If you're not sure what to make of all the claims and counterclaims, this new book will help cut through the conflicting reports and contradictory findings. We are bombarded daily with media reports of startling new findings from "just released" studies often in major, authoritative publications on consumer products, medications, foods, alcohol, safety devices, social behavior, public policy, and much more. The decisions of millions of consumers, professionals, and government agencies can be influenced by just one study. Light, humorous, and (...) entertaining, Studies Show reviews sample studies to expose their traps and pitfalls. In plain English, statistics analyst John H. Fennick discusses the methods of good and bad studies to explain how scientific results can differ sometimes radically. Fennick shows that when armed with common sense and critical intelligence, we can understand almost any study. (shrink)

The Human Psyche is an in-depth exploration of dualist-interactionism, a concept Sir John Eccles developed with Sir Karl Popper in the context of a wide...

In his recent book Against Liberalism, philosopher John Kekes argued that liberalism as a political system is doomed to failure by its internal inconsistencies. In this companion volume, he makes a compelling case for conservatism as the best alternative. His is the first systematic description and defense of the basic assumptions underlying conservative thought. Conservatism, Kekes maintains, is concerned with the political arrangements that enable members of a society to live good lives. These political arrangements are based on skepticism (...) about ideologies, pluralism about values, traditionalism about institutions, and pessimism about human perfectibility. The political morality of conservatism requires the protection of universal conditions of all good lives, social conditions that vary with societies, and individual conditions that reflect differences in character and circumstance. Good lives, according to Kekes, depend equally on pursuing possibilities that these conditions establish and on setting limits to their violations. Attempts to make political arrangements reflect these basic tenets of conservatism are unavoidably imperfect. Kekes concludes, however, that they represent a better hope for the future than any other possibility. (shrink)

Sir John Eccles, a distinguished scientist and Nobel Prize winner who has devoted his scientific life to the study of the mammalian brain, tells the story of how we came to be, not only as animals at the end of the hominid evolutionary line, but also as human persons possessed of reflective consciousness.

I evaluate Patrick Todd's critique of the idea accepted by many, including (in contemporary philosophy) Nelson Pike and John Martin Fischer, that there can be non‐causal constraints on human actions (including basic actions). I suggest that Todd's critical reflections, although illuminating, are not persuasive. I defend non‐causal constraints in part by putting forward an interpretation of the intuitive idea of the fixity of the past following Carl Ginet: our freedom is the power to add to the given past.

Can we give a uniform account of reasons in the three spheres of action, belief, and sentiment? Are reasons in these three spheres genuinely distinct, or are they in some way reducible to less than three? What kind of knowledge do we have of reasons – and what is it that we know? Some basic problems in philosophy depend on our answers to these questions.

This paper criticizes the traditional philosophical account of the quantization of gauge theories and offers an alternative. On the received view, gauge theories resist quantization because they feature distinct mathematical representatives of the same physical state of affairs. This resistance is overcome by a sequence of ad hoc modifications, justified in part by reference to semiclassical electrodynamics. Among other things, these modifications introduce "ghosts": particles with unphysical properties which do not appear in asymptotic states and which are said to be (...) purely a notational convenience. I argue that this sequence of modifications is unjustified and inadequate, making it a poor basis for the interpretation of ghosts. I then argue that gauge theories can be quantized by the same method as any other theory. On this account, ghosts are not purely notation: they are coordinates on the classical configuration space of the theory—specifically, on its gauge structure. This interpretation does not fall prey to the standard philosophical arguments against the significance of ghosts, due to Weingard. Weingard’s argumentative strategy, properly applied, in fact tells in favor of ghosts’ physical significance. (shrink)

Patrick Todd argues for a modified Peircean view on which all future contingents are false. According to Todd, this is the only view that makes sense if we fully embrace an open future, rejecting the idea of actual future history. I argue that supervaluational accounts, on which future contingents are neither true nor false, are fully consistent with the metaphysics of an open future. I suggest that it is Todd's failure to distinguish semantic and postsemantic levels that leads him to (...) suppose otherwise. I also show how one can resist Todd's argument (with Brian Rabern) that the conceptual possibility of omniscience requires us to reject Retro‐closure (). (shrink)

This Element is an exposition of second- and higher-order logic and type theory. It begins with a presentation of the syntax and semantics of classical second-order logic, pointing up the contrasts with first-order logic. This leads to a discussion of higher-order logic based on the concept of a type. The second Section contains an account of the origins and nature of type theory, and its relationship to set theory. Section 3 introduces Local Set Theory, an important form of type theory (...) based on intuitionistic logic. In Section 4 number of contemporary forms of type theory are described, all of which are based on the so-called 'doctrine of propositions as types'. We conclude with an Appendix in which the semantics for Local Set Theory - based on category theory - is outlined. (shrink)

Educational Research is commonly regarded as a rational pursuit aimed at the production of objective knowledge. Researchers are expected to avoid value bias by detaching themselves from the normative conceptions of education that shape practice in schools and classrooms, and by casting themselves in the role of the impartial spectator. It is assumed that, as a rational pursuit, educational research is not directly concerned with changing practice but simply with discovering facts about it.This paper claims that it is possible to (...) construct a view of educational research as a form of rational and disciplined inquiry that does not depend on any underpinning spectator theory of knowledge. Nor, the paper claims, does it imply any underpinning foundational principles of rational action and choice. Rather it implies a form of disciplined conversation in which reasons for action are scrutinised, critiqued and modified without resort to foundational principles of rationality. Drawing particularly on the work of John Dewey, Richard Rorty and Amartya Sen, the paper casts educational research as a practical science—a form of action research—that is underpinned by a democratic conception of rationality. In doing so, it contrasts educational research, shaped by a pragmatic theory of knowledge, with research on education that is shaped by a spectator theory. (shrink)

In Empiricism and the Philosophy of Mind Sellars introduces the image of the space of reasons, and delineates a non-traditional empiricism, uncontaminated by the Myth of the Given. Brandom takes Sellars’s drift to be against empiricism as such, against the very idea that something deserving to be called “experience” could be relevant to the acquisition of empirical knowledge in any way except merely causally. In this paper I attack Brandom’s idea that we anyway need a concession to externalism for non-inferential (...) knowledge and suggest that in the space of reasons Sellars’s, the experience play a more than merely causal role in a fully internalist epistemology of observation. (shrink)

John Wilson; The Teaching Profession: a case of self-mutilation, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 20, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 245–250, https://doi.

This paper takes meals, rather than food itself, as its focus. Meals incorporate the project of nutrition into human life, but it is a contingent matter that we nourish ourselves in this way. This paper defends the importance of meals as meaning-makers and contrasts them with art in that regard. Meals and art represent interestingly different extremes with respect to how needs for meaning are met. Artworks ask for coordination of experience, understanding and appreciation: the meaning of art is to (...) be experienced. The meaning of meals is enacted and accumulates collectively, but need not be experienced. (shrink)

Background: A growing literature has raised—skeptically—the question of whether cutting-edge scientific research can identify and address broader ethical and policy considerations in real time. In genomics, the question is: Can ELSI contribute to genomics in real time, or will it be relegated to its historical role of after-the-fact outsider critique? We address this question against the background of a genomic screening project where we participated as embedded, real-time ELSI researchers and observers, from its initial design through its conclusion.Methods: As part (...) of the ELSI study design, the project included an ongoing reflexive ethnography in which the authors studied the process of its design and implementation. The authors were true participant observers, serving as members of various task-oriented groups while recording meetings and other events for ongoing qualitative analysis. We also conducted and analyzed interviews of multiple participants at the conclusion of the project.Results: Our real-time ELSI initiative had a mixed record of successes and challenges. If we define success as ELSI researchers having had an opportunity to participate fully in the project and to make the ELSI perspective heard, then our assessment is largely positive. If, however, we define successes as instances where real-time ELSI contributions changed the direction of the genomic or public health aspects of the GeneScreen project or, after careful deliberation, confirmed the appropriateness of the status quo, then we can identify only a few examples. While we had a seat at the table, we were, for the most part, tolerated guests.Conclusions: We conclude that there are significant barriers to real-time ELSI influence. The difficulty does not reside in any intended exclusion of an ELSI perspective, but in factors endemic to genomic research, including knowledge disparities, epistemological biases, and the pressures of time and money. (shrink)

Several philosophers have recently challenged cognitivism, i.e., the view that moral judgments are beliefs, by arguing that moral judgments are evidence non-responsive in a way that beliefs are not. If you believe that P, but acquire (sufficiently strong) evidence against P, you will give up your belief that P. This does not seem true for moral judgments. Some subjects maintain their moral judgments despite believing that there is (sufficiently strong) evidence against the moral judgments. This suggests that there is a (...) mismatch between moral judgments and beliefs. This is an interesting argument. In particular, it forces the cognitivist to be more explicit about the nature of belief and the sense in which moral judgments are responsive to evidence. This paper has two aims. First, it aims to systematically examine different versions of the argument from evidence non-responsiveness. Second, it aims to outline a more nuanced understanding of the sense in which beliefs are evidence responsive that explains why the extant versions of the argument do not constitute a challenge to cognitivism. (shrink)

This article contains John Dewey's remarks given at the funeral of G.H. Mead in Chicago in 1931.

John Wilson; Concepts, Contestability and the Philosophy of Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 15, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 3–15, https://.

Why does democracy—as a word and as an idea—loom so large in the political imagination, though it has so often been misused and misunderstood? Setting the People Free starts by tracing the roots of democracy from an improvised remedy for a local Greek difficulty 2,500 years ago, through its near extinction, to its rebirth amid the struggles of the French Revolution. Celebrated political theorist John Dunn then charts the slow but insistent metamorphosis of democracy over the next 150 years (...) and its apparently overwhelming triumph since 1945. He examines the differences and the extraordinary continuities that modern democratic states share with their Greek antecedents and explains why democracy evokes intellectual and moral scorn for some, and vital allegiance from others. Now with a new preface and conclusion that ground this landmark work firmly in the present, Setting the People Free is a unique and brilliant account of an extraordinary idea. (shrink)

This special issue grew out of a small conference The Known & the Unknown: Exploring Twelfth-Century Philosophy, which was funded by the Carlsberg Foundation, hosted by the Saxo Institute, and held at the University of Copenhagen in April 2018. Its central topic was the many, mostly unexplored, commentaries on Aristotle, Boethius, and Porphyry that constitute the key textual evidence for a fascinating phenomenon that, although it played a pivotal role in the philosophical revival of Western Europe, remains frustratingly underexplored to (...) this day: the logical schools of the twelfth century. The present introduction has two parts. In the first part, John Marenbon lays out the background to this special issue of Vivarium as a whole, explaining both what the philosophical project pursued by twelfth-century logicians was and how, and how far, the historical project of understanding it has progressed over the last two hundred years. In the second part, Heine Hansen briefly presents the issue and its contents. (shrink)

An article by John Dillon ardues that the Platonism that Plotinus inherits – setting aside Ammonius Saccas, of whom we know all too little – is by the later second century distinctly dualist in tendency, and is able, especially in the case of Plutarch, to quote Plato to its purpose. Plato himself, though, as the author maintains, is, despite appearances to the contrary, what one might term a ‘modified monist’. That is to say, he fully recognizes the degree of (...) imperfection and evil in the world, and holds it to be ineradicable, but he does not in the last resort believe in a positive countervailing force to the Good or the One. What we have is simply a negative force, whether Indefinite Dyad, disorderly World-Soul, or Receptacle, which is an inevitable condition of their being a world at all, but which, as a side-effect of introducing diversity, generates various sorts of imperfection. It is this scenario that justifies his follower Hermodorus in declaring that Plato recognizes only a single first principle, and it to this sort of monism – if anything, in a more pronounced form – that Plotinus returns. (shrink)

The increasingly pervasive practice of veiling among Muslim women has stimulated a great deal of scholarly investigation and debate. This study brings empirical evidence to bear on current debates about the meaning of the veil in Islam. This article first examines the conflicting meanings of the veil among Muslim religious elites and Islamic feminists. Although the dominant gender discourse among Muslim elites strongly favors this cultural practice, an antiveiling discourse promulgated by Islamic feminists has gained ground within recent years. This (...) study then examines how these discursive disputes affect gender identity negotiation among veiled and unveiled Muslim women living in Austin, Texas. Interviews with these women highlight how their gender identities reproduce and reformulate existing Muslim gender discourses. Special attention is paid to the subjective disparities and points of congruence between both groups of respondents. This study concludes by suggesting avenues for future research on the intersection of gender, religion, and cultural difference. (shrink)

Sometimes Blumenthal-Barby et al. (2022) discuss the philosopher’s contribution to bioethics as a largely theoretical or apriori one that arrives from out of the blue—like Parfit’s identity theory—...

John Kleing; R. S. Peters’ Use Of Transcendental Arguments, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 7, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 149–166, https://doi.org/1.

Clear focus on its application of formal logic to ordinary English is the most distinctive feature of this textbook for the introductory course in deductive logic. Great care is taken with the appropriate translation into logical languages of ordinary English sentences. Evaluation of these translations promotes a more effective use of ordinary language. The Principles of Deductive Logic presents symbolic logic in a fuller and more leisurely fashion than other introductory textbooks. Early chapters cover informal material, including definition and informal (...) fallacies. The remainder of the text is devoted to the treatment of four distinct artificial languages. The Categorical language is the language of syllogistic logic. The Extended Categorical language enriches this first language with the symbolic connectives for conjunction and negation. The Propositional Connective language and the First-Order language are the two basic languages of modern logic. Each language is accompanied by a deductive system, and is used as an instrument for exploring ordinary language, including ordinary arguments The book contains a large number of exercises whose answers are supplied in the back of the book, and many more that can be assigned as homework. A solution’s manual is available to instructors upon their request. The request must be written on college or university letterhead. (shrink)

John White; The Problem of Self-interest: the educator’s perspective, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 20, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 163–175, https.

I am very grateful to the ten authors who have written commentaries on my paper. I am overwhelmed by the number of interesting and useful arguments they have made. I cannot come near to responding...

John Ashton, the editor who brought us In Six Days and On the Seventh Day, has done it again with this compelling new book that is a must-read for all ...

Thornhill, John Shortly after completing my article, 'Reflections on the Gospel: after Reading Christopher Dawson', I read for the first time, C.H. Dodd's Gospel and Law, lectures given at Columbia University in 1950. This challenging work by a leading scholar prompted me to make the comparison between Protestant and Catholic approaches to the Gospel I have attempted in the present article.

In this paper, we explore best practices for asynchronous discussions in graduate online bioethics education. We explain that online approaches have advantages and challenges in contrast to in-person discussions. Online challenges are lack of visual or auditory cues and technical access. Advantages include extended opportunities for specific focus, thoughtful reflection, and critical review. We found no significant review of related best practices in bioethics. Our more general literature review of graduate education and online approaches, plus experience in our own bioethics (...) graduate program, suggest provisional best practices that we detail. We reason that online graduate discussion provisionally should aim for a “community of inquiry” framework that incorporates cognitive, social, and teaching “presences,” as well as a learning presence. However, we also note unresolved concerns about whether the framework sufficiently addresses learning, is complete, and captures communicative functions. Drawing further on the literature, we also suggest best practices for instructor feedback to students about their discussion performance, including that remarks should be timely and specific. Summaries from two courses in our graduate bioethics program illustrate how we implement discussion strategies. Finally, we review assessment strategies and suggest that embedded formative assessments in discussion support and demonstrate deeper learning. Limitations in generalizability include that our review targets asynchronous and text-based online discussion, our program assessments do not necessarily detail best practices, student expectations and approaches could be rather particular to our program, and specific bioethics content in principle could alter best practices. (shrink)

John Carroll; Authority and the Teacher, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 13, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 133–140, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.

In recent years, the role of self-tracking technologies has been investigated, debated and critiqued within qualitative research circles. The principal means by which self-tracking technologies seek to promote health-related behaviours and behaviour change is through the use of ‘nudges’. Despite the increasing prevalence of nudge-style modes of body-mind governance, there remains little in-depth qualitative research on people’s embodied responses to this form of behavioural management. The current study sought to address this lacuna by drawing on a form of empirical, sociological (...) phenomenology to investigate the lived experience of being ‘nudged’ by self-tracking technology. Our phenomenologically-inspired analysis revealed how nudges can be perceived as objectifying by rendering the user’s body the intentional object of awareness. Participants agentically engaged in a sense-making process, actively (re)interpreting the relevance of nudges and assessing critically the prescribed action in the context of their everyday life. Users expressed confidence in their own embodied sensory perceptions and assessment, and resisted having their bodily intuition displaced by ‘unbodied’ data. (shrink)

Freedom is widely regarded as a basic social and political value that is deeply connected to the ideals of democracy, equality, liberation, and social recognition. Many insist that freedom must include conditions that go beyond simple “negative” liberty understood as the absence of constraints; only if freedom includes other conditions such as the capability to act, mental and physical control of oneself, and social recognition by others will it deserve its place in the pantheon of basic social values. Positive Freedom (...) is the first volume to examine the idea of positive liberty in detail and from multiple perspectives. With contributions from leading scholars in ethics and political theory, this collection includes both historical studies of the idea of positive freedom and discussions of its connection to important contemporary issues in social and political philosophy. (shrink)

One of the most persistent dualisms that have bedeviled thought and analysis for a very long time has been that of the material and the spiritual. One of the many effects of this has been to assign economics to the realm of the material, and of course religion to the realm of the spiritual. But in fact, the slightest acquaintance with economics shows that it is the social science that most enshrines values. Seen in this light, conventional neo-classical or neo-liberal (...) economics is a profound and immensely damaging form of false consciousness. This chapter strives to transform this by cultivating dialogues with spiritual pragmatism and economics of solidarity. (shrink)