This book is a study of Hume and Spinoza and the relationship of philosophical theories of the emotions to psychological theories of therapy. Arguing that Spinoza's cognitivist theory of emotions is closer to the truth, it is shown that that provides the beginning of an understanding of how Freudian or, more generally, analytic therapies make philosophic sense. That is, we can begin to understand how people's emotional lives might be transformed by consideration and interpretation of their memories, beliefs, fantasies; in (...) other words, how knowledge might help to make one free. (shrink)

Epicureanism after the generation of its founders has been characterised as dogmatic, uncreative and static. But this volume brings together work from leading classicists and philosophers that demonstrates the persistent interplay in the school between historical and contemporary influences from outside the school and a commitment to the founders' authority. The interplay begins with Epicurus himself, who made arresting claims of intellectual independence, yet also admitted to taking over important ideas from predecessors, and displayed more receptivity than is usually thought (...) to those of his contemporaries. The same principles of autonomy and openness figure importantly in the three major areas of focus in these essays: theology, politics and the emotions. (shrink)

Wakefield’s harmful dysfunction analysis asserts that the concept of medical disorder includes a naturalistic component of dysfunction and a value component, both of which are required for disorder attributions. Muckler and Taylor, defending a purely naturalist, value-free understanding of disorder, argue that harm is not necessary for disorder. They provide three examples of dysfunctions that, they claim, are considered disorders but are entirely harmless: mild mononucleosis, cowpox that prevents smallpox, and minor perceptual deficits. They also reject the proposal that dysfunctions (...) need only be typically harmful to qualify as disorders. We argue that the proposed counterexamples are, in fact, considered harmful; thus, they fail to disconfirm the harm requirement: incapacity for exertion is inherently harmful, whether or not exertion occurs, cowpox is directly harmful irrespective of indirect benefits, and colorblindness and anosmia are considered harmful by those who consider them disorders. We also defend the typicality qualifier as viably addressing some apparently harmless disorders and argue that a dysfunction’s harmfulness is best understood in dispositional terms. (shrink)

This paper addresses two disciplinary expansion trends in social sciences: in sociology, by denying the distinction between human and non-human; in archaeology, relying on the objet-mémoire concept, which associates the ideas of social interaction and memory processes. We discuss them from an ethnographic study of the ordinary containers in a biology laboratory. The signs, drawn or engraved on their surface, are a proxy for a joint analysis of artifacts, textuality, institutionalization processes, and social stratification. Rather than such disciplinary expansions, we (...) argue in favor of an ethnography based on the “cultural technology” trend. ---------------------- Cet article identifie deux programmes d’extension disciplinaire en sciences sociales, fondés sur une redéfinition du statut accordé aux objets : en sociologie, en niant la distinction entre humain et non‑humain ; en archéologie, en introduisant le concept d’« objet‑mémoire », qui intègre l’interaction sociale et les processus mémoriels. Leur discussion est menée à partir d’une ethnographie des contenants usuels d’un laboratoire de biologie. Les marques apposées à leurs surfaces permettent l’analyse conjointe des ensembles d’artefacts, de leur textualité, des processus d’institutionnalisation et de la stratification sociale du laboratoire. Aux ambitions expansionnistes, on oppose une ethnographie des techniques fondée sur la technologie culturelle. (shrink)

This paper articulates and defends a conception of logical form as semantic form revealed by a compositional meaning theory. On this conception, the logical form of a sentence is determined by the semantic types of its primitive terms and their mode of combination as it relates to determining under what conditions it is true. We develop this idea in the framework of truth-theoretic semantics. We argue that the semantic form of a declarative sentence in a language L is revealed by (...) a (canonical) proof of its T- sentence in an interpretive truth theory for L. We give a precise characterization of sameness of logical form between any two declarative sentences in any two languages in terms of the notion of corresponding proofs in interpretive truth theories for the languages. We illustrate the utility of this approach with a number of examples. We then extend the characterization to non-declaratives in a generalization of truth-theoretic semantics that appeals to fulfillment conditions, of which truth conditions are one variety. On this approach, logical forms are not reified, and the notion of sameness of logical form is treated as conceptually basic. We discuss the relation of this conception of logical form to the project of identifying logical constants, reviewing two approaches, one of which takes topic neutrality as central, the other recursion. We argue that the project of identifying logical constants for the purposes of classifying together valid arguments is largely independent of that identifying logical form of sentences, and urge an ecumenical approach to extending talk of logical constants beyond where it is currently well-grounded. (shrink)

This paper clarifies Searle's account of we-intentions and then argues that it is subject to counterexamples, some of which are derived from examples Searle uses against other accounts. It then offers an alternative reductive account that is not subject to the counterexamples.

What is the ontology of collective action? I have in mind three connected questions. 1. Do the truth conditions of action sentences about groups require there to be group agents over and above individual agents? 2. Is there a difference, in this connection, between action sentences about informal groups that use plural noun phrases, such as ‘We pushed the car’ and ‘The women left the party early’, and action sentences about formal or institutional groups that use singular noun phrases, such (...) as ‘The United States declared war on Japan on December 8th, 1941’ and ‘The Supreme Court ruled that segregation is unconstitutional in 1954 in Brown vs. Board of Education’? 3. Under what conditions does it make sense to speak of a group doing something together, and what, if anything, is a collective action? In this paper, I argue that a) understanding action sentences about groups does not commit us to the existence of group agents per se, but only to the existence of individual agents; b) there is no difference in this regard between sentences which attribute actions to informal groups on the one hand and institutional groups on the other; c) collective action can be both intentional and unintentional; d) any random group of agents each of whom does something is also a group which does something together; e) while there is a sense in which groups per se perform no primitive collective actions, and therefore no actions at all, f) there is a sensible extension of talk of actions to groups, though it should be treated strictly speaking, like talk of group agents, as a façon de parler, for g) the only agents per se are individuals and the only actions are theirs. -/-. (shrink)

The paper provides a taxonomy of group speech acts whose main division is that between collective speech acts (singing Happy Birthday, agreeing to meet) and group proxy speech acts in which a group, such as a corporation, employs a proxy, such as a spokesperson, to convey its official position. The paper provides an analysis of group proxy speech acts using tools developed more generally for analyzing institutional agency, particularly the concepts of shared intention, proxy agent, status role, status function, convention (...) and constitutive rule. (shrink)

Speakers assert in order to communicate information. It is natural, therefore, to hold that the content of an assertion is whatever information it communicates to its audience. In cases involving uncertainty about the semantic values of context-sensitive lexical items, moreover, it is natural to hold that the information an assertion communicates to its audience is whatever information audience members are in a position to recover from it by assuming that the proposition it semantically determines is true. This sort of picture (...) corresponds to an influential and widely endorsed theory of assertoric content: diagonalism. I begin by arguing that, despite its intuitive appeal, diagonalism should be rejected because it conflicts with our intuitive judgments about the circumstances in which the contents of speakers’ assertions would be true or false. I then show that the failure of diagonalism requires us to either abandon a familiar way of thinking about information and rational assertion or hold that the content of an assertion is not always the information it communicates. I suggest that we choose the latter horn of this dilemma — assertoric content is better characterized in terms of the commitments speakers undertake than in terms of the information they communicate. (shrink)

David Benatar argues that one important consideration in favour of anti-natalism is based on the fact that all humans lack cosmic meaning; we will never transcend space and time such that we will have an impact on the entire universe, forever. Instead of denying Benatar’s claim that we lack cosmic meaning, Thaddeus Metz recently argues that our lack of cosmic meaning is not that significant because we ought not to regret lacking a good that we could not have in the (...) first place. He explains the principle behind this idea in modal terms: “the closer the world in which one could access a benefit, the more reasonable are attitudes such as sadness, disappointment, regret when does not acquire it.” I argue that this principle faces a serious counterexample in the form of death. The possible worlds in which one doesn’t die are incredibly distant. Yet, it is appropriate to express deep sadness, disappointment, and regret at the fact that one must inevitably face death. Metz is wrong that we shouldn’t regret lacking a good unavailable to us in the first place. His criticism of Benatar therefore fails. While it might be objected that immortality is not good, my basic point still stands when considering the fact that our lives are not significantly longer. Benatar’s claims about the significance of our lack of cosmic meaning might not be true, but not for the reasons suggested by Metz. (shrink)

There exists a diversity of "evidence-free" religions, contradicting one an- other. There will be an epistemic problem for a religious devotee either because evidence-free belief is in general not epistemically justified in the face of diversity, or because of a special problem in the religious case. I argue that in general evidence-free belief is epistemically justified in the face of diversity. Then I argue that recent arguments of Wykstra and Basinger fail to show that there is a special problem in (...) the religious case. Finally, I give reasons why religious belief is epistemically justified in the face of diversity. (shrink)

This collection of original essays, from both established scholars and newcomers, takes up a debate that has recently flared up in philosophy, sociology, and disability studies on whether disability is intrinsically a harm that lowers a person's quality of life. While this is a new question in disability scholarship, it is also touches on one of the oldest philosophical questions: What is the good human life? Historically, philosophers have not been interested in the topic of disability, and when they are (...) it is usually only in relation to questions such as euthanasia, abortion, or the moral status of disabled people. Consequently, implicitly or explicitly, disability has been either ignored by moral and political philosophers or simply equated with a bad human life, a life not worth living. This collection takes up the challenge that disability poses to basic questions of political philosophy and bioethics, among others, by focusing on fundamental issues as well as practical implications of the relationship between disability and the good human life. (shrink)

Our utterances are typically if not always "situated," in the sense that they are true or false relative to unarticulated parameters of the extra-linguistic context. The problem is to explain how these parameters are determined, given that nothing in the uttered sentences indicates them. It is tempting to claim that they must be determined at the level of thought or intention. However, as many philosophers have observed, thoughts themselves are no less situated than utterances. Unarticulated parameters need not be mentally (...) represented. In this paper, I try to make precise the notion of representation at stake here. In one sense of 'representation', something is represented if it is inferentially relevant. In another, less demanding sense, something is represented if it is relevant to the construction of a context-sensitive, ad hoc concept. Ad hoc concepts act as "proxies" for cognitively more demanding representations. They "imitate" the latter's epistemic and pragmatic roles while being inferentially less sophisticated. Thus, there are two senses in which a thought can be said to be situated: (1) its truth-value is relative to a non-represented contextual parameter, (2) its truth-value is not itself relative, but it involves a context-sensitive, ad hoc concept. (shrink)

In the current career landscape and labor market, career transitions have become a critical aspect of career development and are significant for Human Resource Development research and practice. Our research examines the type of support used during different career transitions and who can provide that support to women in career transition. We investigated four types of social support—emotional, appraisal, informational, and instrumental—and their roles in five types of career transitions: school-to-work transition, upward mobility transition, transition to a new profession, transition (...) to entrepreneurship, career re-entry transition, and transition to retirement. We analyzed 80 journal articles using directed content analysis, cross-tabulation, and nonparametric statistical tests. Instrumental support appears to be the most commonly documented type of social support in this career transition literature. Appraisal support was consistently documented least for each type of career transition. Our results may highlight the importance of personal connections and internal resources in successful career transitions for women. Based on our findings, we offer a model of women's social support network for career transitions and advocate for expanded networks of social support for women anticipating and during career transitions. The results of our study contain insights for how women can be supported in transitioning to the next career experience. We conclude with suggestions for future research. (shrink)

Our research addresses the issue of teaching and learning concepts in science education as an empirical question. We study the process of conceptualization by closely examining the unfolding of classroom lesson sequences. We situate our work within the practice turn line of research on epistemic practices in science education. We also adopt a practice turn approach when it comes to the learning of concepts, as we consider conceptualization as being inherent within epistemic practices. In our work, pedagogical practices are modeled (...) as learning games and epistemic practices in science education are characterized as enacted epistemic games emerging through the unfolding of learning games. Science practices are modeled as source epistemic games since they are the source of the knowledge at stake in pedagogical practices. From this point, we examine closely how playing learning games can enable students to play enacted epistemic games and then in turn the source epistemic games at the core of conceptual understanding. Thus, the main contribution of this paper is to link pedagogical practices to epistemic practices in science education and to science practices in general. Our method is consistent with this epistemological framework as our case study on the concept of earthquakes in a 5th grade classroom sequence illustrates. Following an investigation of two experienced teachers and their classes during a teaching unit, our analysis shows how teaching effectiveness is determined by a dialectic. This entails on the one hand a didactic continuity between learning games and enacted epistemic games and, on the other, an epistemic continuity between enacted epistemic games and source epistemic games. (shrink)

This chapter argues that the only tenable unconscious inferences theories of cognitive achievement are ones that employ a theory internal technical notion of representation, but that once we give cash-value definitions of the relevant notions of representation and inference, there is little left of the ordinary notion of representation. We suggest that the real value of talk of unconscious inferences lies in (a) their heuristic utility in helping us to make fruitful predictions, such as about illusions, and (b) their providing (...) a high-level description of the functional organization of subpersonal faculties that makes clear how they equip an agent to navigate its environment and pursue its goals. (shrink)

Under the impressive editorship of Warren Samuels et al, this book addresses the state of the history of economic thought today. An important contribution to the study of the history of economics, this eagerly-awaited book will develop an unsurprisingly large following.

Cet article porte sur une distinction familière entre deux formes de souvenirs: les souvenirs factuels ('Je me souviens que p', où 'p' est une proposition) et les souvenirs épisodiques ('Je me souviens de x', où x est une entité particulière). Les souvenirs épisodiques ont, contrairement aux souvenirs factuels, un rapport immédiat et interne à une expérience particulière que le sujet a eue dans le passé. Les souvenirs épisodique et factuel sont des souvenirs explicites au sens de la psychologie cognitive. J'esquisse (...) une théorie du souvenir épisodique qui rend compte de ce trait essentiel. L'une des conséquences de cette théorie est que lorsque je me souviens de quelque chose au sens épisodique, je me souviens que ce même souvenir remonte directement à l'une des mes expériences passées. Le souvenir épisodique est un souvenir factuel réflexif. (shrink)

This paper establishes six critical elements – history, political structures, religion, social customs, civil society openness, and level of economic development –needed to understand the context of corporate social responsibility in other countries and other cultures. Labor conditions in China are used as a case study.

One of the key influences on radical empiricist theology, the thought of Bernard Meland is a challenge to overemphasis on precision and rigor of proof. This article (1) provides an introduction to Meland, (2) summarizes his view of the significance of post‐Newtonian physics and of Darwin for religion, (3) discusses his relationship to Henry Nelson Wieman, and (4) assesses his contribution to current discussion in science and theology.

Either a ‘best world’ scenario is true or a ‘no best world’ scenario is true. In a ‘best world’ scenario, God actualizes a world that is unsurpassable. In a ‘no best world’ scenario, for any possible world God actualizes, God could have actualized a better world. A ‘no best world’ scenario precludes theism, so the theist should endorse a ‘best world’ scenario. However, a ‘best world’ scenario leads to the highly counter-intuitive conclusion of modal collapse: the position that nothing could (...) have turned out differently than it did. A tentative solution to modal collapse is if the ‘best world’ scenario turns out to be the theistic multiverse containing many universes. (shrink)

This is a book that contrary to common practice, shows the commonalities of ancient and modern theories of freedom, law, and rational actions. Studying the works of the ancients is necessary to understanding those that follow. Thomas Chaimowicz challenges current trends in research on antiquity in his examination of Montesquieu's and Burk's path of inquiry. He focuses on ideas of balance and freedom. Montesquieu and Burke believe that freedom and balance are closely connected, for without balance within a state there (...) can be no freedom. When Montesquieu speaks of republics, he means those of antiquity as they were understood in the eighteenth century. In this view, freedom can develop only within the framework of established tradition. Edmund Burke's greatest service to political thought may lie in making use of this idea when he fought against the abstractions of the French Revolutionaries. Antiquity as the Source of Modernity examines Montesquieu's "Roman mind," meaning not an attitude influenced by the ancients, but one primarily influenced by Roman heritage. It speaks to the antithesis of monarchy and despotism in Montesquieu's thought and the influence of Tacitus and Pliny the Younger on him. The separation of powers and its relation to the concept of the mixed constitution as well as Montesquieu's smaller masterpiece Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans are examined in detail. Finally, the discussion leads seamlessly to Burke, who, as a critical admirer of Montesquieu, partly incorporated his interpretation of the English constitution into his own thinking threatened by teachings of the French Revolution and its British adherents. The central idea of Antiquity as the Source of Modernity is timeless. It is that the ancient past can lead to a clearer understanding of what follows. This perspective represents a reversal of the conventional procedures for conducting this kind of research, but it is a reversal that Chaimowicz embraces in order to add a new dimension to the study and impetration of both Montesquieu and Burke. Thomas Chaimowicz was a distinguished visiting professor at the International Academy of Philosophy in the Principality of Liechtenstein and honorary professor of Roman Lay at the University of Salzburg. This is the final work commissioned by the late Russell Kirk for his efforts on behalf of the Transaction Library of Conservative Thought. (shrink)

The aim of this book is to demonstrate that American Indians have a world-view that is consistent, intelligible, and legitimate. It is a deft and self-aware exemplification of the task of cross-cultural comparison. The overall strategy in the argument is to employ a modified version of Nelson Goodman’s notion of world-making and then construct a simplified model of the American Indian worldview. Norton-Smith accomplishes this difficult task and in the process modifies Goodman in a realist direction, making a strong case (...) that the Native view deserves intellectual respect. The writing is accessible and shows a deft and helpful interplay between abstract language and concrete illustrative .. (shrink)

The image of perception as openness to fact is best understood as the claim that the contents of perception are mind-independent facts. However, I argue against John McDowell that this claim, which he accepts, is incompatible with his conceptualism, namely the thesis that the contents of perception are fully conceptual. If we want to give justice to the image of perception as openness to facts, we have to acknwoledge that perception relates us to a non-conceptual world.

A models-based approach has been advocated as a means of overcoming the serious limitations of the traditional approach to physical education. One of the difficulties with this approach is that physical educators have sought to use it to achieve diverse and sometimes competing educational benefits, and these wide-ranging aspirations are rarely if ever achieved. Models-based practice offers a possible resolution to these problems by limiting the range of learning outcomes, subject matter and teaching strategies appropriate to each pedagogical model and (...) thus the arguments that can be used for educational value. In this article, two examples are provided to support a case for educational value. This case is built on an examination of one established pedagogical model, Sport Education, which is informed by a perspective on ethics. Next, I consider Physical Literacy which, I suggest, is an existentialist philosophical perspective that could form the basis of a new pedagogical model. It is argued, in conclusion, that a models-based approach along with a reconstructed notion of educational value may offer a possible future for physical education that is well grounded in various philosophical arguments and the means to facilitate a wide range of diverse individual and social educational ?goods? (shrink)

In a recent article in Sophia, Joshua Cockayne and Jack Warman defend a view they call supra-evidential atheistic fideism. This is the idea that considerations similar to William James’s defence of theistic belief can be used to justify atheistic belief. If an individual evaluates the evidence for atheism and theism as roughly the same, then she can rationally believe in atheism if her passions lean in that direction, provided the belief in atheism is forced, live and momentous. After outlining their (...) defence of atheistic fideism, I offer some friendly amendments to their position. Cockayne and Warman claim that when the existential question of God’s existence is undecided for someone, she is rational to let her passions answer the existential question. This is a version of Rowe’s friendly atheism because it can explain the existence of religious disagreement, even in cases where an atheist and theist give the same assessment of the evidence for God’s existence; they disagree at the passional level, not at the evidential level. I argue for a different version of friendly atheism: a mere passion need not settle the existential question about God when the evidence cannot decide it. For one might be rational in preferring that God not exist if God’s existence would make things worse. For certain individuals, this is reason enough to accept and act as if atheism is true, even if it is not epistemically rational to believe that it’s true. (shrink)

This paper explores the social, legal, and political issues Wal-Mart faces in each of the three North American countries and suggests reasons for the quite significant differences. It also issues a call to Business and Society scholars to add prescriptive work to the already large body of descriptive work that has been collected.

"I believe in God" -- The main character -- The impossible union -- The Kerygma -- The fire within -- Are you being saved? -- Guaranteed grace -- The life of the world to come -- Amen.