"The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspeare Unfolded" from Delia Bacon. American writer of plays and short stories (1811-1859).

THE LIFE Of FRANCIS BACON, LORD HIGH CHANCELLOR OF ENGLAND. THE ancient Egyptians had a law, which ordained that the actions and characters of their dead ...

If you’ve read the first five hundred pages of this book, you’ve read most of it (we assume that ‘most’ requires more than ‘more than half’). The set of natural numbers n such that the first n pages are most of this book is nonempty. Therefore, by the least number principle, it has a least member k. What is k? We do not know. We have no idea how to find out. The obstacle is something about the term ‘most’. It (...) is recognisably the same feature as the feature of ‘heap’ that prevents us from finding an answer to the question ‘How many grains make a heap?’ and the feature of many other expressions that prevents us from finding answers to similar questions involving them. Call this feature, whatever its underlying nature, vagueness. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Philosophical Works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, and Lord High-Chancellor of England, Vol. 3 of 3: Methodized, and Made English, From the Originals; With Occasional Notes, to Explain What Is Obscure; And Shew How Far the Several Plans of the Author, for the Advancement of All the Parts of Knowledge, Have Been Executed to the Present Time Ibe Nores occafionally added, we bope, will more fully open tbe De fign and Scope of (...) tbe P: ece', jo as to render it generally intelligible, and lead to its fart/oer Advancement. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore the view that some ontological disputes are “metalinguistic negotiations”, and to make sense of the significance of these controversies in a way that is still compatible with a broadly deflationist approach. I start by considering the view advocated by Eli Hirsch to the effect that some ontological disputes are verbal. I take the Endurantism–Perdurantusm dispute as a case-study and argue that, while it can be conceded that the dispute is verbal at the (...) object-level, this does not rule out the possibility of a non-verbal disagreement at the metalinguistic level. I then explore the metalinguistic dispute hypothesis by seeing how it can be defended from a first objection playing on the idea of inter-translatability, as well as a second objection raising the question of equal theoretical virtues. (shrink)

Published in 1897, this was the first complete edition of Roger Bacon's influential thirteenth-century encyclopedia of science.

Volume XIII of the new edition of the works of Francis Bacon presents seven texts belonging to the last stages of Bacon's hugely influential philosophical reform programme. Three of the texts, sharing a bizarre history of literary theft and feuding, are here published for the first time. All seven are presented in their original Latin with brand new facing-page translations.

Our aim in this article is to bring some clarity to the clinical ethics expertise debate by critiquing and replacing the taxonomy offered by the Core Competencies report. The orienting question for our taxonomy is: Can clinical ethicists offer justified, normative recommendations for active patient cases? Views that answer “no” are characterized as a “negative” view of clinical ethics expertise and are further differentiated based on (a) why they think ethicists cannot give justified normative recommendations and (b) what they think (...) ethicists can offer, if they cannot offer recommendations. Views that answer “yes” to the orienting question are characterized as a “positive” view of clinical ethics expertise. Positive views are distinguished according to four additional questions. First (P1), how are those recommendations generated? Second (P2), what is the nature of the recommendations? Third (P3), we ask, how are the recommendations justified? And finally (P4), how are the recommendations communicated? (shrink)

Whether adolescents should be allowed to make their own medical decisions has been a topic of discussion in bioethics for at least two decades now. Are adolescents sufficiently capacitated to make their own medical decisions? Is the mature-minor doctrine, an uncommon legal exception to the rule of parental decision-making authority, something we should expand or eliminate? Bioethicists have dealt with the curious liminality of adolescents—their being neither children nor adults—in a variety of ways. However, recently there has been a trend (...) to rely heavily, and often exclusively, on emerging neuroscientific and psychological data to answer these questions. Using data from magnetic resonance imaging and functional MRI studies on the adolescent brain, authors have argued both that the adolescent brain isn't sufficiently mature to broadly confer capacity on this population and that the adolescent brain is sufficiently mature to assume adolescent capacity. Scholars then accept these data as sufficient for concluding that adolescents should or should not have decision-making authority. Two critical mistakes are being made here. The first is the expectation that neuroscience or psychology is or will be able to answer all our questions about capacity. The second, and more concerning, mistake is the conflation of decision-making capacity with decision-making authority. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering projects are sometimes criticized for ‘changing the subject’. In this paper, I first discuss three strategies that have been proposed to address the change of subject objection. I notice that these strategies fail in similar ways: they all deploy a ‘loose’ notion of subject matter, while the objector can always reply deploying a ‘strict’ notion. Based on this, I then argue that at least current formulations of the change of subject objection (together with the response strategies just mentioned), (...) create an overall defective dialectic, whereby no progress can be made on either side. After considering how such defective dialectic could be (at least partly) fixed, it is concluded that current formulations of the change of subject objection may be dismissed on dialectical grounds, even though some practical lessons may still be retained from the objection. (shrink)

This article argues that while the presence and influence of “futility” as a concept in medical decision-making has declined over the past decade, medicine is seeing the rise of a new concept with similar features: suffering. Like futility, suffering may appear to have a consistent meaning, but in actuality, the concept is colloquially invoked to refer to very different experiences. Like “futility,” claims of patient “suffering” have been used (perhaps sometimes consciously, but most often unconsciously) to smuggle value judgments about (...) quality of life into decision-making. And like “futility,” it would behoove us to recognize the need for new, clearer terminology. This article will focus specifically on secondhand claims of patient suffering in pediatrics, but the conclusions could be similarly applied to medical decisions for adults being made by surrogate decision-makers. While I will argue that suffering, like futility, is not sufficient wholesale justification for making unilateral treatment decisions, I will also argue that claims of patient suffering cannot be ignored, and that they almost always deserve some kind of response. In the final section, I offer practical suggestions for how to respond to claims of patient suffering. (shrink)

I argue that, contrary to widespread philosophical opinion, phenomenal indiscriminability is transitive. For if it were not transitive, we would be precluded from accepting the truisms that if two things look the same then the way they look is the same and that if two things look the same then if one looks red, so does the other. Nevertheless, it has seemed obvious to many philosophers (e.g. Goodman, Armstrong and Dummett) that phenomenal indiscriminability is not transitive; and, moreover, that this (...) non-transitivity is straightforwardly revealed to us in experience. I show this thought to be wrong. All inferences from the character of our experience to the non-transitivity of indiscriminability involve either a misunderstanding of continuity, a mistaken interpretation of the idea that we have limited powers of discrimination, or tendentious claims about what our experience is really like; or such inferences are based on inadequately supported premisses, which though individually plausible are jointly implausible. (shrink)

This authoritative edition was originally published in the acclaimed Oxford Authors series under the general editorship of Frank Kermode. It brings together an extensive collection of Bacon's writing - the major prose in full, together with sixteen other pieces not otherwise available - to give the essence of his work and thinking. Although he had a distinguished career as a lawyer and statesman, Francis Bacon's lifelong goal was to improve and extend human knowledge. In The Advancement of Learning (...) he made a brilliant critique of the deficiencies of previous systems of thought and proposed improvements to knowledge in every area of human life. He conceived the Essays as a study of the formative influences on human behaviour, psychological and social. In The New Atlantis he outlined his plan for a scientific research institute in the form of a Utopian fable. In addition to these major English works this edition includes 'Of Tribute', an important early work here printed complete for the first time, and a revealing selection of his legal and political writings, together with his poetry. A special feature of the edition is its extensive annotation which identifies Bacon's sources and allusions, and glosses his vocabulary. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

In “Descriptions as Predicates” (Fara 2001) I argued that definite and indefinite descriptions should be given a uniform semantic treatment as predicates rather than as quantifier phrases. The aim of the current paper is to clarify and elaborate one of the arguments for the descriptions-aspredicates view, one that concerns the interaction of descriptions with adverbs of quantification.

An authoritative critical edition, based on fresh collation of the seventeenth century texts and documented in an extensive textual apparatus, of Francis Bacon's The Advancement of Learning, the principal philosophical work in English announcing his comprehensive programme to restore and advance learning.

Draft (Version 1.1, October 2007): (PDF file) A reply to Jason Stanley’s Analysis criticism of my interest-relative view on vagueness.

The governments of China, India, and the United Kingdom are unanimous in their belief that bioinformatics should supply the link between basic life sciences research and its translation into health benefits for the population and the economy. Yet at the same time, as ambitious states vying for position in the future global bioeconomy they differ considerably in the strategies adopted in pursuit of this goal. At the heart of these differences lies the interaction between epistemic change within the scientific community (...) itself and the apparatus of the state. Drawing on desk-based research and thirty-two interviews with scientists and policy makers in the three countries, this article analyzes the politics that shape this interaction. From this analysis emerges an understanding of the variable capacities of different kinds of states and political systems to work with science in harnessing the potential of new epistemic territories in global life sciences innovation. (shrink)

It is common to criticize a debate by alleging that it is a “merely verbal dispute.” But how conclusive would an argument based on such allegations be? This article takes the material‐composition debate as a case study and argues that the merely verbal dispute objection is less decisive than one might expect. While assessing the dialectical effectiveness of the mere‐verbality move, the article also tries to mark some progress in the philosophical understanding and appreciation of the phenomenon itself of merely (...) verbal disputes. Its contribution consists in shedding light on a distinction between the “faultlessness” and “faultiness” of a merely verbal dispute. (shrink)

I propose that the meanings of vague expressions render the truth conditions of utterances of sentences containing them sensitive to our interests. For example, 'expensive' is analyzed as meaning 'costs a lot', which in turn is analyzed as meaning 'costs significantly greater than the norm'. Whether a difference is a significant difference depends on what our interests are. Appeal to the proposal is shown to provide an attractive resolution of the sorites paradox that is compatible with classical logic and semantics.

One reason to think that names have a predicate-type semantic value is that they naturally occur in count-noun positions: ‘The Michaels in my building both lost their keys’; ‘I know one incredibly sharp Cecil and one that's incredibly dull’. Predicativism is the view that names uniformly occur as predicates. Predicativism flies in the face of the widely accepted view that names in argument position are referential, whether that be Millian Referentialism, direct-reference theories, or even Fregean Descriptivism. But names are predicates (...) in all of their occurrences; they are predicates that are true of their bearers. When a name appears as a bare singular in argument position, it really occupies the predicate position of what in this essay is called a denuded definite description: a definite description with an unpronounced definite article. Sloat provided good evidence for this. The definite article is sometimes pronounced with names in the singular: ‘The Ivan we all love doesn't feel well’. Sloat proposed a disjunctive generalization of when the definite article must be pronounced with a singular name. This essay shows that by slightly revising Sloat's generalization, we arrive at a simple, nondisjunctive, syntactic rule that governs the overt appearance of the definite article with singular names. But Ivan does not necessarily bear the name ‘Ivan’, so one might worry that the sentence “Ivan might not have had ‘Ivan’ as a name” would incorrectly be predicted false. This essay shows that Predicativism does not have this consequence by showing that incomplete definite descriptions in general and incomplete denuded descriptions, such as ‘Øthe Ivan’, in particular are rigid designators. (shrink)

BackgroundReferencing is an integral part of scientific writing and professional research conduct that requires appropriate acknowledgement of others’ work and avoidance of plagiarism. University students should understand and apply this as part of their academic development, but for this, it is essential that supervisors also display proper research integrity and support.MethodsThis study used an online educative questionnaire to understand the knowledge and attitudes of students and supervisors at two institutes in Europe and Africa. The results were then used to create (...) discussion around education of students and faculty in workshops and lectures.ResultsOverall, 138 students and 14 supervisors participated: most were Swedish (89) and Kenyan (11). Overall, 98% had heard about plagiarism, and 35% believed it was common. Only 45% had heard about self-plagiarism, and when explained what it was, 44.5% considered it morally wrong. Europeans and North Americans had more knowledge than other nationalities. Most (85%) had received some training on referencing, but there was little consensus about principles, with more than 30% considering it acceptable to cite a reference in a paper they had not read. Discussing these results and the questions in workshops was helpful; it was also clear that there was no consensus among supervisors on what constituted correct behavior.ConclusionsThis survey shows a need for greater consensus on appropriate referencing, and that there is need for more discussions and training on the topic for both students and faculty. (shrink)

Pluralism is relevant to conceptual engineering in many ways. First of all, we face the issue of pluralism when trying to characterise the very object(s) of conceptual engineering. Is it just concepts? Could concepts be pluralistically conceived for the purposes of conceptual engineering? Or rather, is it concepts and other representational devices as well? Second, one may wonder whether concepts have only one function in our mental life (representation) or, rather, a plurality of functions (including non-representational ones). Third, it is (...) a contended question whether conceptual engineering projects should pursue only one set of values and goals (epistemic ones) or, rather, a variety of values and goals, including non-epistemic ones. Finally, the engineering of a concept may result in a form of “local” conceptual pluralism, which gives rise to its own ontological and semantic challenges. Having explored the various ways in which pluralism becomes important for conceptual engineers, this contribution presents and summarizes the articles published in this special issue. (shrink)

This paper is an informal presentation of the ideas presented formally in ”Relative-Sameness Counterpart Theory”. Relative-sameness relations -- such as being the same person as -- are like David Lewis’s “counterpart” relations in the following respects: (i) they may hold over time or across worlds between objects that aren’t cross-time or cross-world identical (I propose), and (ii) there are a multiplicity of them, different ones of which may be variously invoked in different contexts. They differ from his counterpart relations, however, (...) in that they are weak equivalence relations (transitive, symmetric and weakly reflexive). The likenesses to counterpart relations make them suitable for an analysis of de-re temporal and modal predications. The difference renders the resulting counterpart theory immune to standard criticisms of Lewis’s Counterpart Theory (e.g., in Hazen 1979, and Fara and Williamson 2005). The use of sameness as opposed to similarity relations in the analysis of de-re temporal and modal predication renders the resulting truth conditions as statable in terms that proponents of Kripke’s identity-based analysis can accept. (shrink)

In this paper we suggest a revisionist perspective on two significant figures in early modern life science and philosophy: William Harvey and John Locke. Harvey, the discoverer of the circulation of the blood, is often named as one of the rare representatives of the ‘life sciences’ who was a major figure in the Scientific Revolution. While this status itself is problematic, we would like to call attention to a different kind of problem: Harvey dislikes abstraction and controlled experiments (aside from (...) the ligature experiment in De Motu Cordis), tends to dismiss the value of instruments such as the microscope, and emphasizes instead the privileged status of ‘observed experience’. To use a contemporary term, Harvey appears to rely on, and chiefly value, ‘tacit knowledge’. Secondly, Locke’s project is often explained with reference to the image he uses in the Epistle to the Reader of his Essay, that he was an “underlabourer” of the sciences. In fact, despite the significant medical phase of his career, Locke’s ‘empiricism’ turns out to be above all a practical (i.e. ‘moral’) project, which focuses on the delimitation of our powers in order to achieve happiness, and rejects the possibility of naturalizing knowledge. When combined, these two cases suggest a different view of some canonical moments in early modern natural philosophy. (shrink)

This book investigates the phenomenon of semantic under-determinacy by seeking an answer to the questions of how it can be explained, and how communication is possible despite it.

Does contemporary phenomenology envision movement in space as a displacement from a point A to a point B? Is there something more at stake in the movement of our bodies, that cannot be reduced to this type of displacement? What happens when several bodies move together, like in dance practices of all kinds? The paper questions the role of repetitive movements in the institution of places we inhabit and the importance of the places we find ourselves to be for the (...) way we move in space. Starting from the philosophical reflections on the Museum of Dance initiated by the French choreograph Boris Charmatz and through analysis of the American choreograph Wendy Woodson's work, the paper aims to shed light on the double dimension of repetitive movements, as they install us in space and as they alienate us from ourselves. The purpose of the paper is to reflect on a phenomenology of rhythm that helps articulate an aesthetic perspective on movement entailing social and political incidences. (shrink)

Cet ouvrage cible la pratique qui est solidaire de la fondation de la connaissance realisee par la phenomenologie, en voyant dans cette pratique la condition meme de la formulation positive de son projet. Dans cette perspective, la critique sociale et la psychopathologie sont notamment les deux champs pratiques ou la phenomenologie se trouve investie, par-dela son premier elan de critique theorique, pour intervenir sur les formes de normativite qui y sont a l'oeuvre. En abordant ces champs a travers les differentes (...) contributions qui le composent, l'ouvrage ambitionne d'analyser la portee pratique de la phenomenologie et de tester sa capacite a generer une attention au pouvoir emancipateur ou alienant des organisations sociales. L'hypothese de fond, collectivement partagee, est que la phenomenologie peut apporter une contribution a la construction d'une nouvelle posture critique a meme de participer a l'emancipation des individus en situation de souffrance et d'injustice.". (shrink)

Cases like Mr. Walker’s are distressing, and for good reason. The Supreme Court has given clear moral and legal reasons to distinguish life-saving treatment refusal from suicide, and physicians are...

Conceptual engineering projects have been criticized for creating discontinuities of subject-matter and, as a result, discontinuities in inquiries: call this the Change of Subject objection. In this paper, I explore a way of dealing with the objection that clarifies its scope and eventually downplays it. First, two strategies aimed at saving subject-continuity are examined and found wanting: Herman Cappelen’s appeal to topics, and the account in terms of concept function. Second, the idea is introduced that one can begin an object-level (...) inquiry either with a ‘semantically conservative’ approach, whereby semantic change is not permitted, or with a ‘semantically progressive’ approach, whereby semantic change is permitted. This distinction helps one significantly downplay the Change of Subject objection. (shrink)

Organizational restructuring involving mass layoffs is an integral part of the corporate strategic landscape. While aimed at increasing a company’s efficiency and profitability, it often falls short of desired objectives, partly due to negative consequences for remaining employees, the so-called “survivors”. As workforce reductions may jeopardize a company’s legitimacy, we develop a model that links the change in post-restructuring employee productivity to the factors that help mitigate legitimacy issues. By using a comprehensive and innovative dataset of restructuring announcements reported by (...) European companies over the post-crisis period, we analyze the moderating effect of the restructuring extent on the role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and economic justification as legitimacy tools in counterbalancing the negative effects of job reduction measures. Our findings reveal that in reactive layoffs, induced by financial difficulties, initially high levels of CSR help lessen negative effects of restructuring on employee productivity in low-extent restructuring events; while in high-extent restructuring events employee productivity is supported by continuing investments in CSR. We provide evidence that both the level and dynamics of CSR practices play a significant role, and their effect on employee performance is conditional on the restructuring context. (shrink)

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1890 Edition.