proposal points to a positive stance in relation to the presence of an anthropological perspective in Spinoza’s thought; perspective that may be seen as a reaction to that kind of Renaissance humanism that sees the human being in Nature (...) a privileged kind. Therefore, in this paper we are going to analyse the way the concept of man evolves from this to the Spinozian formulation as a foundation in which it can be possible to accept the study of a certain Anthropology in his work. (shrink)

Los pacientes con síndrome braquicefálico suponen un reto para el anestesiólogo, ya que la mayoría de ellos tienen alteraciones en el sistema respiratorio que convierten a estos animales en pacientes de riesgo.

Spanish Jesuits such as Francisco Suárez (1548-1617), José de Acosta (1540-1600), Pedro de Ribadeneira (1526-1611) and Juan de Mariana (1536-1624) had a powerful impact on English thinkers of the magnitude of John Locke (1632-1704), Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Robert Persons (1546-1610), Algernon Sidney (1623-1683), and, later, William Robertson (1721-1793), Thomas de Quincey (1785-1859) and Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953). An influence that was sometimes hidden and always controversial. This work highlights the importance of this influence regarding thought on politics, law and natural rights. (...) A constitutionalist understanding of political power, the recognition and promotion of innate rights and the necessary subjection of rulers to the law, all form part of the important legacy of these scholastic doctors for European intellectual heritage. Contributors to this volume: Rafael Alé Ruiz, Francisco T. Baciero Ruiz, Francisco Castilla Urbano, José Luis Cendejas Bueno, Alfonso Díaz Vera, Francisco Javier Gómez Díez, Cecilia Font de Villanueva, León M. Gómez Rivas, Fermín del Pino Díaz, Leopoldo J. Prieto López, Daniel Schwartz, Lorena Velasco Guerrero, and María Idoya Zorroza Huarte. (shrink)

Premodern Buddhists are sometimes characterized as veritable "mind scientists" whose insights anticipate modern research on the brain and mind. Aiming to complicate this story, Dan Arnold confronts a significant obstacle to popular attempts at harmonizing classical Buddhist and modern scientific thought: since most Indian Buddhists held that the mental continuum is uninterrupted by death, they would have no truck with the idea that everything about the mental can be explained in terms of brain events. Nevertheless, a predominant stream of Indian (...) Buddhist thought, associated with the seventh-century thinker Dharmakirti, turns out to be vulnerable to arguments modern philosophers have leveled against physicalism. By characterizing the philosophical problems commonly faced by Dharmakirti and contemporary philosophers such as Jerry Fodor and Daniel Dennett, Arnold seeks to advance an understanding of both first-millennium Indian arguments and contemporary debates on the philosophy of mind. The issues center on what modern philosophers have called _intentionality_--the fact that the mind can be about other things. Tracing an account of intentionality through Kant, Wilfrid Sellars, and John McDowell, Arnold argues that intentionality cannot, in principle, be explained in causal terms. Elaborating some of Dharmakirti's central commitments, Arnold shows that despite his concern to refute physicalism, Dharmakirti's causal explanations of the mental mean that modern arguments from intentionality cut as much against his project as they do against physicalist philosophies of mind. This is evident in the arguments of some of Dharmakirti's contemporaneous Indian critics, whose critiques exemplify the same logic as modern arguments from intentionality. Elaborating these various strands of thought, Arnold shows that seemingly arcane arguments among first-millennium Indian thinkers can illuminate matters still very much at the heart of contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

What does the aesthetic ask of us? What claims do the aesthetic features of the objects and events in our environment make on us? My answer in this paper is: that depends. Aesthetic reasons can only justify feelings – they cannot demand them. A corollary of this is that there are no aesthetic obligations to feel, only permissions. However, I argue, aesthetic reasons can demand actions – they do not merely justify them. A corollary of this is that there are (...) aesthetic obligations to act, not only permissions. So, I conclude, the aesthetic asks little of us as patients and much of as agents. (shrink)

In his new book, eminent psychologist - Daniel Stern, explores the hitherto neglected topic of 'vitality'. Truly a tour de force from a brilliant clinician and scientist, Forms of Vitality is a profound and absorbing book - one that will be essential reading for psychologists, psychotherapists, and those in the creative arts.

Three studies test eight hypotheses about (1) how judgment differs between people who ascribe greater vs. less moral relevance to choices, (2) how moral judgment is subject to task constraints that shift evaluative focus (to moral rules vs. to consequences), and (3) how differences in the propensity to rely on intuitive reactions affect judgment. In Study 1, judgments were affected by rated agreement with moral rules proscribing harm, whether the dilemma under consideration made moral rules versus consequences of choice salient, (...) and by thinking styles (intuitive vs. deliberative). In Studies 2 and 3, participants evaluated policy decisions to knowingly do harm to a resource to mitigate greater harm or to merely allow the greater harm to happen. When evaluated in isolation, approval for decisions to harm was affected by endorsement of moral rules and by thinking style. When both choices were evaluated simultaneously, total harm -- but not the do/allow distinction -- influenced rated approval. These studies suggest that moral rules play an important, but context-sensitive role in moral cognition, and offer an account of when emotional reactions to perceived moral violations receive less weight than consideration of costs and benefits in moral judgment and decision making. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis article studies multi-stakeholder initiatives as spaces for both deliberation and contestation between constituencies with competing discourses and disputed values, beliefs, and preferences. We review different theoretical perspectives on MSIs, which see them mainly as spaces to find solutions to market problems, as spaces of conflict and bargaining, or as spaces of consensus. In contrast, we build on a contestatory deliberative perspective, which gives equal value to both contestation and consensus. We identify four types of internal contestation which can be (...) present in MSIs—procedural, inclusiveness, epistemic, and ultimate-goal—and argue that embracing contestation and engaging in ongoing revision of provisional agreements, criteria, and goals can enhance the democratic quality of MSIs. Finally, we explore the implications of this perspective for theorizing about the democratic quality in MSIs and about the role of corporations in transnational governance. (shrink)

Presents a version of dynamic semantics for a language with presuppositions that predicts basic facts about presupposition projection in a non-stipulative way.

Freedom of Conscience and Freedom of Religion should be taken to protect two distinct sets of moral considerations. The former protects the ability of the agent to reflect critically upon the moral and political issues that arise in her society generally, and in her professional life more specifically. The latter protects the individual's ability to achieve secure membership in a set of practices and rituals that have as a moral function to inscribe her life in a temporally extended narrative. Once (...) these grounds are distinguished, it becomes more difficult to grant healthcare professionals' claims to religious exemptions on the basis of the latter than it is on the basis of the former. While both sets of considerations generate ‘internal reasons’ for rights to accommodation, the relevant ‘external’ reasons present in the case of claims of moral conscience do not possess analogues in the case of claims of religious conscience. However, the argument applies only to ‘irreducibly religious’ claims, that is to claims that cannot be translated into moral vocabulary. What's more, there may be reasons to grant the claims of religious persons to exemptions that have to do not with the nature of the claims, but with the beneficial effects that the presence of religious persons may have in the context of the healthcare institutions of multi-faith societies. (shrink)

This paper explores the role of NGOs in corporate social responsibility (CSR) through an analysis of various stakeholders’ perceptions and of NGOs’ self-perceptions. In the course of qualitative research based in Spain, we found that the perceptions of the role of NGOs fall into four categories: recognition of NGOs as drivers of CSR; concerns about their legitimacy; difficulties in the mutual understanding between NGOs and trade unions; the self-confidence of NGOs as important players in CSR. Each of these categories comprises (...) the various elements analysed in the paper. We found some discrepancies between the perception of others and the self-perceptions of NGOs, which explains why their role is often controversial. The research confirms that secondary stakeholders, such as NGOs, are key players in CSR, but their role is still regarded as controversial and their legitimacy contested. Deep-seated misunderstandings and mistrust among various stakeholder groups (particularly between NGOs and trade unions) are a possible hurdle to the integration of social and environmental concerns in business activity and corporate governance in Spain. The study finds that business managers need to take a less firm-centric and a more contextual approach, and look more closely into the relationship with and among stakeholder groups. For NGO managers, the research shows that NGOs are not always aware of the stereotypes they generate and the problems caused mainly by what is seen as ambivalent roles: critic and counsellor, accuser and judge, idealist and fund raiser. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe notion of immunity to error through misidentification has played a central role in discussions of first-person thought. It seems like a way of making precise the idea of thinking about oneself ‘as subject’. Asking whether bodily first-person judgments can be IEM is a way of asking whether one can think about oneself simultaneously as a subject and as a bodily thing. The majority view is that one cannot. I rebut that view, arguing that on all the notions of IEM (...) that have so far been successfully defined, bodily first-person judgments can be IEM. (shrink)

Princess Diana’s death was a tragedy that provoked mourning across the globe; the death of a homeless person, more often than not, is met with apathy. How can we account for this uneven distribution of emotion? Can it simply be explained by the prevailing scientific understanding? Uncovering a rich tradition beginning with Aristotle, _The Secret History of Emotion_ offers a counterpoint to the way we generally understand emotions today. Through a radical rereading of Aristotle, Seneca, Thomas Hobbes, Sarah Fielding, and (...) Judith Butler, among others, Daniel M. Gross reveals a persistent intellectual current that considers emotions as psychosocial phenomena. In Gross’s historical analysis of emotion, Aristotle and Hobbes’s rhetoric show that our passions do not stem from some inherent, universal nature of men and women, but rather are conditioned by power relations and social hierarchies. He follows up with consideration of how political passions are distributed to some people but not to others using the Roman Stoics as a guide. Hume and contemporary theorists like Judith Butler, meanwhile, explain to us how psyches are shaped by power. To supplement his argument, Gross also provides a history and critique of the dominant modern view of emotions, expressed in Darwinism and neurobiology, in which they are considered organic, personal feelings independent of social circumstances. The result is a convincing work that rescues the study of the passions from science and returns it to the humanities and the art of rhetoric. (shrink)

A mechanism describing state reduction dynamics in relativistic quantum field theory is outlined. The mechanism involves nonlinear stochastic modifications to the standard description of unitary state evolution and the introduction of a relativistic field in which a quantized degree of freedom is associated to each point in spacetime. The purpose of this field is to mediate in the interaction between classical stochastic influences and conventional quantum fields. The equations of motion are Lorentz covariant, frame independent, and do not result in (...) divergent behavior. It is shown that the mathematical framework permits the specification of unambiguous local properties providing a connection between the model and evidence of real world phenomena. The collapse process is demonstrated for an idealized example. (shrink)

Deleuze’s philosophy of immanence, because it vigorously rejects every appeal to the beyond, is often presumed to be indifferent to the concerns of religion. This book argues against such a presumption. It does so, first of all, by emphasising how both Deleuze’s thought and the notion of religion are motivated by a demand to create new modes of existence, or to imagine and enact a future that would substantively break with the present configuration of being. If Deleuze’s thought and the (...) notion of religion intersect in this regard, then their divergence must be located elsewhere, namely in the distinction between immanence and transcendence. The book thus argues that the enemy of Deleuze’s thought is not religion in general but instead the specific operation of transcendence. Furthermore, it argues that since Deleuze’s thought is not simply anti-religious, it cannot be identified with secularism. Along these lines, the book shows how Deleuzian immanence is able both to oppose religious transcendence and to enter an allliance with immanent accounts of the name of God. The effect of this is to suspend the paralysing debate between religion and the secular in order to attend to the ways in which immanence – whether “religious” or “secular” – is able to break with the present and to create the future. (shrink)

How can one person’s having political power over another be justified? This essay explores the idea that such justifications must be in an important sense derivative, and that this ‘Derivative Justification Constraint’ bars certain justifications widely endorsed in political and philosophical debates. After critically discussing the most prominent extant articulations of the Constraint (associated with a view often called ‘political instrumentalism’), the essay offers a novel account of what precisely the Constraint bars (in short: justification by appeal to non-derivative goods (...) that include among their elements one person’s ruling over another), what motivates it (in a nutshell: a deeply non-instrumental concern for each person’s moral independence), and what it entails for how we may justify democratic political arrangements in particular. (shrink)

Daniel Callahan's life time work in bioethics has again and again returned to the root problems of health, progress, technology, and death. How we think about each of them individually and in relation to each other will shape the way we approach and deal with the most common dilemmas of modern medicine. They are at the roots of the field.

In recent decades, issues that reside at the center of philosophical and psychological inquiry have been absorbed into a scientific framework variously identified as "brain science," "cognitive science," and "cognitive neuroscience." Scholars have heralded this development as revolutionary, but a revolution implies an existing method has been overturned in favor of something new. What long-held theories have been abandoned or significantly modified in light of cognitive neuroscience? _Consciousness and Mental Life_ questions our present approach to the study of consciousness and (...) the way modern discoveries either mirror or contradict understandings reached in the centuries leading up to our own. Daniel N. Robinson does not wage an attack on the emerging discipline of cognitive science. Rather, he provides the necessary historical context to properly evaluate the relationship between issues of consciousness and neuroscience and their evolution over time. Robinson begins with Aristotle and the ancient Greeks and continues through to René Descartes, David Hume, William James, Daniel Dennett, John Searle, Richard Rorty, Hilary Putnam, and Derek Parfit. Approaching the issue from both a philosophical and a psychological perspective, Robinson identifies what makes the study of consciousness so problematic and asks whether cognitive neuroscience can truly reveal the origins of mental events, emotions, and preference, or if these occurrences are better understood by studying the whole person, not just the brain. Well-reasoned and thoroughly argued, _Consciousness and Mental Life_ corrects many claims made about the success of brain science and provides a valuable historical context for the study of human consciousness. (shrink)

Indigenous peoples possess enormously rich and articulated knowledge of the natural world. A major goal of research in anthropology and ethnobiology as well as ecology, conservation biology, and development studies is to find ways of integrating this knowledge with that produced by academic and other institutionalized scientific communities. Here I present a challenge to this integration project. I argue, by reference to ethnographic and cross-cultural psychological studies, that the models of the world developed within specialized academic disciplines do not map (...) onto anything existing within traditional beliefs and practices for coping with nature. Traditional ecological knowledge is distributed across a heterogeneous array of overlapping practices within Indigenous cultures, including spiritual and ritual practices that invoke categories, properties, and causal-explanatory models that do not in general converge with those of the academic sciences. In light of this divergence I argue that we should abandon the integration project, and conclude by sketching a notion of knowledge coordination as a possible successor framework. (shrink)

Finding myself writing this introduction on the same day that Greta Thunberg is addressing the United Nations, it seems impossible not to understand her parrhesia concerning the biospheric crisis a...

In this paper, I am going to explore some of the moral considerations relating to smoking licences. And I shall offer a limited defence of licences as a replacement for sales tax on tobacco products. This defence will include some moral arguments in favour of one particular licence design over others.

This paper explores the possibility of extending Locke’s theory with respect to tangible property so that it might offer a feasible theoretical basis for intellectual property too. The main conclusion is that such an attempt must fail. Locke’s theory comes in three parts: a general justification of property which serves to explain why assets ought to be under the exclusive control of individuals; a positive method of private appropriation whereby an individual acquires a prima facie exclusive claim to previously commonly (...) held natural resources; and third, a negative requirement that other individuals’ crucial interests are not harmed by such an appropriation. For each of these, the difficulties involved in applying that part of the theory to the sphere of ideas are discussed, and a central aspect of intellectual property that raises the problems of application is highlighted. (shrink)

Disagreements about the morality of markets, and about self-interested behavior within markets, run deep. They arise from perspectives within economics and political philosophy that appear to have nothing in common. In this book, Daniel Finn provides a framework for understanding these conflicting points of view. Recounting the arguments for and against markets and self-interest, he argues that every economy must address four fundamental problems: allocation, distribution, scale, and the quality of relations. In addition, every perspective on the morality of (...) markets addresses explicitly or implicitly the economic, political, and cultural contexts of markets, or what Finn terms 'the moral ecology of markets'. His book enables a dialogue among the various participants in the debate over justice in markets. In this process, Finn engages with major figures in political philosophy, including John Rawls, Robert Nozick, and Michael Walzer, as well as in economics, notably Milton Friedman, Friedrich Hayek, and James Buchannan. (shrink)

Working from a "capitalist" theory of exploitation, based on a neo-classical account of economic value, I argue that guest workers are exploited. It may be objected, however, that since they are not citizens, any inequality that stems from their status as non-citizens is morally unobjectionable. Although host countries are under no moral obligation to admit guest workers as citizens, there are independent reasons that call for the extension of economic rights – the freedom of occupation in particular – to guestworkers. (...) Since the cause of unequal exchange rests in the fact that guest workers are deprived of these rights, rather than in their exclusion from citizenship per se, I conclude that they are exploited even if their exclusion from citizenship may be justified. (shrink)

The paper analyzes Christmas Eve, a short dialogue by the protestant romantic Friedrich Schleiermacher published in 1806, as an attempt to translate the traditional language of Christmas into the idiom of the modern, gendered family life. The central message of Christmas is rearticulated in the realm of private family life, the division of gender, the naïve happiness of the children etc. At the same time, the form of the dialogue among the family members and some close friends is used to (...) raise different interpretations of Christmas, including moments of suffering and national identity. The text thus both reflects and actively shapes a shifting interpretation of religious traditions in the modern word precisely by enacting the translation of Christian language into a modern vernacular (that of family, intimacy, nation) as an ongoing process among the different partners of the dialogue. (shrink)

Language did not evolve only in the distant past. Our shared understanding of the meanings of words is ever-changing, and we make conscious, rational decisions about which words to use and what to mean by them every day. Applying Charles Darwin's theory of "unconscious artificial selection" to the evolution of linguistic conventions, Daniel Cloud suggests a new, evolutionary explanation for the rich, complex, and continually reinvented meanings of our words. The choice of which words to use and in which (...) sense to use them is both a "selection event" and an intentional decision, making Darwin's account of artificial selection a particularly compelling model of the evolution of words. After drawing an analogy between the theory of domestication offered by Darwin and the evolution of human languages and cultures, Cloud applies his analytical framework to the question of what makes humans unique and how they became that way. He incorporates insights from David Lewis's Convention, Brian Skyrms's Signals, and Kim Sterelny's Evolved Apprentice, all while emphasizing the role of deliberate human choice in the crafting of language over time. His clever and intuitive model casts humans' cultural and linguistic evolution as an integrated, dynamic process, with results that reach into all corners of our private lives and public character. (shrink)

Abstract: Debates about the possibility of global democracy and justice are plagued by a fallacious assumption made by all parties. That assumption is that there is a "naturalness" to relations among fellow nationals to which a global demos could never aspire. In fact, nation builders employed a great many tools that mobilized the psychological and moral susceptibilities of individuals in order to create a sense of solidarity out of initially heterogeneous elements. Two such tools are described and then applied to (...) the global sphere: first, appeals to prudence through the sometimes artificial engineering of Hobbesian situations, and second, uses of philosophically inferior but motivationally optimal moral argument. The applicability of these strategies to the global sphere suggests that cosmopolitans would be well advised to examine further the nation builder's toolbox for other devices through which a global demos might be motivated. (shrink)

This paper examines a rarely-discussed argument for the right to bequeath wealth. This argument, popular among libertarians, asserts that opposition to the practice of inheritance is prone to over-generalize, such that opponents of inheritance cannot avoid condemning other uses of private property, like gift-giving. The argument is motivated by an interesting methodological claim, namely, that the morality of bequest ought to be evaluated from the perspective of the donor, and not evaluated in ways that invoke the effects of bequest on (...) the distribution of wealth. This paper argues that this donor-centric approach ultimately favors restricting the right of bequest. Specifically, I maintain that bequest generally carries a lower opportunity cost than other uses of property. Accordingly, inheritance tax is less coercive than other taxes, and bequest is less obviously as generous an act as gift giving. While the arguments made here will encourage traditional opponents of inheritance (such as egalitarians), I also suggest why they might be welcomed by at least some types of libertarian. (shrink)

Despite the centrality of the topic for the debate on sustainability, future generations have largely been ignored by business ethics. This neglect is in part due to the enormous philosophical challenges posed by the concepts of future generations and intergenerational duties. This article reviews some of these difficulties and defends that much clarity would be gained from making a distinction between future generations and the next generations. It also argues that the concept of next generations offers a better starting point (...) for business ethics to incorporate the topic in its research agenda. We then suggest four potential pathways to explore this territory. The four approaches build on the notion of organizations as communities with memory and vision, on the narrative shape of organizational life, on the affinity of stakeholders with the next generation, and on systems of indirect reciprocity. These first two approaches are connected to communitarian approaches to business ethics, and the last two engage in a dialog with contractarian views and stakeholder theory. The article ends with some implications for theory and practice. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Charles Foster argued that the epistemic uncertainties surrounding prolonged disorders of consciousness make it impossible to prove that the withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment can be in a patient’s best interests and, therefore, the presumption in favour of the maintenance of life cannot be rebutted. In the present response, I argue that, from a legal perspective, Foster has reached the wrong conclusion because he is asking the wrong question. According to the reasoning in two leading cases —Bland (...) and James —the principle of respect for autonomy creates a persuasive presumption against treatment without consent. Therefore, it is the continuation of treatment that requires justification, rather than its withdrawal. This presumption also works as the tiebreaker determining that treatment should stop if there is no persuasive evidence that its continuation is in the best interests of the patient. The presumption in favour of the maintenance of life, on the other hand, should be understood as an evidential presumption on a factual issue that is assumed to be true if unchallenged. However, the uncertainties regarding PDOC actually give reasons for displacing this evidential presumption. Consequently, decision-makers will have to weigh up the pros and cons of treatment having the presumption against treatment without consent as the tiebreaker if the evidence is inconclusive. In conclusion, when the right question is asked, Foster’s argument can be turned on its head and uncertainties surrounding PDOC weigh in to justify the interruption of treatment in the absence of compelling contrary evidence. (shrink)

It is common to think that certain acts are supererogatory, especially certain heroic or saintly self-sacrifices for the good. The idea seems to have an ordinary and clear application. Nothing shows this better than the well-known cases which J. O. Urmson adduced. Urmson argued that no major moral theory could give a proper account of the supererogatory character of such acts, and that therefore none could account for “all the facts of morality,” as he put it. But his arguments were (...) sketchy. This paper shall show, in some detail, that he was essentially right about Kant’s moral theory, and that the criticism goes deep and holds up against recent sympathetic interpretation of Kant’s views of duty and worth. (shrink)

Identity, Morality, and Threat offers a critical examination of the social psychological processes that generate outgroup devaluation and ingroup glorification as the source of conflict. Daniel Rothbart and Karyna Korostelina bring together essays analyzing the causal relationship between escalating violence and opposing images of the Self and Other.

Recent defenders of nationalism have pointed to the fact that most people feel that their obligations towards their compatriots are either more numerous or more stringent than those which bind them to people from other countries. They point to this fact as evidence that something is seriously amiss with the universalism which allegedly underpins liberal theory. That people believe quite strongly that they have such special obligations is taken as a datum for which different theories of justice must somehow offer (...) an account. It is taken to be a measure of the theoretical success of a theory of justice that what we might call the "special-obligations thesis" can be derived from it. (shrink)

This Open-Access-book examines the phenomenon of discrimination using a descriptive approach. Discrimination is omnipresent, whether it is people who discriminate against other people or, more recently, also machines that discriminate against people. The first part of the analysis employs decision theory on discrimination, leading to two fundamental subtypes: taste-based discrimination and statistical discrimination. The second part links taste-based discrimination to social identity theory, demonstrates that not all taste-based discrimination is ultimately statistical discrimination, and reveals the evolutionary origins of our tastes. (...) The third part surveys how people get their beliefs for statistical discrimination and thereby shows that they often deviate from Bayesianism: they have inherent prior beliefs and do not exclusively update their beliefs according to Bayes’ law. Additionally, the analysis of belief formation highlights the importance of the learning environment. The last part reassembles the previously dissected aspects of discrimination, presents a new descriptive model of discrimination, and lists five implications for a normative theory of discrimination. (shrink)

Kant's theory of judgment establishes the conceptual framework for understanding the subtle relationships between the experimental scientist, the modern instrument, and nature's atomic particles. The principle of purposiveness which governs judgment has also a role in implicitly guiding modern experimental science. In Part 1 we explore Kant's philosophy of science as he shows how knowledge of material nature and unobservable entities is possible. In Part 2 we examine the way in which Kant's treatment of judgment, with its operating principle of (...) purposiveness, enters into his critical project and underlies the possibility of rational science. In Part 3 we show that the centrality given to judgment in Kant's conception of science provides philosophical insight into the investigation of atomic substances in modern chemistry. (shrink)

Unreasonable expectations about the nature and character of scientific knowledge support the widespread political assumption that predictive scientific assessments are a necessary precursor to environmental decision making. All too often, the practical outcome of this assumption is that scientific uncertainty becomes a ready-made dodge for what is in reality just a difficult political decision. Interdisciplinary assessments necessary to address complex environmental policy issues invariably result in findings that are inherently contestable, especially when applied in the unrestrained realm of partisan politics. (...) In this article, the authors argue that predictive scientific assessments are inherently limited in the extent to which they can guide policy development and that rigorous scientific assessments can be much more valuable in the role of ex post policy evaluation than they can in the context of ex ante policy formulation. (shrink)