We report the results of an experiment on how individual risk taking clusters together when subjects are informed of peers’ previous risk taking decisions. Subjects are asked how much of their endowment they wish to allocate in a lottery in which there is a 50% chance the amount they invest will be tripled and a 50% chance their investment will be lost. We use a 2 × 2 factorial design varying: (i) whether the subjects initially observed high or low investment (...) social anchors, (ii) whether information about the investment decisions of other subjects in their social group is provided. We find strong evidence that individuals' risk taking decisions are malleable to that of their peers, which in turn leads to social clustering of risk taking. Social anchors shape initial risk taking, with mean investment then converging to a high level across treatments. (shrink)

We paraphrase Descartes’ famous dictum in the area of AI ethics where the “I doubt and therefore I am” is suggested as a necessary aspect of morality. Therefore AI, which cannot doubt itself, cannot possess moral agency. Of course, this is not the end of the story. We explore various aspects of the human mind that substantially differ from AI, which includes the sensory grounding of our knowing, the act of understanding, and the significance of being able to doubt ourselves. (...) The foundation of our argument is the discipline of ethics, one of the oldest and largest knowledge projects of human history, yet, we seem only to be beginning to get a grasp of it. After a couple of thousand years of studying the ethics of humans, we (humans) arrived at a point where moral psychology suggests that our moral decisions are intuitive, and all the models from ethics become relevant only when we explain ourselves. This recognition has a major impact on what and how we can do regarding AI ethics. We do not offer a solution, we explore some ideas and leave the problem open, but we hope somewhat better understood than before our study. (shrink)

The Derrida Dictionary is a comprehensive and accessible guide to the world of Jacques Derrida, the founder of deconstruction and one of the most important and influential European thinkers of the twentieth century. Meticulously researched and extensively cross-referenced, this unique book covers all his major works, ideas and influences and provides a firm grounding in the central themes of Derrida's thought. Students will discover a wealth of useful information, analysis and criticism. A-Z entries include clear definitions of all the key (...) terms used in Derrida's writings and detailed synopses of his key works. The Dictionary also includes entries on Derrida's major philosophical influences and those he engaged with, such as Kant, Hegel, Husserl, Freud, Heidegger, Foucault, Lacan and Levinas. It covers everything that is essential to a sound understanding of Derrida's philosophy, offering clear and accessible explanations of often complex terminology. The Derrida Dictionary is the ideal resource for anyone reading or studying Derrida, deconstruction or modern European philosophy more generally. (shrink)

From the beginning of history sounds have played a fundamentally important role in humanity’s development as ways of expression and of communication. However in contemporary western society, and indeed globally, we are experiencing an excess of speech and a relentless encouragement to expression. Such excess indicates a misunderstanding about what expression and dialogue should be. This condition encourages us to think about silence, solitude and contemplation and the role they might play in restoring the realm of personal understanding of the (...) Self and of one’s authentic experience of the Other. The purpose of this article is to explore the potency of a silence that arises from our participation in the world. We present first some ideas about silence as a human phenomenon. This is followed by an examination of silence and language, an investigation of silence in dialogue, and of its educational implications. The article concludes by emphasising the value of silence as potency in itself, assisting in recovering the expressive powers of language. We argue that it is important to understand the positive status of silence in order to recognise and avoid repressive speech and to introduce its potential for reflective learning. (shrink)

In an article in "mind," 1971, pp. 282-283, the authors raised objections to a certain definition in "principia mathematica." in this paper we demonstrate that (a) their argument is faulty, (b) their suggested remedies are unsatisfactory, and (c) there is nothing wrong with the original definition.

Modern Jewish philosophy emerged in the seventeenth century, with the impact of the new science and modern philosophy on thinkers who were reflecting upon the nature of Judaism and Jewish life. This collection of new essays examines the work of several of the most important of these figures, from the seventeenth to the late-twentieth centuries, and addresses themes central to the tradition of modern Jewish philosophy: language and revelation, autonomy and authority, the problem of evil, messianism, the influence of Kant, (...) and feminism. Included are essays on Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Cohen, Buber, Rosenzweig, Fackenheim, Soloveitchik, Strauss, and Levinas. Other thinkers discussed include Maimon, Benjamin, Derrida, Scholem, and Arendt. The sixteen original essays are written by a world-renowned group of scholars especially for this volume and give a broad and rich picture of the tradition of modern Jewish philosophy over a period of four centuries. (shrink)

The consuls of 284, according to the Fasti Capitolini, were L. Caecilius Metellus Denter and C. Servilius Tucca. Of Tucca we know nothing else at all, and if the literary sources also tell us that Metellus Denter was defeated and killed by Gauls at Arretium, the date of this setback and Metellus' status at the time have long been matter for dispute. The surviving accounts of Rome's campaigns against the Gauls in this period fall into three categories. First, there is (...) Polybius, who apparently sets Metellus' death in 284 and terms him , prima facie consul. Then there are the sources which seem clearly to derive from a later, annalistic tradition; they describe Metellus as praetor and place his death in 283. And finally there is Appian, whose account represents an attempt to conflate these views and consequently falls between two stools; in his account Metellus is not even mentioned. (shrink)

The state is central to social scientific and historical inquiry today, reflecting its importance in domestic and international affairs. States kill, coerce, fight, torture, and incarcerate, yet they also nurture, protect, educate, redistribute, and invest. It is precisely because of the complexity and wide-ranging impacts of states that research on them has proliferated and diversified. Yet, too many scholars inhabit separate academic silos, and theorizing of states has become dispersed and disjointed. This book aims to bridge some of the many (...) gaps between scholarly endeavors, bringing together scholars from a diverse array of disciplines and perspectives who study states and empires. The book offers not only a sample of cutting-edge research that can serve as models and directions for future work, but an original conceptualization and theorization of states, their origins and evolution, and their effects. (shrink)

This essay, originally a presentation at the annual conference of the Newman Association of America at St. Anselm’s College, Manchester, New Hampshire, in 2011, argues that The Idea of a University reflects a notion of university education that was already present in all its essentials in Newman’s thought by 1830. Newman’s experience as an undergraduate, his early years as a Fellow of Oriel College and his correspondence with Edward Hawkins during the Tutorship dispute indicate that Newman’s ideas about university education (...) could only have originated in the Anglican Oxford of his time. (shrink)

Akin to flotsam washed up by the sea, this article combs through what it calls a “molecular configuration” comprised of bits of Paul Valéry, Jean Grenier, Albert Camus, René Char, Martin Heidegger and Georg Trakl as an exercise in “tidal thinking.” Conflict, mainly in the form of war, makes its presence felt throughout, as does the haunting prospect of the irreversible climate crisis.

The development of a set of religiously integrated schools in Northern Ireland since 1981 is often portrayed in wholly positive terms. However, the continued growth of the movement has generated serious tensions at a number of levels which have wider implications for any analysis of the implications of parental choice.

Thomas More’s Utopia is made up of two books. Book One, quickly skimmed over by those who dream of the future and are bored by history, tells us about Europe in 1515 at the dawn of a revolution in every field of knowledge dominated by a political power that uses religion, fear and ignorance to satisfy an insatiable appetite for hegemony, infinitely corrupt but in public promoting moral, family values. Book Two gives us a glimpse of a future on a (...) human scale using new techniques, reason and good management of its resources to reconcile the common good with the pleasure of the individual. That book is the founding text for our modernity. It is the pagan bible adopted by the Enlightenment, which we have inscribed in the charter of our epoch’s institutions. Five hundred years later the books are being rewritten in reverse: the great human dream set in train by Book Two in 1516 is bogged down in the reality of 2005. The new promises of free-choice economism in 2005 are just a nightmare journey back in time to the postulates of Book One. (shrink)

Max Weber is noted for his analysis of the `specific and peculiar rationalism' of western culture. However, his diagnosis of a life disenchanted by reason draws attention to his lesser known formulations of the problem of theodicy - the problem of reconciling pain and misfortune with moral expectations of the world. Weber suggests that cultural responses to this problem change with the increasingly secular rationalization of life. The present paper traces this development from the cultural representation of pain as the (...) embodiment of moral strife in the early modern novel to contemporary images of pain and suffering in medicine, the mass media and film. The comparison suggests that late modernity is confronted by an `inverse' problem of theodicy, in which representations of pain and suffering are disassociated from ethical and political contexts and the quest for meaning within a human frame. (shrink)

In his Particles and Waves, Peter Achinstein gives a precise probabilistic version of theoretical coherence inspired by William Whewell's somewhat vague notion of coherence. Whewell believed that as theoretical science proceeds, it becomes more coherent and rejects false incoherent theories. Achinstein offers a challenge: try to make Whewell's idea more precise while maintaining the properties that Whewell claimed coherence to have. This chapter argues (1) that Achinstein's probabilistic rendition of coherence fails to capture Whewell's notion since the probabilistic rendition of (...) coherence is not an a priori sign of truth and (2) that Achinstein's approach is better seen as a critique of Whewell's central methodological claims than as an interpretation of Whewell's ideas. (shrink)

Let µ be a regular cardinal. In this paper I prove two (forcing) existence results concerning structures governed by two parameters, the cardinal µ and an ordinal ρ less than µ+++. The results improve on theorems from [M*2] where the second parameter was always the cardinal µ++.

This article describes how the building of the Panama Canal by the US military in 1904-14 was used within the socialist movement as an exemplar of socialist labour organization. Focussing on the British guild socialist, S.G. Hobson, it demonstrates the survival into guild socialism of Fabian ideas of the inevitability of large-scale enterprise, organizational hierarchy and the indispensability of the expert. It also reveals a militarist inflexion which is here traced to sources including Fourier, Ruskin, Bellamy and Wells. This was (...) underpinned by the idea of collective labour as a form of contest with 'nature'. Hobson's colonialist ideas and work experiences are also considered in evaluating his conception of the guild. These hitherto largely unexplored aspects of guild socialism are seen as providing insights into later attachments to Soviet Russia and the idea of a labour corps in inter-war Britain. (shrink)

The Cambridge History of Science, vol. 1, Ancient Science. Edited by Alexander Jones and Liba Taub. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xix + 642. $160.

The current paper provides readers some clarifications on the nature and goals of mass media campaigns designed to promote organ donation. These clarifications were necessitated by an earlier essay by Rady et al. (Med Health Care Philos 15:229–241, 2012) who present erroneous claims that media promotion campaigns in this health context represent propaganda that seek to misrepresent the transplantation process. Information is also provided on the nature and relative power of media campaigns in organ donation promotion.

Denying Divinity: Apophasis in the Patristic Christian and Soto Zen Buddhist Traditions. Janet P. Williams. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2000. 249 pp. £40. ISBN 0 19 826999 4.

Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 st1:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language:#0400; mso-fareast-language:#0400; mso-bidi-language:#0400;} One of the most celebrated biologists of the past century, Edward O. Wilson has received virtually every scientific award and recognition for his provocative and innovative enquiry into the nature of the relationship between moral behavior and biology which the scientific community can offer. For over twenty-five years, (...) his development of a field of study at Harvard University called sociobiology and the analytical concept he created called conscilience have revolutionized our thinking about ethics and human behavior. Exploring the interrelatedness of the chemistry of the mind and the genetic bases of culture, he has challenged the philosophical, theological, and sociological world to embrace a creatively converging view of science and ethics, of biology and human behavior. This essay is a critical review of Wilson’s major works written during the past three decades which have caused both international exuberance among scientists and an exclamation of outrage among many in the philosophical and theological world. This is the first comprehensive review and critical assessment of his major works. (shrink)