This two volume work is a comprehensive reader in modern philosophical and theological hermeneutics. David E. Klemm has selected essays representing acknowledged classics in hermeneutics and the best modern hermeneutical thinkers. Volume One collects essays on the hermeneutics of texts. Volume Two collects works on the hermeneutics of existence. Each essay is preceded by an informative contextualizing introduction. Included in Volume One are works by: F.D.E. Schleiermacher, Wilhelm Dilthey, Rudolf Bultmann, Martin Heidegger, Paul Tillich, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Gerhard Ebeling, Paul (...) Ricoeur, Norman Perrin, and Robert P. Scharlemann. (shrink)

This engaging volume explores and defends the claim that misanthropy is a justified attitude towards humankind in the light of how human beings both compare with and treat animals. Reflection on differences between humans and animals helps to confirm the misanthropic verdict, while reflection on the moral and other failings manifest in our treatment of animals illuminates what is wrong with this treatment. Human failings, it is argued, are too entrenched to permit optimism about the future of animals, but ways (...) are proposed in which individual people may accommodate to the truth of misanthropy through cultivating mindful, humble and compassionate relationships to animals. Drawing on both Eastern and Western philosophical traditions David E. Cooper offers an original and challenging approach to the complex field of animal ethics. (shrink)

Throughout the twentieth century, aestheticians and art theorists declared the 'death' of beauty as a serious, meaningful concept for aesthetics and art practice. Such declarations are better understood as polemical provocations, making their obituarism premature. Careful attention to the writings of those cited testify to the persistence of beauty, albeit in new, 'difficult', 'challenging' forms. Beauty persists, taking on new forms and inflections.

This collection highlights such issues as how the nature of time is relevant to the question of whether God is temporal and how God's other attributes are ...

David E. Cooper; I*—The Presidential Address: Analytical and Continental Philosophy, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 94, Issue 1, 1 June 1994, P.

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, EarlyView.

This dissertation argues for a particular interpretation of John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism, namely that Mill is best read as a sanction utilitarian. In general, scholars commonly interpret Mill as some type of act or rule utilitarian. In making their case for these interpretations, it is also common for scholars to use large portions of Mill’s Utilitarianism as the chief source of insight into his moral theory. By contrast, I argue that Utilitarianism is best read as an ecumenical text where Mill (...) explains and defends the general tenets of utilitarianism rather than setting out his own preferred theory. The exception to this ecumenical approach to the text comes in the fifth chapter on justice which, I argue on textual and historical grounds, outlines the central features of Mill’s utilitarianism. -/- With this understanding of Utilitarianism in place, many of the passages commonly cited in favor of the previous interpretations are rendered less plausible, and interpretations emphasizing Mill’s other writings are strengthened. Using this methodology, I critique four of the most prominent act or rule utilitarian interpretations of Mill’s moral theory. I then provide an interpretation of Mill’s theory of moral obligation and utilitarianism. On Mill’s account of moral obligation (which purportedly holds for moral theories generally, not just utilitarianism) there is a tight relation between an action being wrong and it being subject to punishment by an agent’s conscience. The utilitarian aspect of Mill’s theory concerns the role of rules in an agent’s conscience. According to Mill’s sanction utilitarian view, the actions that are punished are those actions that violate the moral rules which, if widely internalized across society, would promote general utility. On this account, an action is wrong when an agent violates a justified moral rule and is properly punished, at least by one’s conscience. An action is right when conditions are such that if the action were not performed, then the action would be properly punished by at least the agent’s conscience. I apply this interpretation to other notable components of Mill’s approach such as his account of practical action (the Art of Life) and his theory of liberty. (shrink)

Arguing that psychologists and their predecessors have invariably relied on metaphors in articulation, the contributors to this volume offer a new "key" to understanding a critically important area of human knowledge by specifying the major metaphors.

David Brink’s new book, Fair Opportunity and Responsibility delivers an important and erudite contribution to the under theorised notion of ‘fair opportunity’ in our culpability determinations. Bri...

There is much hype around the idea of bringing the Passenger Pigeon back from extinction. However, ‘de-extinction’ is a fantasy that is not grounded in science. The proposed plans for ‘de-extinction’ would create a new organism that is not likely to be viable in the wild. Thus, ‘de-extinction’ as proposed is unethical both because it could lead into the release in nature of a new genetically created organism and because it is not honest to claim that it would reverse the (...) extinction of the Passenger Pigeon. (shrink)

This paper defends the description of Buddhism—by Schopenhauer and many other nineteenth-century figures—as pessimistic. Pessimism, in the relevant sense, is a dark, negative judgment on the psychological, social, and moral condition of humankind and the prospects for its amelioration. After discussing texts in the Pali canon that provide prima facie support for the charge of pessimism, two familiar responses are considered. One emphasizes the positive aspects of the human condition recognized by the Buddha; the other emphasizes the prospect held out (...) by him for the cessation of dukkha. It is argued that neither response is persuasive—not least because of a failure to appreciate the gulf between ordinary “worldling” existence and that of the arahant or enlightened person. A final section discusses the description of the arahant as “transcending the world” and the human condition. If correct, this supports the charge of pessimism. This is because pessimism is a claim about the human condition, about our being-in-the-world, and cannot therefore be refuted by the prospect of a mode of being that transcends this condition. (shrink)

Knauff and Gazzo Castañeda argue as much in support of revised mental model theory (RMMT) as they argue against talk of a new paradigm caused by the probabilistic approach in the psychology of reasoning. They claim that RMMT is not essentially different from classical mental model theory (CMMT) and not essentially different from the probabilistic approach. There are many serious questions to ask about RMMT. But RMMT is a massive modalization of aspects of the extensional CMMT, and it follows the (...) probabilistic approach in having an intensional focus that justifies talk of a new paradigm. (shrink)

Richard Rorty was one of the most controversial and influential philosophers of the late twentieth century. Known primarily for his attacks on truth and the idea that knowledge is a ‘mirror of nature’, his contribution as a humanist and a great moralist has been overlooked by recent scholarship. McClean re-evaluates Rorty’s work in the light of his liberal cosmopolitan outlook, showing how it can be applied to a range of social and political issues, including international terrorism, religious fundamentalism, neo-liberalism, sexual (...) politics and business culture. (shrink)

A standard approach to indeterminacy treats ‘determinately’ and ‘indeterminately’ as modal operators. Determinacy behaves like necessity; indeterminacy like contingency. This raises two questions. What is the appropriate modal system for these operators? And how should we interpret that system? Ken Akiba has developed an account of ontic indeterminacy that interprets possible worlds as worldly precisifications. He argues that this account vindicates S4 as the logic of indeterminacy. In this paper I explore one significant and surprising consequence of this view. I (...) do this in two stages. First, I prove a technical result, which I call the Infinite Indeterminacy Theorem. Roughly put, this theorem states that, at any given precisification w, either every instance of indeterminacy admits of never-ending higher-order indeterminacy, or else there's indeterminacy in an infinite amount of distinct atomic formulas. In slogan form: either all indeterminacy is infinitely ascending or else there's infinitely wide indeterminacy. Second, I unpack the metaphysical consequences of this technical result (under its intended interpretation) and assess their plausibility. I conclude that these consequences commit Akiba's theory to highly contentious – and arguably untenable – views about the metaphysics of indeterminacy and related matters. (shrink)

This paper addresses an apparent tension between a familiar claim about meaning in general, to the effect that the meaning of anything owes to its place, ultimately, within a ‘form of life’, and a claim, also familiar, about the meaning of human life itself, to the effect that this must be something ‘beyond the human’. How can life itself be meaningful if meaning is a matter of a relationship to life? After elaborating and briefly defending these two claims, two ways (...) of amending and thereby reconciling them are considered and rejected. These ways involve either spiriting away the issue of life's meaning or encouraging unwelcome metaphysical views. The author then argues that, rather than remove the tension between the two claims, each should be viewed as expressing an aspect of a delicate metaphysical position. This position is distinguished from ones, like transcendental idealism and constructivism, with which it might be confused, and is then related to Daoist and Zen thought and to the later philosophy of Heidegger. Crucial to the position is the proposal that the ‘beyond the human’ which enables life to be meaningful is both ineffable and ‘intimate’ with life itself. (shrink)

The interdisciplinary field of cognitive science brings together elements of cognitive psychology, mathematics, perception, and linguistics. Focusing on the main areas of exploration in this field today, Cognitive Science presents comprehensive overviews of research findings and discusses new cross-over areas of interest. Contributors represent the most senior and well-established names in the field. This volume serves as a high-level introduction, with sufficient breadth to be a graduate-level text, and enough depth to be a valued reference source to researchers.

Reliablists have argued that the important evaluative epistemic concept of being justified in holding a belief, at least to the extent that that concept is associated with knowledge, is best understood as concerned with the objective appropriateness of the processes by which a given belief is generated and sustained. In particular, they hold that a belief is justified only when it is fostered by processes that are reliable (at least minimally so) in the believer’s actual world.[1] Of course, reliablists typically (...) recognize other concepts of justification--typically subjective notions--which are given a noncompeting sort of epistemic legitimacy. However, they have tended to focus on the epistemically central notion of "strong justification," and have come to settle on this familiar reliablist analysis, supposing that it pretty much exhausts what there is to say about "objective justification.". (shrink)

Zhuangzi often is portrayed as a kind of ethical relativist. This popular reading has been challenged by Philip Ivanhoe, who argues that Zhuangzi is not a relativist but rather that Zhuangzi articulates a normative theory of benignity. In this paper we argue against Ivanhoe’s interpretation. We further argue that Zhuangzi is an ethical nihilist, who rejects all ethical positions.

This paper examines potential predictors of ethical decisions regarding insider trading. An interactionist perspective is taken, in which person variables, situational variables, and the interaction of these two sets of variables are viewed as influencing ethical decisions. The results of our study support such a perspective. Ethical decisions regarding insider trading appear to be a function of a complex set of interacting variables related to both the person and the situation. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Buddhism, one increasingly hears, is an 'eco-friendly' religion. It is often said that this is because it promotes an 'ecological' view of things, one stressing the essential unity of human beings and the natural world. Buddhism, Virtue and Environment presents a different view. While agreeing that Buddhism is, in many important respects, in tune with environmental concerns, Cooper and James argue that what makes it 'green' is its view of human life. The true connection between the religion and environmental thought (...) is to be found in Buddhist accounts of the virtues - those traits, such as compassion, equanimity and humility, that characterise the life of a spiritually enlightened individual. Central chapters of this book examine these virtues and their implications for environmental attitudes and practice. Buddhism, Virtue and Environment will be of interest not only to students and teachers of Buddhism and environmental ethics, but to those more generally engaged with moral philosophy. Written in a clear and accessible style, this book presents an original conception of Buddhist environmental thought. The authors also contribute to the wider debate on the place of ethics in Buddhist teachings and practices, and to debates within 'virtue ethics' on the relations between human well-being and environmental concern. (shrink)

R. S. Peters has not only been the major philosopher of education in Britain during second half of the twentieth century, but by common consent, he has transformed the subject and brought it into the mainstream of contemporary philosophy. The ten essays in this book attest to his influence whether by critical examination of his ideas or by original treatment of topics in which has has inspired a new interest.

In Sacred Nature Jerome Stone gives us an informative, earnest introduction to religious naturalism with a focus on its relevance for environmentalism. Environmentalism today often dwells upon warnings about the dire consequences if certain prescribed actions are not taken. Stone takes a different tack. He quotes Aldo Leopold: “Prudence never kindled a fire in the human mind; I have no hope for a conservation born of fear.” Stone’s approach—an engaging one, in my view—is to connect environmentalism with the hope and (...) passion of religious feeling. But Stone’s religious vision does not entail belief in the personalistic, supernatural deity of traditional monotheism. Rather, a sense of the sacred is discovered within... (shrink)

El objetivo de este ensayo es aclarar el sentido de filosofía según el filósofo italiano Giovanni Piana. Más allá de ser una búsqueda de algo que se quiere saber o de un saber hacer, la filo-sofía es una actividad teórica que nace de un estado de confusión. La tarea del filósofo es en-tonces aquella de orientarse en esta confusión, tratando alcanzar la claridad. La propuesta me-todológica de Piana parte entonces de una aclaración conceptual que determina el trabajo del filósofo y (...) para la cual se vuelve necesario el aporte de la fenomenología. Justo a partir de es-tas bases se desarrolla la propuesta filosófica de Giovanni Piana conocida como “estructura-lismo fenomenológico”. A pesar de que todo acto de experiencia posee una manera peculiar de estructurar el material (perceptivo, imaginativo o memorativo), el planteamiento de Piana pone la percepción como experiencia fundamental para un análisis genético que llegue a la aclaración conceptual de la esfera de la lógica. (shrink)

A study in the logic of theory change, examining the properties of maxichoice contraction and revision operations.

A representationalist-friendly introduction to representationalism which covers a number of central problems and objections.

This paper is concerned with formal aspects of the logic of theory change, and in particular with the process of shrinking or contracting a theory to eliminate a proposition. It continues work in the area by the authors and Peter Gärdenfors. The paper defines a notion of safe contraction of a set of propositions, shows that it satisfies the Gärdenfors postulates for contraction and thus can be represented as a partial meet contraction, and studies its properties both in general and (...) under various natural constraints. (shrink)