The metaphor of host and guest has value for exploring the practice and role identity of nurses on inpatient mental health units. Two complementary texts, one from the ancient Zen record of Lin‐chi, and the other from the contemporary hermeneutic philosopher Richard Kearney, are used to elaborate meanings of host and guest that can be applied to the situation of mental health nurses. In a doctoral study with a hermeneutic design, I addressed the topic of nurse–patient relationship using (...) an interpretive framework that included sources from Buddhist thought. The positions of host and guest emerged from interviews with nurses as one interpretive theme to open up new understanding of the topic. The two texts, originally distant in era and culture, both employ the host and guest metaphor. They are applied to extracts from interviews to open up discussions of hierarchy, status, patients' perspectives, otherness and resistances as features of nurses' complex experience. These provide insights into understanding practice and suggest implications for how institutional environments shape practice. An intercultural reading of texts can provide a source of new understanding of nurse–patient relationships. (shrink)

Religion and its related thoughts are an important aspect of human life and worldview. To this day, the analytic philosophy of religion has matured in the international academic community. There is no doubt that these debates concern many important philosophical issues, but it is challenging to see how they could be sufficiently sensitive to all philosophically relevant religious issues and how they could comprehensively cover philosophical concerns facing different cultures around the world – it is even possible that current Western (...) society itself has slowly expanded its attention. This raises a pressing question: Is the field capable of accommodating the insights from a more diverse array of participants, including non-white, non-male, and non-Anglophone thinkers, and can it address philosophical questions that go beyond the traditional debates dominated by Anglophone intellectuals? (shrink)

The interpretation of Kant's Critical philosophy as a version of traditional idealism has a long history. In spite of Kant's and his commentators’ various attempts to distinguish between traditional and transcendental idealism, his philosophy continues to be construed as committed (whether explicitly or implicitly and whether consistently or inconsistently) to various features usually associated with the traditional idealist project. As a result, most often, the accusation is that his Critical philosophy makes too strong metaphysical and epistemological claims.In hisThe Revolutionary Kant, (...) Graham Bird engages in a systematic and thorough evaluation of the traditionalist interpretation, as part of perhaps the most comprehensive and compelling defence of a revolutionary reading of Kant's thought. In the third part of this special issue, the exchanges between, on the one hand, Graham Bird and, on the other, Gary Banham, Gordon Brittan, Manfred Kuehn, Adrian Moore and Kenneth Westphal focus on specific aspects of Bird's interpretation of Kant's first Critique. More exactly, the emphasis is on specific aspects of Bird's interpretation of the Introduction, Analytic of Principles and Transcendental Dialectic of Kant's first Critique.The second part of the special issue is devoted to discussions of particular topics in Bird's construal of the remaining significant parts of the first Critique, namely, of the Transcendental Aesthetic and the Analytic of Concepts. Written by Sorin Baiasu and Michelle Grier, these articles examine specific issues in these two remaining parts of the Critique, from the perspective of the debate between the traditionalist and revolutionary interpretation. The special issue begins with an Introduction by the guest co-editors. This provides a summary of the exchanges between Bird and his critics, with a particular focus on the debates stemming from the differences between traditional and revolutionary interpretations of Kant. (shrink)

Claudian compares Eutropius in his consular robes to a monkey, dressed in silk to amuse dinner guests, but with his buttocks bare . The situation has not failed to attract the notice of scholars. Christiansen and Fargues called attention to the striking and original use of the monkey-simile . Alan Cameron has suggested that the present example is drawn from life: ‘Who can doubt that this was a typical dinner divertissement in the elegant circles of Claudian's day-or at least one (...) Claudian himself had witnessed?’ He cites E. R. Curtius's assertion that metaphorical apes are uncommon in ancient literature ; that may be relatively true, but when Demosthenes is entitled to address his opponent as similar licence in subsequent invective is unlimited. (shrink)

This complete life story of David Hume, one of Scotland’s greatest thinkers, follows the Enlightenment from its early roots to its full blossoming in 18th-century Edinburgh. Using original sources, many for the first time, this biography details every aspect of the philosopher’s life—from the lukewarm reception of his now pivotal work, Treatise of Human Nature, to the fame and near excommunication brought about by his famous Essays and History. Also detailed are the stories behind his nickname, “The Great Infidel,” the (...) numerous guests seeking an invitation to dine at his table, and his lengthy intellectual involvement with a married aristocrat. This work is a well-rounded picture of the man, the century in which he lived, his famous ideas, and above all, his humanity. (shrink)

The interpretation of Kant's Critical philosophy as a version of traditional idealism has a long history. In spite of Kant's and his commentators’ various attempts to distinguish between traditional and transcendental idealism, his philosophy continues to be construed as committed to various features usually associated with the traditional idealist project. As a result, most often, the accusation is that his Critical philosophy makes too strong metaphysical and epistemological claims.In his The Revolutionary Kant, Graham Bird engages in a systematic and (...) thorough evaluation of the traditionalist interpretation, as part of perhaps the most comprehensive and compelling defence of a revolutionary reading of Kant's thought. In the third part of this special issue, the exchanges between, on the one hand, Graham Bird and, on the other, Gary Banham, Gordon Brittan, Manfred Kuehn, Adrian Moore and Kenneth Westphal focus on specific aspects of Bird's interpretation of Kant's first Critique. More exactly, the emphasis is on specific aspects of Bird's interpretation of the Introduction, Analytic of Principles and Transcendental Dialectic of Kant's first Critique.The second part of the special issue is devoted to discussions of particular topics in Bird's construal of the remaining significant parts of the first Critique, namely, of the Transcendental Aesthetic and the Analytic of Concepts. Written by Sorin Baiasu and Michelle Grier, these articles examine specific issues in these two remaining parts of the Critique, from the perspective of the debate between the traditionalist and revolutionary interpretation. The special issue begins with an Introduction by the guest co-editors. This provides a summary of the exchanges between Bird and his critics, with a particular focus on the debates stemming from the differences between traditional and revolutionary interpretations of Kant. (shrink)

This guest-edited special section explores the related themes of mystery, humility, and religious practice from both the Western and East Asian philosophical traditions. The contributors are David E. Cooper, John Cottingham, Mark Wynn, Graham Parkes, and Ian James Kidd.

This is the first introductory textbook on non-classical propositional logics.

The interpretation of Kant's Critical philosophy as a version of traditional idealism has a long history. In spite of Kant's and his commentators’ various attempts to distinguish between traditional and transcendental idealism, his philosophy continues to be construed as committed to various features usually associated with the traditional idealist project. As a result, most often, the accusation is that his Critical philosophy makes too strong metaphysical and epistemological claims.In his The Revolutionary Kant, Graham Bird engages in a systematic and (...) thorough evaluation of the traditionalist interpretation, as part of perhaps the most comprehensive and compelling defence of a revolutionary reading of Kant's thought. In the third part of this special issue, the exchanges between, on the one hand, Graham Bird and, on the other, Gary Banham, Gordon Brittan, Manfred Kuehn, Adrian Moore and Kenneth Westphal focus on specific aspects of Bird's interpretation of Kant's first Critique. More exactly, the emphasis is on specific aspects of Bird's interpretation of the Introduction, Analytic of Principles and Transcendental Dialectic of Kant's first Critique.The second part of the special issue is devoted to discussions of particular topics in Bird's construal of the remaining significant parts of the first Critique, namely, of the Transcendental Aesthetic and the Analytic of Concepts. Written by Sorin Baiasu and Michelle Grier, these articles examine specific issues in these two remaining parts of the Critique, from the perspective of the debate between the traditionalist and revolutionary interpretation. The special issue begins with an Introduction by the guest co-editors. This provides a summary of the exchanges between Bird and his critics, with a particular focus on the debates stemming from the differences between traditional and revolutionary interpretations of Kant. (shrink)

In a sample of 522 police officers and staff in an English police force, we investigated the role of authoritarian leadership in reducing the levels of employee ethical voice. Drawing upon uncertainty management theory, we found that authoritarian leadership was negatively related to employee ethical voice through increased levels of felt uncertainty, when the effects of a motivational-based mechanism suggested by previous studies were controlled. In addition, we found that the negative relationship between authoritarian leadership and employee ethical voice via (...) felt uncertainty is mitigated by higher levels of benevolent leadership. That is, when authoritarian leaders simultaneously exhibit benevolence, they are less likely to cause feelings of uncertainty in their followers who are then more likely to speak up about unethical issues. We discuss theoretical and practical implications of the findings. (shrink)

We have seen that proofs of soundness of (Boolean) DS, EFQ and of ABS — and hence the legitimation of these inferences — can be achieved only be appealing to the very form of reasoning in question. But this by no means implies that we have to fall back on classical reasoning willy-nilly. Many logical theories can provide the relevant boot-strapping. Decision between them has, therefore, to be made on other grounds. The grounds include the many criteria familiar from the (...) philosophy of science: theoretical integrity (e.g., paucity of ad hoc hypotheses), adequacy to the data (explaining the data of inference —all inferences, not just those chosen from consistent domains!) and so on. This paper has not attempted to address these issues in general. All it demonstrates is that the charge that a dialetheist solution to the semantic paradoxes can be maintained only by making some intelligible notion ineffable cannot be made to stick. The dialetheist has a coherent position, endorsing the T-scheme, but rejecting DS, EFQ (even Boolean DS and EFQ) and ABS. And any argument to the effect that the relevant notions are both ineffable and intelligible begs the question. The case against consistent “solutions” to the semantic paradoxes therefore remains intact. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Prelude to the Special Issue of the Journal of Aesthetic Education on Children’s LiteratureEllen Handler Spitz, Guest Editor (bio)When Professor Pradeep A. Dhillon, editor of the Journal of Aesthetic Education, suggested to me one day that I might guest edit a special issue of the journal devoted to the topic of children’s literature, my initial reticence was toppled and my sense of resolve buoyed as I began (...) to fantasize with billowing excitement about just how this might be done. First, I dreamt up the image of guest editor as bountiful hostess—setting out delectable dishes in an elegantly appointed banquet before the readers of this journal. That metaphor faded, however, despite Maria Tatar’s eloquent reminder to us in these pages that gastronomy has frequently and salubriously been juxtaposed with reading. I could not help worrying (even though children vociferously protest the logic of this problem) that one cannot have one’s cake and eat it too. Therefore, switching to music, I began to imagine the editor as conductor of a highly select ensemble of musicians, all gifted with glorious well-seasoned voices. They might perform a concert (recorded for posterity, of course) of pieces aimed at an audience of those who care passionately about aesthetics, education, literature, and above all about children, and at those who, perhaps with tenderness, still recall their own childhood reading.But how to accomplish this in practical terms? Well, I reasoned, I would simply invite a group of distinguished senior scholars who, having achieved their reputations in related fields and having written on other subjects as well, have published highly significant works pertaining to children’s literature. Each person would contribute a composition in his or her own voice, and there would be complete freedom, carte blanche, no holds barred—the only constraint being page numbers. Would the results turn out to be harmony or cacophony? Well, I speculated, if each voice were finely tuned, resonant, and clear, whether treble or bass, forte or pianissimo, the outcome—although [End Page 1] unpredictable in terms of specifics—would, unquestionably, be musical. But that, dear reader, is ultimately for you to judge, for you have now heard precisely how this issue came into being and will, we hope, read on. Each author I asked responded to my call with alacrity and, in his or her original style and tone, made my task as conductor a perfect pleasure.We offer you a work in three parts. First, you will encounter two melodious and euphonious pieces, contributed respectively by Marina Warner (“Out of an Old Toy Chest”) and Maria Tatar (“From Bookworms to Enchanted Hunters: Why Children Read”). Here, the overarching themes of children’s play and make believe are set up, analyzed, and explored. Playing and reading are placed side by side, as well as reasons why children love to read and how they are variously exhorted, extolled, and even occasionally excoriated by adults for doing so.Our second movement consists of three apparently unrelated motifs, contributed in turn by Gareth Matthews (“Philosophical Adventures in the Lands of Oz and Ev”), Seth Lerer (“Style and the Mole: Domestic Aesthetics in The Wind in the Willows”), and myself (“Ethos in Steig’s and Sendak’s Picture Books: The Connected and the Lonely Child”). Actually, however, these essays are not unrelated, for each motif arises from a particular mode of interpretation grounded in turn in philosophy, in literary history and theory, and in psychology. The works considered are all by notable writers for children: L. Frank Baum, Kenneth Grahame, William Steig, and Maurice Sendak.For our grand finale, we offer two sonorous, seriously challenging contributions, one by Jack Zipes (“Why Fantasy Matters Too Much”) and the other by Eliza T. Dresang and Bowie Kotrla (“Radical Change Theory and Synergistic Reading for Digital Age Youth”). These works grapple with contemporary matters, with fantasy, with technology, and with “radical change” as these can be discerned in the literature, imagery, and general cultural lives of today’s and even, quite possibly, of tomorrow’s children. Gesturing toward the future even more strikingly, we conclude this work with a flourishing coda in the actual voice of a living child... (shrink)

In this chapter I comment on and give a number of replies to matters raised in the papers on my work on paraconsistency and dialetheism in this volume.

This paper articulates Sylvan's theory of mathematical objects as non-existent, by improving (arguably) his treatment of the Characterisation Postulate. It then defends the theory against a number of natural objections, including one according to which the account is just platonism in disguise.

Graham Harman’s “Whitehead and Schools X, Y, and Z,” distinguishes among three schools of contemporary philosophy according to their respective positions on process, becoming, and relations: the schools of Whitehead and Latour, of Deleuze, Bergson, Simondon, and other philosophers of becoming, and of object-oriented philosophy. One of the goals of the essay is to challenge those who would too quickly align Whitehead with Deleuze.

Logical consequence is a notion that every person who reasons must possess, at least implicitly. To give a precise and accurate characterization of this notion is the fundamental task of logic. In a similar way, the notion of effectivity is a concept that anyone with a basic training in mathematics possesses, and the most fundamental task of a theory of computability is to give a precise characterization of this notion. The problem concerning effectivity was solved in the 1930s, almost as (...) soon as it was raised, by the work of Turing, Church, and others. By contrast, the correct and precise characterization of logical consequence has been hotly contested through the two and a half thousand-year history of logic. (shrink)

Arguing for a new direction in postmodern theological thinking, away from the liberalism and nihilism of those who name themselves postmodern theologians, the ...

Gordon Graham presents a bold new account of Wittgenstein's philosophy, which argues for its relevance to the study of religion and aims to revitalize the philosophy of 'true religion'. He uses Wittgenstein's conception of philosophy to argue in favour of the idea that 'true religion' is to be understood as human participation in divine life.

Towards Non-Being develops an account of the semantics of intentional predicates and operators. The account appeals to objects, both existent and non-existent, and worlds, both possible and impossible. This paper formulates replies to a number of the more interesting objections to the semantics that have been proposed since the book was published.

We consider the symbol grounding problem, and apply to it philosophical arguments against Cartesianism developed by Sellars and McDowell: the problematic issue is the dichotomy between inside and outside which the definition of a physical symbol system presupposes. Surprisingly, one can question this dichotomy and still do symbolic computation: a detailed examination of the hardware and software of serial ports shows this.

The university is promoted as 'a place from where to speak'. Academic freedom is examined as a crucial value in an increasingly uncertain age which resonates with Barnett's concern to encourage students to overcome their 'fear of freedom'. My concern is that the putative university space of freedom and autonomy may well become constricted by those who would limit not just our freedom to speak but also our freedoms to be and to do. Without academic freedom students and teachers, who (...) might be able to fly, will not be permitted to fly. I review issues of academic freedom and free speech raised especially by Berlin, Voltaire, von Humboldt, Mill, Milton and Rorty. I discuss problems raised when free speech is heard by others as harmful and offensive to their beliefs and values. I offer a set of suggestions to ensure that the university may envision itself as a space of freedom, pluralism and tolerance. Finally, I reflect that the university, of all democratic institutions, should be the one which best serves its society as 'a place from where to speak'. (shrink)

Using data drawn from a racially/ethnically diverse sample of participants ( N = 1,489; 52% female; Mage_T1: 18.10; 34% Latino, 21% White, 20% Asian, 11% Black, 11% multiracial/multiethnic, and 3% other), we conducted a binary logistic regression to identify which factors during adolescence and early adulthood were associated with voting behavior in the 2020 presidential election. There were three main findings. First, young adults who had more cross-racial/ethnic friendships and those who participated in volunteer activities during their senior year of (...) high school were more likely to vote. Second, having cross-racial/ethnic friendships and endorsing self-transcendence values (benevolence, universalism) in early adulthood were positively associated with voting behavior, even when controlling for high school factors. Third, those who endorsed self-enhancement values were more likely to vote when they had more cross-racial/ethnic friendships during high school. Implications for voting patterns among young adults in future presidential elections are discussed. (shrink)

Beginning from an earlier claim of mine that there was really no such area of study as the philosophy of sport, Part One of the paper reconsiders the place previously given to David Best’s distinction between purposive sports and aesthetic sports. In light of a famous cricketing event in the 1977 contest between England and Australia (‘The Ashes’), in which Derek Randall turned a cartwheel after taking the winning catch, the paper clarifies that not all aesthetically-pleasing events taking place in (...) sporting competitions can be understood as the aesthetic in sport. Then, in Part Two, the force of the claim that philosophy is one subject is explored. The conclusion is that a focus just on the philosophy of sport is necessarily inappropriate, since it will present the student with only cases from sport to then apply to sport. Rather, one’s understanding must be informed by (much of) the breadth of philosophy. Charles Travis’s view of occasion-sensitivity provides a clear example of appropriately contextual appeal. Part Three of the paper returns to the need for an institutional account of sport, one recognizing that there is no one occasion on which a particular sport is played; and hence no single set of conditions which can uniquely identify that sport. Thus, soccer played with one’s children typically differs from elite soccer: but both are (genuinely) soccer. When one turns to the appreciation of sport (in the light of Stephen Mumford’s excellent Watching Sport: Aesthetics, Ethics and Emotion [2012a]), one recognizes that, in order to genuinely appreciate sport, one cannot detach oneself from the outcome as completely as Mumford’s extreme purist seems to. But reflection on that case may also return us to contextualism by moving us away from attachments to the complete or the exceptionless in our accounts of spectating as of sport: maybe there is no one thing that occurs in all the relevant cases. (shrink)

Standard sorites paradoxes can always be put into a simple canonical form, employing the sole inference modus ponens. For example, consider the following paradox. Take a continuum of colours going from red to blue, and let a1,..., am be a sequence of segments of this continuum such that each segment is phenomenologically indistinguishable in colour from its immediate neighbours. Let Fx be the predicate ‘x is red’. Then the untrue conclusion Fam can be inferred from the premises Fa0 and Fan (...) → Fan + 1. (shrink)

This is a philosophical exploration of the role of art and religion as sources of meaning in an increasingly material world dominated by science. Relating themes in the history of European philosophy to topics in contemporary philosophy, Gordon Graham investigates the idea that art has the potential to re-enchant an irreligious world.

The book sets out to address and answer three questions from the point of view of Christian theology. The first is, from where does theology speak? The second is, what are the mechanisms whereby cultures change? The third is, how might we conceive the relationship between the contemporary production of theological discourse and the transformation of cultures more generally? Drawing upon the work of standpoint epistemologists, cultural anthropologists and social scientists, the book argues that public acts of interpretation are involvements (...) in renegotiating the future direction of cultural change. Though the enquiry is conducted from one particular standpoint - Christian theology - the observations and suggestions it makes regarding cultural transformation and the defense it makes of syncretism have more general application. (shrink)

Experience from a three-year Home Office funded evaluation of a project intended to reduce school exclusions is used to explore methodological dilemmas raised by the current emphasis upon 'evidence-based' policy formation. The social construction of school exclusion rates poses problems of reliability and validity, especially when such rates are simultaneously being used for target setting. In principle, the concept of 'evidence-based' can refer to a wide variety of research questions and appropriate research methodologies. Despite this, moves towards interpreting 'evidence-based' as (...) predominantly measurement and outcomes oriented can be found both in government evaluation guidelines and in procedures for systematic reviews of research. Given the complexity of educational innovations, any neglect of research into the processes of change in naturalistic settings will not only lead to a restricted awareness of a project's impact but also to a failure to understand what certain apparent outcomes actually mean. (shrink)

The paper addresses the intuitions of aestheticians concerning a fundamental contrast between the judgement, appreciation, and interest appropriate to artworks and those judgements, appreciations, and interests appropriate to all the other (non-art) cases of aesthetic interest. Then terms such as beauty must amount to something different in art-cases from that in other (aesthetic) cases. For the fact of being an artwork is transfigurational, allowing artistic properties to be (truly) ascribed. In arguing against the univocality of terms such as beauty (by (...) stressing occasion-sensitivity), the paper rejects the idea of a ‘look of the thing’ shared by art and non-art. And the pervasiveness of this artistic/aesthetic contrast is urged. (shrink)

As support for his position, Rachlin refers to the writings of Aristotle. However, Aristotle, like many social psychological theorists, would dispute the assumptions that altruism always involves self-control, and that altruism is confined to acts that have group benefits. Indeed, for Aristotle, as for equity theory and sociobiology, justice exists partly to curb the unrestrained actions of those altruists who are a social liability.