In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 39.3 (2005) 44-57 [Access article in PDF] Literary Biography: The Cinderella of Literary Studies Michael Benton There are no prizes for guessing who are the two ugly sisters: Criticism, the elder one, dominated literary studies for the first half of the twentieth century; theory, her younger sister, flounced to the fore in the second half. Meanwhile, 'Cinders,' who had been doing the chores (...) for centuries, has been magically transformed in recent times, decked out in new clothes by Richard Holmes, Claire Tomalin, Juliet Barker, Peter Ackroyd et al., and, as the millennium approached, celebrated and admired on all sides. At the start of the new century, literary biography remains in vogue. The bibliography that carries it forward is rolling, and there is no sign of it turning into a pumpkin. Why is Cinderella so popular?One obvious if superficial answer might be that literary biography is where literary people go who find the contemporary preoccupation with theory to be personally undernourishing and critically unenlightening; they would rather stay with the literary works themselves and with the lives, the minds, and the times that produced them. Yet it is not only literary biography that is thriving; life writing in general is the fastest-growing area of mainstream publishing, evidence for which can be seen in Waterstone's flagship store in London's Piccadilly, which devotes its prime ground-floor site to thousands of biographies. This commercial high profile is responding to an evident, if unfocused, need to look at other lives and understand them. Individual reasons for the popularity of biography range from prurient interest and hero worship to a, perhaps unrecognized, search for coherence and purpose in an age that is often disinclined either to accept institutional values or to respect traditional authority. The motives for this search usually include the desire for recognizable success, to which end the invention of a convincing identity is essential. Biographies offer models of how others live, face challenges, and cope with change; they are prime sites for studying ourselves. Curiously, this justification for biography as providing [End Page 44] a model for living was felt most strongly when this literary genre first emerged in the eighteenth century. The difference today is that the model has changed: Biography as a moral exemplum based upon Christian principles has been replaced in today's celebrity culture by the demand for models of success provided by public personalities. Nonetheless, whatever the range of satisfactions readers seek in biography, life writing offers, in one form or another, detailed pictures of widely different ways of living and amid these, perhaps, some clues to how an individual sense of identity might be shaped.Literary biographies (i.e., biographies of writers, not biographies with a particular literary quality) are a significant and, in some respects, a unique subgenre since they purport to offer access to the creative imagination. They have a long and distinguished history from Johnson and Boswell to the present day; they are sometimes written by other novelists (Elizabeth Gaskell on Charlotte Bronte, Peter Ackroyd on Dickens); and autobiographical writing may take the form of poetry (Wordsworth) or fiction (Joyce).1 Furthermore recent writing in this field has increasingly introduced elements of metabiography in books by Adam Sisman2 and Lucasta Miller.3 It is evident, therefore, that literary biography offers a rich and varied area of study that raises issues about the relationships among biography, history, fiction, and poetry that are fundamental to aesthetic education.Yet despite this promise, it has become a truism to declare that biography has failed to establish any theoretical foundations upon which to build. Backscheider quotes Ira Nadel's remark on the absence of "a sustained theoretical discussion of biography incorporating some of the more probing and original speculations about language, structure, and discourse that have dominated post-structuralist thought."4 She goes on to lament the poverty of criticism; the absence of a cultivated readership; the failure to engage even with the practical questions of selection, organization, or presentation; and indicates that readers of biography are too easily... (shrink)

Scientific understanding, this paper argues, can be analyzed entirely in terms of a mental act of “grasping” and a notion of explanation. To understand why a phenomenon occurs is to grasp a correct explanation of the phenomenon. To understand a scientific theory is to be able to construct, or at least to grasp, a range of potential explanations in which that theory accounts for other phenomena. There is no route to scientific understanding, then, that does not go by way of (...) scientific explanation. (shrink)

Here, we argue that any neurobiological theory based on an experience/function division cannot be empirically confirmed or falsified and is thus outside the scope of science. A ‘perfect experiment’ illustrates this point, highlighting the unbreachable boundaries of the scientific study of consciousness. We describe a more nuanced notion of cognitive access that captures personal experience without positing the existence of inaccessible conscious states. Finally, we discuss the criteria necessary for forming and testing a falsifiable theory of consciousness.

I defend (metaphysical) ground against recent, unanswered objections aiming to dismiss it from serious philosophical inquiry. Interest in ground stems from its role in the venerable metaphysical project of identifying which facts hold in virtue of others. Recent work on ground focuses on regimenting it. But many reject ground itself, seeing regimentation as yet another misguided attempt to regiment a bad idea (like phlogiston or astrology). I defend ground directly against objections that it is confused, incoherent, or fruitless. This vindicates (...) the very attempt to regiment ground. It also refocuses our attention on the genuine open questions about ground and away from the distracting, unpersuasive reasons for dismissing them. (shrink)

In the age of terrorism, the temptations of ruthlessness can be overwhelming. Yet a violent response to violence arguably makes us morally indistinguishable from our enemies. There is perhaps no greater political challenge today than trying to win the war against terror without losing our democratic souls. Michael Ignatieff confronts this challenge head-on, with the combination of hard-headed idealism, historical sensitivity and political judgement that has made him one of the most influential voices in international affairs today. Ignatieff argues (...) that we must not shrink from the use of violence. But its use - in a liberal democracy - must be measured. And we must not fool ourselves that whatever we do in the name of freedom and democracy is good. We may need to kill to fight the greater evil of terrorism, but we must never pretend that doing so is anything better than a lesser evil. In making this case, Ignatieff traces the modern history of terrorism and counter-terrorism, from the nihilists of Czarist Russia and the militias of Weimar Germany to the IRA and the unprecedented menace of Al Qaeda. (shrink)

On the most popular account of material constitution, it is common for a material object to coincide precisely with one or more other material objects, ones that are composed of just the same matter but differ from it in sort. I argue that there is nothing that could ground the alleged difference in sort and that the account must be rejected.

Negligence is a problematic basis for being morally blamed and punished for having caused some harm, because in such cases there is no choice to cause or allow—or risk causing or allowing—such harm to occur. The standard theories as to why inadvertent risk creation can be blameworthy despite the lack of culpable choice are that in such cases there is blame for: (1) an unexercised capacity to have adverted to the risk; (2) a defect in character explaining why one did (...) not advert to the risk; (3) culpably acquiring or failing to rid oneself of these defects of character at some earlier time; (4) flawed use of those practical reasoning capacities that make one the person one is; or (5) chosen violation of per se rules about known precautions. Although each of these five theories can justify blame in some cases of negligence, none can justify blame in all cases intuitively thought to be cases of negligence, nor can any of these five theories show why inadvertent creation of an unreasonable risk, pure and simple, can be blameworthy. (shrink)

In recent years, several minimalist accounts of joint action have been offered (e.g. Tollefsen Philosophy of the Social Sciences 35:75–97, 2005; Sebanz et al. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 31(6): 234–1246, 2006; Vesper et al. Neural Networks 23 (8/9): 998–1003, 2010), which seek to address some of the shortcomings of classical accounts. Minimalist accounts seek to reduce the cognitive complexity demanded by classical accounts either by leaving out shared intentions or by characterizing them in a way that (...) does not demand common knowledge of complex, interconnected structures of intentions. Moreover, they propose models of the actual factors facilitating online coordination of movements. The present proposal aims to enrich a minimalist framework by showing how shared emotions can facilitate coordination without presupposing common knowledge of complex, interconnected structures of intentions. Shared emotions are defined for the purposes of this paper as affective states that fulfill two minimal criteria: (a) they are expressed (verbally or otherwise) by one person; and (b) the expression is perceived (consciously or unconsciously) by another person. Various ways in which the fulfillment of (a) and (b) can lead to effects that function as coordinating factors in joint action are distinguished and discussed. (shrink)

In recent years, a number of theorists have developed approaches to social cognition that highlight the centrality of social interaction as opposed to mindreading (e.g. Gallagher and Zahavi 2008 ; Gallagher 2001 , 2007 , 2008 ; Hobson 2002 ; Reddy 2008 ; Hutto 2004 ; De Jaegher 2009 ; De Jaegher and Di Paolo 2007 ; Fuchs and De Jaegher 2009 ; De Jaegher et al. 2010 ). There are important differences among these approaches, as I will discuss, but (...) they are united by their commitment to the claim that various embodied and extended processes sustain social understanding and interaction in the absence of mindreading and thus make mindreading superfluous. In this paper, I consider various ways of articulating and defending this claim. I will argue that the options that have been offered either fail to present an alternative to mindreading or commit one to a radical enactivist position that I will give reasons for being skeptical about. I will then present an alternative and moderate version of interactionism, according to which the embodied and extended processes that interactionists emphasize actually complement mindreading and may even contribute as an input to mindreading. (shrink)

Harsanyi defends utilitarianism by means of an axiomatic proof and by what he calls the 'equiprobability model'. Both justifications of utilitarianism aim to show that utilitarian ethics can be derived from Bayesian rationality and some weak moral constraints on the reasoning of rational agents. I argue that, from the perspective of Bayesian agents, one of these constraints, the impersonality constraint, is not weak at all if its meaning is made precise, and that generally, it even contradicts individual rational agency. Without (...) the impersonality constraint, Harsanyi's two justifications of utilitarianism on the grounds of Bayesian rationality fail. As an alternative, I develop a contractarian framework that is compatible with individual rational agency and Harsanyi's central assumptions, and that allows the derivation of moral conclusions on the grounds of Bayesian rationality. The developed framework offers a novel justification of contractarian ethics and may best be described as a combined version of Harsanyi's equiprobability model and Rawls's original position. (shrink)

Recent results in probability theory have cast doubt on the coherence theory of justification, allegedly showing that coherence cannot produce justification for beliefs in the absence of foundational justification, and that there can be no measure of coherence on which coherence is generally truth-conducive. I argue that the coherentist can reject some of the assumptions on which these theorems depend. Coherence can then be held to produce justification on its own, and truth-conducive measures of coherence can be constructed.

An emerging class of theories concerning the functional structure of the brain takes the reuse of neural circuitry for various cognitive purposes to be a central organizational principle. According to these theories, it is quite common for neural circuits established for one purpose to be exapted (exploited, recycled, redeployed) during evolution or normal development, and be put to different uses, often without losing their original functions. Neural reuse theories thus differ from the usual understanding of the role of neural plasticity (...) (which is, after all, a kind of reuse) in brain organization along the following lines: According to neural reuse, circuits can continue to acquire new uses after an initial or original function is established; the acquisition of new uses need not involve unusual circumstances such as injury or loss of established function; and the acquisition of a new use need not involve (much) local change to circuit structure (e.g., it might involve only the establishment of functional connections to new neural partners). Thus, neural reuse theories offer a distinct perspective on several topics of general interest, such as: the evolution and development of the brain, including (for instance) the evolutionary-developmental pathway supporting primate tool use and human language; the degree of modularity in brain organization; the degree of localization of cognitive function; and the cortical parcellation problem and the prospects (and proper methods to employ) for function to structure mapping. The idea also has some practical implications in the areas of rehabilitative medicine and machine interface design. (shrink)

In two experiments subjects attempted to identify words presented below the objective threshold using two task strategies emphasizing either allowing a word to pop into their heads or looking carefully at the stimulus field . Words were selected to represent both meaningful and structural dimensions. We also asked subjects to indicate their strategy preference and to rate their motivation to perform well. In the absence of conscious perception, both strategy preference and word meaning interacted with strategy condition, mediating the accuracy (...) of subjects′ direct word identification judgments. Motivation also mediated performance. Word structure had no effect. Unconscious perception manifested only in the pop condition, underscoring the importance of task strategy in determining whether subliminal effects are observed. A follow-up control experiment using sham flashes demonstrated that strategy preference and motivation effects were not artifacts resulting from performance feedback cues. (shrink)

What I call the dynamics of reason is a post-Kuhnian approach to the history and philosophy of science articulating a relativized and historicized version of the Kantian conception of the rationality and objectivity of the modern physical sciences. I here discuss two extensions of this approach. I argue that, although the relativized standards of rationality in question change over time, the particular way in which they do this still preserves the trans-historical rationality of the entire process. I also make a (...) beginning in extending my historical narrative from purely intellectual history (both philosophical and scientific) to the wider cultural context. (shrink)

PYRRHONIAN SCEPTICISM, as presented in the writings of Sextus Empiricus, differs in various ways from the forms of scepticism that continue to be of such central concern to modern philosophers. Two differences stand out immediately. One is Pyrrhonism's practical orientation. For Sextus, scepticism is a way of life in which suspension of judgment leads to the peace of mind the sceptic identifies with happiness. The other is the puzzling failure on the part of the Pyrrhonists, along with all other ancient (...) sceptics, to formulate the sceptical problem that many modern and contemporary philosophers regard as fundamental and paradigmatic: the problem of our knowledge of the external world. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that agents are self-ruled only when ruled by their (authentic) selves. Though this view is rarely argued for explicitly, one tempting line of thought suggests that self-rule is just obviously equivalent to rule by the self . However, the plausibility of this thought evaporates upon close examination of the logic of ‘self-rule’ and similar reflexives. Moreover, attempts to rescue the account by recasting it in negative terms are unpromising. In light of these problems, this paper instead proposes (...) that agents are self-ruled only when not ruled by others. One reason for favouring this negative social view is its ability to yield plausible conclusions concerning various manipulation cases that are notoriously problematic for nonsocial accounts of self-rule. A second reason is that the account conforms with ordinary usage. It is concluded that self-rule may be best thought of as an essentially social concept. (shrink)

Richard Fumerton’s “Principle of Inferential Justification” holds that, in order to be justified in believing P on the basis of E, one must be justified in believing that E makes P probable. I argue that the plausibility of this principle rests upon two kinds of mistakes: first, a level confusion; and second, a fallacy of misconditionalisation. Furthermore, Fumerton’s principle leads to skepticism about inferential justification, for which reason it should be rejected. Instead, the examples Fumerton uses to motivate his principle (...) can be accounted for using a different principle: in order for S to be justified in believing P on the basis of E, it must be true that E makes P probable. The latter principle can be independently motivated and does not lead to skepticism. (shrink)

We reopen the investigation into the formal and conceptual relationship between bidirectional optimality theory (Blutner in J Semant 15(2):115–162, 1998 , J Semant 17(3):189–216, 2000 ) and game theory. Unlike a likeminded previous endeavor by Dekker and van Rooij (J Semant 17:217–242, 2000 ), we consider signaling games not strategic games, and seek to ground bidirectional optimization once in a model of rational step-by-step reasoning and once in a model of reinforcement learning. We give sufficient conditions for equivalence of bidirectional (...) optimality and the former, and show based on numerical simulations that bidirectional optimization may be thought of as a process of reinforcement learning with lateral inhibition. (shrink)

In “Naming and Necessity” Saul Kripke describes some cases which, he claims, provide counterexamples both to cluster theories and, more generally, to description theories of proper names. My view of these cases is that while they do not provide counterexamples to cluster theories, they can be used to provide evidence against single-description theories. In this paper I shall defend both of the claims involved in my view.

The formal conception of computation (FCC) holds that computational processes are not sensitive to semantic properties. FCC is popular, but it faces well-known difficulties. Accordingly, authors such as Block and Peacocke pursue a ?semantically-laden? alternative, according to which computation can be sensitive to semantics. I argue that computation is insensitive to semantics within a wide range of computational systems, including any system with ?derived? rather than ?original? intentionality. FCC yields the correct verdict for these systems. I conclude that there is (...) only one promising strategy for semantically-laden theorists: identify special computational systems that help generate their own semantic properties, and then show that computation within those systems is semantically-laden. Unfortunately, the few existing discussions that pursue this strategy are problematic. (shrink)

In some areas of cognitive science we are confronted with ultrafast cognition, exquisite context sensitivity, and scale-free variation in measured cognitive activities. To move forward, we suggest a need to embrace this complexity, equipping cognitive science with tools and concepts used in the study of complex dynamical systems. The science of movement coordination has benefited already from this change, successfully circumventing analogous paradoxes by treating human activities as phenomena of self-organization. Therein, action and cognition are seen to be emergent in (...) ultrafast symmetry breaking across the brain and body; exquisitely constituted of the otherwise trivial details of history, context, and environment; and exhibiting the characteristic scale-free signature of self-organization. (shrink)

Consider the following situation. It is the first day of school, and the new third-grade students file into the classroom to be shown to their seats for the coming year. As they enter, the third-grade teacher notices one small boy who is particularly unkempt. He looks to be in desperate need of bathing, and his clothes are dirty, torn and tight-fitting. During recess, the teacher pulls aside the boy's previous teacher and asks about his wretched condition. The other teacher informs (...) her that he always looks that way, even though the boy's family is quite wealthy. The reason he appears as he does, she continues, is that the family observes an odd practice according to which the children do not receive many important things – food, clothing, bathing, even shelter – unless they specifically request them. Since the boy, like many third-graders, has little interest in bathing and clean clothes, he just never asks for them. (shrink)

Current interpretations of Aquinas often attribute to him the claim that no artifact is a substance, or, more precisely, the claim that, (A1) No artifact is a substance in virtue of its form. Robert Pasnau, for example, tells us that “Aquinas is committed to the view that all artifacts are nonsubstances with respect to their form.” And Eleonore Stump writes: "An artifact is thus a composite of things configured together into a whole but not by a substantial form. Since only (...) something configured by a substantial form is a substance, no artifact is a substance." In fact, however, Aquinas’s position on the metaphysical status of artifacts is more nuanced than these standard interpretations suppose. This paper will examine three hitherto overlooked passages in Aquinas’s writings in an attempt to clarify his position, and to show how it (his actual position) can overcome some of the philosophical problems which pose difficulties for the stronger claims often attributed to him. (shrink)

Michael P. Levine, Tamas Pataki. the case of racism. If one understands racism to be rooted in some underlying psychological structure, then while what is ordinarily called racist behavior may well be indicative of such an underlying structure, ...

Michael Dummett's three John Dewey Lectures--"The Concept of Truth," "Statements About the Past," and "The Metaphysics of Time"--were delivered at Columbia University in the spring of 2002. Revised and expanded, the lectures are presented here along with two new essays by Dummett, "Truth: Deniers and Defenders" and "The Indispensability of the Concept of Truth." In _Truth and the Past,_ Dummett clarifies his current positions on the metaphysical issue of realism and the philosophy of language. He is best known as (...) a proponent of antirealism, which loosely characterizes truth as what we are capable of knowing. The events of the past and statements about them are critical tests of an antirealist position. These essays continue and significantly contribute to Dummett's work. (shrink)

One merit claimed for john rawls's coherence method, Wide reflective equilibrium, Is that it transcends the traditional two tiered approach to moral inquiry according to which one must choose as one's starting points either particular moral judgments or general moral principles. The two tiered conception of philosophical method is not limited to ethics. The most detailed exposition of the conception can be found in r m chisholm's various discussions of the problem of the criterion. While chisholm's work has played a (...) major role in structuring the way epistemologists think about method, It has not similarly influenced the deliberations of moral theorists. But moral philosophers are not the only ones with myopia, For neither rawls's coherentist method nor classical moral intuitionism figure in chisholm's taxonomy. One aim is to correct the vision of both parties by expanding chisholm's taxonomy in order to make clear how intuitionism and rawls's coherentist method are related to the methods identified by chisholm. My other aim is to argue for coherentism of the sort defended by rawls against the other non-Skeptical methods I consider. (shrink)

A theme of much work taking an ““economic approach”” to the study of science is the interaction between the norms of individual scientists and those of society at large. Though drawing from the same suite of formal methods, proponents of the economic approach offer what are in substantive terms profoundly different explanations of various aspects of the structure of science. The differences are illustrated by comparing Strevens's explanation of the scientific reward system (the ““priority rule””) with Max Albert's explanation of (...) the prevalence of ““high methodological standards”” in science. Some objections to the economic approach as a whole are then briefly considered. (shrink)

Galton greeted Darwin's theory of pangenesis with enthusiasm, and tried to test the assumption that the hereditary particles circulate in the blood by transfusion experiments on rabbits. The failure of these experiments led him to reject this assumption, and in the 1870s he developed an alternative theory of heredity, which incorporated those parts of Darwin's theory that did not involve the transportation of hereditary particles throughout the system. He supposed that the fertilized ovum contains a large number of hereditary elements, (...) which he collectively called the "stirp," a few of which are patent, developing into particular cell types, while the rest remain latent; the latent elements can be transmitted to the next generation, while the patent elements, with rare exceptions, cannot since they have developed into cells. The problem with this theory is that it does not explain the similarity between parent and child unless there is a high correlation between latent and patent elements. Galton probably came to realize this problem during his subsequent statistical work on heredity, and he quietly dropped the idea that patent elements are not transmitted in Natural Inheritance (1889). Galton thought that brothers and sisters had identical stirps, and he attributed differences between them to variability in the choice of patent elements from the stirp, that is to say to developmental variability. He attributed the likeness of monozygotic twins to the similarity of their developmental environment. Galton's twin method was to track the life history changes of twins to see whether twins who were similar at birth diverged in dissimilar environments or whether twins who were dissimilar at birth converged in similar environments. It is quite different from the modern twin method of comparing the similarities between monozygotic and dizygotic twins, on the assumption that monozygotic twins are genetically identical whereas dizygotic twins are not. It has been argued that Galton foreshadowed Weismann's theory of the continuity of the germ-plasm, but this is only true in a weak sense. They both believed that the inheritance of acquired characters was either rare or impossible, but Galton did not forestall the essential part of Weismann's theory, that the germ-plasm of the zygote is doubled, with one part being reserved for the formation of the germ-cells. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that self-respect constitutes an important value, and further, serves as an important basis for equality. I also argue that under conditions of inequality-producing segregation, voluntary separation in schooling may be more likely to provide the resources necessary for self respect. Accordingly, I defend a prima facie case of voluntary separation for stigmatized minorities when equality – as equal status and treatment – is not an option under either the terms of integration or involuntary segregation.

In this essay reviewing Brian Leiter’s recent book Naturalizing Jurisprudence, I focus on two positions that distinguish Leiter’s reading of the American legal realists from those offered in the past. The first is his claim that the realists thought the law is only locally indeterminate – primarily in cases that are appealed. The second is his claim that they did not offer a prediction theory of law, but were instead committed to a standard positivist theory. Leiter’s reading is vulnerable, because (...) he fails to discuss in detail those passages from the realists that inspired past interpretations. My goal is to see how Leiter’s reading fares when these passages are considered. I argue that Leiter is right that the realists’ indeterminacy thesis has only a local scope. Those passages that appear to claim that the law is globally indeterminate actually address three other topics: judicial supremacy, judges’ roles as finders of fact, and the moral obligation to adjudicate as the law commands. With respect to the prediction theory, however, I conclude that Leiter’s position cannot be defended. Indeed the realists offered two “prediction” theories of law. According to the first, which is best described as a decision theory, the law concerning an event is whatever concrete judgment a court will issue when the event is litigated. According to the second, the law is reduced, not to concrete judgments, but to regularities of judicial (and other official) behavior in a jurisdiction. I end this essay with the suggestion that the realists’ advocacy of the second prediction theory indirectly vindicates Leiter’s reading of the realists as prescient jurisprudential naturalists. (shrink)

Can Pascal's wager for the existence of God be turned against the religious believer and used as an argument for not believing in God? Although such an argument has been very briefly sketched by others its details have remained undeveloped. In this paper this argument is worked out in detail in the context of decision theory and is defended against objections. The result is a plausible argument for atheism.

Today many philosophers of mind accept that the two cortical streams of visual processing in humans can be distinguished in terms of conscious experience. The ventral stream is thought to produce representations that may become conscious, and the dorsal stream is thought to handle unconscious vision for action. Despite a vast literature on the topic of the two streams, there is currently no account of the way in which the relevant empirical evidence could fit with basic Husserlian phenomenology of vision. (...) Here I offer such an account. In this article, I show how the empirical evidence ought to be understood in a way that is informed by phenomenology. The differences in the two streams are better described as differences in spatial and temporal processing. Rather than simply “unconscious,” the dorsal stream can be better described as making a special contribution to what Husserl identified as the visual horizon. (shrink)

This paper was presented at a session on "Three views of experiment: Atomic parity violations," in which Allan Franklin's study of an episode in the recent history of particle physics was discussed and criticized. Franklin argues in favor of what he calls "the evidence model," a general claim to the effect that physicists' theory choices are based on valid experimental evidence. He contrasts his position to that of the social constructivists, who, according to him, insist that social and cognitive interests, (...) and not the evidence, explains physicists' practical and theoretical judgments. My paper argues that Franklin miscasts the debate between experimental realism and social constructivism, because constructivists do not insist that evidence has no role whatsoever in experimental practice. My position draws lessons from Wittgenstein's later philosophy and ethnomethodological studies of scientific practices. The paper does not aim to support social constructivism against Franklin's arguments, so much as to suggest that the terms of the realist-constructivist debate provide a poor context for the examination of the temporal production of experiments and observations. (shrink)

Still, in this paper I’m not going to be laudatory, enthusiastic, or appreciative, but instead address the distinctly philosophical question of what a forgery is—investigate the concept of a forgery, as philosophers used to say, and sometimes still do. Only after that question and a few others have been answered should we ask the question that everyone wants to ask straight off: What, if anything, is aesthetically wrong with a forgery? Interesting as that question is, space limitations prevent me from (...) addressing it here. (shrink)

One principal challenge to the rationalist thesis that the demands of morality are requirements of rationality has been that posed by the "rational egoist." In attempting to answer's the egoist's challenge, some rationalists have supposed that an adequate reply must take the form of a deductive argument that "converts" the egoist by showing that her position is contradictory, arbitrary, or violates some precept that defines practical rationality as such. Here I argue (a) that such rationalist replies will fail to persuade (...) the egoist to adopt a recognizably moral way of life; (b) that this failure can be traced to epistemic assumptions that underlie typical rationalist replies; (c) that egoist conversion can better be understood by rejecting these assumptions and seeing egoist conversion as akin to a paradigm shift in the sciences; and (d) that conceptualizing egoist conversion as a paradigm shift accords with empirical psychological evidence regarding the acquisition and modification of individuals' moral attitudes and beliefs. (shrink)