The intentionality of sensation -- The first person -- Substance -- The subjectivity of sensation -- Events in the mind -- Comments on Professor R.L. Gregory's paper on perception -- On sensations of position -- Intention -- Pretending -- On the grammar of "Enjoy" -- The reality of the past -- Memory, "experience," and causation -- Causality and determination -- Times, beginnings, and causes -- Soft determinism -- Causality and extensionality -- Before and after -- Subjunctive conditionals -- "Under a (...) description" -- Analysis competition--tenth problem -- A reply to Mr. C.S. Lewis's argument that "naturalism" is self-refuting. (shrink)

Thora Ilin Bayer - Freedom and Tradition in Hegel: Reconsidering Anthropology, Ethics, and Religion - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:2 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.2 322-323 Thomas A. Lewis. Freedom and Tradition in Hegel: Reconsidering Anthropology, Ethics, and Religion. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005. Pp. xiii + 258. Cloth, $32.50. Central to the purpose of this book is an examination of Hegel's conception of ethics. This examination is most welcome because between (...) Hugh Reyburn's early The Ethical Theory of Hegel and Allen Wood's more recent Hegel's Ethical Thought , there has not been a great amount of attention given directly to the significance of.. (shrink)

In diesem Aufsatz geht der Autor der Frage nach, ob und in wiefern die theologische Annahme, daß das Christusgeschehen paradigmatisch für den Begriff des Handeln Gottes ist, verständlich ist. Der Verfasser analysiert dafür die Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung und versucht die christologischen Konsequenzen der verschiedene Interpretationen für die Konstruktion eines Modells des Handeln Gottes herauszufinden. Er benützt Gedanken geschichtsphilosophischer Art um eine solche Ausdehnung der Vorstellung des Christusgeschehens zu verteidigen, daß auch andere Zeiten als das erste Jahrhundert einzuschließen sind. Damit zeigt (...) der Verfasser, daß Lessings Problem des garstigen Grabens und viele Formen der Leben-Jesu-Forschung theologisch von falschen Fragestellungen ausgehen. (shrink)

Introduction : interpreting The new science -- Synopsis of universal law -- The true and the certain : from On the one principle and one end of universal law -- A new science is essayed : from On the constancy of the jurisprudent -- On Homer and his two poems : from the dissertations -- Vico's address to his readers from a lost manuscript on jurisprudence -- Vico's reply to the false book notice : the Vici vindiciae -- Vico's "ignota (...) latebat" : on the impresa and the dipintura -- Vico's addition to the tree of the poetic sciences and his use of the muses -- Vico's reprehension of the metaphysics of René Descartes, Benedict Spinoza, and John Locke -- Appendix : Vico's writings in English translation. (shrink)

-- v. 2. Metaphysics and the philosophy of mind.

I IT is often declared or evidently assumed that causality is some kind of necessary connexion, or alternatively, that being caused is — non-trivially ...

“Punishment,” writes J. E. McTaggart, “ is pain and to inflict pain on any person obviously [requires] justification.” But if the need to justify punishment is obvious, the manner of doing so is not. Philosophers have developed an array of diverse, often conflicting arguments to justify punitive institutions. Gertrude Ezorsky introduces this source book of significant historical and contemporary philosophical writings on problems of punishment with her own article, “The Ethics of Punishment.” She brings together systematically the important papers and (...) relevant studies from psychology, law, and literature, and organizes them under five subtopics: concepts of punishment, the justification of punishment, strict liability, the death penalty, and alternatives to punishment. Under these general headings forty-two papers are presented to give philosophical perspectives on punishment. Included are many not generally available. This book brings together in a single volume the views of such diverse writers as Plato, St. Thomas Aquinas, Samuel Butler, Karl Marx, and Lady Barbara Wooten. Others are J. Andenaes, K. G. Armstrong, John Austin, Kurt Baier, Jeremy Bentham, F. H. Bradley, Richard Brandt, Clarence Darrow, A. C. Ewing, Joel Feinberg, “The Hon. Mr. Gilpin,” H. L. A. Hart, G. W. F. Hegel, Thomas Hobbs, Immanuel Kant, J. D. Mabbott, H. J. McCloskey, J. E. McTaggart, R. Martinson, G. E. Moore, Herbert Morris, Anthony Quinton, D. Daiches Raphael, H. Rashdall, John Rawls, W. D. Ross, Royal Commission on Capital Punishment Report 1949–53, George Bernard Shaw, T. L. S. Sprigge, and R. Wasserstrom. (shrink)

Chapter 1 Introduction How are participants associated with the eventualities they participate in? Are there events? Thematic roles? ...

Cognitive values like simplicity, broad scope, and easy handling are properties of a scientific representation that result from the idealization which is involved in the construction of a representation. These properties may facilitate the application of epistemic values to credibility assessments, which provides a rationale for assigning an auxiliary function to cognitive values. In this paper, I defend a further rationale for cognitive values which consists in the assessment of the usefulness of a representation. Usefulness includes the relevance of a (...) representation regarding the investigation of a given problem and its practicability for the users. This rationale builds on the claim that any evaluation of scientific representations should pursue two aims: providing information about their credibility and providing information about their usefulness. Cognitive values relating to the usefulness of a representation and epistemic values relating to its credibility both perform a first-order function. Cognitive values are abstract, and several values with first-order functions may conflict in their application. Thus, in order for cognitive values to account for the sort of problem that is to be investigated by means of a representation, they need to be appropriately specified and weighed. Comprehensiveness, complexity, high resolution, and easy handling, for instance, may be required in a first-order function for model-based prediction of regional climate impacts but not for explaining how the global climate system works. Specifying and weighing cognitive and epistemic values relative to a given problem is a legitimate second-order function of social values. (shrink)

Both traditional and naturalistic epistemologists have long assumed that the examination of human psychology has no relevance to the prescriptive goal of traditional epistemology, that of providing first-person guidance in determining the truth. Contrary to both, I apply insights about the psychology of human perception and concept-formation to a very traditional epistemological project: the foundationalist approach to the epistemic regress problem. I argue that direct realism about perception can help solve the regress problem and support a foundationalist account of justification, (...) but only if it is supplemented by an abstractionist theory of concept-formation, the view that it is possible to abstract concepts directly from the empirically given. Critics of direct realism like Laurence BonJour are correct that an account of direct perception by itself does not provide an adequate account of justification. However a direct realist account of perception can inform the needed theory of concept-formation, and leading critics of abstractionism like McDowell and Sellars, direct realists about perception themselves, fail to appreciate the ways in which their own views about perception help fill gaps in earlier accounts of abstractionism. Recognizing this undercuts both their objections to abstractionism and (therefore) their objections to foundationalism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Classification and Explanation in Aristotle’s Theory of DefinitionGreg Bayer1. introductiona problem lies at the heart of Aristotle’s theory of definition. On the one hand, Aristotle says in Topics VI.4 that “the one who defines well must define by means of genus1 and differentia” (141b25–7); indeed his view of definition most often seems to be confined to its role of picking out the definiendum by indicating the class it belongs (...) to—what can be called its “class definition.”2 But on the other hand, in Posterior Analytics II.2 he makes the pronouncement that “knowing what something is ” is the same as knowing why it is ” (90a31–2), and then goes on in II.2 and 8 to argue that definition is an, “explanation” or “explanatory principle.” How can these two notions of definition be reconciled?Short of giving the full Aristotelian solution to this problem, I hope here to suggest one way in which Aristotle’s notion of class definition—especially the reformed version presented in De Partibus Animalium I.2–4—can be shown to relate to his notion of explanatory definition in APo II. The link is his notion of scientific, “problems,” as discussed in APo II. 14 and elsewhere.3 It will turn out that a class definition in effect presents a scientific problem to the scientist which can best be solved by an explanation—ultimately by an “explanatory definition”—accounting for the attributes that form the basis of [End Page 487] class membership. Or more succinctly: the class definition presents a problem that the explanatory definition solves. Further, although the discussion in PA I is meant to be a reform of the simpler but unworkable method of arriving at the genus-differentia formula based upon, “division,” I intend to argue that an important ancillary benefit of the reformed method is that it is capable of articulating scientific problems in a much clearer way than division can. In fact, it seems very well suited to the task of presenting problems and hence to the task of searching for explanatory definitions.2. scientific problemsIn APo II. 14, Aristotle begins to outline the proper procedure for formulating scientific problems. We are told that “in order to obtain problems, we must pick out the sections 4 and divisions” of the subject we are investigating, about which we are formulating a problem (98a1–3). That is, we must learn to pick out each genus in the hierarchy of genera the subject belongs to by learning to identify the attributes associated with each of these genera. This will enable us to account for each attribute we find in the subject under investigation in terms of the genus the attribute is primarily associated with. As Aristotle explains: “Let A stand for animal, B for [an attribute] of every animal, and C, D, and E some particular animal [species]; it is clear why B belongs to D—because of A” (98a9–11).This, in a sense, shows one way a scientific problem—Why does attribute B belong to D?—can be “solved”: by finding the right “division” of D that accounts for its having B. But what is important to note here is that, in fact, our investigation only begins with this process of finding the right genus. This is simply how we “obtain” the problem, strictly speaking, not the means for ultimately solving it. Indeed the problem of accounting for why an attribute belongs to a given subject is not even completely formulated until we are able to determine the proper “division,” or genus, the attribute universally belongs to. Then we can ask the more fundamental question of why the attribute belongs to this genus, i.e., why B belongs to genus A. Now this question can be analyzed further, in terms of the other attributes of the genus. Any genus (or infima species) is, in effect, designated by a regular concomitance of the many attributes that identify it—i.e., attributes that universally co-occur in it. So the scientific problem we are formulating, regarding why a certain attribute belongs to a certain subject, ultimately should be reformulated in this way: Why does... (shrink)

ABSTRACT As bioethics emerged in the 1960s and 1970s and began to have enormous impacts on the practice of medicine and research – fuelled, by broad socio‐political changes that gave rise to the struggle of women, African Americans, gay men and lesbians, and the antiauthoritarian impulse that characterised the New Left in democratic capitalist societies – little attention was given to the question of the ethics of public health. This was all the more striking since the core values and practices (...) of public health, often entailing the subordination of the individual for the common good, seemed opposed to the ideological impulses of bioethics. Of what relevance is autonomy‐focused bioethics for public health, with its mix of justifications including those that are either implicitly or explicitly paternalistic or that seek to impose strictures on individuals and communities in the name of collective welfare? To examine the deep divide between the central commitments of bioethics and the values that animate the practice of public health, we focus on a series of controversies implicating the concepts of privacy, liberty, and paternalism. Recognising the role of moral values in decision‐making was a signal contribution of bioethics in its formative period. Over the past three decades a broad array of perspectives emerged under the rubric of bioethics but individualism remains central. As we commence the process of shaping an ethics of public health, it is clear that bioethics is the wrong place to start when thinking about the balances required in defence of the public's health. (shrink)

One of our most distinguished intellectual historians gives us a brilliant revisionist history. The Roads to Modernity reclaims the Enlightenment–an extraordinary time bursting with new ideas about the human condition in the realms of politics, society, and religion–from historians who have downgraded its importance and from scholars who have given preeminence to the Enlightenment in France over concurrent movements in England and America. Contrasting the Enlightenments in the three nations, Gertrude Himmelfarb demonstrates the primacy of the British and the wisdom (...) and foresight of thinkers such as Adam Smith, David Hume, Thomas Paine, the Earl of Shaftesbury, Edward Gibbon, and Edmund Burke, who established its unique character and historic importance. It is this Enlightenment, she argues, that created a moral and social philosophy–humane, compassionate, and realistic–that still resonates strongly today, in America perhaps even more so than in Europe. This is an illuminating contribution to the history of ideas. (shrink)

This paper highlights an important distinction underlying the possibility of inquiry, between first _identifying the subject of inquiry and ultimately _explaining it: that the former can be achieved before and without the latter is a presupposition of inquiry. I believe Aristotle is keenly aware of this in _Posterior Analytics, II.8, where he shows how a scientific demonstration can "manifest" a definition. I argue that such a demonstration consists of two sorts of syllogisms, one identifying the definiendum, the other explaining it. (...) Further, this distinction is tied in crucial ways to two others: between existence and essence, and between particular and universal. (shrink)

Based on a framework that distinguishes several types, roles and functions of values in science, we discuss legitimate applications of values in the validation of computer simulations. We argue that, first, epistemic values, such as empirical accuracy and coherence with background knowledge, have the role to assess the credibility of simulation results, whereas, second, cognitive values, such as comprehensiveness of a conceptual model or easy handling of a numerical model, have the role to assess the usefulness of a model for (...) investigating a hypothesis. In both roles, values perform what we call first-order functions. In addition, cogni¬tive values may also serve an auxiliary function by facilitating the assessment of credibility. As for a third type of values, i.e. social values, their legitimate role consists in specifying and weighing epistemic and cognitive values with respect to practical uses of a simulation, which is considered a second-order function. Rational intersubjective agreement on how to specify and weigh the different values is supposed to ensure objectivity in simulation validation. (shrink)

Religion, environment, tradition, needs, and character determine the framework of people's eating habits. In this context, a special area is reserved for nutrition in the Qur'an. One of the prominent words in the relevant field is “rizq,” referring to things that Allah gives to all creatures for their own benefit. Broadly, children, spouse, action, knowledge, and wisdom can also be evaluated in this context. This study aims to reach detailed data on the subject by examining the verses where the word (...) rizq is mentioned in Surah al-Baqara in terms of language and rhetoric. In every language, but especially in the Arabic language, the words that make up the sentences, the forms of the words, the syntax of the sentence, the forms of expression, and the style are important while determining the meaning. First, the comparison method was applied in the determination of the eloquence subtleties that were taken as a basis in the study. By this method, we compared verses, sentences, and words with other related verses and possible/fictional sentences in different linguistic dimensions; determined the differences between them, and tested the results by applying them to the relevant text. Considering every linguistic structure in the Qur'anic style and investigating its meaning is essential for understanding the Qur'an. In such a reading, the presence as well as the absence of language elements should be taken into consideration and used effectively in determining the meaning. The words used in the Qur'an are fundamental because their presence or absence, the structure of words that they are used together, and the whole text constitute an important and different aspect of the conveyed message. In this paper, ten verses where the word rizq is mentioned in Surah al-Baqara are examined within the framework of the study method. Their application provides examples to a certain extent for the understanding of the specified method. Various data has been obtained about the concept of rizq as reflected in general social life. As rizq, the foods must be healthy and tasty as well as halal in terms of their ingredients and acquisition. The desire for foods of human body may vary according to various factors. However, prohibitions on food are based on reasonable, scientific, or religious reasons. The moral and philosophical dimensions of the subject are always present in the background of these justifications. One of the duties assigned to human beings is to obtain rizq within the framework of the possibilities and capabilities given to them in the world and to distribute it, if any, to those they are responsible for, creatures, and other needy people. It is a requirement of faith to utilize the rizq by considering its raison for existence and to ensure that the way of acquisition is legal and ethical. Legitimate acquisition, sharing, and distribution of what is acquired is primarily related to the sense of conscience. Therefore, it is not in the nature of faith to interfere with what is given to animals, plants, and other people as rizq. From this point of view, infaq plays an important role in understanding the concept of rizq. The Qur'an strongly expresses the desire of man to be fair and generous in the sharing of rizq. (shrink)

Parmenides, mystery and contradiction -- The early theory of forms -- The new theory of forms -- Understanding proofs : Meno, 85d₉-86c₂, continued -- Aristotle and the sea battle -- The principle of individuation -- Thought and action in Aristotle -- Necessity and truth -- Hume and Julius Caesar -- "Whatever has a beginning of existence must have a cause" : Hume's argument exposed -- Will and emotion -- Retraction -- The question of linguistic idealism.

Studies of local knowledge and farmer participatory research tend to focus on raising crops and livestock. Little attention is given to processing and marketing farm products, an important source of income for rural households, particularly women.This article presents the case of an investigation into processing and marketing of milk products by agropastoral Fulani women, which revealed how the women under stand local market forces and recognize important social and even local political functions of their marketing activities. However, it also revealed (...) the limits of their knowledge about how the local economy interlinks with national and international economies.Reasons are examined why the study did not lead to local technical and institutional development in dairying. Differentiation is made between two types of research: “extractive” research to provide information for development planners and academics; and participatory or “enriching” research, in which data collection, analysis, and reporting are done with rural people, to use in their own problem-solving. It is argued that “enriching” research should be aimed at increasing rural people's present knowledge, so that they can better understand and cope with external influences on their activities. They could then better defend their own interests against the macroplanning State.Finally, the ethics of documenting the research results are questioned. Documentation of conventional research is primarily for empowerment and enrichment of the extractive economic and academic systems. But there is also a danger that wider dissemination of results of participatory research and local knowledge will not benefit the rural participants but rather strengthen the information base of planners, so that they can better manipulate local economies. (shrink)

Objective: To describe the professional values of the nurse lectures according to 241 nursing students, who participated voluntarily, in three different universities of Bogotá. Methodology: This is a quantitative, descriptive cross-sectional study that applied the Nurses Professional Values Scale—permission secured—Spanish; three dimensions of values were applied: ethics, commitment, and professional knowledge. Ethical consideration: Project had ethical review and approval from an ethics committee and participants were given information sheets to read before they agreed to participate in the project. Findings: It (...) was concluded that nursing students, in general, do perceive these values in their professors, and they give priority to the dimension of ethics, followed by the knowledge dimension, and finally, commitment. Discussion: It is evident that professional values are transmitted by professors and students place importance to such values. Values related to the other’s care are paramount in nursing training in Colombia as well as in other countries. Conclusion: It was found that participating students observed professors directly in relation to values focused on direct patient care, respect for privacy, respect for life, while matters related to professional improvement, participation in unions were not actually analyzed may be due to poor promotion activities and unions during undergraduate studies. The results obtained are primary approach to the study of values related to nursing, a topic which needs to be researched, something vital to all the country offering nursing training programs. (shrink)

Statements’ rated truth increases when people encounter them repeatedly. Processing fluency is a central variable to explain this truth effect. However, people experience processing fluency positively, and these positive experiences might cause the truth effect. Three studies investigated positivity and fluency influences on the truth effect. Study 1 found correlations between elicited positive feelings and rated truth. Study 2 replicated the repetition-based truth effect, but positivity did not influence the effect. Study 3 conveyed positive and negative correlations between positivity and (...) truth in a learning phase. We again replicated the truth effect, but positivity only influenced judgments for easy statements in the learning phase. Thus, across three studies, we found positivity effects on rated truth, but not on the repetition-based truth effect: We conclude that positivity does not explain the standard truth effect, but the role of positive experiences for truth judgments deserves further investigation. (shrink)