Foundations of the theory of signs.--Signs, language, and behavior.--Five semiotical studies.

I have argued that substance ontology cannot be used to determine the moral status of embryos. Patrick Lee, Christopher Tollefsen, and Robert George wrote a Reply to those arguments in this Journal. In that Reply, Lee, Tollefsen, and George defended and clarified their position that their substance ontology arguments prove that the zygote and the adult into which it develops are the same entity that share the same essence. Here, I show the following: Even using the substance ontology framework to (...) which Lee, Tollefsen, and George subscribe, we cannot know when in development substance changes cease. Substance ontology cannot therefore be used to assign moral status to embryos. The Lee, Tollefsen, and George substance ontology framework should not be applied to the study of development or to biological discourse in general, because this framework depends on premises that do not apply. (shrink)

“This book deals with the main ideas of four American philosophers: Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George Herbert Mead. It is based directly upon a study of their writings, from which extensive quotations are made. Its emphasis is upon the ideas themselves and their interrelationships. For this reason the book is not primarily a history of American pragmatic philosophy nor an interpretation of its relation to American culture nor a compendium of scholarly research about this philosophy. All (...) of these matters do enter into the argument, but in a secondary way.”- Publisher. (shrink)

LOGIC, EXPERIENCE, AND SCIENTIFIC METHOD Holmes, The Common Law Radin, Law as Logic and Experience Cardozo, Paradoxes of Legal Science Pound, ...

This volume of new essays brings together leading philosophers, historians, legal scholars, social thinkers, and literary critics to examine the far-reaching ...

Colin Morris traces the origin of the concept of the individual, not to the Renaissance where it is popularly assumed to have been invented, but farther back, ...

Written for independent study and suitable for an introductory course in logic, this classic text combines a sound presentation of logic with effective pedagogy ...

My objective in this project is to explore the concept of moral luck as it relates to sports. I am especially interested in constitutive luck. As a foundation I draw from both Bernard Williams and Thomas Nagel’s classic handling of moral luck, generally. Within the philosophy of sport are similar explorations of this nexus by Robert Simon and David Carr that also factor into the present work. My intent is to put a new lens in front of a puzzle drawn (...) from Torbjörn Tännsjö’s well-known article ‘Is Our Admiration of Sports Heroes Facistoid?’ Specifically, the idea that we might admire an athlete who excels without having worked hard for it. If we may call this puzzle ‘the talent problem,’ the questions driving the present work are as follows: what is the relationship between moral luck and the talent problem, and can this relationship provide a prescription for morally assessing the talent problem? The thesis that this exploratory work suggests that more complex games (and... (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Hume's Theory of Belief Normativity Notes References Further reading.

Concern for one's "reputation" has been introduced in recent game theory enabling theorists to demonstrate the rationality ofcooperative behavior in certain contexts. And these impressive results have been generalized to a variety of situations studied bystudents of business and business ethicists. But it is not clear that the notion of reputation employed has much explanatory power onceone sees what is meant. I also suggest that there may be some larger lessons about the notion of rationality used by decision theorists.

Traditionally, the term ‘diaspora’ (from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible) referred to the dispersion of the Jewish people from ancient Israel. It had a pejorative connotation, associated...

Many writers have attempted to develop criteria to demarcate between competent science and pseudo?science. Such attempts can be aimed at sizeable, organized endeavours, such as mesmerism and astrology, or at the level of individual practice. The latter is seen by some, such as Lugg, as more likely to be feasible and useful. This paper argues that parapsychology, due to its complexity and diversity, illustrates some of the problems of attempting to develop demarcation criteria for extensive endeavours. It is also suggested (...) that parapsychology may offer a productive ground for testing whether demarcation criteria can be successfully applied to practices in respect of predicting which will succeed and which will not. The conclusion is that, for demarcation efforts to be useful, they should pass some of their own criteria, such as falsifiability. (shrink)

Although Hume has no developed semantic theory, in the heyday of analytic philosophy he was criticized for his “meaning empiricism,” which supposedly committed him to a private world of ideas, led him to champion a genetic account of meaning instead of an analytic one, and confused “impressions” with “perceptions of an objective realm.” But another look at Hume’s “meaning empiricism” reveals that his criterion for cognitive content, the cornerstone both of his resolutely anti-metaphysical stance and his naturalistic “science of human (...) nature,” provides the basis for a successful response to his critics. Central to his program for reforming philosophy, Hume’s use of the criterion has two distinct aspects: a critical or negative aspect, which assesses the content of the central notions of metaphysical theories to demonstrate their unintelligibility; and a constructive or positive aspect, which accurately determines the cognitive content of terms and ideas. (shrink)

This chapter studies the theme of the body in Merleau-Ponty by first showing how it is anticipated in The Structure of Behaviour and is central to the Phenomenology of Perception. In addition to illuminating Merleau-Ponty's concept of the body, the aim is to show how the body is, for Merleau-Ponty, a key methodological term, since it marks philosophy's inherent openness to something prephilosophical, to which philosophy must be responsible. The chapter shows how this openness and the body's expressive role in (...) the earlier philosophy anticipates key issues in the later The Visible and the Invisible. (shrink)

This article contends that Georg Simmel attempted a rehabilitation of the Jewish stereotype in a singular way: via his theory of modernity and the quintessential place held therein by money. The first part of the article, based almost entirely on Simmel's The Philosophy of Money, seeks to demonstrate that Simmel intended to overturn the negative Aristotelian and Marxist assessments of money and of those who deal with it. The second part of the article is based on Simmel's unique theory of (...) type. This part seeks to establish that what Simmel in fact rehabilitates is the Jewish type, rather than any actual historical entity, and that this type is in fact the stereotype of the Jew. Simmel's attempt is made in terms of existential authenticity and in direct relation to the project of modernity. (shrink)

In his recent article ‘Consciousness and Reduction’, Ausonio Marras argues that functional reduction must appeal to bridge laws and thus does not represent a genuine alternative to Nagelian reduction. In response, I first argue that even if functional reduction must use bridge laws, it still represents a genuine alternative to Nagelian reduction. Further, I argue that Marras does not succeed in showing that functional reduction must use bridge laws. Introduction Nagelian Reduction, Functional Reduction, and Bridge Laws Marras on Functional Reduction (...) The Logical Space of ‘Bridge Law’ Views of Reduction [RP] as an Account of Realization Conclusion CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Discussion of the need for moral guidelines in business; suggestions for communication in the workplace.

Morris, Brian The dust has not settled on this year's disastrous Census, yet already there are calls to amend the question on Religious Affiliation. While the latest change brought Australia into line with most Western countries - by placing 'No Religion' as first option - elements of the 'not-quite-religious' community feel bitterly aggrieved.

Clarence Morris argues that the more the law implements the public's genuine and important aspirations--not its desires for individual gratification but the social, deep-seated unselfish, nonexploitable aspirations--the more just the legal system becomes.

A professor, dean, and college president for more than twenty years, Francis H. Horn is one of America’s most penetrating educational analysts. And while in this collection of sixteen of his most significant and controversial papers he addresses himself primarily to educational ad­ministrators, the nonspecialist can read what he has to say with pleasure and profit. Extremely well written and jargon free, the essays represent the tenets of Mr. Horn’s main beliefs, many of which go against contemporary conventional views. The (...) papers are divided into four main areas: objectives, problems, administration, and students. Though there is a certain amount of recur­rence of ideas throughout the essays, especially of Mr. Horn’s deeply-held beliefs, the thrust of his thought is objective, patient, provocative, and challenging examination of the realities of the present as well as the hopes of the future. (shrink)

In _Psychoanalytic Therapy as Health Care_, a timely and trenchant consideration of the clash of values between managed care and psychoanalysis, contributors elaborate a thoughtful defense of the therapeutic necessity and social importance of contemporary psychoanalytic and psychodynamic approaches in the provision of mental health care. Part I begins with the question of where psychoanalytic treatments now stand in relation to health care; contributors offer explanations of the current state of affairs and consider possible directions of future developments. Part II (...) looks directly at the conundrums that have resulted from the attempt to integrate psychotherapy and managed care, with contributors examining the ethical and legal dimensions of confidentiality, privacy, and reporting to third parties. Part III opens to wider consideration of the experiences of psychoanalysts under health care systems throughout the world. Finally, Part IV demonstrates the relevance of contemporary psychoanalytic approaches to a variety of contemporary patient populations, with contributors focusing on the applicability of analytically oriented treatment to AIDS patients, seriously disturbed young adults, and inner-city clinic patients. Collectively, the contributors to _Psychoanalytic Therapy as Health Care_ convincingly refute the claim that psychoanalytically informed therapy is an esoteric treatment suited only to the "worried well." Drawing on a wide range of clinical and empirical evidence, they forcefully argue that contemporary psychoanalytic approaches are applicable to seriously distressed persons in a variety of treatment contexts. Failure to include such long-term therapies within health care delivery systems, they conclude, will deprive many patients of help they need - and help from which they can benefit in enduring ways that far transcend the limited treatment goals of managed care. (shrink)

Models for truth in fiction must be able to account for differing versions and interpretations of a given fiction in such a way that prevents contradictions from arising. I propose an analysis of truth in fiction designed to accommodate this. I examine both the interpretation of claims about truth in fiction (the ‘Interpretation Problem’) and the metaphysical nature of fictional worlds and entities (the ‘Metaphysical Problem’). My reply to the Interpretation Problem is a semantic contextualism influenced by Cameron (2012), while (...) my reply to the Metaphysical Problem involves an extension and generalisation of the counterpart-theoretic analysis put forth by Lewis (1978). The proposed analysis considers interpretive context as a counterpart relation corresponding to a set of worlds, W, and states that a sentence φ is true in interpretive context W iff φ is true at every world (w∈W). I consider the implications of this analysis for singular terms in fiction, concluding that their extensions are the members of sets of counterparts. In the case of pre-existing singular terms in fiction, familiar properties of the corresponding actual-world entities are salient in restricting the counterpart relation. I also explore interpretations of sentences concerning multiple fictions and those concerning both fictional and actual entities. This account tolerates a plurality of interpretive approaches, avoiding contradictions. (shrink)

Suppose that we have negative, natural rights to our lives, liberty, and possessions and that these rights are absolute or indefeasible. Then at best onlyminimal stateswill be legitimate, where such are states that restrict their activities to the enforcement of the basic rights of individuals and the like. Such appears to be the consequence of absolute natural rights. When made aware of these implications of absolute natural rights, many philosophers deny their existence. In the absence of a convincing defense of (...) absolute natural rights, the defense of the minimal state thereby loses force. (shrink)

This is a concordance of page numbers in the following editions of Merleau-Ponty's Phenomenology of Perception: English editions prior to the Routledge Classics 2002; Routledge Classics edition, with the new pagination; the French edition from Gallimard, prior to 2005; the 2e edition from Gallimard, 2005, with new pagination.

This paper aims to clarify Merleau-Ponty’s difficult concept of “reversibility” by interpreting it as resuming the dialectical critique of the rationalist and empiricist tradition that informs Merleau-Ponty’s earlier work. The focus is on reversibility in “Eye and Mind,” as dismantling the traditional dualism of activity and passivity. This clarification also puts reversibility in continuity with the Phenomenology’s appropriation of Kant, letting us note an affiliation between Merleau-Ponty’s reversibility and Heidegger’s Ereignis: in each case being itself already performs the operation that (...) Kant had located in the imagination. Reversibility discovers this Kantian imagination moving in place, Ereignis discovers it in temporality. (shrink)

This chapter asks the reader to contrast justice with some of the other central virtues—for instance, prudence, courage, temperance, or wisdom. Justice is different. Unlike these others, it is principally a social virtue; its interpersonal element is central. Other virtues, such as generosity, as well as benevolence or charity, are also interpersonal. But unlike justice, acts of generosity or benevolence are not owed to specific people. One ought to help others, but the choice of when and where to act benevolently (...) is for the most part up to the individual. In modern terms their requirements are duties of imperfect obligation; those of justice are for the most part owed to specific individuals. The thesis that the norms of justice are not always preemptive reasons may appear much less plausible regarding certain central norms of justice, for instance, the principle prohibiting the intentional killing of nonthreatening innocent persons. The same may be true with the prohibition of cruelty. (shrink)

I survey some unusual phenomena in which the body seems to be projected into other things. I argue that these phenomena should not be understood as illusions, as erroneous distortions of an objective body, but as indicating that the body is first of all a being absorbed in outside things. The usual questions about perception are thus reversed: the question is not how the outside world is represented in an inside, but how a moving body ecstatically absorbed in things ever (...) breaks out of that absorption. My suggested answer involves movement and has implications for rethinking nature. (shrink)