“It is almost impossible for a working neurologist to think clearly about the functions of the highest centres because the counters of thought, the words he must employ—are often of psychological origin and for the most part meaningless.”.

In the recent methodological individualism-holism debate on explanation, there has been considerable focus on what reasons methodological holists may advance in support of their position. We believe it is useful to approach the other direction and ask what considerations methodological individualists may in fact offer in favor of their view about explanation. This is the background for the question we pursue in this paper: Why be a methodological individualist? We start out by introducing the methodological individualism-holism debate while distinguishing two (...) forms of methodological individualism: a form that says that individualist explanations are always better than holist accounts and a form that says that providing intervening individualist mechanisms always makes for better explanations than purely holist ones. Next, we consider four lines of reasoning in support of methodological individualism: arguments from causation, from explanatory depth, from agency, and from normativity. We argue that none of them offer convincing reasons in support of the two explanatory versions of individualism we consider. While there may well be occasions in which individualists’ favorite explanations are superior, we find no reason to think this always must be the case. (shrink)

In his interesting article, Michael Burke (1996) offers a novel solution to the puzzle of Tibbles, the cat, a solution he says, which is based on Aristotelian essentialism. In what follows I argue that, despite its ingenuity, Burke’s solution can be seen to be too implausible to be accepted once we extend it to a variant of the puzzle Burke himself suggests. The conclusion must be that one of the other solutions to the puzzle must be correct. Or, perhaps, that (...) there is no correct solution and that we should simply (to use a Wittgensteinian turn of phrase) ‘say what we like as long as we are clear about the facts.’. (shrink)

Michael Palmer provides a detailed account of two of the most important theories of religion in the history of psychology--those of Freud and Jung. The book first analyzes Freud's claim that religion is an obsessional neurosis, a psychological illness fueled by sexual repression. He then considers Jung's rejection of Freud's theory, and his own assertion that it is the absence of religion, not its presence, which leads to neurosis.

The aim of the paper is to discuss some recent variants of familiar puzzles concerning the relations of parts to wholes put forward by Trenton Merricks and Eric Olson. The argument is put forward that so long as the familiar distinction between 'loose and popular' and 'strict and philosophical' senses of identity claims is accepted the paradoxical conclusions at which Merricks and Olson arrive can be resisted. It is not denied that accepting the distinction between 'loose and popular' and 'strict (...) and philosophical' senses of identity claims is itself a departure from common-sense, but it is argued that it is the smallest such departure available to us. (shrink)

Employee time theft is a costly and prevalent unethical work behavior. Yet, this construct has received less attention compared to other unethical behaviors, and as such, the literature has only a rudimentary understanding of why employees engage in time theft. Thus, the primary goal of this research is to provide greater insight into both _why_ employees engage in time theft and _who_ is most likely to engage in time theft. To do so, we draw from social information processing theory to (...) examine the effect of laissez-faire leadership on employee time theft. More specifically, we propose that laissez-faire leadership is related to employee time theft through workplace time theft norms. We further propose that this indirect effect is contingent on employee conscientiousness, such that the indirect effect of laissez-faire leadership on employee time theft is stronger for individuals lower in conscientiousness. We conducted two three-wave field studies to test our predictions. The results of Study 1 supported our prediction that workplace time theft norms mediate the effect of laissez-faire leadership on employee time theft. Study 2 replicated and extended this finding by offering evidence for the conditional indirect effect of employee conscientiousness. Implications for future research and managerial practice are discussed. (shrink)

Husserl's marginal remarks in Kant und das Problem der Metaphysik clearly do not reflect the same intense effort to penetrate Heidegger's thought that we find in his marginal notes in Sein und Zeit. Merely in terms of length, Husserl's comments in the published German text occupy only one-third the number of pages.2 Pages 1-5, 43-121, and 125-1673 contain no reading marks at all-over half of the 236 pages of KPM. This suggests that Husserl either read these pages with no intention (...) of returning to the text or skipped large parts of the middle of the text altogether.4 His remarks often express frustration or a resigned recognition of the now unbridgeable, irrevocable gap between himself and Heidegger. (shrink)

David Hume was one of the most important British philosophers of the eighteenth century. The first part of his _Treatise on Human Nature_ is a seminal work in philosophy. _Hume on Knowledge_ introduces and assesses: * Humes life and the background of the _Treatise_ * The ideas and text in the _Treatise_ * Humes continuing importance to philosophy.

Cartesian mind body dualism and modern versions of this viewpoint posit a mind thermodynamically unrelated to the body but informationally interactive. The relation between information and entropy developed by Leon Brillouin demonstrates that any information about the state of a system has entropic consequences. It is therefore impossible to dissociate the mind's information from the body's entropy. Knowledge of that state of the system without an energetically significant measurement would lead to a violation of the second law of thermodynamics.

Debates about explanation in the social sciences often proceed without any clear idea what an 'account' of explanation should do. In this paper I take a stance - what I will call contextualism - that denies there are purely formal and conceptual constraints on explanation and takes standards of explanation to be substantive empirical claims, paradigmatically claims about causation. I then use this standpoint to argue for position on issues in the philosophy of social science concerning reduction, idealized models, social (...) mechanisms, functional explanations, inference to the best explanation and interpretive understanding. (shrink)

IT IS DIFFICULT for me to read Pride and Prejudice without empathizing either with Elizabeth Bennet, or sometimes with her father, Mr Bennet. Not only do my own responses to and opinions of the events and characters of the book at times resemble theirs, but even when they do not, I find myself seeing the event from Elizabeth’s or Mr Bennet’s point of view. For example, at the close of the book, Elizabeth’s former dislike of Mr Darcy has completely vanished, (...) in part because of learning of a number of good deeds that Mr Darcy has done very quietly for their family. When Mr Darcy proposes to Elizabeth (for the second time) she is delighted to accept him. However, everyone else in Elizabeth’s family despises Mr Darcy, and they also believe that Elizabeth still hates him. So it is easy to understand Mr Bennet’s surprise and distaste when Mr Darcy asks Mr Bennet for Elizabeth’s hand; after all, Mr Bennet still believes Mr Darcy to be prideful and haughty. While I am not myself surprised to hear Elizabeth’s response—the reader learns much more of Mr Darcy’s character than Mr Bennet does—I do have the experience of imagining being surprised. I am also capable of empathizing with Elizabeth, who is excited, flustered, and a bit ashamed at having so misjudged Mr Darcy early on, and I can imagine having these feelings for people I have misjudged. I can (to some degree) understand why she finds explaining all this to Mr Bennet so difficult. I go back and forth, as I read, between the perspectives of Mr Bennet and Elizabeth. These experiences of mine are experiences of the sort that I call ‘empathizing with fictions’, although we sometimes might describe such experiences by saying that we ‘identified’ with a particular character or characters in a story. (shrink)

This paper argues that when used judiciously Bayes's law has a role to play in the evaluation of scientific hypotheses. Several examples are presented in which a rational response to evidence requires a judgement whether to apply Bayes's law or whether, for example, to redistribute prior probabilities. The paper concludes that reflection on Bayes's law illustrates how an adequate account of the rational evaluation of hypotheses requires an account of judgement--a point which several philosophers have noted despite few attempts to (...) develop an adequate theory of judgement. (shrink)

Daoist Identity is an exploration of the various means by which Daoists over the centuries have created an identity for themselves. Using modern sociological studies of identity formation as its foundation, it brings together a representative sample of in-depth analyses by eminent American and Japanese scholars in the field. The discussion begins with critical examinations of the ways identity was found among the early movements of the Way of Great Peace and the Celestial Masters. The role of sacred texts and (...) literary culture in Daoist identity formation is discussed. The volume then focuses on lineage formation and the increasing role of popular religious practices, such as spirit-writing, in modern Daoism since the Song dynasty. Finally it discusses the Daoist adaptation and reinterpretation of Buddhist rites, such as the feeding of souls in hell and the use of ritual gestures, and the changes made in contemporary Daoism in relation to traditional rites and popular practices. Contributors: Asano Haruji, Suzanne Cahill, M. Csikszentmihalyi, Edward L. Davis, Terry F. Kleeman, Livia Kohn, Mabuchi Masaya, Maruyama Hiroshi, Mitamura Keiko, Mori Yuria, Peter Nickerson, Charles D. Orzech, Harold D. Roth, Shiga Ichiko, Tsuchiya Masaaki. (shrink)

I claim in this article that if my experience is such that it seems to me that there is an external object before me, then I have reason to believe that there is an external object before me. The sceptic argues that since my having the experience is compatible both with there being and with there not being an external object before me, I have no reason to believe that the former possibility obtains and not the latter. I respond that (...) the sceptic has ignored a relevant difference between the two possibilities: I can make sense of the former possibility but not of the latter. I examine two broad categories of sceptical possibilities (dreams and hallucinations), explain why I cannot make sense of them, and explain why my inability to make sense of them gives me reason to believe they do not obtain. (shrink)

For Nietzsche, the creation of value is of such great importance because it is the only means by which value can come to exist in the world. In this paper, I examine Nietzsche’s views about how value is created. For Nietzsche, value is created through valuing, and in section ‘Valuing’, I provide a Nietzschean account of valuing. Specifically, I argue that those who share Nietzsche’s view that there are no objective values can value things by representing them to have relative (...) value. In section ‘Self-expression and individuality’, I explore Nietzsche’s view that the creation of value occurs through the self-expression of unique individuals. In section ‘Strength’, I discuss the reasons why, according to Nietzsche, strength is required for value creation. In brief, strength is energy, and I explain the various reasons why energy is required to create new values. (shrink)

Today the name Socrates invokes a powerful idealization of wisdom and nobility that would surprise many of his contemporaries, who excoriated the philosopher for corrupting youth. The problem of who Socrates "really" was—the true history of his activities and beliefs—has long been thought insoluble, and most recent Socratic studies have instead focused on reconstructing his legacy and tracing his ideas through other philosophical traditions. But this scholarship has neglected to examine closely a period of philosophy that has much to reveal (...) about what Socrates stood for and how he taught: the Neoplatonic tradition of the first six centuries C.E., which at times decried or denied his importance yet relied on his methods. In The Neoplatonic Socrates, leading scholars in classics and philosophy address this gap by examining Neoplatonic attitudes toward the Socratic method, Socratic love, Socrates's divine mission and moral example, and the much-debated issue of moral rectitude. Collectively, they demonstrate the importance of Socrates for the majority of Neoplatonists, a point that has often been questioned owing to the comparative neglect of surviving commentaries on the Alcibiades, Gorgias, Phaedo, and Phaedrus, in favor of dialogues dealing explicitly with metaphysical issues. Supplemented with a contextualizing introduction and a substantial appendix detailing where evidence for Socrates can be found in the extant literature, The Neoplatonic Socrates makes a clear case for the significant place Socrates held in the education and philosophy of late antiquity. (shrink)

This paper examines the late Neoplatonic evidence for the text at the crucial point of the Alcibiades I, 133c, finding that Olympiodorus' important evidence is not in the lexis, which strangely has nothing to say. Perhaps it was dangerous in Christian Alexandria to record one's views here too precisely. Rather, they are found primarily in the prologue and secondarily in the relevant theoria. Olympiodorus believes that he is quoting from the work or paraphrasing closely, but offers nothing that can be (...) paralleled in either the manuscripts or the Eusebian versions. Since both the manuscript text and the Eusebian text fail to satisfy, the evidence deserves consideration. Even if he were not in possession of a text that was wholly correct, Olympiodorus does at least offer an overall interpretation of the passage which neatly unites the daemonic and erotic aspects of Socrates' activities, and offers a real reason for Alcibiades to return Socrates' love. He is encouraged to reflect upon the nature of the divine being controlling Socrates, so that he may behold the likeness of his own, woefully obscured, inner self, and so acquire the self-knowledge necessary for true political success.The anonymous Prolegomena are compatible with Olympiodorus, while Proclus' prologue again largely agrees with Olympiodorus' interpretation. For Proclus, Alcibiades must become an observer of Socrates knowledge and indeed of Socrates' whole life. 'For to desire to know the reason for Socrates' actions is to become the lover of the knowledge which is pre-established within him.' So the path towards a total understanding of his own inner intellective self lies via the contemplation of that being that is rooted within Socrates.I also examine earlier Platonist evidence for the text and find little that is not in harmony with late Neoplatonism. (shrink)

Like most other sciences, behavior analysis adopts an assumption of uniformity, namely that principles discovered under controlled conditions apply outside the laboratory as well. Since the boundary between public and private depends on the vantage point of the observer, observability is not an inherent property of behavior. From this perspective, private events are assumed to enter into the same orderly relations as public behavior, and the distinction between public and private events is merely a practical one. Private events play no (...) role in the experimental analysis of behavior, but they permit us to make sense of many commonplace phenomena where controlled observation is impossible but unsystematic data are available. Such interpretive exercises serve both to guide research and to displace occult explanations. (shrink)

This collection gathers classic, influential, and important papers in environmental philosophy ranging from the late 1960s and early 1970s to the present. The volumes explore environmental ethics, epistemological, metaphysical, and comparative worldview questions raised by environmental concerns. The set also represents a genuinely global and international focus, and includes a full index and new introductions by the editors.

I modify the standard coverage construction of the reals to obtain the irrationals. However, this causes a jump in ordinal complexity from ω+1 to Ω.