In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 165 of the church regularly gives renewed expression to inspiration in constantly new existential contexts. There the Christian churches have sometimes done well, and sometimes less well, leading to disillusionment. We can regard all this as a generally accepted consensus among contemporary theologians, though the instruments of the church's teaching authority often have a tendency to dwell on ' the letter ' of earlier statements and to (...) underestimate their historieal and hermeneutical dimensions" (208). Those in the Magisterium who dwell on 'the letter ' believe, erroneously in Schillebeeckx's judgment, that history can and does give rise to nonnative, enduring facts and forms. Theologians who attend to historical relativizing and hermeneutical theorizing, correctly in Schillebeeckx's judgment, know better. His book is clearly designed to demonstrate this point. There is one sense in which his hook docs not, and indeed cannot, fail, given how the facts which he presents for the reader's judgment arise out of the theory with which he begins and necessarily point to the conclusion which his theory already presupposes. This is a fail-safe method for getting to where one wants to go. Unfortunately, it gets there by way of an enormous detour around the facticity of the Catholic faith and practice, a facticity which, despite the efforts of some of our best known (if not finest) theologians over a two thousand year history, has consistently refused to submit to the hypothetical and the theoretical reason of rationalist theologians. Our faith is centered on the Christ, the incarnate, historical Logos of tradition and Scripture, not on the disincarnate, unhistorical logos of theoretical theology. Schillebeeckx is not the first, nor will he be the last, theologian intent upon reducing the Catholic faith to some hypothetical methodology. Happily, however, and perhaps even miraculously, the Church always manages to survive her theologians, a fact which cannot but offer solace to many of the readers of this book. University of St. Thomas Houston, Texas JOYCE A. Ll'J'TLE The.Argument of the "Tractatus :" Its Relevance to Contempora~·y Theories of Logic, Language. Mind, and Philosophical Trust. By RroHARD M. McDoNOUGH. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1986. Pp. xii + 311. This book attempts an analysis of the Tractatits Logico-Philosophicus based on taking Wittgenstein's professed "fundamental idea' as the hermeneutic key. Tractatus 4.0312 states, in part: "My fundamental idea is 166 BOOK REVIEWS that the 'log·ical constants' are not representatives." McDonough believes that previous interpreters of the Tractatus have either ignored or downplayed the importance of this statement, and he writes in the conviction that taking it seriously produc&s a reading of the Tractatits that is friendlier toward philosophical language and argumentation than " the strong nagativ& views... which have been hastily claimed " as the import of the book (p. 11). In order to establish this "fundamental idea" as an interpretative device McDonough reminds the reader of links among three ideas. The first is the idea that the logical constants are not representatives. The second is the idea that the sole (real) logical constant is the general propositional form (T 5.47). The third is the fact that the status of the propositions of logic as tautologies exhibits the logic of their constituents, and hence, the logical properties of language and the world (T 6.12). By developing the relations among these ideas, and extending them to the interpretation of the Tractatiis as a whole, McDonough aims to show that Wittgenstein is committed to an explicit, only "technically nonsensical," philosophical doctrin& concerning the derivation of general metaphysical facts about ontology from general facts about the philosophy of logic. This doctrine he characterizes as "the argument of th& Tractatus." By attributing to the book an argmnent or doctrine (in the sense just mention &d) he contradicts those commentators who have understood Wittg·enstein to be earnestly requiring real silence about philosophy and to b& asserting seriously that the Tractatu,s is a self-refuting treatise, to be kicked aside. once its lessons are learned. J\1foDonoug·h begins with vVittgenstein's understanding of negation and th& problem wheth&r there are negative facts. McDonough discusses Russell 's attempt to sort this out, and claims that Wittgenstein diagnoses Russell's mistake in this remark; "For it is difficult... (shrink)

Ulysses is certainly the greatest novel in the English language, and one might argue for its being the greatest single work of art in our tradition. How significant, then, and how teasing, that this masterwork should be a comedy, and that its creator should have explicitly valued the comic "vision" over the tragic—how disturbing to our predilection for order that, with an homage paid to classical antiquity so meticulous that it is surely a burlesque, Joyce's exhibitionististicicity is never so (...) serious as when it is most outrageously comic. Joyce might have been addressing his readers when he wrote to Nora in 1909: "Now . . . I want you to read over and over all I have written to you. Some of it is ugly, obscene, and bestial, some of it is pure and holy and spiritual: all of it is myself." Joyce Carol Oates is the author of, among others, them, Wonderland, and The Assassins. "Jocoserious Joyce" is part of a book on tragedy and comedy. Her contributions to Critical Inquiry, include "Lawrence's Gotterdammerung" and “The Picture of Dorian Gray: Wilde's Parable about the Fall". (shrink)

This book brings together essays by leading political, legal, and educational theorists to re-examine the requirements of citizenship education in liberal-democratic societies. The chapters in the book evaluate demands by minority groups for cultural recognition through education, and also examine arguments for and against citizenship education as a means of fostering a shared national identity.

The pragmatic character of the Dutch book argument makes it unsuitable as an "epistemic" justification for the fundamental probabilist dogma that rational partial beliefs must conform to the axioms of probability. To secure an appropriately epistemic justification for this conclusion, one must explain what it means for a system of partial beliefs to accurately represent the state of the world, and then show that partial beliefs that violate the laws of probability are invariably less accurate than they could be otherwise. (...) The first task can be accomplished once we realize that the accuracy of systems of partial beliefs can be measured on a gradational scale that satisfies a small set of formal constraints, each of which has a sound epistemic motivation. When accuracy is measured in this way it can be shown that any system of degrees of belief that violates the axioms of probability can be replaced by an alternative system that obeys the axioms and yet is more accurate in every possible world. Since epistemically rational agents must strive to hold accurate beliefs, this establishes conformity with the axioms of probability as a norm of epistemic rationality whatever its prudential merits or defects might be. (shrink)

This essay attempts to provide a sympathetic reading of Hume’s often tangled discussion of memory in the Treatise. It divides into three main sections. The first section isolates three puzzles in Hume’s account of memory. The second section attempts to show how those puzzles arise as a result of Hume’s understandable failure to recognize a necessary connection between memory and causation. Finally, the third section looks at how the reading of Hume’s account of memory offered in the first two sections (...) fits into the larger context of his work by considering the roles he assigns to memory in his famous account of personal identity. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the hoary theological doctrine of divine concurrence poses no deep threat to Leibniz’s views on theodicy and creaturely activity even as those views have been traditionally understood. The first three sections examine respectively Leibniz’s views on creation, conservation and concurrence, with an eye towards showing their sys­tematic compatibility with Leibniz’s theodicy and metaphysics. The fourth section takes up remaining worries arising from the bridging principle that conservation is a continued or continuous creation, and argues (...) that they can be allayed once two readings of the prin­ciple are distinguished. What emerges from the discussion as a whole is, I hope, a clearer picture of Leibniz’s views on the nature of monadic causation, his understanding of the relationship between divine and creaturely activity, and his position with respect to later medieval and early modern debates over secondary causation. (shrink)

R. M. Hare has argued for and defended a ‘two-level’, view of moral agency. He argues that moral agents ought to rely on the rules of ‘intuitive moral thinking’ for their ‘everyday’ moral judgments. When these rules conflict or when we do not have a rule at hand, we ought to ascend to the act-utilitarian,‘critical’ level of moral thinking. I argue that since the rules at the intuitive level of moral thinking necessarily conflict much more often than Hare supposes, and (...) since we often do not have ready-made rules for our moral judgments, we must necessarily use critical moral thinking very frequently. However, act-utilitarian judgements at this level will sharply conflict with our strongly held ‘intuitive’ moral convictions. I show that Hare's attempt to balance these two aspects of moral judgment requires us to simultaneously adopt two conflicting sets of moral standards, and thus an attempt to inculcate such standards constitutes a ‘schizophrenic’ moral education. Finally, I briefly outline an alternative conception of moral education, based on Aristotelian phronesis. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.3 (2004) 297-326 [Access article in PDF] Wittgenstein, German Organicism, Chaos, and the Center of Life Richard Mcdonough No supposition seems to me more natural than that there is no process in the brain correlated with associating or with thinking; so that it would be impossible to read off thought processes from brain processes. I mean this: if I talk or write, (...) there is, I assume, a system of impulses going out from my brain and correlated with my spoken or written thoughts. But why should the system continue further in the direction of the center. Why should this order not proceed, so to speak, out of chaos? The case would be like the following-certain kinds of plants multiply by seed, so that a seed always produces a plant of the same kind as that from which it was produced—but nothing in the seed corresponds to the plant which comes out of it—this can only be done from the history of the seed. So an organism might come into being out of something quite amorphous, as it were, causelessly; and there is no reason why this should not really hold for our thoughts, and hence for our talking and writing. L. Wittgenstein, Zettel §608 Paragraph 608 of Zettel is one of the most remarkable passages in Wittgenstein, for it presents a more metaphysical view than one would associate with his later philosophy.1 [End Page 297] Despite Wittgenstein's well known opposition to metaphysics,2 Z §608 clearly endorses a doctrine of emergence, the view, that the order in our language and thought "arises" out of "chaos" or "nothing." The general idea in emergentism is that certain kinds of wholes, notably, organisms, are "greater than the sum of their parts."3 Although emergentism has suffered from neglect and abuse for a half century, it has recently become a live issue.4Klee, Kim, and McLaughlin emphasize the kind of emergence which involves "downward causation," the view that the emergent whole causally influences the behavior of its own parts.5 Such emergentism asserts that there is an "explanatory gap" between an organism's characteristics and its mechanical structure,6 where this gap is a matter of ontology rather than mere ignorance of the causes. The present paper argues that Wittgenstein's doctrine of emergence is central to his later philosophies of language and mind. The common view that Wittgenstein's later philosophy is primarily negative has proved a liability for Wittgenstein.7 Cognitive scientists respond that even if there are serious problems with their views, [End Page 298] "Remotely plausible theories are better than no theories at all."8 But Wittgenstein's remark at PI §109 that philosophy should not offer theories has been misunderstood. For Wittgenstein, the paradigm of a theory is mechanics (LAC28-29), and it is not the job of philosophy to explain the phenomena by adverting to hidden mechanisms (PI §435). But philosophy may offer a different kind of positive account, the kind of descriptive account appropriate to emergent organic phenomena.9 According to Z §608, this is a description of the phenomena as it emerges in a history. In order to appreciate Wittgenstein's emergentism, it is necessary to have the correct interpretation of the words "center" and "chaos" in Z §608. Many commentators take it as obvious that by "the center," Wittgenstein means the neural center.10 For in modern neuroscience, it is natural to view the brain as the control center of the organism. Wooldridge, Armstrong, Popper, Rose, Fodor, Dennett, Gillett, Greenfield, and Clark, all use "center" in this way.11Given the modern view, called "central state materialism" as background,12 Z §608 seems to claim, first, that the order of our thought and language cannot be [End Page 299] traced to the neural center, and, second, that intelligence must arise out of neural "chaos." Thus, McGinn thinks Wittgenstein is suggesting that the brain might turn out to be oatmeal.13 But careful attention to... (shrink)

Moral thinking pervades our practical lives, but where did this way of thinking come from, and what purpose does it serve? Is it to be explained by environmental pressures on our ancestors a million years ago, or is it a cultural invention of more recent origin? In The Evolution of Morality, Richard Joyce takes up these controversial questions, finding that the evidence supports an innate basis to human morality. As a moral philosopher, Joyce is interested in whether any (...) implications follow from this hypothesis. Might the fact that the human brain has been biologically prepared by natural selection to engage in moral judgment serve in some sense to vindicate this way of thinking--staving off the threat of moral skepticism, or even undergirding some version of moral realism? Or if morality has an adaptive explanation in genetic terms--if it is, as Joyce writes, "just something that helped our ancestors make more babies"--might such an explanation actually undermine morality's central role in our lives? He carefully examines both the evolutionary "vindication of morality" and the evolutionary "debunking of morality," considering the skeptical view more seriously than have others who have treated the subject.Interdisciplinary and combining the latest results from the empirical sciences with philosophical discussion, The Evolution of Morality is one of the few books in this area written from the perspective of moral philosophy. Concise and without technical jargon, the arguments are rigorous but accessible to readers from different academic backgrounds. Joyce discusses complex issues in plain language while advocating subtle and sometimes radical views. The Evolution of Morality lays the philosophical foundations for further research into the biological understanding of human morality. (shrink)

(1995). Heidegger, Externalism, and Mechanism. Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology: Vol. 26, Externalism, Culture, and Praxis, pp. 127-146.

In The Myth of Morality, Richard Joyce argues that moral discourse is hopelessly flawed. At the heart of ordinary moral judgements is a notion of moral inescapability, or practical authority, which, upon investigation, cannot be reasonably defended. Joyce argues that natural selection is to blame, in that it has provided us with a tendency to invest the world with values that it does not contain, and demands that it does not make. Should we therefore do away with morality, (...) as we did away with other faulty notions such as witches? Possibly not. We may be able to carry on with morality as a 'useful fiction' - allowing it to have a regulative influence on our lives and decisions, perhaps even playing a central role - while not committing ourselves to believing or asserting falsehoods, and thus not being subject to accusations of 'error'. (shrink)

This paper aims to offer a sympathetic reading of Berkeley’s often maligned account of human agency. The first section briefly revisits three options concerning the relationship between human and divine agency available to theistically minded philosophers in the medieval and early modern eras. The second argues that, of those three views, only the position of concurrentism is consistent with Berkeley’s texts. The third section explores Berkeley’s reasons for adopting concurrentism by highlighting three motivating considerations drawn from his larger philosophical system. (...) Finally, the fourth section attempts to flesh out Berkeley’s understanding of human activity by looking at how we might understand his claim that “we move our legs ourselves” in light of his commitments to idealism and concurrentism. (shrink)

The paper argues that, as opposed to giving abstract descriptions of cognitive mechanisms, numerous emergence like positions, in senses opposed to mechanism, are found in Kant's various works.

The essays in Part III of the book, on liberal constraints and traditionalist education, argue for a more regulatory conception of liberal education and emphasize the need for some controls over cultural and religious educational authority. Kevin McDonough’s essay, on multinational civic education, develops a conception of this that allows for both federal and minority national groups to reinforce conditional civic attachments. This ‘conditionalist’ view of civic education is necessary in multinational federal societies, he argues, because appeals to one (...) set of national attachments may exacerbate rather than alleviate particular injustices in particular circumstances. For example, McDonough argues that when aboriginal women and children are the victims of injustice at the hands of tribal institutions and leaders, they must be able to appeal to their fellow non-aboriginal citizens and federal institutions for assistance, although this is not possible unless citizens – aboriginal and otherwise – have come to regard attachments to the minority nation as conditional rather than absolute. Similarly, citizens whose primary identification is to the federal society must be able to recognize that some of their fellow citizens legitimately have a minority nation as the object of their primary loyalty – otherwise, efforts to support federal intervention in minority national affairs will be vulnerable to forces of cultural insensitivity and arrogance, rather than of liberal justice. (shrink)

This collection of eleven papers by Elijah Millgram (nine of which have been previously published) is ostensibly united by the thesis that the best way to go about assessing moral theories is to identify the view of practical reasoning that each such theory rests upon, and evaluate the adequacy of these respective theories of practical reasoning. The correct moral theory, Millgram assures us, will be the one that is paired with the best theory of practical reasoning. He outlines this methodology (...) in a substantial (32 pp.) introduction. Why should we adopt Millgram’s method? A host of concerns immediately leap to mind. If two or more different moral theories rest on the same theory of practical reasoning, then how would discovering the latter to be the correct theory of practical reasoning help us decide among the moral theories? What if a given moral theory is consistent with two or more different theories of practical reasoning? What if we cannot evaluate theories of practical reasoning independently of having adopted a moral perspective? Millgram doesn’t address these natural questions head on, but rather proposes that the essays of the volume collectively constitute a “feasibility demonstration” (p. 3) of the method. In other words, the only way that we will be persuaded that the pairings between moral theories and practical reasoning theories are tight enough to support this grand project is to get our hands dirty in detailed discussion of particular moral theories, particular theories of practical reasoning, and the relations between them. It is through seeing the method at work that we will become convinced, Millgram hopes, of several interlocking theses: (1) that each of the major moral theories of the past has had a distinctive take on practical reasoning; (2) that pivotal structural elements of these theories are due to the underlying theory of practical reasoning; (3) that problems in a moral theory can often be traced to problems in the underlying theory of practical reasoning; (4) that theories of practical reasoning are “engines” (p.. (shrink)

entry for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP) This entry will attempt to provide a broad overview of the central themes of Leibniz’s philosophy of physics, as well as an introduction to some of the principal arguments and argumentative strategies he used to defend his positions. It tentatively includes sections entitled, The Historical Development of Leibniz’s Physics, Leibniz on Matter, Leibniz’s Dynamics, Leibniz on the Laws of Motion, Leibniz on Space and Time. A bibliography arranged by topic is also included. (...) A working draft is available here (comments, as always welcome): draft. (shrink)

Leibniz speaks, in a variety of contexts, of there being two realms—a "kingdom of power or efficient causes" and "a kingdom of wisdom or final causes." This essay explores an often overlooked application of Leibniz's famous "two realms doctrine." The first part turns to Leibniz's work in optics for the roots of his view that nature can be seen as being governed by two complete sets of equipotent laws, with one set corresponding to the efficient causal order of the world, (...) and the other to its teleological order. The second part offers an account of how this picture of lawful over-determination is to be reconciled with Leibniz's mature metaphysics. The third addresses a line of objection proposed by David Hirschmann to the effect that Leibniz's doctrine undermines his stated commitment to an efficient, broadly mechanical account of the natural world. Finally, the fourth part suggests that Leibniz's thinking about the harmony of final and efficient causes in connection with corporeal nature may help to shed light on his understanding of the teleological unfolding of monads as well. (shrink)

This essay examines one of the cornerstones of Leibniz's defense of teleology within the order of nature. The first section explores Leibniz's contributions to the study of geometrical optics, and argues that his "Most Determined Path Principle" or "MDPP" allows him to bring to the fore philosophical issues concerning the legitimacy of teleological explanations by addressing two technical objections raised by Cartesians to non-mechanistic derivations of the laws of optics. The second section argues that, by drawing on laws such as (...) the MDPP, Leibniz is able to introduce a thin notion of teleology that gives him the resources to respond to the most pressing charges of his day against teleological explanations within natural philosophy. Finally, the third section argues that contemporary philosophers have been overly hasty in their dismissal of Leibniz's account of natural teleology, and indeed that their own generally thin conceptions of teleology have left them with few well-motivated resources for resisting his elegant position. (shrink)

This book defends the view that any adequate account of rational decision making must take a decision maker's beliefs about causal relations into account. The early chapters of the book introduce the non-specialist to the rudiments of expected utility theory. The major technical advance offered by the book is a 'representation theorem' that shows that both causal decision theory and its main rival, Richard Jeffrey's logic of decision, are both instances of a more general conditional decision theory. The book solves (...) a long-standing problem for Jeffrey's theory by showing for the first time how to obtain a unique utility and probability representation for preferences and judgements of comparative likelihood. The book also contains a major new discussion of what it means to suppose that some event occurs or that some proposition is true. The most complete and robust defence of causal decision theory available. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Response to Alexandra Kertz-Wezel, “The Magic of Music”Joyce Eastlund GromkoIn her paper, "The Magic of Music," Kertz-Wezel proposes that music be "a means to transform emotions and experience life more intensely." She goes on to speculate that "not only the way of listening and performing Western European art music in educational settings, but also the music itself may prevent individuals from further involvement in classical music." Her goals (...) are involvement [End Page 117] in art music and a deepening and enhancing of individuals' lives through aesthetic experience. Kertz-Wezel grants as reasonable the idea that education should start with an individual's experience 1 and should follow with a series of "intensive musical experiences." With all of this, I can agree.However, whereas we share the goal of transformative music education through aesthetic experience, we differ in the means by which we would accomplish our goal and we differ for philosophical reasons. Kertz-Wezel promotes an approach to music experience that celebrates individuality and a return to Romanticism.2 By contrast, I have developed an approach to music experience that depends on collaborative music-making and that emphasizes the social and interpersonal context, as opposed to the individual. I would like to describe how my approach, contrary to the individualistic approach espoused by Kertz-Wezel, nevertheless accomplishes the goal of transformative music education.My approach is grounded in principles abstracted from the writings of John Dewey.3 Like Dewey, I believe that the only true education comes through the stimulation of an individual's powers by the demands of the social situations in which individuals find themselves.4 Therefore, in the schools that serve as field and research sites for our university, we create communities of musical practice in which individuals gain the full and ready use of all their capacities while performing newly composed art music.5 Every year a set of new works are composed especially for our students by composers at our university. Through the process of actualizing a piece of art, our students are "stimulated to act as member(s) of a unity, to emerge from (their) narrowness of action and feeling, to conceive of (themselves) from the standpoint of the welfare of the group to which (they) belong."6 The image of a fully engaged community member stands in stark contrast to that of the young woman in Kertz-Wezel's paper who, in describing her experience at the rock concert, said, "You don't think about what you are doing. You do what you feel like, without even thinking about it." When in a trance, individuals are detached from, not connected to, their physical surroundings.7 When in a state of ecstasy, individuals are carried beyond rational thought and self-control.8 It is impossible for me to imagine how an individual in a state of semi-conscious detachment, lacking in rational thought and self-control, can be learning.9Students in communities of musical practice are fully conscious of the value that they have to the group and "the value is reflected back into them."10 They learn to listen intently to other performers within the ensemble. They learn to communicate with one another in the symbol system of music and their musical babblings are transformed into articulate language.11 They become literate when they actualize into musical art what is embedded in the abstract symbols in a score. Through the process of actualizing pieces of musical art, students [End Page 118] heighten their perceptions and strengthen their connections. They have the kind of aesthetic experience described by Dewey:The material of esthetic experience in being human—human in connection with the nature of which it is a part—is social. Esthetic experience is a manifestation, a record and celebration of the life of a civilization, a means of promoting its development, and is also the ultimate judgment upon the quality of a civilization. For while it is produced and is enjoyed by individuals, those individuals are what they are in the content of their experience because of the cultures in which they participate.12The active, social, music-making approach to music education has considerable resource implications for... (shrink)

There is a perennial philosophical dream of a certain natural order for the natural kinds. The name of this dream is ‘the hierarchy requirement’. According to this postulate, proper natural kinds form a taxonomy which is both unique and traditional. Here I demonstrate that complex scientific objects exist: objects which generate different systems of scientific classification, produce myriad legitimate alternatives amongst the nonetheless still natural kinds, and make the hierarchical dream impossible to realize, except at absurdly great cost. Philosophical hopes (...) for a certain order in nature cannot be fulfilled. Natural kinds crosscut one another, ubiquitously so, and this crosscutting spells the end of the hierarchical dream. (shrink)

Interprofessional collaboration has become accepted as an important component in today’s health care and has been guided by concerns with patient safety, quality health-care outcomes, and economics. It is widely accepted that interprofessional collaboration improves patient outcomes through enhanced communication among health-care providers and increased accessibility to services. Although there is a paucity of research that provides confirmatory evidence, interprofessional competencies continue to be incorporated into the curricula of health-care students. This article examines the ethics of interprofessional collaboration and ethical (...) issues that arise from the mainstream adoption of interprofessional competencies and the potential for moral distress in nursing. (shrink)

Many male traits are well explained by sexual selection theory as adaptations to mating competition and mate choice, whereas no unifying theory explains traits expressed more in females. Anne Campbell's “staying alive” theory proposed that human females produce stronger self-protective reactions than males to aggressive threats because self-protection tends to have higher fitness value for females than males. We examined whether Campbell's theory has more general applicability by considering whether human females respond with greater self-protectiveness than males to other threats (...) beyond aggression. We searched the literature for physiological, behavioral, and emotional responses to major physical and social threats, and found consistent support for females' responding with greater self-protectiveness than males. Females mount stronger immune responses to many pathogens; experience a lower threshold to detect, and lesser tolerance of, pain; awaken more frequently at night; express greater concern about physically dangerous stimuli; exert more effort to avoid social conflicts; exhibit a personality style more focused on life's dangers; react to threats with greater fear, disgust, and sadness; and develop more threat-based clinical conditions than males. Our findings suggest that in relation to threat, human females have relatively heightened protective reactions compared to males. The pervasiveness of this result across multiple domains suggests that general mechanisms might exist underlying females' unique adaptations. An understanding of such processes would enhance knowledge of female health and well-being. (shrink)

§ I presents a detailed version of “Popper’s Basic Argument.” § 2 shows why Marx’s theory of historical development is a paradigm case of the kind of “historicism” that is refuted by Popper’s argument. § 3 explains the crucial difference between Marx’s and Spengler’s respective theories that makes the former but not the latter fall to Popper’s criticism. § 4 argues that the inapplicability of Popper’s argument to Spengler’s type of theory is obvious from the beginning.

The article provides a brief biography of the the controversial "existential psychiatrist" R.D. Laing, including discussions of his association with the "Kingsley Hall Group", his trip to India and Sri Lanka, his notion of "Transpersonal Psychology", his notion of a "humanizing" form of psychiatriac therapy, and his influence.

Scholars have often struggled with the notion of mysticism in Wittgenstein’s Tractatus-logico-philosophicus (TLP). The paper develops a taxonomy of the multiple species of mysticism in TLP in order to show that its notion of the mystical actually has a complex hierarchial structure. A key notion in TLP’s account is its neglected notion of the “life-world” (5.621), specifically, that realm in which the “mystical” “shows itself [zeigt sich]”. A comparison is made with Heidegger’s notion in Being and Time of the fundamental (...) phenomena of phenomenology as that that sort of phenomena that “shows itself [sich zeit].” That is, TLP’s notion of the mystical is at the same time a sketch the phenomenological structure of the “life-world”. On this basis it is argued that TLP’s account of linguistic meaning is parasitic on its notion of the “mystical” dimension of the “life-world”, which has the consequence that one cannot separate the “safe” logical and scientific portion of TLP from its mysticism as Russell and the logical positivists tried to do. The “mysticism” and “phenomenology” must stay. Finally, the paper argues that TLP is not, as often thought, a proponent of Russell’s method of analysis into “logical atoms” but actually presents a powerful critique of the analytical method. (shrink)

Richard Bradley’s landmark book Decision Theory with a Human Face makes seminal contributions to nearly every major area of decision theory, as well as most areas of formal epistemology and many areas of semantics. In addition to sketching Bradley’s distinctive semantics for conditional beliefs and desires, I will explain his theory of conditional desire, focusing particularly on his claim that we should not desire events, either positively or negatively, under the supposition that they will occur. I shall argue, to the (...) contrary, that permitting non-trivial desirabilities for events whose occurrence is known or assumed is both more intuitively plausible and more theoretically fruitful than Bradley’s approach. In the course of the discussion I will contrast Bradley’s broadly evidentialist picture of decision theory with my own more orthodox causal approach. (shrink)