Explores "why we find spontaneity so elusive and shows how early Chinese philosophy points the way to happier, more authentic lives"--Dust jacket flap.

In this paper I am going to try to indicate my notion concerning the nature and subject-matter of psychology. I am a behaviorist. I hold that psychology does not seek descriptions and intercommunications concerning immediate experience per se. Such descriptions and attempts at direct intercommunications may be left to the arts and to metaphysics. Psychology seeks, rather, the objectively stateable laws and processes governing behavior. Organisms, human and sub-human, come up against environmental stimulus situations and to these stimulus situations they, (...) after longer or shorter intervals of time, behave. The laws and processes determining this their behavior are stateable in objective terms. Even in the cases where the organism is oneself, these determining causal factors can and must—for the purposes of psychology—be stated objectively. It is true that in these latter instances, in which the animal in question is oneself, one may in one's rôle, not of a psychologist, but of an artist or a metaphysician, attempt to describe and convey to another man one's own facts of immediate experience. But such a description and report of immediate experiences, except in so far as this report is itself a form of behavior and therefore like all other behaviors the basis for an investigation of the objective laws and processes underlying it, essentially new to the picture. Experience qua experience, while of concern and interest to the man in the street, the philosopher and the poet, does not enter as such into the laws and equations of psychology,—in so far, at any rate, as psychology is to be considered as a science. (shrink)

This original book brings together some of the world's leading critics of economics orthodoxy to debate Lawson's contribution to the economics literature.

It is proposed that the Darwinian theoretical approach and account of living systems has not yet been clearly given. A first approximation to this is attempted, focussing on behavior in evolving environments. A theoretical terminology is defined emphasizing the mutuality of organism and environment and the existence of biologically theoretical entities.

CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: A NEW UNIVERSITY AND THE CHALLENGE OF THE NEW SCIENCE Despite the recent and continuing controversy concerning the proper role of ...

This book is a treatise on time and on background independence in physics. It first considers how time is conceived of in each accepted paradigm of physics: Newtonian, special relativity, quantum mechanics (QM) and general relativity (GR). Substantial differences are moreover uncovered between what is meant by time in QM and in GR. These differences jointly source the Problem of Time: Nine interlinked facets which arise upon attempting concurrent treatment of the QM and GR paradigms, as is required in particular (...) for a background independent theory of quantum gravity. A sizeable proportion of current quantum gravity programs - e.g. geometrodynamical and loop quantum gravity approaches to quantum GR, quantum cosmology, supergravity and M-theory - are background independent in this sense. This book's foundational topic is thus furthermore of practical relevance in the ongoing development of quantum gravity programs. This book shows moreover that eight of the nine facets of the Problem of Time already occur upon entertaining background independence in classical (rather than quantum) physics. By this development, and interpreting shape theory as modelling background independence, this book further establishes background independence as a field of study. Background independent mechanics, as well as minisuperspace (spatially homogeneous) models of GR and perturbations thereabout are used to illustrate these points. As hitherto formulated, the different facets of the Problem of Time greatly interfere with each others' attempted resolutions. This book explains how, none the less, a local resolution of the Problem of Time can be arrived at after various reconceptualizations of the facets and reformulations of their mathematical implementation. Self-contained appendices on mathematical methods for basic and foundational quantum gravity are included. Finally, this book outlines how supergravity is refreshingly different from GR as a realization of background independence, and what background independence entails at the topological level and beyond. (shrink)

We present the first large-scale, quantitative examination of mind and body concepts in a set of historical sources by measuring the predictions of folk mind–body dualism against the surviving textual corpus of pre-Qin (pre-221 BCE) China. Our textual analysis found clear patterns in the historically evolving reference of the word xin (heart/heart–mind): It alone of the organs was regularly contrasted with the physical body, and during the Warring States period it became less associated with emotions and increasingly portrayed as the (...) unique locus of “higher” cognitive abilities. We interpret this as a semantic shift toward a shared cognitive bias in response to a vast and rapid expansion of literacy. Our study helps test the proposed universality of folk dualism, adds a new quantitative approach to the methods used in the humanities, and opens up a new and valuable data source for cognitive scientists: the record of dead minds. (shrink)

We agree with Heyes that an explanation of human uniqueness must appeal to cultural evolution, and not just genes. Her account, though, focuses narrowly on internal cognitive mechanisms. This causes her to mischaracterize human behavior and to overlook the role of material culture. A more powerful account would view cognitive gadgets as spanning organisms and their (shared) environments.

Omniscience is the divine attribute of possessing complete or unlimited knowledge. This article examines motivations for taking such a property to be a divine attribute, attempts to define or analyse omniscience, possible limitations on the extent of divine knowledge, and, finally, objections either to the coherence of the concept or to its compatibility with other divine attributes or with widely accepted claims.

IMAGINING and remembering, two of the most frequent and fundamental acts of mind, have long been unwelcome guests in most of the many mansions of philosophy. When not simply ignored or over-looked, they have been considered only to be dismissed. This is above all true of imagination, as first becomes evident in Plato’s view that the art of making exact images tends to degenerate into the making of mere semblances. Kant, despite the importance he gives to imagination in the first (...) edition of The Critique of Pure Reason, nevertheless considers images to be lowly "monograms" that are unruly and thus untrustworthy. In more recent times, Sartre, who is nearly as ambivalent as Kant on the subject, has stressed imagination’s "essential poverty"—its character as "debased thought"—while Ryle, in covert counterpoint, has attempted to conceive imagining as parody and pretense: as mere make-believe. (shrink)

In ____Selves in Discord and Resolve__, Edward Mooney examines the Wittgensteinian and deconstructive accounts of subjectivity to illuminate the rich legacy left by Kierkegaard's representation of the self in modes of self-understanding and self-articulation. Mooney situates Kierkegaard in the context of a post-Nietzschean crisis of individualism, and evokes the Socratric influences on Kierkegaard's thinking and shows how Kierkegaard's philsophy relies upon the Socratic care for the soul. He examines Kierkegaard's work on Judge Wilhelm, from _Either/Or,_ Socrates, in the _Postscript_ (...) and Abraham and Job in _Repetition_ and _Fear and Trembling_. (shrink)

The recent transnational wave of destruction that was caused by the earthquake-induced tsunamis in South East Asia has raised the issue of global justice in terms of the rights of victims to expect aid relief and the moral responsibility of the rest of the world to provide it. In this paper I will discuss the issue of global ethics in terms of positive rights that people have to assistance from others when they cannot provide such assistance themselves. The main object (...) of the paper is to demonstrate that positive rights are universal and global in scope and cannot therefore be restricted by any national, religious, cultural or other social boundaries. Such rights provide a rational and ethical foundation for global justice that is cosmopolitan. The argument for the position offered in the paper will be broadly based on the moral philosophy of Alan Gewirth.1. (shrink)

Tracing a path through Kierkegaard's writings, this book brings the reader into contact with various texts and purposes of this remarkable 19th century Danish writer and thinker. It sketches Kierkegaard's unfolding polyphonic humanistic self before embarking on a thematic tour of five of Kierkegaard's major texts. Tracing a path through Kierkegaard's writings, this book brings the reader into close contact with various texts and purposes of this remarkable 19th century Danish writer and thinker. Kierkegaard writes in a number of voices (...) and registers of concern, sometimes as a sharp observer and critic of Danish culture, at times as a moral psychologist and sometimes Kierkegaard's main concern is the evocation of a religious way of life. These multi fold concerns are close to contemporary struggles to understand self and self-development, the interweaving of spiritual concerns with the fabric of everyday life, the fragility of self and the openness of the human to artistic, moral, and religious modes of expression, in moments of insight and conflict. In developing these themes, Mooney sketches what he calls Kierkegaard's unfolding polyphonic humanistic self before embarking on a thematic tour of five of Kierkegaard's major texts, "Either/Or through Discourses" conveying throughout, a sympathy with much of Kierkegaard's accomplishments. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

EVER SINCE Plato declared imagining to be mere pseudo- or shadow-knowing—a form of eikasia, the lowest species of mental activity—Western philosophers have striven to put imagination in its place: a strictly subordinate place. With the exception of isolated figures such as Vico, Collingwood, and Bachelard, philosophers have denounced imagining for its digressiveness and excoriated it for its evasiveness, though sometimes surreptitiously admiring it for these very qualities. At the same time, and as part of the same deprecatory tactic, invidious comparisons (...) have been instituted between imagining and supposedly superior psychical activities. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, for example, the paradigm was pure thinking, over against which imagining appeared as deceitful and mendacious—as "the mistress of falsehood and error" in Pascal’s classic complaint. Even Kant, for all of his attention to imagination as a source of synthesis, considered the image to be "a mere set of particular qualities, determined by no assignable rule"—in contrast with the determinacy and rule-bound character of pure concepts. Kant, as much as Descartes or Pascal, Malebranche or Mersenne, Spinoza or Leibniz, would agree with Heidegger’s stern verdict that philosophical thinking is "charmless and image-poor.". (shrink)

Transcript of lectures delivered at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, 1996.

A unique multilevel perspective-structural social psychology-is explicated to help build theoretical bridges between micro and macro levels of analysis in sociology. The perspective portrays actors (human or corporate) as having minimal properties of purposiveness and responsiveness, encounters as interaction episodes between multiple actors, microstructures as local patterns of interaction emerging from and subsequently influencing encounters, and macrostructures as networks of social positions. These levels of analysis are connected via mutually contingent processes. Applying these assumptions, we illustrate the ability of the (...) framework to strengthen the macrosociological import of micro theories of power, status, and justice. We argue that structural social psychology is an important metatheoretical strategy for developing testable connections between individual and collective units of sociological analysis. (shrink)

One of the strongest arguments for the incompatibility of divine foreknowledge and human free action appeals to the apparent fixity or necessity of the past. Two leading responses to the argument—Ockhamism, which denies a premiss of the argument, and the so-called “eternity solution”, which holds that strictly speaking God does not have foreknowledge—have both come under attack on similar grounds. Neither response, it is alleged, is adequate to the case of divine prophecy. In this paper I shall first state the (...) argument in question and the two responses to it. I shall then consider objections to these responses, focusing primarily on how they deal with prophecy. (shrink)

avant propos This paper is basically Keenan (1992) augmented by some new types of properly polyadic quantification in natural language drawn from Moltmann (1992), Nam (1991) and Srivastav (1990). In addition I would draw the reader's attention to recent mathematical studies of polyadic quantiicationz Ben-Shalom (1992), Spaan (1992) and Westerstahl (1992). The first and third of these extend and generalize (in some cases considerably) the techniques and results in Keenan (1992). Finally I would like to acknowledge the stimulating and constructive (...) discussions ofthe earlier paper with many scholars, notably Dorit Ben-Shalom, Jaap van der Does, Hans Kamp, Uwe Mormich, Arnim von Stechow, Mats Rooth, and Ede Zimmermann. And I repeat here the acknowledgment in the earlier paper to Jim Lambek, Ed Stabler and two anonymous referees for Linguistics and Philosophy (the latter responsible for substantial improvements in the proofs - see footnote 10). (shrink)

HAMILTON WORRIED THAT THERE WERE REPRESENTATIVE ELEMENTS\nIN REID'S EPISTEMOLOGY, WHILE J S MILL FLATLY CHARACTERIZED\nTHE SCOT AS A REPRESENTATIVE REALIST. I ARGUE THAT HAMILTON\nAND MILL WERE MISTAKEN AND THAT THEIR MISTAKES AROSE FROM\nAN INSUFFICIENT UNDERSTANDING AND APPRECIATION OF THE\nNATIVISTIC ELEMENTS OF THE UNDERSTANDING INTRODUCED BY\nREID; AND TO INSUFFICIENT AWARENESS OF REID'S\nCHARACTERIZATION OF PERCEPTION AS ACTIVE IN CONTRAST TO\nBRITISH EMPIRICIST RELIANCE ON A PASSIVELY GIVEN EPISTEMIC\nBASE. REID REJECTED EVERY VARIETY OF THE "MESSENGER"\nTHEORY.

How humans and technology evolve together in a creative partnership. In this book, Edward Ashford Lee makes a bold claim: that the creators of digital technology have an unsurpassed medium for creativity. Technology has advanced to the point where progress seems limited not by physical constraints but the human imagination. Writing for both literate technologists and numerate humanists, Lee makes a case for engineering—creating technology—as a deeply intellectual and fundamentally creative process. Explaining why digital technology has been so transformative (...) and so liberating, Lee argues that the real power of technology stems from its partnership with humans. Lee explores the ways that engineers use models and abstraction to build inventive artificial worlds and to give us things that we never dreamed of—for example, the ability to carry in our pockets everything humans have ever published. But he also attempts to counter the runaway enthusiasm of some technology boosters who claim everything in the physical world is a computation—that even such complex phenomena as human cognition are software operating on digital data. Lee argues that the evidence for this is weak, and the likelihood that nature has limited itself to processes that conform to today's notion of digital computation is remote. Lee goes on to argue that artificial intelligence's goal of reproducing human cognitive functions in computers vastly underestimates the potential of computers. In his view, technology is coevolving with humans. It augments our cognitive and physical capabilities while we nurture, develop, and propagate the technology itself. Complementarity is more likely than competition. (shrink)

David Johnston 's Rejoinder to my defense of Hayek's critique of social justice, though it has the merit of attempting to deal with Hayek's claim that the very idea of social justice is incoherent, fails to undermine that defense. Johnston 's suggested counterexample to Hayek's claim that talk of an injustice presupposes an agency responsible for the injustice is not even prima facie plausible; he overlooks crucial disanalogies between the pursuit of social justice and the pursuit of other social goals; (...) and he fails to understand the distinction between Hayek's case against social justice and his case for the market. (shrink)