John McDowell's contribution to philosophy has ranged across Greek philosophy, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, metaphysics and ethics. His writings have drawn on the works of, amongst others, Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Frege, Russell, Wittgenstein, Sellars, and Davidson. His contributions have made him one of the most widely read, discussed and challenging philosophers writing today. This book provides a careful account of the main claims that McDowell advances in a number of different areas of philosophy. The interconnections between the different (...) arguments are highlighted and Tim Thornton shows how these individual projects are unified in a post-Kantian framework that articulates the preconditions of thought and language. Thornton sets out the differing strands of McDowell's work prior to, and leading up to, their combination in the broader philosophical vision revealed in "Mind and World" and provides an interpretative and critical framework that will help shape ongoing debates surrounding McDowell's work. An underlying theme of the book is whether McDowell's therapeutic approach to philosophy, which owes much to the later Wittgenstein, is consistent with the substance of McDowell's discussion of nature that uses the vocabulary of other philosophers including, centrally, Kant. (shrink)

A robust result in research on the production of grammatical agreement is that speakers are more likely to produce an erroneous verb with phrases such as the key to the cabinets, with a singular noun followed by a plural one, than with phrases such as the keys to the cabinet, where a plural noun is followed by a singular. These asymmetries are thought to reflect core language production processes. Previous accounts have attributed error patterns to a syntactic number feature present (...) on plurals but not singulars. An alternative approach is presented in which a process similar to structural priming contributes to the error asymmetry via speakers' past experiences with related agreement constructions. A corpus analysis and two agreement production studies test this account. The results suggest that agreement production is shaped by statistical learning from past language experience. Implications for accounts of agreement are discussed. (shrink)

_Epistemology and Inference _ was first published in 1983. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Henry Kyburg has developed an original and important perspective on probabilistic and statistical inference. Unlike much contemporary writing by philosophers on these topics, Kyburg's work is informed by issues that have arisen in statistical theory and practice as well as issues familiar to professional philosophers. In (...) two major books and many articles, Kyberg has elaborated his technical proposals and explained their ramifications for epistemology, decision-making, and scientific inquiry. In this collection of published and unpublished essays, Kyburg presents his novel ideas and their applications in a manner that makes them accessible to philosophers and provides specialists in probability and induction with a concise exposition of his system. (shrink)

By summarizing, in a single piece, various current perspectives on addiction, Redish et al. have performed a useful service to the field. Their central message is that addiction comprises many vulnerabilities rather than a single vulnerability. Such a message may not be new, but it is worth repeating.

This paper contains a critical analysis of the interpretation of Kant's second edition version of the Transcendental Deduction offered by Béatrice Longuenesse in her recent book: Kant and the Capacity to Judge. Though agreeing with much of Longuenesse's analysis of the logical function of judgment, I question the way in which she tends to assign them the objectifying role traditionally given to the categories. More particularly, by way of defending my own interpretation of the Deduction against some of her criticisms, (...) I argue that Longuenesse fails to show how either part of the two-part proof may be plausibly thought to have established the necessity of the categories (as opposed to the logical functions). Finally, I question certain aspects of her 'radical' interpretation of the famous footnote at B160-1, where Kant distinguishes between 'form of intuition' and 'formal intuition'. (shrink)

Perhaps because John Rawls attempts to separate ideal theory and non-ideal theory too sharply from each other, The Law of Peoples formulates principles to govern cooperative international relations only among the ideal states that Rawls labels `peoples'. An important and presumably numerous category of non-peoples are those he calls `outlaw states'. To guide international relations between peoples and outlaw states Rawls offers only principles of just war. Either Rawls is assuming in a kind of Hobbesian pessimism that large numbers of (...) actual states are in a permanent state of war with each other, or he has neglected to formulate principles to govern non-hostile international relations between peoples and outlaw states. This article explores whether, within Rawls's own categories, it might be possible to specify a minimal content for a form of international public reason in accord with which some peoples and some outlaw states could avoid war with each other and treat each other with reciprocity. It is essential to incorporate the fact, which Rawls acknowledges but generally ignores, that not all internally repressive states are externally aggressive. It may be possible for peoples to coexist peacefully with the subset of outlaw states that are non-aggressive. One great danger, however, is that reciprocally acceptable terms for international relations would need to leave unchallenged too much violation of human rights within the repressive states. Key Words: international justice • war • John Rawls • Law of Peoples • public reason. (shrink)

Augustine was arguably the greatest early Christian philosopher. His teachings had a profound effect on Medieval scholarship, Renaissance humanism, and the religious controversies of both the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. Here, Henry Chadwick places Augustine in his philosophical and religious context and traces the history of his influence on Western thought, both within and beyond the Christian tradition. A handy account to one of the greatest religious thinkers, this Very Short Introduction is both a useful guide for the one (...) who seeks to know Augustine and a fine companion for the one who wishes to know him better. (shrink)

Interdisciplinary work is intractable because the search for knowledge in different fields entails different interests, and thereby different values too; and the different possibilities of knowledge about different subjects also lead to different epistemologies. Thus differ ences among practitioners of the various disciplines are pervasive and aptly described as cultural ones, and interdisciplinary work requires transcending unconscious habits of thought. The more those unconscious habits are explicated and the more we under stand how the disparate characteristics of the various intellectual (...) cultures are related to the necessarily different interests, values, and epistemologies, the more feasible becomes the goal of transcending thought habits. Two sorts of interdisciplinary effort seem to have been successful: specific, delimited problems have been solved by teams in what is actually multidisciplinary rather than interdisciplinary work, and new disciplines have sprung up at the intersections of existing ones. STS fits neither of those patterns. Can it nevertheless be viable? (shrink)

Introduction: On trying to be an Aristotelian or a Thomist in today's world -- QUIETING VARIOUS OF THE ALARMS AND EXCURSIONS IN RECENT PHILOSOPHY: Can philosophy ever be a thing for Hoosiers? -- Folly and sense in present-day philosophy -- Is Quine a metaphysician? -- Richard Rorty's would-be deconstruction of analytic philosophy -- WHAT PRICE ETHICS IN THE EYES OF MODERN MORAL PHILOSOPHERS? : Telos and teleology in Aristotelian ethics -- Variations, good and bad, on the theme of right reason (...) in ethics -- Language and ethics: 'What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba?' -- In appreciation and refutation of Alan Gewirth's principle of general consistency -- Ethical egoism, new style: should its trademark be libertarian or Aristotelian? -- A CONCLUDING MISCELLANY, RANGING FROM A DEFENSE OF THE HUMANITIES TO A DEFENSE OF NATURAL LAW: The what and why of the humanities -- Why need a general be human? -- The poor, hapless humanities -- Natural law: dead or alive? -- Can John Finnis bright of a revival of natural law? -- Natural law and the"is"-"ought" question: queries to Finnis and Grisez -- A poor benighted philosopher looks at the issue of judicial activism / Henry B. Veach. (shrink)

One of the most important topics in current work on consciousness is what relationship it has to attention. Recently, one of the focuses of this debate has been on the phenomenon of identity crowding. Ned Block has claimed that identity crowding involves conscious perception of an object that we are unable to pay attention to. In this article, we draw upon a range of empirical findings to argue against Block's interpretation of the data. We also argue that current empirical evidence (...) strongly supports an interpretation of the data that emphasises cognitive inference over conscious perception. (shrink)

THE Concluding Unscientific Postscript is generally regarded as the most philosophically significant of Kierkegaard's works. In terms of a subjectivistic orientation it seems to present both an elaborate critique of the pretensions of the Hegelian philosophy and an existential analysis which points to the Christian faith as the only solution to the "human predicament." Furthermore, on the basis of such a straightforward reading of the text, Kierkegaard has been both vilified as an irrationalist and praised as a profound existential thinker (...) who has uncovered the only legitimate starting point for a philosophical analysis of the religious life and a Christian apologetic. (shrink)

Though lobbying for federal money may seem like business as usual today–with billions of dollars spent annually by companies, labor unions, and other organizations in an effort to win a piece of what has become an enormous federal pie–this was not always the case in the United States. An all-but-forgotten event, the Harrisburg Convention of 1827, may have been one of the key historical turning points in this regard, an opening of a floodgate that would transform the role of the (...) U.S. federal government forever. It was in the modest Pennsylvania capital that a hundred of the North’s most influential manufacturers and public servants–backed by legislators like Henry Clay and Daniel Webster–assembled to draft a “memorial” to Congress, imploring that body to pass a protectionist bill to save their industries from what they viewed as eventual ruin. As Jonathan J. Pincus observed and Thornton and Ekelund echoed, “it is not small cohesive individual groups but larger diverse ones that are necessary in order to effectively lobby representatives and senators to obtain majority coalitions” in comprehensive legislation. The convention would bring together this “larger diverse” group—with just such a legislative goal. Meanwhile, mostly in the South, anti-protectionist opinion continued to surge. The Harrisburg Convention of 1827 would lead to the passage of that most hated piece of protectionist legislation—the “Tariff of Abominations” of 1828–and it would do so by framing the protectionist agenda into a nationalist “cause” borne of “patriotic duty.”. (shrink)

Norbert Wiener and J.B.S. Haldane suggested during the early thirties that the profound changes in our conception of matter entailed by quantum theory opens the way for our thoughts, and other experiential or mind-like qualities, to play a role in nature that is causally interactive and effective, rather than purely epiphenomenal, as required by classical mechanics. The mathematical basis of this suggestion is described here, and it is then shown how, by giving mind this efficacious role in natural process, the (...) classical character of our perceptions of the quantum universe can be seen to be a consequence of evolutionary pressures for the survival of the species. (shrink)

Originally published in 1925, this book provides an overview of the philosophy of Johannes Scotus Erigena. Bett explains Erigena's thinking as well as the influence he had over later philosophers, despite the fact that his writings were banned by the Pope. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in medieval philosophy and Erigena's philosophy in particular.

Dennett’s work has had a profound impact on philosophical and scientific understanding of consciousness. However, interpreting Dennett’s work on consciousness is notoriously challenging. Some have even suggested that his ideas are contradictory. This paper develops and defends an interpretation of Dennett’s views, on which consciousness is a real pattern. I argue that this interpretation can make sense of some initially puzzling features of the view, including: multiple drafts, global workspace theory, qualia eliminativism, consciousness as a user-illusion, and the claim that (...) our reports about consciousness have a special kind of authority. Far from being a tangle of contradictory ideas, this interpretation of Dennett consists of a consistent and robust theory of conscious experience. (shrink)

Augustine was arguably the greatest early Christian philosopher. His teachings had a profound effect on Medieval scholarship, Renaissance humanism, and the religious controversies of both the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation. Here, Henry Chadwick places Augustine in his philosophical and religious context and traces the history of his influence on Western thlught, both within and beyond the Christian tradition. -- PUBLISHER DESCRIPTION.

On the occasion of the one hundredth anniversary of the death of Marx, has not the moment come at last to render an equitable judgment, of the type which only the passage of time allows us to formulate, on the man whom we do not know how to describe— philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, politician, theoretician of the worker movement, reformer, revolutionary or prophet? And this judgment, which will take everything and examine it before putting all things in their proper place, (...) could it not take the form of a response to the famous question: what is dead and what is still living today in that work which is as monumental as it is diverse since it touches every domain of knowledge and action? (shrink)

A layman's view of history.--Old age.--The education of Henry Adams.--Mont-Saint Michel and Chartres.--The Phi beta kappa ideal.--Pieces written during the war: The pathos of America. Sub specie æternitatis. The wisdom of the ages.

The exercises of modem power which Foucault discusses constitute counterexamples to traditional views of the nature of power. Foucault's views are extended to provide an account of the nature of resistance.

The dominant argument for the introduction of propensities or chances as an interpretation of probability depends on the difficulty of accounting for single case probabilities. We argue that in almost all cases, the``single case'' application of probability can be accounted for otherwise. ``Propensities'' are needed only intheoretical contexts, and even there applications of probability need only depend on propensities indirectly.