Technology design has social as well as technical determinants. These social factors, such as the political context and social philosophy, vary historically and cross-nationally. The work upon which this paper is based addresses the nature of process technology design in the United States and focuses on the underlying assumptions that guide technology design, based on both historical analysis and survey and case studies of current design practices. Central to this work is an analysis of how the US approaches compare to (...) some of the other industrial nations and the assumptions and implications of different social design concepts such as human-centered design, skill-based design, and human factors. (shrink)

Drawing extensively on the whole range of Spinoza’s philosophical writing, Staring into the Void devotes twelve chapters to showing in detail how the architecture of reality as Spinoza saw it rises in stages from a theory of being to prophetically modern theories of the physical world, of causal law, of perceptual and intuitive knowledge, of determinism, of the roots of human motivation, and of the kinds of civil society that human nature is capable of sustaining. Professor Skulsky tries to disarm (...) the justifiably skeptical reader by showing why Spinoza’s thesis about the One Real Thing is as arguable as it is outrageous. The Spinoza of this intellectual portrait is a bleaker and more subversive figure than the hero of Enlightenment humanism now in general circulation. (shrink)

In Chapter 12 of his book Material Beings (Van Inwagen, Peter. 1990. Material Beings. Ithaca: Cornell University Press) van Inwagen argues that there are no artefacts, or very few, certainly fewer than most people believe. Artisans very rarely create, at least in the sense of causing things to come into existence. The argument in Chapter 12 is a very powerful one. I do not think that it establishes van Inwagen’s conclusion, but it does, I think, given its (plausible) premise, establish (...) that if there are not far fewer material things in the world than we ordinarily believe, then there are far more. In this sense it establishes, as Russell once said, ‘the truth about physical objects must be strange’. Furthermore, I argue at the end, we cannot avoid this conclusion even if we reject van Inwagen’s premise. Thus the defender of our common sense ontology is caught on the horns of a dilemma. So our commonsense ontology is indefensible. (shrink)

L’article commence par mettre en évidence une tendance chez les Platoniciens de l’antiquité tardive à prêter attention aux mots du maître pour savoir s’il prend en compte des niveaux métaphysiques ou s’il s’agit de conséquences métaphysiques. L’auteur réfléchit ensuite sur les passages mathématiques et ésotériques des Lettres, qui présentent, comme on le croit, des doctrines secrètes, et sur la Lettre II en particulier, dont l’influence lui permet de discuter deux triades d’Amélius. La triade première est bien connue grâce aux quelques (...) témoignages de Proclus, la deuxième, à peine reconnue comme triade, correspond aux trois hypothèses du Parménide de Platon, et présente donc, pour les interprètes néoplatoniciens, des significations métaphysiques. Pour toutes les deux, il s’agit d’interpréter les fragments et de se demander si l’une peut avoir un rapport avec l’autre, et quel serait ce rapport. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Survey of the Past Literature Current State of the Debates Problems to Come.

Thrasyllus, best known as the Roman emperor Tiberius' astrologist, figured prominently in the development of ancient Platonism. How prominently and to what effect are questions that have puzzled philosophers down to our day; Harold Tarrant's important new book attempts to answer them.

Aesthetic internalism claims a link between judgement and motivation: aesthetic judgements bring with them motivations to act in characteristic ways. Critics object that there is a difference between merely liking something and judging it to be aesthetically good, and that it is our likings, not our aesthetic judgements, that motivate us. This paper develops a version of aesthetic internalism that can respond to this criticism. Wholehearted aesthetic judgements are characterized by stability, attention, and motivation. Making such judgements is an important (...) part of a good life, and so at least some aesthetic judgements are motivating. So we have reason to think that this version of aesthetic internalism is true. This paper defends wholehearted aesthetic internalism against objections, and assesses an argument from aesthetic internalism to aesthetic non-cognitivism. While wholehearted aesthetic internalism can only offer qualified support to non-cognitivism, it nonetheless offers a number of fruitful avenues for further work. (shrink)