Is the history of life a series of accidents or a drama scripted by selfish genes? Is there an “essential” human nature, determined at birth or in a distant evolutionary past? What should we conserve—species, ecosystems, or something else? -/- Informed answers to questions like these, critical to our understanding of ourselves and the world around us, require both a knowledge of biology and a philosophical framework within which to make sense of its findings. In this accessible introduction to philosophy (...) of biology, Kim Sterelny and Paul E. Griffiths present both the science and the philosophical context necessary for a critical understanding of the most exciting debates shaping biology today. The authors, both of whom have published extensively in this field, describe the range of competing views—including their own—on these fascinating topics. -/- With its clear explanations of both biological and philosophical concepts, Sex and Death will appeal not only to undergraduates, but also to the many general readers eager to think critically about the science of life. (shrink)

the Logische Untersuchungen,l phenomenology has been conceived as a substratum of empirical psychology, as a sphere comprising "imma nental" descriptions of psychical mental processes, a sphere compris ing descriptions that - so the immanence in question is understood - are strictly confined within the bounds of internal experience. It 2 would seem that my protest against this conception has been oflittle avail; and the added explanations, which sharply pinpointed at least some chief points of difference, either have not been understood (...) or have been heedlessly pushed aside. Thus the replies directed against my criticism of psychological method are also quite negative because they miss the straightforward sense of my presentation. My criticism of psychological method did not at all deny the value of modern psychology, did not at all disparage the experimental work done by eminent men. Rather it laid bare certain, in the literal sense, radical defects of method upon the removal of which, in my opinion, must depend an elevation of psychology to a higher scientific level and an extraordinary amplification ofits field of work. Later an occasion will be found to say a few words about the unnecessary defences of psychology against my supposed "attacks. (shrink)

Le 27 avril 1938, Edmund HUSSERL, l'initiateur et principal representant du courant phenomenologique dans la philosophie contemporaine, mourut a Fribourg en Brisgau, age de pres de quatre-vingts ans. Depuis la parution de ses Logische Untersuchungen en 190~ 1901, le monde philosophique international avait suivi, avec UD interet toujours croissant, les exposes successifs et de plus en plus approfondis, que le maUre fribourgeois publiait sur les prin~ cipes de sa methode, dite pMnomenologique, sur les applications concretes de celle-ci aux problemes (...) philosophiques les plus divers, ainsi que sur la phenomenologie comme systeme philo­ sophique autonome et pour ainsi dire "autarchique". Ces publi­ cations, relativement peu nombreuses, mais fort remarquees des leur parution, furent etudiees avec le plus grand soin par les representants les plus autorises des differents courants de la pensee contemporaine. Les critiques, il va sans dire, ne manquerent point. On attira l'attention sur le caractere plutöt programmatique de ces etudes, sur la terminologie fort neuve, quelque peu arbitraire, parfois meme deroutante, dont se servait l'auteur, sur son pen­ chant prononce pour des distinctions subtiles et pour des defini­ tions minutieuses a l'exces, sur la difficulte de son style et les complications parfois inutiles de son expose, enfin et surtout -­ au moins depuis 1913 - sur le caractere audacieux de sa theorie de la reduction, presentee par lui avec une insistance toute par­ ticuliere comme le fondement dernier et indispensable de toute phenomenologie presente ou future. (shrink)

Die Cartesianischen Meditationen sind aus Vorträgen hervorgegangen, die Edmund Husserl Mitte Februar 1929 an der Sorbonne gehalten hat. Bei der Grundfragestellung Descartes’ einsetzend, entfaltet Husserl die transzendentale Phänomenologie als »Umbildung und Neu­bildung« des Cartesischen Programms der prima philosophia im Sinne einer Reform der Philosophie zu einer absoluten Wissenschaft aus absoluter Begründung. Eine französische Ausgabe, in der Übersetzung von Emmanuel Levinas und Gabrielle Pfeiffer, erschien 1931 bei A. Colin in Paris. Husserls Arbeiten an dem Manuskript für die deutsche Ausgabe, die (...) gegenüber der französischen erheblich erweitert werden sollte, blieben, nicht zuletzt wegen der 1933 veränderten politischen Situation, unvollendet. So erschien die erste deutschsprachige Ausgabe der Cartesianischen Meditationen erst postum in dem von Stephan Strasser herausgegebenen Band 1 der Husserliana , Den Haag 1950.Die Studienausgabe basiert auf dem Text der zweiten Auflage des Bandes in den Husserliana von 1963, hg. von Rudolf Boehm. (shrink)

A close look at the Jesuit and Catholic recusant network that existed in the English midlands yields a pathway to the Chandos portrait of Shakespeare. The portrait is traced from the 3rd Duke of Chandos to Grafton Manor, seat of the Shrewsbury earls and a principal Jesuit center in the Jesuit district comprising Worcestershire and Warwickshire created in 1623. The article finds that during Shakespeare’s lifetime, Grafton Manor was owned by a Catholic recusant member of the Talbot family with ownership (...) ties to Welbeck Abbey located in the small township of Holbeck, Nottinghamshire; the parish of Holbeck included Welbeck Abbey and the adjacent Holbeck Hall, which was owned by the family that sheltered Edmund Campion and which served later as home to a major Jesuit library and as a shelter for Jesuits themselves. Keeping in mind Shakespeare’s indebtedness to North family writings as source material for the plays, the article finds that the provenance of an unpublished manuscript by George North which influenced Shakespeare, the manuscript’s content, and George North’s circle of acquaintances lead directly to Edmund Campion and the Pierrepont family that sheltered him before his execution by the crown in 1581. The article shows ties of the George North manuscript to Welbeck Abbey, ties of the North family to the nearby Wroxton Abbey, and possible ties of the alleged painter of the Chandos portrait to the North family at Wroxton Abbey. The article is written in response to the recently published book by Dennis McCarthy and June Schlueter on the discovery of an unpublished manuscript written by George North that they believe inspired Shakespeare. Further shown through parallel language and thought that George North in writing A Brief Discourse likely drew material from Campion’s Histories of Ireland, including material that eventually led to the episodes on Jack Cade in 2 Henry VI and the Merlin prophecy in King Lear—all before Campion’s Histories was absorbed by Holinshed’s Chronicles and ultimately absorbed by Shakespeare. The article, utilizing research by an eminent Jesuit historian showing a personally advantageous relationship between George North’s patron, the Queen’s favored Sir Christopher Hatton, and the Jesuit William Crichton, traces the Shakespeare First Folio discovered on the Isle of Bute in 2016 back through time to the North family and ultimately to the Jesuit Crichton. In consideration of a probable biographical relationship between Shakespeare and Hatton, another connection between Shakespeare and the Jesuits is revealed. Lastly, the article details textual support for the author’s previous research showing a relationship between the writings of the Jesuit John Floyd and the Shakespearean canon—hinting that Shakespeare assisted the Jesuits. (shrink)

stufe oder Unterstufe im emporsteigenden Gang zur absoluten Er kenntnis gewinnen. Man kann sagen, daB das philosophisehe Interesse in vollbe wuBter Weise als leitendes Ziel das vor Augen hat, was sieh in jedem 5 rein theoretisehen Interesse als gleiehsam verborgene Tendenz be kundet: Die Tendenz auf vollkommene Erkenntnis liegt in allem rein theoretisehen Bestreben. a) Immerfort ftihlt es sieh fortgetrieben im Sinne mOgliehster Verdeutliehung, Klarung, mogliehst vollkom mener Begriindung. b) Immerfort ftihlt es sieh mit der vereinzelten 10 Tatsaehe, mit dem (...) vereinzelten Gesetz unbefriedigt; es kann daran nieht haften bleiben. Es ftihlt sich gedrangt, von dem Besonderen emporzusteigen zum Allgemeineren, von der Tatsaehe zum Gesetz, von der niederen Allgemeinheit zu der hoheren. Damit nieht zufrie den, muB es aIle mogliehen theoretisehen Lehren durehlaufen, um- 15 spannende Theorien bauen, die Theorien zu umfassenden Theorien verbinden, und so immer weiter. Dabei erweitert sieh der enge Kreis der yom theoretisehen Interesse zunaehst ins Auge gefaBten Gegen standliehkeiten; Einheit der theoretisehen Erkenntnis greift immer weiter von Gebiet zu Gebiet, ohne Grenze. 20 Bringen wir uns diese Tendenzen zur Klarheit, so sehen wir, daB sie im Verborgenen dem Ziel der hoehsten Vereinheitliehung die nen, daB sie verstreuten, zusammenhangslosen Erkenntnissen feind sind, daB sie gleiehsam niehts Untheoretisehes, Unvereinheitlichtes dulden wollen ebensowenig als ein Ende, soweit irgend noeh ein plus 25 ultra denkbar ist. Und zu alledem gehort offenbar aueh die Tendenz zu voll ausweisender Klarheit. (shrink)

What is self-control and how does the concept of self-control relate to the notion of will-power? A widespread philosophical opinion has been that the notion of will-power does not add anything beyond what can be said using other motivational notions, such as strength of desire and intention. One exception is Richard Holton who, inspired by recent research in social psychology, has argued that will-power is a separate faculty needed for persisting in one's resolutions, what he calls 'strength of will'. However, (...) he distinguishes strength of will from self-control. In this paper I argue that will-power is essential also to a certain form of self-control. I support this claim by arguments showing that the traditional philosophical accounts of self-control run into difficulties because they pay insufficient attention to will-power as an independent source of motivation. (shrink)

Recognizing that probability (the Greek doxa) was understood in pre-modern theories as the polar opposite of certainty (episteme), the author of this study elaborates the forms which these polar opposites have taken in some twentieth century writers and then, in greater detail, in the writings of Thomas Aquinas. Profiting from subsequent more sophisticated theories of probability, he examines how Aquinas’s judgments about everything from God to gossip depend on schematizations of the polarity between the systematic and the non-systematic: revelation/reason, science/opinion, (...) saints/philosophers, Aristotle/others. Post-medieval developments have provided the means to discern within Thomas’s thought both a logical theory and a kind of relative frequency theory of probability. The former depends on Aristotle’s theory of demonstration, the latter on his theory of an orderly cosmos; but each as used by Thomas lead to convictions that are sometimes naive, sometimes amusing or even terrifying. (shrink)

There are many advantages to defining emotions as states elicited by reinforcers, with the states having a set of different functions. This approach leads towards an understanding of the nature of emotion, of its evolutionary adaptive value, and of many principles of brain design. It also leads towards a foundation for many of the processes that underlie evolutionary psychology and behavioral ecology. It is shown that recent as well as previous evidence implicates the amygdala and orbitofrontal cortex in positive as (...) well as negative emotions. The issue of why emotional states feel like something is part of the much larger problem of phenomenal consciousness. It is argued that thinking about one's own thoughts would have adaptive value by enabling first order linguistic thoughts to be corrected. It is suggested that reflecting on and correcting one's own thoughts and plans would feel like something, and that phenomenal consciousness may occur when this type of monitoring process is taking place. (shrink)

We tend to take for granted that we know what is involved in belief in other minds, and that the real problem lies in justifying that belief. By contrast, this chapter argues that we misunderstand what belief in other minds involves, and that the problem of other minds has its source in that misunderstanding. My aim is to rethink what belief in other minds involves in terms of what Wittgenstein calls ‘an attitude towards a soul’. Doing so not only undermines (...) the problem of other minds as traditionally formulated, but also has significant consequences for our understanding of the mind itself. One such consequence is that ethical considerations have a much more fundamental role to play in thinking about the mind than is typically believed. (shrink)

Persons concerned with medical education sometimes argued that medical students need no formal education in ethics. They contended that if admissions were restricted to persons of good character and those students were exposed to good role models, the ethics of medicine would take care of itself. However, no one seems to give much philosophic attention to the ideas of model or role model. In this essay, I undertake such an analysis and add an analysis of role. I show the weakness (...) in relying on role models exclusively and draw implications from these for appeals to virtue theory. Furthermore, I indicate some of the problems about how virtue theory is invoked as the ethical theory that would most closely be associated to the role model rhetoric and consider some of the problems with virtue theory. Although Socrates was interested in the character of the (young) persons with whom he spoke, Socratic education is much more than what role modeling and virtue theory endorse. It -- that is, philosophy -- is invaluable for ethics education. (shrink)

Can we perceive others' mental states? Wittgenstein is often claimed to hold, like some phenomenologists, that we can. The view thus attributed to Wittgenstein is a view about the correct explanation of mindreading: He is taken to be answering a question about the kind of process mindreading involves. But although Wittgenstein claims we see others' emotions, he denies that he is thereby making any claim about that underlying process and, moreover, denies that any underlying process could have the significance it (...) is claimed to have for this debate. For Wittgenstein, the question is not “Is this perception?” but “What do we mean by ‘perception' here?” and that question is answered by investigating the grammar of the relevant concepts. That investigation, however, reveals similarities and differences between what we call “perception” here and elsewhere. Hence, Wittgenstein's answer to the question “Can we perceive others' mental states?” is yes and no: Both responses can be justified by appeal to different concepts of perception. Wittgenstein, then, has much to contribute to our understanding of mindreading, but what he has to contribute is nothing like the view typically attributed to him here. (shrink)

χαιρέτω ἡμέτερος βασιλεὺς σωτήρ τε πατήρ τε·ἡμῖν δὲ κρητῆρ’ οἰνοχόοι θέραπεςκιρνάντων προχύταισιν ἐν ἀργυρέοις· †ὁ δὲ χρυσὸςοἶνον ἔχων χειρῶν νιζέτω εἰς ἔδαφος.†σπένδοντες δ’ ἁγνῶς Ἡρακλεῖ τ’ Ἀλκμήνηι τε,Προκλεῖ Περσείδαις τ’ ἐκ Διὸς ἀρχόμενοιπίνωμεν, παίζωμεν· ἴτω διὰ νυκτὸς ἀοιδή,ὀρχείσθω τις· ἑκὼν δ’ ἄρχε φιλοφροσύνης.ὅντινα δ’ εὐειδὴς μίμνει θήλεια πάρευνος,κεῖνος τῶν ἄλλων κυδρότερον πίεται.May our king rejoice, our saviour and father; let the attendant cup-bearers mix for us a crater from silver urns; †Let the golden one with wine in his hands wash (...) to the base† Pouring libations piously to Heracles and Alcmene, Procles and the sons of Perseus and Zeus first of all, let us drink, let us play, let our song rise through the night. Dance someone, willingly begin the festivities. And anyone who has a fair girl waiting to share his bed will drink more like a man than all the others.(Ion, fr. 27 West = fr. 90 Leurini). (shrink)

A complimentary assessment of Blum's award-winning book about racism and its affects. Well written as it is, it needs to be supplemented with a definition of racial injustice, and also to analyze racism not only on the level of individual morality but from a human rights perspective that discredits political and economic motives for racism (e.g., by drawing on Hannah Arendt's Origins of Totalitarianism).

This volume makes available in English for the first time Adorno's lectures on metaphysics. It provides a unique introduction not only to metaphysics but also to Adorno's own intellectual standpoint, as developed in his major work _Negative Dialectics._ Metaphysics for Adorno is defined by a central tension between concepts and immediate facts. Adorno traces this dualism back to Aristotle, whom he sees as the founder of metaphysics. In Aristotle it appears as an unresolved tension between form and matter. This basic (...) split, in Adorno's interpretation, runs right through the history of metaphysics. Perhaps not surprisingly, Adorno finds this tension resolved in the Hegelian dialectic. Underlying this dualism is a further dichotomy, which Adorno sees as essential to metaphysics: while it dissolves belief in transcendental worlds by thought, at the same time it seeks to rescue belief in a reality beyond the empirical, again by thought. It is to this profound ambiguity, for Adorno, that the metaphysical tradition owes its greatness. The major part of these lectures, given by Adorno late in his life, is devoted to a critical exposition of Aristotle's thought, focusing on its central ambiguities. In the last lectures, Adorno's attention switches to the question of the relevance of metaphysics today, particularly after the Holocaust. He finds in metaphysical experiences, which transcend rational discourse without lapsing into irrationalism, a last precarious refuge of the humane truth to which his own thought always aspired. This volume will be essential reading for anyone interested in Adorno's work and will be a valuable text for students and scholars of philosophy and social theory. (shrink)

Not the publicly asserted reasons (humanitarianism and self-defense) but cooptation of oil reserves was the objective behind the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. This underlying motive utterly fails to satisfy just war jus ad bellum conditions. This prioritization of petroleum is well documented and is consistent with decades old US policy towards the Middle East, especially as codified by Anthony Cordesman in 1998 and US DoD's Strategic Assessment 1999 and then adopted by Bush II. This fraudulent use of military (...) force raises a question as to how motives for war can be accurately identified prior to falsely justified belligerence. Some positive signs are noted herein as to political philosophers' better use of Rawls's reflective equilibrium. (shrink)

Spatiotemporal and qualitative continuity are not sufficient to trace the career or path of one and the same object through its history. One needs sortal continuity, guaranteed by the form-token of the object. In this paper I concentrate on the question of sortal continuity linked to the problem of the cohabitation of objects. I intend to test whether it is possible to stick to the belief in continuants or endurers as well as the sortal dependence of identity and at the (...) same time avoid an undesirable multiplication of spatially coinciding objects, i.e., avoid the thesis of cohabitation. I abandon the philosophical view – this is the price to be paid – that the set of the material constituents making up an object is an object proper. The basic units of reality are the objects falling under sortals and not the ultimate components thereof. That a determinate piece of copper is not identical with the statue made from it, therefore, does not imply that we have a cohabitation of two numerically different objects. (shrink)

This text is the ‘first draft” (erster Entwurf) of Edmund Husserl’s article for the 14th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. The text had four versions (A, B, C, D) and it received its final version after many months of work. This ‘first draft’ has a cognitive value as it reflects Husserl’s spontaneous intuitions about understanding of phenomenology and a phenomenological method in the vein of transcendental philosophy, which he has created, developed, improved and on and on modified.

This paper is about what might be called the philosophical tradition of ethics, and Wittgenstein’s opposition or hostility to that tradition. My aim will be to argue that ethics, or a large part of what we think of as ethics, is nonsense, and in doing so I shall be developing the line of argument that I take to lie behind Wittgenstein’s claim in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus that there can be no ethical propositions. That argument has its basis in the simple (...) thought that value is not arbitrary or accidental, and what I shall show is how thinking through what is involved in that thought leads to a radically different conception of the possibilities open to ethical thinking than that which is assumed within the prevailing conception of ethics today. (shrink)

After the 9/11 attacks the U.S. administration went beyond emergency response towards imperialism, but cloaked its agenda in the rhetoric of fighting ‘terrorists’ and ‘terrorism.’ After distinguishing between emergency thinking and emergency planning, I question the administration’s “war on terrorism” rhetoric in three stages. First, upon examining the post-9/11 antiterrorism discourse I find that it splits into two agendas: domestic, protect our infrastructure; and foreign, select military targets. Second, I review approaches to emergency planning already in place. Third, after reviewing (...) what philosophers have said about emergencies, I recommend they turn their attention to the biases inherent in and misleading uses of antiterrorist terminology. (shrink)

Fifty years ago, 23 Nazi physicians were defendants before a military tribunal in Nuremberg, charged with crimes against humanity. During that trial, the world learned of their personal roles in human experimentation with political and military prisoners, mass eugenic sterilizations, state-ordered euthanasia of the and the program of genocide we now know as the Holocaust. These physicians, and their colleagues who did not stand trial, were universally condemned in the free world as ethical pariahs. The term became the paradigm for (...) total defection from the most rudimentary elements of medical morality. The caduceus literally became the instrument of the swastika. (shrink)

John Wyclif has too frequently been described as "Morning Star of the Reformation" and only recently begun to be studied as a fourteenth-century English philosopher and theologian. This work draws on recent scholarship situating Wyclif in his fourteenth-century milieu to present a survey of his thought and writings as a coherent theological position arising from Oxford's "Golden Age" of theology. Lahey argues that many of Wyclif's best known critiques of the fourteenth-century Church arise from his philosophical commitment to an Augustinian (...) realism evocative of the thought of Robert Grosseteste and Anselm of Canterbury. This realism is comprehensible in terms of Wyclif's sustained focus on semantics and the properties of terms and propositions, a "linguistic turn" characterizing post-Ockham philosophical theology. Arising from this propositional realism is a strong emphasis on the place of Scripture in both formal and applied theology, which was the starting point for many of Wyclif's quarrels with the ecclesiastical status quo in late fourteenth-century England. This survey takes into account both Wyclif's earlier, philosophical works and his later works, including sermons and Scripture commentary. Wyclif's belief that Scripture is the eternal and perfect divine word, the paradigm of human discourse and the definitive embodiment of truth in creation is central to an understanding of the ties he believes relate theoretical and practical philosophy to theology. This connection links Wyclif's interest in the propositional structure of reality to his realism, his hermeneutic program, and to his agenda for reform of the Church. Lahey's survey also highlights Wyclif's rejection of Bradwardine's determinism in favor of a model of human freedom in light of God's perfect foreknowledge, and also explores the relation of Wyclif's spatiotemporal atomism to his rejection of transubstantiation. This is the first book-length, comprehensive survey of Wyclif's thought, and will be of interest to students of later medieval theology, philosophy, history, and literature. (shrink)

I assess the ethical content of Philip Roth's account of his father's final years with, and death from, a tumor. I apply this to criticisms of the nature and content of case reports in medicine. I also draw some implications about modernism, postmodernism and narrative understandings.

We present evidence supporting the target article's assertion that while the presentation of base-rate information in a natural frequency format can be helpful in enhancing sensitivity to base rates, method of presentation is not a panacea. Indeed, we review studies demonstrating that when subjects directly experience base rates as natural frequencies in a trial-by-trial setting, they evince large base-rate neglect.

[Collection title in Polish: Prace Naukoznawcze i Prognostvczne].

The globalization of and technological challenge to the world's workers generate profound ethical problems. Suitable solutions will require governments and civil societies to move beyond the modern tendencies to divinize property rights and base people's income eligibility almost exclusively on their work. Some attention is being paid to the issues involved therein so as to achieve better work/life balance. In some places, in fact, resource-based wealth has been distributed to all citizens, even to those not directly involved in generating the (...) wealth. To maintain and grow such arrangements will be difficult so long as traditional capitalist values like property rights and the work ethic remain dominant. Until this worldview is modified, only the independently wealthy will be able to live decent lives without engaging in wage work. But wageworkers' ability to find such work indefinitely is not assured. (shrink)