As the title suggests, Taking Back Philosophy: A Multicultural Manifesto offers a critique of the profession of philosophy and an inclusive vision for its future. Importantly, unlike many philosophical critiques of philosophy, this book is not merely meta. It delivers a bona fide introduction to philosophy while exemplifying the kinds of conceptual sensitivities and skills that can help students see that philosophy is distinctively valuable. The author, Bryan Van Norden, provides compelling and learned articulations of these projects, all with a (...) language that newcomers to philosophy will find accessible, witty, and polemically engaging. So I think this book is an impressive achievement and an important voice to be... (shrink)

Environmental degradation and extractive industry are inextricably linked, and the industry’s adverse impact on air, water, and ground resources has been exacerbated with increased demand for raw materials and their location in some of the more environmentally fragile areas of the world. Historically, companies have managed to control calls for regulation and improved, i.e., more expensive, mining technologies by (a) their importance in economic growth and job creation or (b) through adroit use of their economic power and bargaining leverage against (...) weak national governments, regional and international regulatory bodies. More recently, the industry has had to contend with another set of challenges that involved treatment of indigenous people and their traditional land rights, fair treatment of workers, human rights abuses, and bribery and corruption involving local officials and political leaders. These challenges currently fall outside the traditional areas of regulation and control. Nevertheless, they pose serious threat to the industry’s business practices because of their global scope, threat to company’s reputation, and long-term risks of political instability leading to increasing cost of capital. Industry has responded to these challenges by creating voluntary codes of conduct that would signify their intent to comply with higher standards of conduct, and assuage public opinion that no further action is called for. These codes, however, lack any monitoring mechanism and reporting integrity to assure the public that the industry members are indeed meeting their commitments. Consequently, pressure on the industry continues unabated and with ever increasing calls for mandatory regulation and oversight. This article examines the activities of one mining company, Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, Inc., which has taken a radically different approach in responding to these challenges at its mining operations in West Papua, Indonesia. While cooperating with industry-based efforts of voluntary codes of conduct, Freeport also initiated a radically different response through its own voluntary code that would directly focus on issues of human rights, treatment of indigenous people on whose traditional land its mine was located; economic development and job creation and, improvements in health, education, and housing facilities, to name a few. Additionally, the company earmarked large sums of money and involved representatives of the indigenous people in their management and disbursement. The company took an even more radical action when it committed itself to independent external audits of the company’s compliance with the code, and that these findings and company’s responses would be made public without prior censorship by the company. We analyze the nature of corporate culture, vision and risk-taking propensities of its management that would impel the company to embark on a high risk strategy whose outcomes could not be predicted with any degree of certainty before the fact. The parent company also had to confront discontent among the management ranks at the mine site because of cultural differences and management styles of expatriates and local (Indonesian) managers. Finally, we discuss in some detail the extensive and intensive character of a two phase audit conducted by the outside monitors, their findings, and the process by which they were implemented and reported to general public. We also evaluate the strengths and challenges posed by such audits, their importance to the company’s future, and how such projects might be undertaken by other companies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:CATHOLICISM, PUBLIC THEOLOGY, AND POSTMODERNITY: ON RICHARD JOHN NEUHAUS'S " CATHOLIC MOMENT" DAVID L. SCHINDLER University of Notre Dame HAT CATHOLICS should assume.their rightful place m the task of forming a culture, and indeed shaping a public philosophy in and for a pluralistic, dernocrwtic society, is ia suggestion which has not often been heard in the history of American culture, and certainly not from. nonCatholics. It is a (...) suggestion thrut Richard John Neuhaus, a Lutheran pastor, nonetheless makes with eloquence and wit in The Catholic Moment.1 The book makes for enjoyable and even exciting reading. It is difficult for a Catholic, even of a non-itriumphalistic sort, nort rto be moved by his suggestion: not to be stimulated into rserious ~efl.ection upon the meaning of Catholic identity, particularly now in the pT"esent cultural situation in America and indeed the West, which seems-note the subtitle of Neuhaus's book-aptly described in terms of a modernity giving way to posrtmodernity, a modernility searching for genuinely postmodern patterns of thought. Neuhaus is insistent-and the insistence is refresb.ing-,that this reflection be carried through with integri,ty (cf., e.g., p. 150) : the Catholicism. for which our-a postmodern-culture [.g ripe is and must be ·a Caitholicisrn which is fiaithful to the Gospel and to tits own tradition. This double intention of Neuhaus to speak on behalf of a Catholicism which is in and for a postmodern world sets.the context for.the questions I wish to pose in the present inquiry. The meaning of Neuhaus's Catholic moment is twofold: 1 The Catholic Moment: The Parado11J of the Church in the Postmodern World, by Richard John Neuhaus (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987). All references in the text are to this book. 107 108 DAVID L. SCHINDLER [It] is the moment in which the Roman Catholic Church in the world can and should be the lead church in proclaiming and exemplifying the Gospel. This can and should also be the moment in which the Roman Catholic Church in the United States assumes its rightful role in the culture-forming task of constructing a religiously informed public philosophy for the American experiment in ordered liberty (p. 282). In.the light of this ~statement, and indeed of the overarching context md[ca;ted by the suhbitle of his book, I wish to direct attention in whait follows to three issues: what Neuhaus takes to be an authentic Catholic Christianity ·and Catholic Christian rtheology (tha;t is, a Christianity which iis f.aithful in" proc1aiming and exemplifyiing the Gospel ") ; what he takes to be the proper sense (the sense required by Ca.tholic Christianity) of the itask of forming ·a culture and " constructing a religiously informed public philosophy" in and for a plumlistic, democrrutic society such as that of America; and finally what he takes to be the ·appropriate sense of this fask in a world which he distinguishes as postmodern. Now Neuhaus develops his response to these issues in terms of wha;t he calls a paradoxical relation between the Church and the world. My purpose in what follows, therefore, will be to e:x;amine the meaning he accords " Catholic, " public," ·and "postmodern," m terms of this central notion of " paradox." I. In his discussion of the relation betwen rthe Church and the world, Neuhaus provides a sketch of the five types proposed by H. Richard Niebuhr (pp. 16ff.). These are: the Church against the world, the Church of the world, the Church above the world, the Church and the world in paradox, and the Church as the transformer of the wor1cl. The first, "the Church against the world," iis what is often identified as a sectarian model, evident for ex;ample in monasticism and in such communities ·as the Hutterites and Mennonites. The second type, " The Church of the world," can be exemplified in nmeitrenth century l.iberial theology 00:d its promotion of a THE CATHOLIC MOMENT 109 " cultural Protesitantism," wherein " rel[gion W18iS to be placed at the service of the besrt in the evolution of society" (p. 19). The model which views: the- Chur'Ch ia;s a transformer of the world "smacks... (shrink)

Bhattacharyya, K. The Advaita concept of subjectivity.--Deutsch, E. Reflections on some aspects of the theory of rasa.--Nakamura, H. The dawn of modern thought in the East.--Organ, T. Causality, Indian and Greek.--Chatterjee, M. On types of classification.--Lacombe, O. Transcendental imagination.--Bahm, A. J. Standards for comparative philosophy.--Herring, H. Appearance, its significance and meaning in the history of philosophy.--Chang Chung-yuan. Pre-rational harmony in Heidegger's essential thinking and Chʼan thought.--Staal, J. F. Making sense of the Buddhist tetralemma.--Enomiya-Lassalle, H. M. The mysticism of Carl Albrecht (...) and Zen.--Parrinder, G. The nature of mysticism.--Cairns, G. E. Axiological contributions of East and West to the spiritual development of mankind.--Mayeda, S. Śaṇkara's view of ethics.--Mercier, A. On peace.--Barlingay, S. S. A discussion of some aspects of Gaudapāda's philosophy. (shrink)

In this article, I aim to do two things: first, introduce Juche, the official philosophy of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (“North Korea”), and second, defend Juche against Alzo David-West’s allegation that it is a nonsensical philosophy. I organize David-West’s complaints into two major strands—that Juche’s axiom is too vague to be of philosophical use and that Juche makes too stark a distinction between human vs. everything else—and offer responses to both strands. My goal isn’t (...) to defend the regime, but to present its ideology in the most charitable way so its merits and demerits can be seen more clearly in future engagements. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Suffering and the Beneficent Community: Beyond Libertarianism. By Erich H. Loewy. The Nature of Suffering and the Goals of Medicine. By Eric J. Cassell.

Self-consciousness and the self -- Diachronic unity, diachronic singularity, and the subject of consciousness -- A modal argument for immateriality -- Intelligibility concerns and causal objections -- Concluding remarks.

Scholars and practitioners alike indicate a movement in corporate philanthropy toward “strategic” giving, for example, giving that improves the firm's strategic position (ultimately the “bottom line”) while it benefits the recipient of the philanthropic act. Although the existence of this trend is widely accepted, it is represented in the literature most often by anecdotal evidence. This article presents the findings of a survey of corporate giving managers of U.S. firms that have had an established giving program of at least 5 (...) years, with annual giving totaling at least $200,000 each year. The data show that corporate giving managers believe their firms are becoming increasingly strategic in their philanthropic activities. The findings also indicate that institutional-, firm-, and individual-level influences combine to precipitate strategic philanthropy. These findings lend support to the belief that the nature of corporate philanthropy is evolving to fit a more competitive marketplace. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Faith and Reason in Continental and Japanese Philosophy: Reading Tanabe Hajime and William Desmond by Takeshi MorisatoLance H. Gracy (bio)Faith and Reason in Continental and Japanese Philosophy: Reading Tanabe Hajime and William Desmond. By Takeshi Morisato. England: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2019. Pp. viii + 269. Hardcover $116.00, isbn 978-1-350-09251-8.Faith and Reason in Continental and Japanese Philosophy: Reading Tanabe Hajime and William Desmond by Takeshi Morisato is an informative and (...) insightful read on metaphysics, philosophy of religion, ethics, and relevant areas of interest. Morisato's stated objective in the introduction is (a) to investigate the possibility of comparative philosophy through William Desmond's metaxological way of thinking, and (b) to examine how the "absolute dialectic" in Tanabe Hajime's metanoesis can help us understand the relationship between one framework of thinking and another (p. 16). Morisato's book proceeds in five parts. Part One orients the reader to the scope of the project through an overview of comparative philosophy and its methodological frameworks--namely, the metaxological methodology of William Desmond, which deals importantly with the (modern) predicament of religion as expressed in the "transcendental univocity" of the Kantian system; and the metanoetic methodology of Tanabe Hajime, which deals importantly with the issue of "rational progress" in Hegelian dialectic. Yet each intellectual framework deals with both Kant's and Hegel's systems. Part Two addresses what the problem of religion in Kantian and Hegelian philosophy is in more detail. Part Three, "Metaxology and the Problems of the Philosophy of Religion," and Part Four, "Metanoetics and the Problems of the Philosophy of Religion," offer a more detailed account concerning how Desmond's and Tanabe's philosophies tackle conceptual problems in modern philosophy of religion. Morisato's conclusion follows from these along with an endnotes section, bibliography, and index.According to Morisato, overcoming the problem of comparative philosophy--i.e., the "philosophical problem of comparing two systems of thinking rooted in different cultural and intellectual contexts" (p. 22)--means, at least in part, clarifying the extent to which philosophers of different culturalintellectual contexts and backgrounds share, as "kindred spirits" or as "intellectual companions," a consonance of thought regarding their philosophical perspectives. Desmond and Tanabe represent just such a pair, whose consonance of thought, expressed by Morisato en passant and expressed more definitively in the conclusion, is unified in a struggle against hegemonic structures in the [End Page 1] philosophy of religion, specifically those of Kant's and Hegel's philosophies of religion. William Desmond (1951–present) is a Catholic philosopher who currently holds the David R. Cook Chair in Philosophy at Villanova University. He has worked extensively on metaphysics, ontology, philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and German idealism. Tanabe Hajime (1885–1962) was a Japanese philosopher of the Kyoto school and is perhaps most well-known for his Philosophy as Metanoetics. Morisato does a commendable job elucidating issues in modern systems of religion, which have undoubtedly been influenced by Kant's and Hegel's systems. As it concerns Kant, contemporary philosophy of religion still struggles with the claims of transcendental idealism, particularly its reduction of religious belief to mere postulates of practical reason. And as it concerns Hegel, what seems to be an unending, "progressive" self-return of dialectical monism has deeply influenced the way, and manner, in which religious adherents deal with societal views of the individual and individuals' views of society. By this token, Morisato's attempt to get beyond the so-called "extirpation" of the source of religious truth as the "creative power behind our understanding of reality and our existence" is refreshing, to say the least (p. 46). In what follows, I offer a relatively brief overview of Morisato's book and conclude with a reflection on the text.Morisato's critique of the Kantian and Hegelian systems begins with the argument that Kantian transcendental univocity implies that reason's autonomy, as dictates of the moral law as absolute duties, not only precedes divine legislation, but becomes one with it or else is reduced to it. In other words, for Kant, the rational-moral universal is divine law. However, reason's autonomy fails to comprehend the divine origination of finite particulars due to... (shrink)

In this collection of provocative essays, historians and literary theorists assess the influence of Michel Foucault, particularly his History of Sexuality, on the study of classics. Foucault's famous work presents a bold theory of sexuality for both ancient and modern times, and yet until now it has remained under-explored and insufficiently analyzed. By bringing together the historical knowledge, philological skills, and theoretical perspectives of a wide range of scholars, this collection enables the reader to explore Foucault's model of Greek culture (...) and see how well his interpretation accounts for the full range of evidence from Greece and Rome. Not only do the essays bring to light the assumptions, ideas, and practices that constituted the intimate lives of men and women in the ancient Mediterranean world, but they also demonstrate the importance of the History of Sexuality for fields as diverse as Greco-Roman antiquity, women's history, cultural studies, philosophy, and modern sexuality. The essays include "Situating The History of Sexuality" (the editors), "Taking the Sex Out of Sexuality: Foucault's Failed History" (Joel Black), "Incipit Philosophia" (Alain Vizier), "The Subject in Antiquity after Foucault" (Page duBois), "This Myth Which Is Not One: Construction of Discourse in Plato's Symposium" (Jeffrey S. Carnes), "Foucault's History of Sexuality: A Useful Theory for Women?" (Amy Richlin), "Catullan Consciousness, the 'Care of the Self,' and the Force of the Negative in History" (Paul Allen Miller), "Reversals of Platonic Love in Petronius' Satyricon" (Daniel B. McGlathery), and an essay from Dislocating Masculinity (Lin Foxhall). (shrink)

Naive mereology studies ordinary, common-sense beliefs about part and whole. Some of the speculations in this article on naive mereology do not bear directly on Peter van Inwagen's "Material Beings". The other topics, (1) and (2), both do. (1) Here is an example of Peter Unger's "Problem of the Many". How can a table be a collection of atoms when many collections of atoms have equally strong claims to be that table? Van Inwagen invokes fuzzy sets to solve this problem. (...) I claim that an alternative treatment of vagueness, supervaluations over many-value valuations, provides a better solution. (2) The Special Composition Question asks how parts compose a whole. One who rejects van Inwagen's answer in terms of constituting a life need not provide some alternative answer. Even if all answers to the Special Question fail, there are a multitude of less general composition questions that are not so difficult. (shrink)

The important recent book by Schurz ( 2019 ) appreciates that the no-free-lunch theorems (NFL) have major implications for the problem of (meta) induction. Here I review the NFL theorems, emphasizing that they do not only concern the case where there is a uniform prior—they prove that there are “as many priors” (loosely speaking) for which any induction algorithm _A_ out-generalizes some induction algorithm _B_ as vice-versa. Importantly though, in addition to the NFL theorems, there are many _free lunch_ theorems. (...) In particular, the NFL theorems can only be used to compare the expected performance of an induction algorithm _A_, considered in isolation, with the expected performance of an induction algorithm _B_, considered in isolation. There is a rich set of free lunches which instead concern the statistical _correlations_ among the generalization errors of induction algorithms. As I describe, the meta-induction algorithms that Schurz advocates as a “solution to Hume’s problem” are simply examples of such a free lunch based on correlations among the generalization errors of induction algorithms. I end by pointing out that the prior that Schurz advocates, which is uniform over bit frequencies rather than bit patterns, is contradicted by thousands of experiments in statistical physics and by the great success of the maximum entropy procedure in inductive inference. (shrink)

Examples of sensory illusion show the failure of the attempt of traditional sense-datum theory to account for something's phenomenally appearing to be F by postulating the existence of a sense-datum that is actually F. the Muller-Lyer Illusion cannot be explained by postulating two sensibly presented lines that actually have the lengths the physical lines appear to have. Illusions due to color contrast cannot be explained by postulating sense-data that actually have the colors the physical samples appear to have.

This article answers John Biro's "Knowability, Believability, and Begging the Question: a Reply to Sanford" in "Metaphilosophy" 15 (1984). Biro and I agree that of two argument instances with the same form and content, one but not the other can beg the question, depending on other factors. These factors include actual beliefs, or so I maintain (against Biro) with the help of some analysed examples. Brief selections from Archbishop Whatley and J S Mill suggest that they also regard reference to (...) actual beliefs as essential to explaining begging the question. (shrink)

Everything red is colored, and all squares are polygons. A square is distinguished from other polygons by being four-sided, equilateral, and equiangular. What distinguishes red things from other colored things? This has been understood as a conceptual rather than scientific question. Theories of wavelengths and reflectance and sensory processing are not considered. Given just our ordinary understanding of color, it seems that what differentiates red from other colors is only redness itself. The Cambridge logician W. E. Johnson introduced the terms (...) determinate and determinable to apply to examples such as red and colored. Chapter XI, of Johnson's Logic, Part I (1921), “The Determinate and the Determinable,” is the main text for discussion of this distinction. (shrink)

To accommodate vague statements and predicates, I propose an infinite-valued, non-truth-functional interpretation of logic on which the tautologies are exactly the tautologies of classical two-valued logic. iI introduce a determinacy operator, analogous to the necessity operator in alethic modal logic, to allow the definition of first-order and higher-order borderline cases. On the interpretation proposed for determinacy, every statement corresponding to a theorem of modal system T is a logical truth, and I conjecture that every logical truth on the interpretation corresponds (...) to a theorem of T. the interpretation is extended to predicate logic. A borderline case of a predicate 'F’ is neither determinately F nor determinately not-F. Traditional sorites arguments are seen to fall apart early in their gradual stepwise passage from truth to falsity. (shrink)

A primary purpose of argument is to increase the degree of reasonable confidence that one has in the truth of the conclusion. A question begging argument fails this purpose because it violates what W. E. Johnson called an epistemic condition of inference. Although an argument of the sort characterized by Robert Hoffman in his response (Analysis 32.2, Dec 71) to Richard Robinson (Analysis 31.4, March 71) begs the question in all circumstances, we usually understand the charge that an argument is (...) question begging with reference to the beliefs of the person, or the sort of person, to whom the argument is directed. (shrink)

Many philosophic arguments concerned with infinite series depend on the mutual inconsistency of statements of the following five forms: (1) something exists which has R to something; (2) R is asymmetric; (3) R is transitive; (4) for any x which has R to something, there is something which has R to x; (5) only finitely many things are related by R. Such arguments are suspect if the two-place relation R in question involves any conceptual vagueness or inexactness. Traditional sorites arguments (...) show that a statement of form (4) can fail to be true even though it has no clear counter-example. Conceptual vagueness allows a finite series not to have any definite first member. I consider the speculative possibilities that there have been only finitely many non-overlapping hours although there has been no first hour and that space and time are only finitely divisible even though there are no smallest spatial or temporal intervals. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to advance a new understanding of gender as a routine accomplishment embedded in everyday interaction. To do so entails a critical assessment of existing perspectives on sex and gender and the introduction of important distinctions among sex, sex category, and gender. We argue that recognition of the analytical independence of these concepts is essential for understanding the interactional work involved in being a gendered person in society. The thrust of our remarks is toward theoretical (...) reconceptualization, but we consider fruitful directions for empirical research that are indicated by our formulation. (shrink)

Philosophy in the 19th century experienced a ‘turn from idealism,’ when idealist philosophies were largely abandoned for materialist ones. Scientific naturalism is now considered by many analytic philosophers to be the new orthodoxy, largely in part due to the success of the scientific method. The New Atheists, such as Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins, claim it is Darwin in particular who deserves much of the credit for repudiating the traditional Mind-first world view. Some, like Alvin Plantinga and Michael Behe, maintain (...) the opposite, that evolution casts doubt on naturalism and supports theism. This dissertation seeks to determine just what exactly the logical implications of evolutionary theory are. Is evolution incompatible with theism? Does the acceptance of evolution necessarily entail naturalism and preclude theism? Is it possible, as naturalism maintains, that everything can be reduced to physical processes, or are there too many recalcitrant phenomena that defy reduction? Answering these involves a detailed analysis of the concepts, ‘evolution,’ ‘naturalism,’ and ‘theism.’ Just what exactly does accepting evolutionary theory entail? How is it different from Darwinism? Is evolution guided or unguided? What is naturalism? There are many different types of metaphysical naturalists: eliminative materialists, physicalists, and emergent property dualists. What is the relationship between metaphysical naturalism and methodological naturalism? Theism affirms a creator God who sustains all being, who is transcendent and yet immanent. So if theism posits a God who is active in the world, does this mean that scientific investigation may at times have to admit supernatural explanations when natural ones fail? My general conclusion is a type of mitigated skepticism – that given evolution, neither naturalism nor theism logically follows. As to whether evolution is guided or unguided, the only correct position is ‘undetermined.’ In this instance metaphysical positions may fill in the gaps in knowledge by projection, but cannot fulfill the necessary and sufficient conditions required for knowledge. Metaphysical naturalism and theism are worldviews that an individual adopts as the most overall coherent explanation of the wide variety of experiences, intuitions, and reflections on their life. Whether evolution offers evidence for one and against the other is often based upon one’s prior metaphysical assumptions, since all facts are theory laden. The underdetermination of theory allows for multiple theories to cover the same phenomena, with each offering an epistemically adequate explanation. However, numerous recalcitrant anomalies which defy scientific explanation and reduction present problems for the strict naturalist. While neither naturalism nor theism can be determined to be objectively true, one can offer reasons for choosing one or the other on the basis of overall coherence. (shrink)

I criticize and emend J L Mackie's account of causal priority by replacing ‘fixity’ in its central clause by 'x is a causal condition of y, but y is not a causal condition of x'. This replacement works only if 'is a causal condition of' is not a symmetric relation. Even apart from our desire to account for causal priority, it is desirable to have an account of nonsymmetric conditionship. Truth, for example, is a condition of knowledge, but knowledge is (...) not a condition of truth. My definitions of 'sufficient condition for' and 'necessary condition for' do not imply that p is a sufficient condition of q if and only if q is a necessary condition of p. (shrink)

In several works on modality, G. H. von Wright presents tree structures to explain possible worlds. Worlds that might have developed from an earlier world are possible relative to it. Actually possible worlds are possible relative to the world as it actually was at some point. Many logically consistent worlds are not actually possible. Transitions from node to node in a tree structure are probabilistic. Probabilities are often more useful than similarities between worlds in treating counterfactual conditionals.