This article shares reflections from members of the community of philosophers of education in the United States and Canada who were invited to express their insights in response to the theme ‘Snaps...

In 1911, Drs John Freeman and Leonard Noon published an account of a novel treatment for hay fever. Their method of desensitisation consisted of injecting increasing doses of an extract of pollen subcutaneously until the hypersensitivity reaction was diminished or abolished. Over subsequent decades, desensitisation established itself as the cornerstone of clinical allergy in both England and the United States, at least until the advent of novel pharmaceutical agents in the 1950s and 1960s. Although British allergists such as Noon (...) and Freeman were aware of conceptual developments within European immunology and pathology (such as the identification of anaphylaxis by Richet and Portier or von Pirquet's coining of the term allergy), their approach to hay fever was driven by more immediate pragmatic, and indeed financial, considerations. Freeman's immersion in the problems of hay fever and asthma and his pioneering use of allergen desensitisation or immunotherapy were shaped by his adherence to the convictions and bacteriological practices of his principal at St Mary's Hospital, Almroth Wright, and by the drive to produce commercial vaccines which would help to subsidise the experimental and therapeutic work at St Mary's. The aim of this paper is to explore early twentieth-century approaches to hay fever and other allergic diseases by tracing the intellectual and institutional origins of clinical allergy in Britain. (shrink)

I examine the relationship between taking Pascal’s wager, faith, and hope. First, I argue that many who take Pascal’s wager have genuine faith that God exists. The person of faith and the wagerer have several things in common, including a commitment to God and positive cognitive and conative attitudes toward God’s existence. If one’s credences in theism are too low to have faith, I argue that the wagerer can still hope that God exists, another commitment-justifying theological virtue. I conclude with (...) two upshots of the argument, including how it provides responses to common objections to Pascal’s wager. (shrink)

Darwinism, Democracy, and Race examines the development and defence of an argument that arose at the boundary between anthropology and evolutionary biology in twentieth-century America. In its fully articulated form, this argument simultaneously discredited scientific racism and defended free human agency in Darwinian terms. The volume is timely because it gives readers a key to assessing contemporary debates about the biology of race. By working across disciplinary lines, the book's focal figures--the anthropologist Franz Boas, the cultural anthropologist Alfred Kroeber, the (...) geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, and the physical anthropologist Sherwood Washburn--found increasingly persuasive ways of cutting between genetic determinist and social constructionist views of race by grounding Boas's racially egalitarian, culturally relativistic, and democratically pluralistic ethic in a distinctive version of the genetic theory of natural selection. Collaborators in making and defending this argument included Ashley Montagu, Stephen Jay Gould, and Richard Lewontin. Darwinism, Democracy, and Race will appeal to advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and academics interested in subjects including Philosophy, Critical Race Theory, Sociology of Race, History of Biology and Anthropology, and Rhetoric of Science. (shrink)

Drawing on a career-long exploration of 1960s French philosophy, Leonard Lawlor seeks a solution to 'the problem of the worst violence'. The worst violence is the reaction of total apocalypse without remainder; it is the reaction of complete negation and death; it is nihilism. Lawlor argues that it is not just transcendental violence that must be minimised: all violence must itself be reduced to its lowest level. He offers new ways of speaking to best achieve the least violence, which (...) he creatively appropriates from Foucault, Derrida and Deleuze and Guattari as 'speaking-freely', 'speaking-distantly' and 'speaking-in-tongues'. (shrink)

On some religious traditions, there are obligations to believe certain things. However, this leads to a puzzle, since many philosophers think that we cannot voluntarily control our beliefs, and, plausibly, ought implies can. How do we make sense of religious doxastic obligations? The papers in this issue present four responses to this puzzle. The first response denies that we have doxastic obligations at all; the second denies that ought implies can. The third and fourth responses maintain that we have either (...) indirect or direct control over our beliefs. This paper summarizes each response to the puzzle and argues that there are plausible ways out of this paradox. (shrink)

ONE way t0 defend narrow content is to produce a sentence 0f the form ‘S believes that P’, and show that this sentence is true 0f S if and 0nly if it is true 0f any duplicate from the skin in, any doppclgangcr, of S. N0toriously, this is hard to d0. Twin Earth examples are pervasivc.1 Another way to defend narrow content; is t0 show that Only 2. narrow notion can play thc causal explanatory r01c we require 0f contcnt in (...) 2. properly scicntiicm psychology 0r cognitive science. Notoriously, this is hard t0 d0. The considerations—mcthod010gicaI solipsism, the principle 0f autonomy, 0r what:cvcr—invokcd to show that a broad notion 0f content cannot.. (shrink)

One well-known objection to supersubstantivalism is that it is inconsistent with the contingency of location. This paper presents a new objection to supersubstantivalism: it is inconsistent with the vagueness of location. Though contingency and vagueness are formally similar, there are important philosophical differences between the two. As a result, the objection from vague location will be structurally different than the objection from contingent location. The paper explores these differences and then defends the argument that supersubstantivalism is inconsistent with the plausible (...) thesis that it is vague where I am located. (shrink)

Accelerated approval of aducanumab for mild Alzheimer's by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on June 7, 2021, has generated substantial medical, scientific, and ethical controversy. That approval was contrary to the nearly unanimous judgment of the FDA's Advisory Committee that little reliable evidence existed of significant benefit, even though the drug did reduce β‐amyloid. Three major ethical problems were created by this approval: (1) Medicare resources would be unjustly squandered, given the drug's $56,000 annual price and the 3.1 million (...) older potential American patients needing the drug; (2) physicians will feel ethically compelled to provide the drug to desperate, insistent patients, given FDA approval and in spite of side effects of brain bleeds and brain swelling; (3) and false hopes are generated for patients. A needed corrective by the federal government would reduce reimbursement to the bare cost of producing the drug (plus only a modest profit) until a phase IV trial has been successfully completed. (shrink)

Whether animals fare well or not is of ethical significance. For this reason, their capacity for wellbeing, i.e., how good or bad the lives of animals can go, is of ethical significance as well. I assume that the wellbeing of most animals is mainly determined by their phenomenally conscious experiences. If consciousness differences between species determine wellbeing differences, then the kinds of conscious experience species are capable of may entail that some species systematically (can) have higher or lower wellbeing than (...) others. Then, I argue that not all phenomenally conscious states contribute to wellbeing equally. I discuss which features of consciousness are constituents of wellbeing and which can, for ethical purposes, be ignored. In addition, I scrutinize how much different features of experience contribute to wellbeing and how their presence can be detected empirically. This way, this paper exemplifies a novel consciousness-centered approach for the empirical investigation of animal wellbeing. The strengths and weaknesses of this approach are analyzed. While subsequent research is needed to refine the framework, I already note some preliminary implications for animal ethics. (shrink)

De Bie et al. (2023) call attention at the conclusion of their essay to the “novel questions” generated by complete ectogenesis. The question I explore is how complete ectogenesis from conception t...

John Rawls has held up as a model of public reason the U.S. Supreme Court. I argue that the Dobbs Court is justifiably criticized for failing to respect public reason. First, the entire opinion is governed by an originalist ideological logic almost entirely incongruent with public reason in a liberal, pluralistic, democratic society. Second, Alito’s emphasis on “ordered liberty” seems completely at odds with the “disordered liberty” regarding abortion already evident among the states. Third, describing the embryo/fetus from conception until (...) birth as an “unborn human being” begs the question of the legal status of the embryo/fetus, as if an obiter dictum settled the matter. Fourth, Alito accuses the Roe court of failing to exercise judicial restraint, although Alito argued to overturn Roe in its entirety. In brief, the Dobbs opinion is an illiberal, disingenuous, ideological swamp that swallows up public reason and the reproductive rights of women. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: Part I -- Doctors -- Dr. Joseph Messer -- Dr. Sharon Sandell -- ER -- Dr. John Barrett -- Marc and Noreen Levison, a paramedic and a nurse -- Lloyd (Pete) Haywood, a former gangbanger -- Claire Hellstern, a nurse -- Ed Reardon, a paramedic -- Law and Order -- Robert Soreghan, a homicide detective -- Delbert Lee Tibbs, a former death-row inmate -- War -- Dr. Frank Raila -- Haskell Wexler, a cinematographer -- Tammy Snider, (...) a Hiroshima survivor (hibakusha) -- Mothers and Sons -- V.I.M. (Victor Israel Marquez), a Vietnam vet -- Angelina Rossi, his mother -- Guadalupe Reyes, a mother -- God's Shepherds -- Rev. Willie T. Barrow -- Father Leonard Dubi -- Rabbi Robert Marx -- Pastor Tom Kok -- Rev. Ed Townley -- The Stranger -- Rick Rundle, a city sanitation worker -- Part II -- Seeing Things -- Randy Buescher, an associate architect -- Chaz Ebert, a lawyer -- Antoinette Korotko-Hatch, a church worker -- Karen Thompson, a student -- Dimitri Mihalas, an astronomer and physicist -- A View from the Bridge -- Hank Oettinger, a retired printer -- Ira Glass, a radio journalist -- Kid Pharaoh, a retired "collector" -- Quinn Brisben, a retired teacher -- Kurt Vonnegut, a writer -- The Boomer -- Bruce Bendinger, an advertising executive and writer -- Part III -- Fathers and Sons -- Doc Watson, a folksinger -- Vernon Jarrett, a journalist -- Country Women -- Peggy Terry, a retired mountain woman -- Bessie Jones, a Georgia Sea Island Singer (1972) -- Rosalie Sorrels, a traveling folksinger -- The Plague I -- Tico Valle, a young man -- Lori Cannon, "curator" of the Open Hand Society -- Brian Matthews, an ex-bartender, writer for a gay weekly -- Jewell Jenkins, a hospital aide -- Justin Hayford, a journalist, musician -- Matta Kelly, a case manager -- The Old Guy -- Jim Hapgood -- The Plague II -- Nancy Lanoue -- Out There -- Dr. Gary Slutkin -- Day of the Dead -- Carlos Cortez, a painter and poet -- Vine Deloria, a writer and teacher -- Helen Sclair, a cemetery familiar -- The Other Son -- Steve Young, a father -- Maurine Young, a mother -- The Job -- William Herdegen, an undertaker -- Rory Moina, a hospice nurse -- The End and the Beginning -- Mamie Mobley, a mother -- Dr. Marvin Jackson, a son -- Epilogue -- Kathy Fagan and Linda Gagnon, mothers. (shrink)

Translated from German. Includes bibliographical references. Includes index.

Philosophers have always recognized the value of reason, but the process of reasoning itself has only recently begun to emerge as a philosophical topic in its own right. Is reasoning a distinctive kind of mental process? If so, what is its nature? How does reasoning differ from merely freely associating thoughts? What is the relationship between reasoning about what to believe and reasoning about how to act? Is reasoning itself something you do, or something that happens to you? And what (...) is the value of reasoning? Are there rules for good or correct reasoning and, if so, what are they like? Does good reasoning always lead to justified belief or rational action? Is there more than one way to reason correctly from your evidence? This volume comprises twelve new essays by leading researchers in the philosophy of reasoning that together address these questions and many more, and explore the connections between them. (shrink)

Juhani Yli-Vakkuri and John Hawthorne have recently presented a thought experiment—Mirror Man—designed to refute internalist theories of belief and content. We distinguish five ways in which the case can be interpreted and argue that on none does it refute internalism.

Building on recent formal work by Aleks Knoks, we explore how the idea that certain epistemic norms may be indeterminate could be implemented in a default logic.

Deconstructive critique targets the illusion of presence, that is, the idea that being is simply present and available before our eyes. For Derrida, the idea of presence implies self‐givenness, simplicity, purity, identity, and stasis. Therefore, deconstruction aims to demonstrate that presence is never given as such, never simple, never pure, never self‐identical, and never static; it is always given as something other, complex, impure, differentiated, and generated. The aim of deconstruction is essentially political and ethical in the sense of making (...) us question who we are. In one of the first of many engagements with Heidegger, Derrida asked this simple question: “But who, we?” This “who are we?” is still the primary deconstructive question. (shrink)

An introduction for the general reader to David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.

De-Signing Design: Cartographies of Theory and Practice throws new light on the terrain between theory and practice in transdisciplinary discourses of design and art. The collection brings together a selection of essays on spatiality, difference, cultural aesthetics, and identity in the expanded field of place-making and being.

Here is the essential guide to philosophy. Philosophy: An Illustrated History of Thought is an authoritative yet fun reference book and timeline on the compilation of human knowledge. Both art and science attempt answers to the big questions -- what is truth, how to be good, and where did we come from? -- but philosophy is the interpreter we use to verify it all. We need it to make sense of the simplest math and the most esoteric poetry, and it (...) has even created a science of information itself. We begin our journey at the boundary of myth and reason, and along the way we visit the thoughts of the most high-flying of minds who could see that nothing, not ever-changing words, limitless numbers, or mystical visions, were beyond examination. Philosophy contains 100 chronological articles that recount the inspirations of great thinkers including Epicurus, St. Anselm, David Hume, Friedrich Nietzsche, David Chalmers, and Nick Bostrom. Far from being the work of dead geniuses, Philosophy is today at the heart of our battle to make sense of the quantum Universe. Philosophy embraces the paradox, and we present the most mind-boggling conundrums the last 3,000 years has to offer: Includes summaries of the fields of philosophy, setting out the basics in jargon-busting and lighthearted text. The life stories behind the great philosophers give further insight to their work. Philosophy also contains a 12-page Timeline History of Philosophy. (shrink)

In Home Building & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Minnesota Mortgage Moratorium Act. Under the terms of the Act---one of the many pieces of moratory legislation enacted due to the Great Depression---mortgagors who found themselves unable to make their payments could turn to the state courts for an alteration of their payment schedule. It is clear that if there ever was a state of affairs in which one could justify the imposition of debtor (...) relief, the circumstances in Minnesota during the early 1930s would have filled the bill. By most accounts, the Act was justifiable from a policy perspective. ;Nevertheless, the outcome did not please everyone. The question before the Court was whether the proceedings authorized by the Act violated the contracts clause of the Constitution. Article 1, §10 provides that "No State...pass any...law impairing the Obligation of Contracts." The Act did impair the obligation of mortgage contracts. Furthermore, the Act was exactly the kind of debtor relief legislation that the contracts clause meant to forbid. The basic premise underlying the majority opinion was that a constitutional provision should be interpreted both in the context of the entire Constitution and in the context of the social situation confronting the Court. According to the dissent, the framing of the Constitution fixed the meaning of a provision for all cases arising across time. The two approaches represent two extremes in constitutional interpretation. However, the basic agreement is over how the Constitution should evolve. The basic disagreement concerns the problem of constitutional change. ;In a recent work, Robert Lipkin radically rethinks modern constitutional jurisprudence, challenging the received view of constitutional change. His theory of "constitutional revolutions" implies that conventionalism, coherentism, pragmatism, and naturalism all fall short as the best theory of constitutional change. In addition to offering a critique of Lipkin's theory, the present work conducts an independent investigation the theories Lipkin rejects. Such an investigation will not only help ascertain the legitimacy of Lipkin's theory of constitutional revolutions in particular, but of radical constitutional change in general. (shrink)