It is rarely noticed that Oakeshott occasionally quotes the Zhuangzi in Rationalism in Politics. The Zhuangzi was an ancient Daoist text emphasizing the free and wandering life of someone who skillfully acts without pretension or independent purpose. Oakeshott quoted it in support of his own typically Oakeshottian conclusions. But I argue in this paper that Oakeshott misunderstood the actual force of the anecdotes to which he referred. Oakeshott used Daoist wisdom to support his practical philosophy but entirely missed that the (...) Zhuangzi was all about achieving a higher immersion in or indifference to reality, and hence was not about battling against ‘rationalism in politics’ but about transcending rationalism, irrationalism and even practice in order to achieve a higher therapeutic end. (shrink)

Re-reads Marx in light of the contemporary critical interrogation of subjectivity.

Conciliationism is a view—well, a family of views—in the epistemology of disagreement. The idea, simply put, is that, in a wide range of cases where you find yourself in disagreement with another reasoner about the truth of some proposition, you are rationally obliged to adjust your credence in the direction of hers. Conciliationism enjoys a fair bit of prima facie plausibility. Most versions of it, however, suffer from a common (and rather obvious) problem: self-incrimination. Although there is some recognition in (...) the recent literature on disagreement that there is a problem in this vicinity, it, more often than not, is completely ignored. When it is not completely ignored, both the conciliationists and their critics tend to frame the problem incorrectly. As a result, they end up focusing most of their attention on pseudo-problems rather than the genuine worry. Furthermore, even when they have hit on the genuine worry, conciliationists have tended to give surprising and implausible responses to it. Even by their own lights, conciliationists aren’t justified in believing their conciliationist theses. In this paper, I argue that it’s time to come clean. Time to look for a view on the epistemic significance of disagreement that we can actually be justified in believing. (shrink)

An important disagreement in contemporary debates about free will hinges on whether an agent must have alternative possibilities to be morally responsible. Many assume that notions of alternative possibilities are ubiquitous and reflected in everyday intuitions about moral responsibility: if one lacks alternatives, then one cannot be morally responsible. We explore this issue empirically. In two studies, we find evidence that folk judgments about moral responsibility call into question two popular principles that require some form of alternative possibilities for moral (...) responsibility. Survey participants given scenarios involving agents that fail to satisfy these principles nonetheless found these agents to be morally responsible, blameworthy, deserving of blame, and at fault for morally bad actions and consequences. We defend our interpretation of this evidence against objections and explore some implications of these findings for the free will debate. (shrink)

Puts Schelling in conversation with twentieth-century continental philosophy.

Recent work in the psychology of happiness has led some to conclude that we are unreliable assessors of our lives and that skepticism about whether we are happy is a genuine possibility worth taking very seriously. I argue that such claims, if true, have worrisome implications for procreation. In particular, they show that skepticism about whether many if not most people are well positioned to create persons is a genuine possibility worth taking very seriously. This skeptical worry should not be (...) confused with a related but much stronger version of the argument, which says that all human lives are very bad and not worth starting. I criticize the latter stance, but take seriously the former stance and hope it can be answered in future work. (shrink)

Ever since its discovery nearly thirty years ago, the phenomenon of blindsight — vision without visual consciousness — has been the source of great controversy in the philosophy of mind, psychology, and the neurosciences. Despite the fact that blindsight is widely acknowledged to be a critical test-case for theories of mind, Blindsight and the Nature of Consciousness is the first extended treatment of the phenomenon from a philosophical perspective. Holt argues, against much received wisdom, for a thorough-going materialism — the (...) view not only that mental states are brain states, but (much more controversially) that mental properties are physical as well. Designed not only for philosophers and scientists, Blindsight and the Nature of Consciousness has something to say to anyone interested in the mystery of the human mind and in how philosophers and scientists are working toward solving that mystery. (shrink)

Essays exploring a rich intersection between phenomenology and idealism with contemporary relevance.

Debate concerning human enhancement often revolves around the question of whether there is a common “nature” that all human beings share and which is unwarrantedly violated by enhancing one’s capabilities beyond the “species-typical” norm. I explicate Thomas Aquinas’s influential theory of human nature, noting certain key traits commonly shared among human beings that define each as a “person” who possesses inviolable moral status. Understanding the specific qualities that define the nature of human persons, which includes self-conscious awareness, capacity for intellective (...) thought, and volitional autonomy, informs the ethical assessment of various forms of enhancement. Some forms of cognitive and physical enhancement may be desirable from the perspective of what constitutes the “flourishing” of human persons in our fundamental nature; while other forms of enhancement, such as emotive or so-called “moral” enhancement, run the risk of detracting from human flourishing when evaluated from the virtue-theoretic perspective Aquinas promotes. (shrink)

These 14 essays bring Schelling in tune with such luminaries as Heidegger, Derrida, Bataille, Foucault, Deleuze, Levinas, and Irigaray and situate him squarely in the centre of current themes.

In debates over issues such as abortion, a primary principle on which the Roman Catholic outlook is based is the natural law mandate to respect human life rooted in the Aristotelian philosophy of Thomas Aquinas. This principle, however, is limited by focusing on the obligation not to kill innocent humans and thereby neglects another important facet of the Aristotelian-Thomistic ethical viewpoint—namely, obligations that bind human beings in relationships of mutual dependence and responsibility. I argue that there is a need to (...) cultivate a “virtue of acknowledged responsibility” and conclude by addressing a prevalent issue in contemporary society: absent paternal responsibility. My aim is to show that there is an interesting and often neglected rationale in Catholic moral understanding for “deadbeat dad” laws that compel men to take responsibility for any children or fetuses they father and to assist women who give birth to those children or carry those fetuses. (shrink)

Some feminists and animal advocates defend what I call the Linked Oppressions Thesis, according to which the oppression of women and the oppression of animals are linked causally, materially, normatively, and/or conceptually. Alasdair Cochrane offers objections to several versions of the Linked Oppressions Thesis and concludes that the Thesis should be rejected in all its forms. In this paper I defend the Thesis against Cochrane's objections as well as objections leveled by Beth Dixon, and argue that the failure of these (...) objections illuminates the idea of linked oppressions as well as misunderstandings of the Linked Oppressions Thesis, and may provide guidance to philosophers theorizing animal rights from a feminist perspective. (shrink)

This book concerns the nature of time and ordinary cases of persistence in Spinoza. The author argues for three major interpretive claims. First, that Spinoza is committed to an eternalist theory of time whereby all things (whether they seem to be past, present, or future) are equally real. Second, that a mode’s conatus or essence is a self-maintaining activity (not an inertial force or disposition.) Third, that modes persist through time in Spinoza’s metaphysics by having temporal parts (that is, different (...) parts at different times.) If this is correct, then a significant reinterpretation of Spinoza’s modal metaphysics is required. The book also puts Spinoza into dialogue with some recent work in analytic metaphysics. (shrink)

Today the ethical and normative concerns of everyday citizens are all too often sidelined from the study of political and social issues, driven out by an effort to create a more "scientific" study. This book offers a way for social scientists and political theorists to reintegrate the empirical and the normative, proposing a way out of the scientism that clouds our age. In Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, and the Demise of Naturalism: Reunifying Political Theory and Social Science, Jason Blakely (...) argues that the resources for overcoming this divide are found in the respective intellectual developments of Charles Taylor and Alasdair MacIntyre. Blakely examines their often parallel intellectual journeys, which led them to critically engage the British New Left, analytic philosophy, phenomenology, continental hermeneutics, and modern social science. Although MacIntyre and Taylor are not sui generis, Blakely claims they each present a new, revived humanism, one that insists on the creative agency of the human person against reductive, instrumental, technocratic, and scientistic ways of thinking. The recovery of certain key themes in these philosophers' works generates a new political philosophy with which to face certain unprecedented problems of our age. Taylor's and MacIntyre's philosophies give social scientists working in all disciplines (from economics and sociology to political science and psychology) an alternative theoretical framework for conducting research. "This book does an excellent job in identifying a real problem in mainstream political theory--its overly normative character and its separation from social science. It contains many original contributions to the field. I particularly liked the way in which the problems of naturalism are presented as institutional, cultural, and political as well as philosophical. The historical background to these problems is also interesting and sheds fresh light on the issues." --Nicholas Smith, Macquarie University. (shrink)

This essay focuses on cases in which a physician elects to withhold, either temporarily or permanently, certain information from a patient for arguably beneficent reasons. That is, the physician is not being self-serving, to herself or her institution, by not revealing this information. Rather, the goal is purely to promote what the physician believes to be in the patient’s best interest by withholding information that may be harmful to him. This practice of informational guardianship is known as the “therapeutic privilege.” (...) This discussion is thus also limited to clinical interactions and not explicitly discuss withholding information from research subjects, which raises distinct ethical issues and elicits different reasons used to justify or nullify the moral permissibility of nondisclosure. (shrink)

Zen and the Unspeakable God reevaluates how we study mystical experience. Forsaking the prescriptive epistemological box that has constrained the conversation for decades, ensuring that methodology has overshadowed subject matter, Jason Blum proposes a new interpretive approach—one that begins with a mystic’s own beliefs about the nature of mystical experience. Blum brings this approach to bear on the experiential accounts of three mystical exemplars: Meister Eckhart, Ibn al-ʿArabi, and Hui-neng. Through close readings of their texts, he uncovers the mystics’ (...) own fundamental assumptions about transcendence and harnesses these as interpretive guides to their experiences. The predominant theory-first path to interpretation has led to the misunderstanding and misrepresentation of individual mystical experiences and fostered specious conclusions about cross-cultural comparability among them. Blum’s hermeneutic invites the scholarly community to begin thinking about mystical experience in a new way—through the mystics’ eyes. Zen and the Unspeakable God offers a sampling of the provocative results of this technique and an explanation of its implications for theories of consciousness and our contemporary understanding of the nature of mystical experience. (shrink)

Euthanasia, today, is one of the most debated issues in bioethics. Euthanasia, at the time of Thomas Aquinas, was an unheard-of term. Nevertheless, while there is no direct statement with respect to “euthanasia” per se in the writings of Aquinas, Aquinas’s moral theory and certain theological commitments he held could be applied to the euthanasia question and thus bring Aquinas into contemporary bioethical debate. In this paper, I present the relevant aspects of Aquinas’s account of natural law and his theological (...) views on suffering, examining what conclusions each entails with respect to directly intended euthanasia. I then proceed to discuss cases that involve either the administration of palliative medication that hastens death, terminal sedation, or the non-utilization of life-sustaining treatment. This involves a detailed investigation into Aquinas’s account of human intentional action and the question of whether Aquinas holds some form of the Principle of Double-Effect. I end with a final statement of Aquinas’s position on these various types of cases as a synthesis of the conclusions drawn from the different areas of his thought discussed in this paper. My aim is to provide a set of guidelines, based upon Aquinas’s thought, for those who may be faced with decisions regarding the proper form of palliative treatment to be provided to those suffering from a painful terminal illness. Decision-makers, in such cases, may include a terminally ill patient, a patient’s immediate family, health care providers, and lawmakers concerned with establishing the legality of certain forms of treatment. Establishing a clear set of moral guidelines, specifically addressed to this type of decision, can assist the relevant decision-makers in forming their consciences such that they may take the appropriate course of action in confronting the suffering of a terminally ill patient. (shrink)

Despite their purported demographic and institutional decline, White evangelical voters were instrumental in the election of Donald Trump in 2016, and even more so in his 2020 loss. The story of Trump’s electoral successes among Christian voters in the last two elections is in large part the story of religious nationalism—and White Christian nationalism in particular—because Trump personifies the convergence of nationalism-infused forms of messianism and apocalypticism intrinsic to White evangelicalism, which culminate in QAnon cultic ideology. However, these same ethnoreligious/nationalist (...) patterns and logics extend much further back than Trump’s insurgent candidacy. This chapter traces the recurring, resurgent patterns of “zombie nationalism” among White evangelical Christians in the United States over the last half century that emerged in response to periods of significant societal change and certain recurring sociopolitical issues. In particular, alongside established elective affinities around ethnicity (whiteness) and religion (Christianity), this chapter makes the case for incorporating gender and sexual politics as key factors in the articulation and legitimation of religious nationalism in the United States. White Christian nationalism tends to reemerge as a salient political force during periods of rapid social change and diversification, driven by racialized religious grievances symptomatic of Nietzsche’s concept of ressentiment, or the paradoxical internalization and reprojection of a person’s or group’s perceived endangerment, victimhood, and/or suffering, in order to gain power. Drawing on examples of marriage equality and reproductive rights, this chapter demonstrates how an understanding of sexual politics is key to both apprehending and breaking the cyclical reanimation of White Christian nationalism. Escaping the nihilistic impulses driving these cycles will require White evangelicals to develop new hermeneutical tools capable of transforming the exclusionary patterns of racism, ethnocentrism, heteronormativity, and patriarchy that fuel the engine of ressentiment animating zombie nationalism. (shrink)

People with disabilities often report enjoying a much higher quality of life than people without disabilities would expect. For instance, many people believe that their lives would be much worse if they were to become paraplegic. Indeed, some people believe that life with paraplegia would be barely worth living. Yet many paraplegics report being roughly as happy as able-bodied people. This conflict in attitudes has come to be known as “the disability paradox.” Many psychologists claim that the disability paradox is (...) at least partly explained by affective forecasting errors. Someone makes an affective forecasting error when she makes a mistaken prediction about the effect of some event on her experiential quality of life. Such affective forecasting errors raise moral problems that are especially pressing in the context of medical decision-making. For instance, when a recommended treatment would leave someone disabled, she may refuse on the grounds that she would rather live a shorter life without the disability than a longer life with the disability. Yet it may be that she would feel very differently after adapting to the condition in question. What should we say about such cases? On the one hand, some ethicists have argued that affective forecasting errors compromise autonomy, so that decision-makers should take account of the likelihood that they will adapt. On the other, it may appear that decision-makers should have no regard for adaptive preferences they may form in the future. My central goal in this paper is to argue that both of these views are mistaken. If sound, my arguments suggest that legitimate moral concerns about a subject’s well-being are sometimes misrepresented as concerns about her autonomy. (shrink)

Amid the debates over the meaning and usefulness of the word “culture” during the 1980s and 90s, practice theory emerged as a framework for analysis and criticism in cultural anthropology. While theorists have gradually begun to explore practice-oriented frameworks as promising vistas in cultural anthropology and the study of religion, these remain relatively recent developments that stand to be historically explicated and conceptually refined. This article assesses several ways that practice theory has been articulated by some of its chief expositors (...) and critics, and places these developments in conversation with comparable accounts of “social practices” by recent pragmatist philosophers. My aim in generating such a conversation is to illuminate the ways that Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later work provides important resources for cultural analysis that are already implicit in practice theory, yet either frequently overlooked or dismissed by practice theorists. To demonstrate its relevance for cultural theorists in the study of religion, I show how such a Wittgensteinian understanding of practice theory coheres with, and illuminates, Clifford Geertz’s account of meaning, thick description and religious practices. (shrink)

I formulate an argument against epiphenomenalism; the argument shows that epiphenomenalism is extremely improbable. Moreover the argument suggests that qualia not only have causal powers, but have their causal powers necessarily. I address possible objections and then conclude by considering some implications the argument has for dualism.

In Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Hume (1779/1993) appeals to his account of causation (among other things) to undermine certain arguments for the existence of God. If 'anything can cause anything', as Hume claims, then the Principle of Causal Adequacy is false; and if the Principle of Causal Adequacy is false, then any argument for God's existence that relies on that principle fails. Of course, Hume's critique has been influential. But Hume's account of causation undermines the argument from evil at least (...) as much as it undermines arguments for theism, or so I argue. I then suggest that Hume's account of causation can be used to formulate an alternative argument against classical theism. (shrink)

Calls for incorporating social science into patient care typically have accounted for neither the logistic constraints of medical training nor the methodological fallacies of utilizing aggregate “social facts” in clinical practice. By elucidating the different epistemic approaches of artistic and scientific practices, this paper illustrates an integrative artistic pedagogy that allows clinical practitioners to generate social scientific insights from actual patient encounters. Although there is no shortage of calls to bring social science into medicine, the more fundamental processes of thinking (...) by which art and science proceed have not been addressed to this end. As such, the art of medical practice is conceptualized as an innate gift, and thus little is done to cultivate it. Yet doing so is more important than ever because uncertainty in diagnosing and treating chronic illnesses, the most significant contemporary mortality risks, suggests a re-expanding role for clinical judgment. (shrink)

We provide empirical evidence that people who believe in dualism are more likely to be uncomfortable with Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) and to view it as threatening to their identity, humanity, or self. It is (neurocentric) materialists—who think the mind just is the brain—that are less inclined to fear DBS or to see it as threatening. We suggest various possible reasons for this connection. The inspiration for this brief report is a target article that addresses this issue from a theoretical (...) perspective. (shrink)

Masculine/feminine pairs of human-denoting nouns in Greek fall into three distinct classes under predicative ellipsis: those that license ellipsis of their counterpart regardless of gender, those that only license ellipsis of a same-gendered noun, and those in which the masculine noun of the pair licenses ellipsis of the feminine version, but not vice versa. The three classes are uniform in disallowing any gender mismatched ellipses in argument uses, however. This differential behavior of gender in nominal ellipsis can be captured by (...) positing that human-denoting nouns in Greek, while syntactically and morphological uniform in showing a masculine/feminine contrast, do not all encode this contrast in their semantics. Under a semantic identity theory of ellipsis, the attested variation in nominal ellipses in Greek is posited to derive from the fact that nominal ellipsis has two possible sources: a nominal constituent can be elided (true ellipsis), or a null nominal proform can be used (model-theoretic anaphora). (shrink)

An on-going question for virtue ethics is whether it stands as a truly distinctive approach to ethics. In particular, there has been much discussion of whether virtue ethics can provide a viable understanding of right action, one that is a genuine rival to familiar consequentialist and deontological accounts. In this chapter I examine two prominent approaches to virtue ethics, (i) qualified agent and (ii) agent-based virtue ethics, and consider whether either can provide an adequate account of right action. I begin (...) with a presentation of their accounts of right action, including consideration of what is meant by the term “right action”. With this groundwork in place, I turn to a series of important objections that have been raised against these accounts, and consider some of the more prominent and promising responses that these objections have inspired. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Markers of Allusion in Archaic Greek Poetry by Thomas J. NelsonJason S. NethercutMarkers of Allusion in Archaic Greek Poetry. By Thomas J. Nelson. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023. Pp. xvi + 441. ISBN: 9781009086882The thesis of this book is big and important. Nelson shows conclusively that metaliterary citation of engagement with other texts is not, as conventional wisdom maintains, the creation of bookish poets in Alexandria and their (...) Roman counterparts. In fact, every single category of what Nelson calls “indexicality” is fully on display in Archaic Greek poetry, often already in the Iliad and the Odyssey; such indexicality is regularly shown to be deployed via the exact same mechanisms and for the exact same poetic ends as what we witness five centuries later. Well produced, meticulously researched, and generally free of infelicities and errors, Nelson’s book is mandatory reading for Hellenists and Latinists alike and undoubtedly will remain a fixture in bibliographies for many years to come.Nelson breaks his argument into five chapters, beginning in Chapter 1 with methodological considerations regarding terminology, theory, audience, and, especially, the frameworks available for the phenomenon of allusion in Archaic Greek poetry, much of which we must situate in oral traditions. The footnotes to this chapter are especially comprehensive with respect to earlier scholarship on allusive indexing in Greco-Roman poetry; accordingly, this overview now represents the standard that will need to be consulted by anyone currently working on allusion and intertextuality. Chapters 2 to 4 each take up in turn a major category of indexicality, including footnoting (2), appeals to memory (3), and temporal appeals to generalized “earlier” authorities and “future” readers (4). The procedure is always to argue by demonstration; it is here that Nelson shines especially brightly, as he is an excellent close reader, and his examples are usually perfectly chosen to illustrate his point. Nelson opts sensibly to interpret the panoply of allusions he adduces in his book primarily as allusions to mythological fabulae, rather than to texts, although he does make space for allusion to earlier texts in this material, especially when there is no other reasonable explanation for the evidence he brings forward. Generally, this is all well done in a manner duly sensitive to the evidentiary uncertainties involved. While some readers might quibble with any given reading advanced by Nelson, the cumulative effect puts any case one could bring against his basic thesis out of court.Certain individual examples have the potential drastically to reorient our understanding of the relationship between our earliest Greek epics. To choose only one, but perhaps the most consequential: as part of his demonstration in Chapter 2 that the so-called “Alexandrian Footnote” must be reconceived as an [End Page 461] inherent component of Greek poetry from its inception, Nelson demonstrates that Homer’s generalized appeal to the tradition of Zeus’ battle with Typhoeus at the culmination of the catalogue of Greeks (φασί, Il. 2.783) actually invites comparison specifically with Hesiod’s inset narrative of this battle in the Theogony (esp. 843–7 and 857–9). Nelson adduces widespread similarities of language in the two descriptions (e.g., ἱμάσσῃ, Il. 2.782 ~ ἱμάσσας, Theog. 857; γαῖα δ’ ὑπεστενάχιζε, Il. 2.781, στεναχίζετο γαῖα, Il. 2.784 ~ Typhoeus: στενάχιζε δὲ γαῖα, Theog. 858; Zeus: ἐπεστενάχιζε δὲ γαῖα, Theog. 843; πυρὶ χθὼν πᾶσα νέμοιτο, Il. 2.780 ~ καῦμα... πυρός, Theog. 844–5, χθὼν πᾶσα, Theog. 847; and χθὼν | σμερδαλέον κονάβιζε, Il. 2.465–6 ~ σμερδαλέον κονάβησε, Theog. 840). More importantly, Nelson shows that the precise detail that Homer footnotes, namely that Typhoeus’ resting place (εὐνάς) is located among the Arimnoi (Il. 2.783), refutes Hesiod’s claim that the defeated Typhoeus is dispatched to Tartarus (Theog. 868) by cross-referencing Hesiod’s own singular footnote (φασί, Theog. 306) for the story that Typhoeus shared a “bed” with Echidna who resides, precisely, among the Arimnoi (Theog. 304–8). As Nelson puts it (81), “Homer’s φασί appears to index tradition precisely at the point where it is most contestable,” and he continues (83), “[i]f Homer and Hesiod were contemporaneous Hellenistic poets, scholars might argue that this pair of indices marks a reciprocal relationship between these two passages—a self-reflexive cycle of cross referencing, in which each author knowingly nods to the ‘talk’ of their poetic peer. In the context of archaic epic, however, it is likely... (shrink)

This paper challenges the common assumption that perceptual episodes are bearers of representational content by developing a naïve realist theory of perception that can account for a number of central perceptual phenomena.

Following the Kantian critique of metaphysics, the conscious subject is discovered to be an insurmountable obstacle with respect to knowledge of things themselves. For this reason, Kant concludes that metaphysics as the science of being as being is impossible. In this essay, the possibilities of metaphysics in light of the problem of subjectivity are reexamined. The nature and relationship between the conscious subject and the embodiment of the subject is first examined. Following this, the subject’s “encounter with being” within consciousness (...) is analyzed yielding two fundamental structures that are determined to hold with respect to being in relation to the conscious subject. Further examination of the act of reflection coupled with judgment reveals that these structures may in fact be transcended, from which an encounter with being as such follows. On the basis of reflection and judgment, metaphysics is thereby determined to be possible. (shrink)