In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 25.1 (2001) 46-58 [Access article in PDF] In Defense of Trimming Eugene Goodheart I In The Education of Henry Adams, Adams disparages a class of English politicians as "trimmers." They are "the political economist, the anti-slavery and doctrinaire class, the followers of Tocqueville, and of John Stuart Mill. As a class, they were timid--and with good reason--and timidity, which is high wisdom in philosophy, sicklies (...) the whole cast of thought in action." 1 Timidity in action, but high wisdom in philosophy. Adams's ambivalent characterization is, relatively speaking, kind to the trimmer, for in the prevailing view he has a reputation for cowardice, lack of integrity, unprincipled behavior. Dante did not know the word, but the "neutrals" (in Sinclair's translation) whom the poet consigns to limbo have been retroactively called trimmers. Virgil regards them as beneath contempt: "Let us not talk of them; but look thou and pass." Sinclair explains why: "These innumerable seekers of safety first, and last, who take no risk either of suffering in a good cause or of scandal in a bad one, are here manifestly, nakedly, that which they were in life, the waste and rubbish of the universe, of no account to the world, unfit for Heaven and barely admitted to Hell. They have no need to die, for they 'never were alive'. They follow still, as they have always done, a meaningless, shifting banner that never stands for anything because it never stands at all, a cause which is no cause but the changing magnet of the day. Their pains are paltry and their tears and blood mere food for worms." 2The dictionary defines trimming as the "modif[ication] of one's attitude in order to stand well with opposite parties; also to accommodate oneself to the mood of the times," and gives 1685 as the date of provenance. By the late nineteenth century trimming becomes opportunism: [End Page 46] "to modify according to expediency." So it was something of a surprise to find a defense of trimming in Macaulay's famous History of England in his eulogy of one of Charles the Second's ministers, Viscount Halifax (Charles Savile). "Halifax," we learn, "was a trimmer on principle. He was also a trimmer by the constitution of his head and his heart." Macaulay sums up Halifax's defense in his essay "The Character of a Trimmer." "Everything good, he said, trims between extremes. The temperate zone trims between the climate in which men are roasted and the climate in which they are frozen. The English Church trims between the Anabaptist madness and the Papist lethargy. The English constitution trims between Turkish despotism and Polish anarchy. Virtue is nothing but a just temper between propensities any one of which, if indulged to excess, becomes vice." Behind trimming lies Aristotle's golden mean.What of the character of the trimmer? Macaulay provides an admirable and admiring portrait of Halifax. "His understanding was keen, sceptical, inexhaustibly fertile in distinctions and objections; his taste refined, his sense of the ludicrous exquisite; his temper placid and forgiving, but fastidious, and by no means prone either to malevolence or to enthusiastic admiration." Charming and agreeable, but where is the integrity or courage, attributes that we associate with character? He had nothing in common with those who fly from extreme to extreme, and regard the party which they have deserted with an animosity far exceeding that of consistent enemies. His place was on the debatable ground between the hostile divisions of the community.... The party to which he at any moment belonged was the party which, at that moment, he liked least, because it was the party of which at that moment he had the nearest view. He was therefore always severe upon his violent associates, and was always in friendly relations with his moderate opponents. Every faction in the day of its insolent and vindictive triumph incurred his censure; and every faction, when vanquished and persecuted, found in him a protector. To his lasting honor it must be mentioned that he attempted to save those victims whose fate... (shrink)

The classical mechanistic idea of nature that prevailed in science during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was an essentially mindless conception: the ...

So considered, Hume is viewed as a naturalist, whose project in the first three parts of the first book of the Treatise is to provide an account of the ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Life and Writings of Edmond Pezet (1923–2008)Pierre Gillet and Jonathan A. SeitzIn the context of Buddhist-Christian dialogue in Thailand, the life and writings of Fr. Edmond Pezet (1923–2008) are remarkable. He lived among the poor and in a Buddhist monastery, and he also experienced the eremitic life in the forest. According to the Indian Zen master Ama Samy, “Pezet gained an intimate experience and knowledge of Buddhism by (...) living with Thai monks.” Here I introduce a recent Society of the Auxiliaries of the Mission (SAM)1 work that offers a biography and some writings of Edmond Pezet, Edmond Pezet, a Priest among Buddhist Monks in Thailand.2This publication is a collection of various writings of Edmond Pezet: correspondence and nine articles published in various magazines in French, Thai, and English. It has been edited by Henri Huysegoms, a Zen practitioner in Japan for the last forty-five years, and Pierre Liesse, an activist who worked for a couple of years in Thailand. These authors have been impressed by two characteristics of Pezet. First, because he was born in a very poor family in rural France, Pezet identified himself with poor people working hard to earn their living. Second, he was a very committed scholar who successfully learned to speak English, Thai, Lao, Sanskrit, and Pali.Edmond Pezet did his military service in Vietnam, where he was the helpless wit was the helpless witness of torture committed by his regiment fellows on Vietminh suspects. This led him to return there in the future as a missionary, to compensate for the harm he saw caused to the Vietnamese people. Back in France, he completed his study of theology. In 1947, his father was crushed by a truck in front of his eyes. He managed to combine his study and work on the land to provide for his family’s needs. He served as a priest in the diocese of Cahors (France) for a few years. Afterwards, he joined SAM in Belgium.At the end of 1956, he was sent in the northeastern part of Thailand. Faithful to the objectives of SAM, he wanted to serve the local bishop unconditionally, but he quickly noticed a painful reality. Christians and clergy alike followed “a religion, with a dreamlike heaven, rose-water-scented, as its goal, and, in order to get there without fail, certain ‘tricks,’ recipes, ceremonies and representations accompanied by a goodly number of rags and trimmings, where one cannot very easily see the connection between the two things.”3 He wrote that he was stunned to see the way religion was taught to catechumens. They were asked to assimilate, by memorizing [End Page 195] questions and answers, dogmatic assertions expressed with words borrowed from Sanskrit that nobody understood. This inadequate education went hand in hand with a lack of knowledge of Buddhism, sometimes accompanied by scorn. “The Christians were deliberately uprooted from the spiritual richness and religious experience of their race … especially the clergy! (kept apart from their people from the age of 10 to 27). They were taught to administer on the model of the French parish priest of last century.”4His Thai bishop, to whom he opened his heart, did not see any problem in that situation and advised him to get used to it, but for Pezet it soon became unbearable. In 1970, Pezet’s life took a decisive turn. He went to Bangkok. There, he learned Sanskrit and Buddhism at the university level, and for three years lived in the house of a Buddhist monk, helping him to write introductions to Buddhism for foreigners. It made him discover a world of spiritual wealth he had not suspected.What he learned was not a new doctrine presented as absolute truth, because Buddhism does not present its core teaching that way, but a “doctrine” that is expressed exclusively in existential values, something not to be taught, but experienced. Buddhism, he discovered, does not deal with transcendence, because it does not engage in speculative discussion. In Buddhism, this transcendence can only be perceived in the depth of immanence.In a letter of that time, he noted that his bishop had warned him not... (shrink)

This question is important because our beliefs about our relationship to the world underlie our values, and our values determine the sort of world we strive to create.

Autonomous vehicles are one of the most spectacular recent developments of Artificial Intelligence. Among the problems that still need to be solved before they can fully autonomously participate in traffic is the one of making their behaviour conform to the traffic laws. This paper discusses this problem by way of a case study of Dutch traffic law. First it is discussed to what extent Dutch traffic law exhibits features that are traditionally said to pose challenges for AI & Law models, (...) such as exceptions, rule conflicts, open texture and vagueness, rule change, and the need for commonsense knowledge. Then three approaches to the design of law-conforming AV are evaluated in light of the challenges posed by Dutch traffic law, which includes an assessment of the usefulness of AI & Law models of nonmonotonic reasoning, argumentation and case-based reasoning. (shrink)

A picture of the world as chiefly one of discrete objects, distributed in space and time, has sometimes seemed compelling. It is however one of the main targets of Henry Laycock's book; for it is seriously incomplete. The picture, he argues, leaves no space for "stuff" like air and water. With discrete objects, we may always ask "how many?," but with stuff the question has to be "how much?" Laycock's fascinating exploration also addresses key logical and linguistic questions about (...) the way we categorize the many and the much. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

The data emerging from the clinical and brain studies described above suggest that, in the case of OCD, there are two pertinent brain mechanisms that are distinguishable both in terms of neuro dynamics and in terms of the conscious experiences that accompany them. These mechanisms can be characterized, on anatomical and perhaps evolutionary grounds, as a lower level and a higher level mechanism. The clinical treatment has, when successful, an activating effect on the higher level mechanism, and a suppressive effect (...) on the lower level one. (shrink)

The mainstream view today in neuroscience, biology, psychology, and philosophy, is that your conscious will has no effect upon your bodily actions beyond what is already caused by purely mechanical processes acting alone. Thus you are claimed to be, in essence, a mechanical automaton, with perhaps some elements of pure chance thrown in. Your natural belief that your willful efforts can have physical effects is called, accordingly, “The Illusion of Conscious Will”.

It is argued that the principles of classical physics are inimical to the development of a satisfactory science of consciousness The problem is that insofar as the classical principles are valid consciousness can have no e ect on the behavior and hence on the survival prospects of the organisms in which it inheres Thus within the classical framework it is not possible to explain in natural terms the development of consciousness to the high level form found in human beings In (...) quantum theory on the other hand consciousness can be dynamically e cacious quantum the ory does allows consciousness to in uence behavior and thence to evolve in accordance with the principles of natural selection However this evo lutionary requirement places important constraints upon the details of the formulation of the quantum dynamical principles.. (shrink)

Two fundamental questions are addressed within the framework orthodox quantum mechanics. The first is the duality-nonduality conflict arising from the fact that our scientific description of nature has two disparate parts: an empirical component and a theoretical component. The second question is the possibility of meaningful free will in a quantum world concordant with the principle of sufficient reason, which asserts that nothing happens without a sufficient reason. The two issues are resolved by an examination of the conceptual and mathematical (...) structure of orthodox quantum mechanics, without appealing to abstract philosophical analysis or intuitive sentiments. (shrink)

The difficulty is serious, and unless we find a satisfactory solution we must admit that Descartes' thought moves in a vicious circle, or that the ideas, the building blocks of his philosophy, contain incompatible elements inasmuch as they appear both as self-sufficient and as dependent on extrinsic support. The problem of the cartesian circle, as it is customarily called, is therefore more than a special difficulty and would seem to warrant a careful re-examination in the light of recent contributions to (...) the study of Descartes' philosophy. (shrink)

This volume, originally published in 2002, assembles the historical sequence of writings that Kant published between 1783 and 1796 to popularize, summarize, amplify and defend the doctrines of his masterpiece, the Critique of Pure Reason of 1781. The best known of them, the Prolegomena, is often recommended to beginning students, but the other texts are also vintage Kant and are important sources for a fully rounded picture of Kant's intellectual development. As with other volumes in the series there are copious (...) linguistic notes and a glossary of key terms. The editorial introductions and explanatory notes shed light on the critical reception accorded Kant by the metaphysicians of his day and on Kant's own efforts to derail his opponents. (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)

With the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States, the discourse of an authoritarianism and the echoes of a fascist past have moved from the margins to the center of American politics. A culture of war buttressed by the forces of white supremacy and militarization has been unleashed in a series of policies designed to return the United States to a history in which the public sphere was largely white and Christian, and the economy and the (...) state were governed by a ruling corporate elite. Militarization and a war culture have become normalized in the United States and this article explores the ways in which a neo-fascism has emerged that furthers war not only abroad but also at home, especially with regards to the ongoing assaults waged by the state against Muslims, immigrants, women’s reproductive rights, and poor minorities of class and color. Against the rise of neo--fascism, this article advances the idea that education is central to any viable notion of politics, that progressives... (shrink)

Prakken gives an argumentation‐based analysis of the manslaughter case using logical tools developed in AI. Prakken regards evidential argumentation as the construction and attack of ‘trees of inference’ from evidence to conclusions by applying generalizations. He argues that this approach clearly shows how evidence and hypotheses relate and what are the points of disagreement, but that it cannot give a clear overview over a case and lacks a systematic account of degrees of uncertainty.