Jules Janssens a construit une œuvre importante, qui, pour de nombreux chercheurs, a ouvert des perspectives de recherches nouvelles et fécondes. Ses travaux ont fait date. Ils portent principalement sur la philosophie d'Avicenne, ses sources, ses rapports avec la pensée musulmane, son influence sur la théologie ash'arite (al-Ghazālī, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī) et sa réception dans le monde latin. Pour lui rendre hommage, quatorze collègues et amis de renommée internationale se sont réunis pour poursuivre ses réflexions sur ces thèmes. L'ouvrage (...) qui en est issu offre un état des lieux de la recherche contemporaine sur Avicenne et sa postérité arabo-latine. (shrink)

The first part of this book is a translation of a philosophical work by the Breton philosopher Jules Lequyer, which explores questions of divine justice and human equality. The second part is a biography of Lequyer by Donald Wayne Viney, based on Prosper Hemon's life of Lequyer, and other material.

The ‘containment view’ of pregnancy is widely held, but it has recently been subjected to sustained criticism by Elselijn Kingma. According to the containment view, human foetuses (among others) are animals in their own right, contained within their mothers. Kingma's alternative to this is the ‘parthood view,’ according to which a foetus is a maternal part. Despite the prevalence of the containment view, there are not a great many arguments in its favour, and Kingma has searchingly criticized several of these. (...) In this paper, I defend an argument for the containment view, which I think is not undermined by Kingma-type considerations. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be (...) preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

I defend an old argument against co-location—the view that human animals are distinct from, but co-located with human persons. The argument is drawn from St. Thomas Aquinas. In order to respond to the argument, co-locationists have to endorse at least one of a trio of claims, none of which is obviously correct. Further, two of the options do not seem to be the sort of positions that should be flowing out of the acceptance of a general metaphysical position. I conclude (...) that co-locationism is more costly than generally thought. (shrink)

“Stand Your Ground” (SYG) laws are subject to controversy within both the philosophical literature and the legal literature; and of course they are hotly debated outside of academia as well. In this paper I show that a great part of these discussions is predicated on often very serious errors about what SYG is or isn’t, and I explain them in the context of self-defense law. Though my main purpose is clarification and the correction of some errors in the literature, I (...) close with some brief thoughts about the moral status of SYG and a proposal regarding SYG laws. (shrink)

Consider the claim that if there were macrophysical objects, they would cause things. Trenton Merricks takes this to be an obviously true claim, and he puts it to work in his argument for eliminating some (alleged) macrophysical objects. In this short paper, I argue that the claim in question—Merricks’s Dictum—is not obviously true, and may even be false.

The term 'implicit bias' has very swiftly been incorporated into philosophical discourse. Our aim in this paper is to scrutinise the phenomena that fall under the rubric of implicit bias. The term is often used in a rather broad sense, to capture a range of implicit social cognitions, and this is useful for some purposes. However, we here articulate some of the important differences between phenomena identified as instances of implicit bias. We caution against ignoring these differences: it is likely (...) they have considerable significance, not least for the sorts of normative recommendations being made concerning how to mitigate the bad effects of implicit bias. (shrink)

Suppose the prevailing distribution of property rights is unjust as determined by the relevant conception of distributive justice. You have far more than you should have under that theory and I have far less. Then I defraud you and in doing so reallocate resources so that our holdings ex post more closely approximate what distributive justice requires. Do I have a duty to return the property to you? There are many good reasons for requiring me to return to you what (...) I have taken. One is that while you may have no right in justice to all that you own, it does not follow that I do, or that I have a right to take it. Thus, requiring me to return the property to you is a way of recognizing that I had no right to take it from you in the first place. (shrink)

Jules Coleman, one of the world's most influential philosophers of law, here expounds his recent views on a range of important issues in legal theory. Coleman offers for the first time an explicit account of the pragmatist method that has long informed his work, and takes on the views of highly respected contemporaries such as Ronald Dworkin and Joseph Raz.

In this brief note, Toner discusses Adam Reed's reply ("Not Even False," The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, Spring 2008) to his earlier paper, "Objectivist Atheology" (The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies, Spring 2007). He argues that Reed's criticisms do not hold up under scrutiny.

Abstract: There is no such thing as ‘the’ hylemorphic account of personal identity. There are several views that count as hylemorphic, and these views can be grouped into two main families—the corruptionist view, and the survivalist view. The differentiating factor is that the corruptionist view holds that the persistence of the soul is not sufficient for the persistence of the person, while the survivalist view holds that the persistence of the soul is sufficient for the persistence of the person. In (...) this paper, I argue that hylemorphists should prefer the corruptionist view. This project ought to be of interest to anyone working on issues of personal identity, not only because hylemorphic views are historically important, but also because they are currently receiving significant attention in the personal identity literature. (shrink)

Our focus here is on whether, when influenced by implicit biases, those behavioural dispositions should be understood as being a part of that person’s character: whether they are part of the agent that can be morally evaluated.[4] We frame this issue in terms of control. If a state, process, or behaviour is not something that the agent can, in the relevant sense, control, then it is not something that counts as part of her character. A number of theorists have argued (...) that individuals do not have control, in the relevant sense, over the operation of implicit bias. We will argue that this claim is mistaken. We articulate and develop a notion of control that individuals have with respect to implicit bias, and argue that this kind of control can ground character-based evaluation of such behavioural dispositions. (shrink)

Aristotelian substance theory tells us that substances have structures (read: forms) as proper parts. This claim has recently been defended by Kathrin Koslicki who dubbed it the ‘Neo-Aristotelian Thesis.’ Strangely, Aristotelianism has not yet been universally embraced by philosophers – partly because some of its claims, such as the Neo-Aristotelian Thesis – are viewed by some as counterintuitive at best. In this paper, I argue for Aristotelianism by showing its philosophical usefulness: specifically, I put it to use in saving the (...) metaphysical doctrine of endurantism and some central mereological doctrines (such as Transitivity) from recent attacks. This utility gives us reason to endorse Aristotelianism. Along the way, I defend Koslicki's argument for the Neo-Aristotelian Thesis from a recent criticism, thus helping provide still more reason to endorse Aristotelianism: namely, Koslicki's vindicated argument. (shrink)

Many experienced runners consider the use of wearable devices an important element of the training process. A key techno-utopic promise of wearables lies in the use of proprietary algorithms to identify training load errors in real-time and alert users to risks of running-related injuries. Such real-time ‘knowing’ is claimed to obviate the need for athletes’ subjective judgements by telling runners how they have deviated from a desired or optimal training load or intensity. This realist-contoured perspective is, however, at odds with (...) sociological research indicating that users of wearables engage in active ‘data sense-making’ that is highly contextualised. To investigate how athletes use (or not) algorithmic analysis to understand, make sense of, and improve their performance in real-time, we undertook qualitative interviews with distance runners to explore lived experiences of running with wearables. The runners described how they actively interpreted data from wearables, drawing on their own experience, ‘somatic knowledge’, and embodied ways of knowing. This allowed them to assess the relevance and usefulness of data in relation to their own goals, intentions, and feelings. Our findings challenge the techno-utopic promises of real-time and predictive analytics. (shrink)

A central, if controversial, Aristotelian claim is that the virtues are connected—that practical wisdom depends upon moral virtue, and moral virtue upon practical wisdom. If those who see Jane Austen's portrayal of the moral life as broadly Aristotelian1 are right, we should expect to see such a dependence shown in Austen's novels. I will argue that we can indeed find portrayed a dependence of wisdom upon character, and in particular upon the virtues Austen calls constancy and unreserve. These two are (...) of interest not only because of the special role Austen seems to give them but also because they are not... (shrink)

Since St. Thomas Aquinas holds that death is a substantial change, a popular current interpretation of his anthropology must be mistaken. According to that interpretation – the ‘survivalist’ view – St. Thomas holds that we human beings survive our deaths, constituted solely by our souls in the interim between death and resurrection. This paper argues that St. Thomas must have held the ‘corruptionist’ view: the view that human beings cease to exist at their deaths. Certain objections to the corruptionist view (...) are also met. (shrink)

Can implicit biases be properly thought of as epistemic vices? I start by sketching the contours of implicit biases (1), and then turn to the recent claim, from Cassam, that implicit biases are epistemic vices (2). However, I argue that concerns about the stability of implicit biases and their role in producing behavior make for difficulties in establishing that implicit biases of individuals are epistemic vices (3). I then consider a recently developed model which prompts us to consider implicit biases (...) as properties of groups (4). This raises the question of whether implicit biases might constitute collective epistemic vice. I suggest that there is a way to make sense of this claim, but it requires rethinking how we conceptualise collective epistemic vice (5). These re-conceptualisations can be independently motivated. I close by marshalling some considerations in favour of using the terminology of vice to capture these defects of collective epistemic practice (6). (shrink)

Philosophers who have written about implicit bias have claimed or implied that individuals are not responsible, and therefore not blameworthy, for their implicit biases, and that this is a function of the nature of implicit bias as implicit: below the radar of conscious reflection, out of the control of the deliberating agent, and not rationally revisable in the way many of our reflective beliefs are. I argue that close attention to the findings of empirical psychology, and to the conditions for (...) blameworthiness, does not support these claims. I suggest that the arguments for the claim that individuals are not liable for blame are invalid, and that there is some reason to suppose that individuals are, at least sometimes, liable to blame for the extent to which they are influenced in behaviour and judgment by implicit biases. I also argue against the claim that it is counter-productive to see bias as something for which individuals are blameworthy; rather, understanding implicit bias as something for which we are liable to blame could be constructive. (shrink)

Motivating reforms to address discrimination and exclusion is important. But what epistemic practices characterize better or worse ways of doing this? Recently, the phenomena of implicit biases have played a large role in motivating reforms. We argue that this strategy risks perpetuating two kinds of epistemic oppression: the vindication dynamic and contributory injustice. We offer positive proposals for avoiding these forms of epistemic oppression when confronting racism.

Aristotelian virtue ethics is often charged with counseling a self-centred approach to the moral life. Reviewing some influential responses made by defenders of virtue ethics, I argue that none of them goes far enough. I begin my own response by evaluating two common targets of the objection, Aristotle and Aquinas, and based on my findings sketch the outlines of a clearly non-self-centred version of virtue ethics, according to which the ‘center’ is instead located in the agent’s right relation to others (...) and ultimately to the Good. I conclude that while some species of virtue ethics may be self-centred, the objection cannot be used to indict the whole genus. (shrink)

One of the first volumes in the new series of prestigious Oxford Handbooks, The Oxford Handbook of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law brings together specially commissioned essays by twenty-six of the foremost legal theorists currently writing, to provide a state of the art overview of jurisprudential scholarship.

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)

It is a matter of dispute whether St. Thomas Aquinas accepted the doctrine of “departing hominization.” Departing hominization is the view that in the process of human death, the rational soul departs first, leaving a mere animal ensouled by a sensitive soul, and then the sensitive soul departs, leaving a corpse. This would be a surprising thing for St. Thomas to believe, but he does appear to endorse the view in at least one place. I argue that he does not, (...) in fact, accept departing hominization, and explain how the recalcitrant text should be understood. (shrink)