Preface and Postscript Combining a Preface with a Postscript seems a particularly apposite way to introduce (and conclude) a collection of essays on ...

What happens when we glance around a room? How do we trust what we see in fleeting moments? In The World at a Glance, Edward S. Casey describes how glancing counts for more of human perception than previously imagined. An entire universe is perceived in a glance, but our quick and uncommitted attention prevents examination of these rapid acts and processes. While breaking down this paradox, Casey surveys the glance as an essential way by which we acquaint ourselves with (...) the world. This experiential tour-de-force reveals what happens in a blink of an eye. It will become a landmark study in phenomenology, philosophy, environmental philosophy, and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

I The Question of the Authenticity of Responsibility The Prima Facie Explanatory Value of Rational Action When we act, something comes into being : in the...

In the course of his long development, Kant's concept of matter changed somewhat, while his concept of scientific explanation changed considerably. Both developments achieved a coherent integration in Kant's Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Using this developmental background, the present paper argues that the Foundations should be interpreted as an attempted rational reconstruction of the mechanics of Newton and Euler. Kant attempted to do this by constructing a concept of matter that would confer a Leibnizian intelligibility on Newtonian mechanics, and (...) also accord with Kant's theories on the nature of concepts and their role in scientific explanation. (shrink)

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)

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

Discusses Indian Buddhist philosophy in three phases of its development.

This paper explicates secular psychodynamic growth through the life time and meditation as routes to the transpersonal from the perspective of evolutionary developmental biology, based around a multi-line model of growth. A multi-line model raises many significant points for a transpersonal audience. Such models have been pioneered by Hunt. When set on the footing of evolutionary developmental biology and nonlinear dynamics these kind of models become all the more cogent, penetrating and far reaching, validating plurality and diversity in both the (...) process and final form of transpersonal development. The "anecdotal" accounts which Hunt reports, and which this paper adds to, can thus be amalgamated with an established and sophisticated research program . Such developments are symptomatic of a general movement in the sciences towards a non-linear paradigm, to which the transpersonal movement might have been slow to respond. (shrink)

The concept of epistemic injustice is the latest philosophical tool with which to try to theorise what goes wrong when mental health service users are not listened to by clinicians, and what goes right when they are. Is the tool adequate to the task? It is argued that, to be applicable at all, the concept needs some adjustment so that being disbelieved as a result of prejudice is one of a family of alternative necessary conditions for its application, rather than (...) a necessary condition all on its own. It is then argued that even once adjusted in this way, the concept does not fit well in the area where the biggest efforts have been made to apply it so far, namely the highly sensitive case of adult patients suffering from delusions. Indeed it does not serve the interests of service users struggling for recognition to try to apply it in this context, because there is so much more to being listened to than simply being believed. However, the concept is found to apply smoothly in many cases where the service users are children, for example, in relation to children’s testimony on the efficacy of treatment. It is suggested that further research would demonstrate the usefulness of the concept in adult cases of a similar kind. There are no data in this work. (shrink)

In 1759, at the height of the Seven Years' War, when Great Britain was suffering a series of military reversals, Montagu considered his country's plight in an historical context formed by the study of five ancient republics: Sparta, Athens, Thebes, Carthage, and Rome. Montagu's focus on the ancient republics gives his contribution a distinctive twist to the chorus of voices lamenting Britain's decline, and his analysis exerted influence in three momentous eighteenth-century crises: the Seven Years' War, the American War of (...) Independence, and the French Revolution. This is the first modern edition of Montagu's work. Edward Wortley Montagu (1713 -1776) was the son of a wealthy British Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire and of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. He was a student of oriental languages at the University of Leiden, which apparently proved useful during the peace negotiations at Aix-la-Chapelle which concluded the War of the Austrian Succession in 1748. David Womersley is the Thomas Warton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford. He has published widely on English literature from the early sixteenth to the early nineteenth centuries. He is the editor of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (2012) for Cambridge University Press. (shrink)

This article clarifies Bohr's position by focusing on the work he did in nuclear physics and scattering theory.

The author resolves a conflict between Frege's view that the cognitive significance of coreferential names may be distinct and Kaplan's view that since coreferential names have the same "character", they have the same cognitive significance. A distinction is drawn between an expression's "character" and its "cognitive character". The former yields the denotation of an expression relative to a context (and individual); the latter yields the abstract sense of an expression relative to a context (and individual). Though coreferential names have the (...) same character, they may have distinct cognitive characters. Propositions involving these abstract senses play an important role in explaining de dicto belief contexts. (shrink)

In this wide-ranging book, Brian Davies discusses the basis for scientists' claims to knowledge about the world. He looks at science historically, emphasizing not only the achievements of scientists from Galileo onwards, but also their mistakes. He rejects the claim that all scientific knowledge is provisional, by citing examples from chemistry, biology and geology. A major feature of the book is its defense of the view that mathematics was invented rather than discovered. A large number of examples are used to (...) illustrate these points, and many of the deep issues in today's world discussed-from psychology and evolution to quantum theory, consciousness and even religious belief. Disentangling knowledge from opinion and aspiration is a hard task, but this book provided a clear guide to the difficulties. (shrink)

This essay examines the terms of the Judicial Oath sworn by the judges in the Athenian courts during the classical period. There is general agreement that the oath contained four basic clauses: to vote in accordance to the laws and decrees of the Athenian people, to vote about matters pertaining to the charge, to listen to both the accuser and defendant equally, and to vote or judge with one’s most fair judgment . Some scholars believe that the fourth clause gave (...) judges the right to vote according to their conscience and to ignore the law if they found it unjust. The first part of the essay shows that this clause gave judges the right to make decisions solely on the basis of their most just judgment only where the laws gave no clear guidance. It was a default clause invoked only twice in the extant orations; it was never used as justification to ignore the written laws. The second part addresses the view that the courts took political factors into account during trials. Although some trials involved leading politicians, the courts were bound by their oath to decide whether the defendant was guilty of the charge brought by the accuser. The only part of a trial where a defendant might mention his political achievements or his public largesse was at during the assessment of the penalty in a trial on a public charge. (shrink)

While acknowledging that Pierre Boulez is not a philosopher, and that he is wary of the potential misuse of philosophy with regard to music, this study investigates a series of philosophically charged terms and concepts which he uses in discussion of his music. Campbell examines significant encounters which link Boulez to the work of a number of important philosophers and thinkers, including Adorno, Lévi-Strauss, Eco and Deleuze. Relating Boulez's music and ideas to broader currents of thought, the book illuminates a (...) number of affinities linking music and philosophy, and also literature and visual art. These connections facilitate enhanced understanding of post-war modernist music and Boulez's distinctive approach to composition. Drawing on a wide range of previously unpublished documentary sources and providing musical analysis of a number of key scores, the book traces the changing musical, philosophical and intellectual currents which inform Boulez's work. (shrink)

Some philosophers worry that it can never be reasonable to act simply on the basis of trust, yet you act on the basis of self-trust whenever you merely follow through on one of your own intentions. It is no more reasonable to follow through on an intention formed by an untrustworthy earlier self of yours than it is to act on the advice of an untrustworthy interlocutor. But reasonable mistrust equally presupposes untrustworthiness in the mistrusted, or evidence thereof. The concept (...) of an intention, I argue, codifies the fact that practical reason rests on a capacity for reasonable trust. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: References and Further Reading.

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.