The notion of poethics has been used to approach the way in which forms of language and forms of life are interdependent and to reveal the ethical dimension of poetics. However, the interaction must go both ways; there must not only be an ethical dimension to poetics, but also a poetic dimension to ethics. To what extent is ethics dependent on poetics? In this essay, I argue that Nietzsche’s life-affirming ethics can be understood only in this poethical framework. The specificity (...) of Nietzsche’s ethics, and why it is so difficult to locate on the spectrum of ethical theories, lies in the fact that his ethics is a poetics. By focusing mainly on The Gay Science, I explore the interaction between ethics and poetics that lies at the heart of Nietzsche’s ethical thought. Both poetics and ethics involve the question of value, and a poetic ethics (a poethics) reveals that the creation of ethical value is something necessarily poetic. Nietzsche’s ethics of creation is not a mere theory, but a poetic way of life. (shrink)

When reading John Stuart Mill, it's easy to have a sense of "déja vu all over again." At first sight, his ideas seem completely familiar, well understood, and thoroughly absorbed in the way we live now. Do we need him to explain the advantages of free speech and open debate? Or to emphasize attending to the consequences of actions? To protect differences that don't harm others, and to plead for equality of opportunity? Even if he once counted as "dangerous" or (...) "subversive", he can appear all too tame today. On John Stuart Mill aims to approach him differently - not by rehearsing his (considerable) contributions to contemporary attitudes, but by starting just where the ideas he has bequeathed to us seem most problematic. Our own political debates hardly approximate the conditions envisaged in the famous defense of free speech. If we read more closely - and more widely - it becomes evident that he was already aware of the problem, and that he struggled to reconcile the claims of democracy with the importance of expertise. Those struggles can help us as we wrestle with kindred difficulties. In this extended, and beautifully written, essay, Kitcher develops some of Mill's ideas in the context of contemporary ethical, social, and political issues and debates, and what he would have made of them. These debates--such as those around government mandated Covid-19 masks and vaccines, Second Amendment worship, income inequality, gay marriage, and climate change--involve questions of individual freedom, free speech, equality, and utilitarianism, all of which are central to Mill's project. In doing so, Kitcher draws primarily, though not exclusively, on the three works by Mill (sometimes in close collaboration with Harriet Taylor) that typically feature on the Contemporary Civilization syllabus: On Liberty, Utilitarianism, and The Subjection of Women. He also discusses Mill's Principles of Political Economy. By focusing on questions that are salient today, he hopes to capture the tone of exploratory conversations at which Contemporary Civilization aims. (shrink)

_Diversity and Community: An Interdisciplinary Reader_ is a collection of essays exploring the notion of community in its many theoretical, practical, and cultural manifestations. A collection of specially commissioned essays exploring the notion of community in its many theoretical, practical, and cultural manifestations. Discusses the idea of community in its full, cultural context. Deals with issues confronting many diverse groups, including African American, Franco-Canadian, computer-mediated, and gay and lesbian communities. Includes contributions by both eminent schlars and new voices, among them (...) Martha Nussbaum, Jean Bethke Elsthain, D.A. Masolo, Mary Hawkesworth, Lewis Gordon, Maria Lugones, Crispin Sartwell, Duane Champagne, and Frank Cunningham. (shrink)

In six chapters of uneven length, Peter Lewis Allen, a former literature professor and public policy activist, offers a highly readable romp through two millennia of beliefs and attitudes regarding sin, sex, and disease. In particular, Allen draws on religious, medical, and popular literature from different eras in order to exemplify how particular “diseases”—lovesickness, leprosy, syphilis, bubonic plague, and masturbation—were causally connected with thoughts of punishment for sinful behavior. He then extends this theme into a lengthy chapter describing how the (...) same belief contributed to the chasm between conservative and activist perspectives on AIDS in the United States over the past two decades.Allen, who is admittedly not a historian, picks and chooses a “series of portraits of disease,” offering little contextualization as he creates a “tableau” of perspectives drawn from European and American discourse throughout Christianity. He flavors his chronological narrative with personal experiences drawn from his work in gay health groups. The most significant personal experiences he intersperses stem from thoughts about his one‐time lover, now dead from complications associated with AIDS. He interjects key episodes from this relationship into the book to affirm that “in its fight about how to respond to AIDS,” American society has reenacted a “drama that had been written centuries before” .Allen's engaging writing stands much more firmly as chronologically arranged comparative literature than as historical scholarship. His greatest historiographical faux pas lies in his anachronistic writing about disease. For example, he introduces his chapter on medieval leprosy with a description of the pathological destruction caused by the leprosy bacterium. Then, in selecting situations drawn from Herodotus through the sixteenth‐century “contagionist” Girolamo Fracastoro, he erroneously assumes that “leprosy” implied a singular, consistent disorder throughout this long period. Similar concerns arise regarding his coverage of syphilis. Such errors may have originated from his drawing too exclusively from pre‐1990 historical writings. Works like Charles E. Rosenberg and Janet Golden's Framing Disease: Studies in Cultural History and Linda Merian's edited volume The Secret Malady: Venereal Disease in Eighteenth‐Century Britain and France , and the voluminous literature on the history of the body, would have provided contextual concepts within which to place more concrete views about the intersections between diseases and culture. The author's desire to flash forward from particular historical periods to AIDS in our society too often leads to weakly substantiated connections between time periods.Allen's strengths lie in his ability to draw on works of literature, especially popular literature. His particular emphasis on French works reflects his own background in medieval French literature. His arguments are also strong when comparing church and society in the medieval period. For example, his chapter on lovesickness clearly delineates the persistent position of the Church Fathers against medics who regularly prescribed a “coital cure” for the disorder, without specifying what partners to select, instead of welcoming disease as a divine corrective.Allen's writing on plague, the shortest chapter of the book, clearly depicts the once‐common view that this epidemic disaster was inflicted by God as a punishment for mankind's sinful nature. However, the omission of any discussion of sex in a chapter of a work subtitled “Sex and Disease, Past and Present,” is somewhat puzzling. Even more conspicuous is the author's failure to expand upon the 1530 poem regarding the plight of the impious shepherd, Syphilis, from whom the disease in question received its name. Why would a literary scholar prone to draw on popular writings not give more than a single‐sentence mention to this historically relevant poem?Of the works Allen has drawn upon, he offers a pleasant mix of primary and secondary accounts that, like all good literary criticism, gives original sources a clear voice. Any work so selectively focused on a few diseases will leave some readers wondering about others that might have been perceived in terms of sex and sin. Were such associations discussed in regard to madness in the eighteenth century, tuberculosis in the nineteenth century, or the wide range of twentieth‐century STDs prior to AIDS? Why was no mention made of leprosy in the twentieth‐century context? Its AIDS‐like stigma has been historically contextualized in several works, including Stephanie J. Castillo's award‐winning 1992 documentary Simple Courage. Similarly, one wonders why the author chose not to drawn on standard medical history accounts on AIDS, including Elizabeth Fee and Daniel M. Fox's edited volume AIDS: The Burden of History and, perhaps more important for the Francophile Allen, Mirko D. Grmek's Histoire du SIDA: Début et origine d'une pandémie actualle .Apart from my historiographical criticisms, The Wages of Sin is a most delightful popular rendering of key relations between disease and Christianity. Works like this are extremely useful in reminding the reading public in an articulate, informative, and entertaining manner that they are part of humanity's continuum that has long sought connections between physical health and moral living. Indeed, Allen's apt description of the underlying usefulness of history underscores the importance of his own writing: “We value history because, whatever its distortions and inaccuracies, it is a way of understanding and giving value to our collective human experience and collective human memory”. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:164 BOOK REVIEWS the " causes and remedies " of homosexuality (this entails a guarded challenge to the notion of " constitutional " homosexuality) and a special outreach to people with AIDS; a long endnote undertakes to defend the thesis that AIDS can sometmies he, at least in a qualified sense, divine punishment for sexual sin (p. 110 n. 4). Ashley's essay concludes with an apology for any unintended (...) offense resulting from imprecise or otherwise infelicitous expressions of his position; and he suggests that such lapses on the part of the CDF letter itself were " inevitable in a document that had to he brief and directly to the point in order to clear up the ambiguities with which this complex question has been obscured" (p. 109). My personal assessment is that Ashley has succeeded much better than CDF in minimizing such problems; he might have been even more successful had he not been so intent on downplaying or excusing the letter's undeniable faults in this regard. Of course, Ashley is here engaging in debate with the Vatican's critics; were he instead directly addressing CDF, his approach might well have been different. Even in the present context, however, as a better gesture toward gay and lesbian people wounded by the letter's simplistic and harsh prescriptions, it would have been well for Ashley to repeat the observation he once addressed to U.S. and Canadian bishops assembled in Dallas for a sexuality workshop (Feb. 2-6, 1981): "Overfacile solutions to the tragic dilemmas of life which people are experiencing make the Church appear smug and silly." The debate over this issue will continue, as indeed it must. The participants in this hook, notwithstanding problems on either side, have contributed significantly to the ongoing conversation and have set a high standard which we must hope will he emulated by all who carry the conversation forward. Pontifical, University of St. Thomas Rome, Italy BRUCE WILLIAMS, O.P. Perplexity in the Moral Life: Philosophical and Theological Considerations. By EDMUND N. SANTURRI. Charlottesville, Va.: The University Press of Virginia, 1988. Pp. 256. $35.00. Edmund Santurri has written an important book about a central issue in moral theory and a fundamental problem in the moral life. On occasion, one feels on the horns of a dilemma. Whatever course of action might he taken, it appears as if wrong will he done in the process of doing right. Thus, we want to keep promises, but if we keep BOOK REVIEWS 165 this promise, we will cause or allow some great harm to come to an· other person. How ought this sort of dilemma to he understood? Santurri argues that there are within the traditions of moral philosophy and theology two ways of construing the problem. One can say either that moral dilemmas of the sort Santurri discusses are the re· sult of deficient knowledge and so in principle resolvable, or that they stem from the structure of the moral universe itself and are in consequence not resolvable. It is Santurri's contention that Christian ethics must hold to the former position and defend the view that in all dilemmatic contexts there is a way to dispel moral perplexity through more adequate moral knowledge. In order to establish this thesis he undertakes a review of typical philosophical and theological literature that addresses the problem he has identified. Santurri's review of the philosophical literature, though on occasion unnecessarily dense, is always competent and generally thorough. Among others, he reviews the work of David Lyons, Bernard Williams, and Thomas Nagel. His conclusion is that philosophical argument can establish neither of the two possible views of moral dilemma as superior to the other. Arguments designed to establish both points of view prove inconclusive in the end because they beg more fundamental ques· tions concerning the content, nature, and function of morality itself. Thus, Santurri argues that moral perplexity cannot he interpreted adequately apart from a discussion of " certain fundamental questions of moral ontology " (p. 4), and he quite successfully shows that these questions are passed over or inadequately treated in the philosophical literature. The fundamental questions he lists are these: Are moral codes simply systems of convention or do these... (shrink)

Hilbert's program attempts to show that our mathematical knowledge can be certain because we are able to know for certain the truths of elementary arithmetic. I argue that, in the absence of a theory of mathematical truth, Hilbert does not have a complete theory of our arithmetical knowledge. Further, while his deployment of a Kantian notion of intuition seems to promise an answer to scepticism, there is no way to complete Hilbert's epistemology which would answer to his avowed aims.

Although the push to get universities to accumulate IP by commercializing their scientific research was a conscious movement, dealing with the blowback in the form of contracts over the transfer of research tools and inputs, called materials transfer agreements (MTAs), was greeted by universities as an afterthought. Faculty often regarded them as an irritant, and TTOs were not much more welcoming. One reason universities could initially ignore the obvious connection between the pursuit of patents and the prior promulgation of MTAs (...) was a legalistic distinction made between intellectual property and contract law, which of course is of direct concern to a lawyer, but should be less compelling for anyone trying to understand the big picture surrounding the commercialization of academic science. However, as a subset of scientists were increasingly drawn into the commercial sphere, they tended to attach MTAs to research inputs requested by other academics; and this began a tidal wave of MTAs which shows no sign of abating. Furthermore, many IP-related restrictions have been loaded into individual MTAs, including the stipulation that the existence and content of MTAs themselves be treated as secret and proprietary. The paper closes by looking at recent arguments that the growth of MTAs has not actually harmed the research process, and rejects them. (shrink)

Consider syllogisms in which fraction (percentage) quantifiers are permitted in addition to universal and particular quantificrs, and then include further quantifiers which are modifications of such fractions (such as "almost ½ the S are P" and "Much more than ½ the S are P"). Could a syllogistic system containing such additional categorical forms be coherent? Thompson's attempt (1986) to give rules for determining validity of such syllogisms has failed; cf. Carnes & Peterson (forthcoming) for proofs of the unsoundness and incompleteness (...) of Thompson's rules. Building on Peterson (1985), the coherence of such a syllogistic can, however, be demonstrated with an algebra which provides its semantics; e.g., "almost ¾ the S arc P'" is represented as " -(3(SP) » SP)". (shrink)

Argues i) that part of what it is to understand what is being asked, when we ask whether something is good, is being able to distinguish stopping points in a series of "Why?" questions, and ii) that this ability explains how we can reason from observable facts to conclusions about value.

In 2001, the algebraico-tree-theoretic simplicity hierarchical structure of J. H. Conway’s ordered field${\mathbf {No}}$of surreal numbers was brought to the fore by the first author and employed to provide necessary and sufficient conditions for an ordered field (ordered$K$-vector space) to be isomorphic to an initial subfield ($K$-subspace) of${\mathbf {No}}$, i.e. a subfield ($K$-subspace) of${\mathbf {No}}$that is an initial subtree of${\mathbf {No}}$. In this sequel, analogous results are established forordered exponential fields, making use of a slight generalization of Schmeling’s conception of (...) atransseries field. It is further shown that a wide range of ordered exponential fields are isomorphic to initial exponential subfields of$({\mathbf {No}}, \exp )$. These include all models of$T({\mathbb R}_W, e^x)$, where${\mathbb R}_W$is the reals expanded by aconvergent Weierstrass system W. Of these, those we calltrigonometric-exponential fieldsare given particular attention. It is shown that the exponential functions on the initial trigonometric-exponential subfields of${\mathbf {No}}$, which includes${\mathbf {No}}$itself, extend tocanonicalexponential functions on theirsurcomplexcounterparts. The image of the canonical map of the ordered exponential field${\mathbb T}^{LE}$oflogarithmic-exponentialtransseries into${\mathbf {No}}$is shown to be initial, as are the ordered exponential fields${\mathbb R}((\omega ))^{EL}$and${\mathbb R}\langle \langle \omega \rangle \rangle $. (shrink)

Some philosophers claim that there are certain laws that restrict what kinds of things we can perceptually represent. Those laws do not apply, however, to beliefs. To be a representationalist is to hold that there is a similarity between perception and belief. If this is the case, why do the laws apply to one kind of mental state, but not the other? I argue that the puzzle is not a puzzle for representationalists in general, but only for some forms of (...) representationalism that hold excessive analogies between perception and belief. I will consider three kinds of views: a view that identifies perception with belief; a view that claims that perception and belief share the same kind of content, viz. propositions; and the view that belief and perception are both intentional states, but do not share the same type of content. I will argue that the laws of appearance rule out views that identify perception with belief, and that consider propositions to be the contents of perception. (shrink)

Dmitri Mendeleev’s detailed prediction in 1871 of the properties of three as yet unknown elements earned him enormous prestige. Eleven other predictions, thrown off without elaboration, were less uniformly successful, thanks mainly his unbending adherence to the structure of his table and his failure to account for the lanthanides. At the end of his life he returned to his table without making the required changes, and added a theoretical discussion of elements lighter than hydrogen. The overall balance of success and (...) failure is nevertheless in his favour. There may now be a similar failure to understand the ultra-heavy elements because of adherence to the pattern of chemical groups. (shrink)

In the Journal of Moral Education, 39(2), Brenda Almond and Lawrence Blum debate the importance of tolerance versus acceptance in sex education. Blum defines acceptance as ‘positive regard’, in contradistinction to mere tolerance, ‘a live and let live attitude toward others, an acceptance of coexistence, but with a disapproval of that “other”’. Employing consequentialist and definitional arguments, he defends an acceptant educational policy. I shore up this defence by addressing the issue of autonomy: specifically, I refute the claim that acceptance (...) undermines parental autonomy in a morally unacceptable fashion. Drawing on Philip Pettit and Michael Smith’s defence of the idea of ‘orthonomy’ or right-rule, I argue that orthonomy, rather than autonomy, should guide educational policy-making. I then show that the principle of orthonomy, together with teachers’ professional responsibilities to ensure a safe and prejudice-free learning environment, entails that teachers have an inalienable responsibility to promote homophilic (gay-positive) values, regardless of whether they or their students’ parents agree. (shrink)

From the stony streets of Boston to the rail lines of California, from General Relativity to Google, one of the surest truths of our history is the fact that America has been built by immigrants. The phrase itself has become a steadfast campaign line, a motto of optimism and good will, and indeed it is the rallying cry for progressives today who fight against tightening our borders. This is all well and good, Philip Cafaro thinks, for the America of (...) the past—teeming with resources, opportunities, and wide open spaces—but America isn’t as young as it used to be, and the fact of the matter is we can’t afford to take in millions of people anymore. We’ve all heard this argument before, and one might think Cafaro is toeing the conservative line, but here’s the thing: he’s not conservative, not by a long shot. He’s as progressive as they come, and it’s progressives at whom he aims with this book’s startling message: massive immigration simply isn’t consistent with progressive ideals. Cafaro roots his argument in human rights, equality, economic security, and environmental sustainability—hallmark progressive values. He shows us the undeniable realities of mass migration to which we have turned a blind eye: how flooded labor markets in sectors such as meatpacking and construction have driven down workers’ wages and driven up inequality; how excessive immigration has fostered unsafe working conditions and political disempowerment; how it has stalled our economic maturity by keeping us ever-focused on increasing consumption and growth; and how it has caused our cities and suburbs to sprawl far and wide, destroying natural habitats, driving other species from the landscape, and cutting us off from nature. In response to these hard-hitting truths, Cafaro lays out a comprehensive plan for immigration reform that is squarely in line with progressive political goals. He suggests that we shift enforcement efforts away from border control and toward the employers who knowingly hire illegal workers. He proposes aid and foreign policies that will help people create better lives where they are. And indeed he supports amnesty for those who have, at tremendous risk, already built their lives here. Above all, Cafaro attacks our obsession with endless material growth, offering in its place a mature vision of America, not brimming but balanced, where all the different people who constitute this great nation of immigrants can live sustainably and well, sheltered by a prudence currently in short supply in American politics. (shrink)

Providing a capstone to Philip Selznick's influential body of scholarly work, _A Humanist Science_ insightfully brings to light the value-centered nature of the social sciences. The work clearly challenges the supposed separation of fact and value, and argues that human values belong to the world of fact and are the source of the ideals that govern social and political institutions. By demonstrating the close connection between the social sciences and the humanities, Selznick reveals how the methods of the social (...) sciences highlight and enrich the study of such values as well-being, prosperity, rationality, and self-government. The book moves from the animating principles that make up the humanist tradition to the values that are central to the social sciences, analyzing the core teachings of these disciplines with respect to the moral issues at stake. Throughout the work, Selznick calls attention to the conditions that affect the emergence, realization, and decline of human values, offering a valuable resource for scholars and students of law, sociology, political science, and philosophy. (shrink)

Andrew Kania has attempted to argue for nihilistic fictionalism about musical works. This view combines an error theory about musical work discourse with the proposal that musical work discourse has a non-alethic value which warrants continued participation in it. In this paper, I argue that Kania fails to establish either component of nihilistic fictionalism. First, I elaborate and reject Kania’s attempt to establish fictionalism on the basis of a methodological proposal he calls ‘descriptivism’. I argue that the methodology is unpopular, (...) unappealing and that the interest in its implications is unclear. What is worse descriptivism does not support fictionalism. I then elaborate and reject Kania’s attempt to establish fictionalism as the best theory compatible with nominalism. I argue that, even by Kania’s standards, eliminativist nominalism, materialist nominalism and materialist fictionalism are preferable to nihilistic fictionalism. (shrink)

Deep convolutional networks exceed humans in sensitivity to local image properties, but unlike biological vision systems, do not discover and encode abstract relations that capture important properties of objects and events in the world. Coupling network architectures with additional machinery for encoding abstract relations will make deep networks better models of human abilities and more versatile and capable artificial devices.