Michael Peters, Sonja Arndt & Marek TesarThis is a collective writing experiment of PESA members, including its Executive Committee, asking questions of the Philosophy of Education in a New Key. Co...

In _The Immorality of Punishment_ Michael Zimmerman argues forcefully that not only our current practice but indeed any practice of legal punishment is deeply morally repugnant, no matter how vile the behaviour that is its target. Despite the fact that it may be difficult to imagine a state functioning at all, let alone well, without having recourse to punishing those who break its laws, Zimmerman makes a timely and compelling case for the view that we must seek and put (...) into practice alternative means of preventing crime and promoting social stability. (shrink)

This text gives voice to the idea that the study of the philosophy of thought and language is more than a specialism, but rather lies at the very heart of the ...

Does human life have meaning? Ever since Darwin, there has been great skepticism about whether a "meaning of life" was possible outside of religious belief. Is it possible to find meaning in human life? Philosopher of science Michael Ruse examines the question of meaning in life within Darwinian views of human nature. He argues that meaning in the Darwinian age can be found if we turn to a kind of Darwinian existentialism, seeing our evolved human nature as the source (...) of all meaning, both in the intellectual and social worlds. (shrink)

Western Marxism, since its Western deviation and theoretical development in the 1920s, developed in diverse ways that has reflected the broader philosophical environment. First, a theory of conscio...

Viral modernity is a concept based upon the nature of viruses, the ancient and critical role they play in evolution and culture, and the basic application to understanding the role of information and forms of bioinformation in the social world. The concept draws a close association between viral biology on the one hand, and information science on the other – it is an illustration and prime example of bioinformationalism that brings together two of the most powerful forces that now drive (...) cultural evolution. The concept of viral modernity applies to viral technologies, codes and ecosystems in information, publishing, education and emerging knowledge systems. This paper traces the relationship between epidemics, quarantine, and public health management and outlines elements of viral-digital philosophy based on the fusion of living and technological systems. We discuss Covid-19 as a ‘bioinformationalist’ response that represents historically unprecedented level of sharing information from the sequencing of the genome to testing for a vaccination. Finally, we look at the US response to Covid-19 through the lens of infodemics and post-truth. The paper is followed by three open reviews, which further refine its conclusions as they relate to philosophy and the notion of the virus as Pharmakon. (shrink)

Phenomenologies of Violence explores phenomenology’s capacities to deepen our understanding of various violences. The volume presents phenomenology as an interdisciplinary, relevant method to investigate violence, its many faces, meanings, and far reaching consequences for human existence and self-understanding.

This paper raises a problem for the pair of views that universals are immanent in their instantiations and that these instantiations, or states of affairs, are somehow constructed from the instantiated universals. It is argued that the pair is inconsistent. The first view implies that universals are prior to states of affairs, whereas the second view implies that states of affairs are prior to universals. This paper does not attempt to solve this problem, but rather to formulate it precisely. That (...) promises to illuminate how to solve the problem if it can be solved, or why it cannot be solved if it is unsolvable. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION The doctrines and values of the 'new' archaeology are in the process of being broken down; for many they were never acceptable. ...

This paper is an experiment in collective writing conducted in Autumn 2019 at the Faculty of Education at Beijing Normal University. The experiment involves 12 international masters' students readi...

I acquired many intellectual debts while writing What’s the Point of Knowledge?, but I am especially indebted to my three symposiasts. David Henderson’s work helped me to appreciate the value of thinking about the point of epistemic evaluation; Catherine Elgin’s writings prompted me to investigate the purpose of the concept of understanding; and Krista Lawlor’s 2013 book revealed important connections between three of my primary epistemological interests: the role of epistemic evaluation, the semantics of knowledge claims and the work of (...) J.L. Austin. It is therefore an honour to have such personally influential scholars engage with my work. Their thoughtful, generous and philosophically rich comments have provided yet another opportunity to clarify my thinking and develop some ideas further. (shrink)

The paper urges that polysemous phenomena are typically semantic not pragmatic. The part of a message sent by a polysemous expression is typically one of its meanings encoded in the speaker's language and not the result of pragmatic modification. The hearer receives that part of the message by a process of disambiguation, by detecting which item in the lexicon the speaker has selected. This is the best explanation of observed regularities. The paper argues that the experimental evidence from psycholinguistics, particularly (...) that produced in discussions of “underspecification” and “overspecification,” does not undermine this view nor support the pragmatic alternative. (shrink)

The literature on Kierkegaard is often content to paraphrase. By contrast, Michael Theunissen articulates one of Kierkegaard's central ideas, his theory of despair, in a detailed and comprehensible manner and confronts it with alternatives. Understanding what Kierkegaard wrote on despair is vital not only because it illuminates his thought as a whole, but because his account of despair in The Sickness unto Death is the cornerstone of existentialism. Theunissen's book, published in German in 1993, is widely regarded as the (...) best treatment of the subject in any language. Kierkegaard's Concept of Despair is also one of the few works on Kierkegaard that bridge the gap between the Continental and analytic traditions in philosophy. Theunissen argues that for Kierkegaard, the fundamental characteristic of despair is the desire of the self "not to be what it is." He sorts through the apparently chaotic text of The Sickness unto Death to explain what Kierkegaard meant by the "self," how and why individuals want to flee their selves, and how he believed they could reconnect with their selves. According to Theunissen, Kierkegaard thought that individuals in despair seek to deny their authentic selves to flee particular aspects of their character, their past, or the world, or in order to deny their "mission." In addition to articulating and evaluating Kierkegaard's concept of despair, Theunissen relates Kierkegaard's ideas to those of Heidegger, Sartre, and other twentieth-century philosophers. (shrink)

A critique of contemporary critical theory that traces transformative shifts in the discipline during the twentieth century and argues for a reformulation of critical theory in order to ensure the legacy of its political project.

This book addresses such key ethical issues as euthanasia, the environment, biotechnology, abortion, the family, sexual ethics, and the distribution of health care resources. Michael Banner argues that the task of Christian ethics is to understand the world and humankind in the light of the credal affirmations of the Christian faith, and to explicate this understanding in its significance for human action through a critical engagement with the concerns, claims and problems of other ethics. He illustrates both the distinctiveness (...) of Christian convictions in relation to the above issues and also the critical dialogue with practices based on other convictions which this sense of distinctiveness motivates but does not prevent. The book's importance lies in its attempt to show the crucial difference which Christian belief makes to an understanding of these issues, whilst at the same time demonstrating some of the weaknesses and confusions of certain popular approaches to them. (shrink)

Grounded in the canonical gospels and other New Testament passages, especially Philippians 2:1-11, this study offers an account of humility from a Christian perspective.

Illuminates the influence of 19th-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche on 20th-century French philosopher Michel Foucault, focusing on the notion of genealogy.

The description for this book, Vico in the Tradition of Rhetoric, will be forthcoming.

Early expressivists, such as A.J. Ayer, argued that normative utterances are not truth-apt, and many found this striking claim implausible. After all, ordinary speakers are perfectly happy to ascribe truth and falsity to normative assertions. It is hard to believe that competent speakers could be so wrong about the meanings of their own language, particularly as these meanings are fixed by the conventions implicit in their own linguistic behavior. Later expressivists therefore tried to arrange a marriage between expressivism and the (...) truth-aptness of normative discourse. Like many arranged marriages, this has not been an entirely happy one. In particular, the marriage has seemed to depend on so-called deflationist theories of truth, and these may well turn out to provide at best a shaky foundation for any marriage. Before advising the parties to file for divorce, though, we should first see whether expressivism itself has not been misunderstood. I argue that the marriage of expressivism to the truth-aptness of normative discourse can indeed be saved, though only in the context of a version of expressivism I call “Ecumenical Expressivism.”. (shrink)

Written by well-known professor and author Michael Boylan, Morality and Global Justice is an accessible examination of the moral and normative underpinnings of ...

Sokrates hat als Figur in der kaiserzeitlichen Philosophie nicht zuletzt auch bei der Auseinandersetzung mit dem Christentum eine Rolle gespielt. Dass dies auch für Aspekte der praktischen Ethik gilt, die mit seinem Namen verbunden werden, ist mit Blick auf die wachsende Jenseitsorientierung der kaiserzeitlichen, platonisch dominierten Philosophie bestritten worden. Michael Erler zeigt, dass die von Sokrates im Gorgias als 'wahre Politik' bezeichnete praktische Anwendung philosophischer Methoden gleichwohl auch im späteren Platonismus eine Rolle spielte und als Hilfestellung für das Leben (...) im Diesseits letztlich der Befreiung der Seele für das Jenseits diente."-- Back cover. (shrink)

Michael Kelly is the author of 68 entries altogether. The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French is far more than a simple revision of the original Oxford Companion to French Literature, published in 1959, and described by The Listener as the `standard work of reference for English-speaking enquirers into French literature'. As the change in title implies, this completely new work presents an authoritative guide not only to ten centuries of literature produced in the territory now called France, (...) but also to the rich literary output of other French-speaking countries around the world. The scope of the Companion is deliberately open and inclusive, challenging and extending the traditional canon. Literature is understood in a broad sense, ranging from strip cartoon and pamphlet to tragedy and epic, and particular attention is devoted to francophone writing from outside France. Written by an international team of specialists, entries cover individual authors and works - over 3,000 of them - from the troubadours to Césaire, and from La Princesse de Clèves to La Vie mode d'emploi. Each is discussed in detail within their historical, cultural, and intellectual context. Among the new features of the Companion are the substantial essay-entries, reflecting up-to-date scholarship and theoretical debates on topics such as: - literary movements and genres - historical subjects such as chivalry, or Occupation and Resistance in wartime France - movements of thought from Scholasticism to feminism - linguistic topics - the sciences - the arts and media, including opera, cinema, and press. (shrink)

By way of dialogues, Michael Krausz offers philosophical reflections about his life as a philosopher, artist, and musician. After providing biographical accounts of his years of experience in these areas, he rehearses his views about relativism, interpretation, creativity, and self-realization.

In this talk, I shall begin by considering alternative definitions of "naturalism", and by asking how the term is best understood in the present context. In answering this question, I shall distinguish between anti-naturalism on the one hand, and supernaturalism on the other. Next, I shall discuss the relation between science and supernaturalism, and I shall argue, first, that a commitment to scientific method does not in itself presuppose a rejection of supernaturalism, and secondly, that scientific investigation and theorizing could (...) in principle show either that supernaturalism is true, or that it is false. I shall then go on to survey a number of pro-supernaturalist arguments and discussions, both traditional and more recent. Given the number of such arguments and discussions, my critical commentary will necessarily be rather brief, though I shall comment in more detail upon some of the work of Michael Behe and William Dembski. The basic conclusion for which I shall argue is that there is no good reason for thinking that supernaturalism is true. (shrink)

Tyquin, Michael We all associate war with death-and remembrance. But amidst the slaughter of World War One, and, for Australians, the Gallipoli campaign, it is easy to forget the anguish of those who did not fight. These were the parents, siblings, lovers and friends of soldiers who went to war and who never came home. This is the story of a father who went to extreme lengths to find the last resting pace of his young son who was killed (...) on Gallipoli in 1915. (shrink)

From the concrete experience of war, Michael S. Yandell constructs a phenomenology of “negative revelation” in which false or distorted claims of goodness and justice disintegrate and become meaningless, adding depth to the term moral injury.

Michael Luntley provides a lively introduction to the debate over postmodernism. Sympathisers of the postmodernist critique of absolute knowledge have jetisoned concepts of reason,t ruth and self; this abandonment has fuelled their opponents' case against postmodernism. This has led them to ignore the very real problems raised by the postmodernists. Luntley offers a clear and careful exposition of how rational debate survives despite the Enlightenment's failings. _Reason, Truth and Self_ covers many of the key questions of our age: * (...) How rational is science? * Can we really know the truth about ourselves and the world? * What is the nature of the mind? * Can we know the difference between right and wrong? _Reason, Truth and Self_ is ideal for courses in philosophy and the social sciences. (shrink)

Crop genetic resources constitute a ‘new’ global commons, characterized by multiple layers of activities of farmers, genebanks, public and private research and development organizations, and regulatory agencies operating from local to global levels. This paper presents sui generis biocultural community protocols that were developed by four communities in Benin and Madagascar to improve their ability to contribute to, and benefit from, the crop commons. The communities were motivated in part by the fact that their national governments’ had recently ratified the (...) Plant Treaty and the Nagoya Protocol, which make commitments to promoting the rights of indigenous peoples, local communities and farmers, without being prescriptive as to how Contracting Parties should implement those commitments. The communities identified the protocols as useful means to advance their interests and/or rights under both the Plant Treaty and the Nagoya Protocol to be recognized as managers of local socio-ecological systems, to access genetic resources from outside the communities, and to control others’ access to resources managed by the community. (shrink)

Student employability is a key aspect of any university degree. The relationship between high student learning outcomes and high employability is a problem that needs to be addressed and improved by colleges and universities. Students with high employability can find good jobs after graduation and perform well in the workplace. Employability is associated with the success of university education, thus giving the university a good reputation. This study explores the development of employability, alongside teaching and student learning abilities to examine (...) how these variables affect student employability. The study collected 442 responses to a questionnaire to investigate the relationship between pedagogy for employability, problem-based learning, absorptive capacity, and student employability based on a structural model. The SEM results show that pedagogy for employability and problem-based learning positively correlate to absorptive capacity; pedagogy for employability and absorptive capacity positively correlate to student employability. We then analyzed a case study teaching intervention strategy with 221 students from the school of management and discuss the differential results of all variables. Results showed that the test group was superior to the control group in each variable performance, indicating that the intervention strategy proved effective. Based on these findings, this study proposes suggestions for future research. (shrink)

The term “normal” is culturally ubiquitous and conceptually vague. Interestingly, it appears to be a descriptive-normative-hybrid which, unnoticedly, bridges the gap between the descriptive and the normative. People’s beliefs about normality are descriptive and prescriptive and depend on both an average and an ideal. Besides, the term has generally garnered popularity in medicine. However, if medicine heavily relies on the normal, then it should point out how it relates to the concept of health or to statistics, and what, after all, (...) normal means. Most importantly, the normativity of the normal needs to be addressed. Since the apparently neutral label “normal” can exclude, stigmatize, and marginalize people who are defined in contrast to it as abnormal, health professionals should think twice before using the term with patients. The present critical perspective advocates against using the term “normal,” as long as no understanding of a person’s individual normality has been attained. It advocates for the right to autonomously determine one’s own normality. For health professionals I do not see worthwhile benefits of subscribing to the concept of “normality” and imposing it on their patients. But I do see many risks. (shrink)