In Max Black’s Objection to Mind–Body Identity, Ned Block seeks to offer a definitive treatment of property dualism arguments that exploit modes of presentation. I will argue that Block’s central response to property dualism is confused. The property dualist can happily grant that mental modes of presentation have a hidden physical nature. What matters for the property dualist is not the hidden physical side of the property, but the apparent mental side. Once that ‘thin’ side is granted, the property dualist (...) has won. I conclude that although Block is wrong to think that the property dualist must argue for so-called thin mental properties, Block, and the physicalist, are able to resist property dualism. But any attempt to bolster this resistance and do more than dogmatically assert the crucial identity runs a serious risk of undermining the physicalism it is meant to save. (shrink)

Michael Bloomberg assumed office as the 108th mayor of New York City on January 1, 2002. As he leaves the mayoralty—having won re—election twice‐his public health legacy is bitterly contested. The public health community views him as an urban innovator—a rare political and business leader willing to fight for a built environment conducive to healthier, safer lifestyles. To his detractors, Bloomberg epitomizes a meddling nanny—an elitist dictating to largely poor and working—class people about how they ought to lead their lives. (...) His policies have sparked intense public, corporate, and political ire—critical of sweeping mayoral power to socially engineer the city and its inhabitants. Here, I seek to show how Bloomberg has fundamentally changed public health policy and discourse. He has used the engine of government to make New York City a laboratory for innovation‐raising the visibility of public health, testing policy effectiveness, and probing the boundaries of state power. Even though the courts have blocked some of his boldest initiatives, he has offered a paradigm for the “new public health”—reaching beyond infectious diseases to upstream risk factors in everyday life and the human habitat. I also critically probe various arguments designed to derail his policies, along with the overarching charge of unjustified paternalism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Frederick J. Streng Book Award:An Interview with Paul Ingram and Sallie KingSallie B. King and Paul O. IngramSallie King and Paul Ingram have been named winners of the 2003 Frederick J. Streng Book Award for their edited collection The Sound of Liberating Truth: Buddhist-Christian Dialogues in Honor of Frederick J. Streng (Curzon, 1999). Sallie King is professor of philosophy and religion at James Madison University in Harrisonburg,Virginia. Paul (...) Ingram is professor of religion at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma,Washington. Both are past presidents of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. There is some irony that they have won this award named after Fred Streng, one of the founders of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, for a volume that is a essentially a festschrift honoring the work of Fred Streng. Following is an edited interview with both of the winners.Buddhist-Christian Studies: What made each of you want to put together this collection of essays?Paul Ingram: Before I met Fred at the first "East-West Religions in Encounter" meeting organized by David Chappell in 1980 in Hawai'i, I was well acquainted with his work in history of religions. Fred by this time was recognized as one of the most important scholars in the field, and I deeply admired his work, particularly his book on Nagarjuna. As it turns out, he had read some of my work on Pure Land Buddhism and was as interested in meeting me as I was in meeting him. We became friends and colleagues. Because of our mutual interest in interreligious dialogue in general and in Buddhism in particular, he suggested that we should co-edit a volume of selected papers from the 1980 conference. This volume, Buddhist-Christian Dialogue: Mutual Renewal and Transformation, was subsequentlypublishedby the Universityof Hawai'i Press in 1986 and is still in print.Sallie King: I had long admired Fred's book on Nagarjuna, which uniquely and powerfullyopenedup the religiousmeaningof Nagarjuna'swork.I later metFred through the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies and discovered that this admirable scholar was also a most admirable human being. We had lengthy, in-depth conversations when our paths crossed at various conferences. After Fred died, David Chappell, who had become the president of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, suggested to Paul and me that we edit a volume of this kind in honor of Fred. Neither Paul nor I hesitated. For my part, I felt such a loss when Fred died that I was very happy [End Page 313] and honored to have this opportunity to make a gesture of respect and gratitude toFred.Besides his obvious scholarly achievements, what were Fred Streng's other gifts?PI: Fred was always generous in his support of colleagues. Many of us in the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies are where we are professionally because of Fred's celebration of our work in all its diversity. He was one of the founding members of the Society, and he worked long and hard to make it a place for not only scholarly Buddhist-Christian encounter, but also a venue for nonspecialists to engage in Buddhist-Christian dialogue. All of us have been creatively transformed by Fred's work. After Fred's death in 1993, David Chappell invited Sallie and me to co-edit a volume of essays to honor Fred's memory and celebrate his work. We did so gladly and without reservation.SK: Fred was a very balanced person who had seriously engaged with all the important areas of human life. He was profoundly spiritual, seriously concerned about social issues, unfailingly kind and generous to others. Though he was at the top of his field, he remained straightforward and natural and always met even far-junior scholars as equals; he could not have been more encouraging and supportive. His spirituality, his scholarship, his engagement with social issues and his caring for others were all interdependent, mutually constructive of who he was and of his various projects.Were assignments for the book difficult to make?PI: The most difficult problem was selecting who to invite. Sallie and I identified five themes in Fred's scholarship, and we needed... (shrink)

. History of the concept of economic efficiency . INTRODUCTION James Buchanan won the Nobel Prize by proving that the process by which elected officials ...

Malcolm-Smith, Solms, Turnbull and Tredoux [Malcolm-Smith, S., Solms, M., Turnbull, O., & Tredoux, C. . Threat in dreams: An adaptation? Consciousness and Cognition, 17, 1281–1291.] conducted a rigorous study that sampled two populations differentially exposed to threat in real life, and found that critical predictions from the Threat Simulation Theory of dreams [Revonsuo, A. . The reinterpretation of dreams: An evolutionary hypothesis of the function of dreaming. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 877-901.; Revonsuo, A. . Did ancestral humans dream for (...) their lives? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23, 1063–1082.] were not supported. Specifically, we found no evidence of increased realistic threats to physical survival or enhanced threat avoidance in the dreams of those from the exposed population. Revonsuo and Valli’s [Revonsuo, A., & Valli, K. . How to test the threat simulation theory. Consciousness and Cognition, 17, 1292-1296.] commentary on our study argues that the methods we used are so flawed as to render the results meaningless. In this response article, we address the criticisms raised in their commentary. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Arthur O. Lovejoy and the Challenge of Intellectual HistoryJohn Patrick DigginsMen and ideas advance by parricide, by which the children kill, if not their fathers, at least the beliefs of their fathers, and arrive at new beliefs.Sir Isaiah Berlin1I was supposed to wind up the study of mine, and become the Lovejoy of my generation—that's the silly talk of scholarly people.Saul Bellow2To become "the Lovejoy," with the implication that (...) each generation could only have one, was the ambition of Moses Herzog in Saul Bellow's novel, written a few years after he had won the Nobel Award for literature. Herzog presents the life of a professor who has as many sexual escapades and as much personal angst as he has scholarly interests, too unfocused to be another Lovejoy. Bellow's novel is full of letters to Nietzsche, Heidegger, and other modernist minds who brought Western intellectual life to a standstill, posing a lasting question mark about the possibilities of knowledge. Bellow taught in the program of the Committee on Social Thought at [End Page 181] the University of Chicago. His colleague and close friend Allan Bloom also taught in that program. But when Bloom wrote the best seller, The Closing of the American Mind, he cited Nietzsche and Heidegger as part of the "German disease" that did so much to subvert academic thought, supposedly turning students into zombies, walking air heads responding only to vacuous visual stimuli and mind-numbing music, with Rock n' Roll blasting through a Walkman and having the effect of a "masturbational fantasy."3While Bellow's epistolary novel interrogated modernist thinkers, Bloom's popular tract of the times cited many classical thinkers as a countervoice to the modernists—Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, Hobbes, Kant, Lessing, Schiller, Locke, and Rousseau. Such minds also figured prominently in the works of Arthur O. Lovejoy. But the recitation of such names leaves the impression that Lovejoy concerned himself only with the main currents of European intellectual history. On the contrary, two of his most important and often neglected books are The Thirteen Pragmatisms and Reflections on Human Nature.4 There one finds profound meditations on two vital episodes in the history of ideas in America: the Enlightenment and the philosophy of pragmatism. Perry Miller, arguably America's greatest intellectual historian, skipped over the Enlightenment as he proceeded to study the Puritans and then the transcendentalists, and he never seemed to have much interest in the pragmatists.5 But what Lovejoy had to write on the Enlightenment and pragmatism is richly ironic.The pragmatists claimed to have liberated modern thought from the easy assumptions of the "Age of Reason," and today's poststructuralists charge that eighteenth-century Enlightenment thinkers deceived themselves in looking to the advent of knowledge as an answer to the presence of power. Lovejoy's books offer a different take entirely, making us aware that it is the modernist thinkers who may be deceiving themselves with the dubious promises of pragmatism and the arrogant conceits of poststructuralism and deconstruction, whose proponents claim to be the first "masters [End Page 182] of suspicion." In many of Lovejoy's works, nothing is resolved and everything is left suspended in a state of honest suspicion.Lovejoy was comfortable with contradiction, and hence more in tune with Augustine, who looked to the depths of human consciousness for spiritual knowledge, than with Aquinas, who believed evidence for God and human freedom could be found in reason alone. Nowhere is Lovejoy's affinity for the emotions of consciousness better seen than in his several essays on romanticism, both English, French, German, and even its origins in Chinese aesthetics and Confucian ethics. It was not reason and the notion of order and regulation that appealed to Lovejoy but the spontaneous promptings of nature springing forth without reflection or design. He delighted in quoting Voltaire against classicists and scholastics. "Worship God and practice justice—this is the sole religion of the Chinese literati.... O Thomas Aquinas, Scotus, Bonaventure, Francis, Dominic, Luther, Calvin, canons of Westminister, have you anything better? For four thousand years this religion, so simple and so noble, has endured in... (shrink)

Resumen: Este artículo parte de un interrogante y se propone abordar un problema, a saber, si existen y son posibles una epistemología de la imposibilidad o, lo que es equivalente, una ciencia de la indeterminación. A fin de resolver el problema, se proponen tres argumentos. Esto son: primero, la imposibilidad, como la indeterminación, no deben ser concebido en modo alguno como limitaciones, restricciones o carencias. Por el contrario, se trata de ganancias o adquisiciones en el campo del conocimiento y de (...) la investigación. En segundo término, la imposibilidad significa un abandono de toda la tradición centrada en la importancia del ser, la realidad, lo dado, lo que acaece o lo que está ahí. Lo que está en juego es una fantástica revolución científica. El tercer argumento pone en evidencia que el mundo y el universo no tienen una determinación específica, y ciertamente no dada de antemano. Sobre la base de estos tres argumentos el artículo afirma que no hay ninguna disyuntiva entre una epistemología de la imposibilidad y una ciencia de la indeterminación, y que la buena investigación puede avanzar por este camino gracias al descubrimiento o la invención, que es la dúplice forma de una educación e investigación que sabe de cambios y transformaciones. Algunas conclusiones de cara a las ciencias sociales y humanas se extraen el final.: This paper starts with a question and is devoted to solving a problem, namely so establish whether an epistemology of the impossible or a science of indetermination are at all possible. In order to solve the problem three arguments are set out: firstly, impossibility very much as indetermination are not to be conceived in any sense as limits, restraints or constrictions. Quite on the contrary, they are assets that are won or acquired in the field of research and knowledge. The second argument claims that the impossible entails abandoning the entire tradition centred around being, reality, the given, what happens or what is at-hand. What is at stake is a fantastic scientific revolution. The third argument point out that the world and the universe do not have any specific determination, and certainly not one established beforehand. Based on these arguments this paper argues that there is not disjunction between an epistemology of the impossible and a science of indetermination, for research can go forwards thanks to discovery or invention which are a twofold form of research and education that know about change and metamorphosis. Several conclusions are drawn at the end vis-à-vis the social and human sciences. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to estimate the worth of two feminist strategies over identity. Judith Butler, from a foucaultian point of view, propose to subvert the category of identity as a > with disciplinary effects over individuals. Seyla Benhabib, who bets for > thinks that is better to try to contextualize the identities without having to recur to an abstract, formal and empty mode of self hegemonic in the philosophical tradition. Why are we interesting in this debate? Because (...) the ethic and political consequences of this theoretical controversy are decisive to redescribe the feminist identification based on the concept of woman. The > is one of the polemical focus in a feminist philosophical movement that, finally, have won academic credibility. (shrink)

An interview with Hasok Chang, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, on the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the publication of his book Is Water H2O?, which won the Fernando Gil International Prize for the Philosophy of Science. So far, the last work of prof. Changa is a book of Realism for Realistic People. A New Pragmatist Philosophy of Science, published in late 2022 by Cambridge University Press.

Estruturando conceitos (raízes do conhecimento). Noções sobre a gramática Ioruba -- O complexo Jêje-nagô -- A palavra e suas possibilidades -- A natureza e o homem -- Corpo individual e corpo coletivo -- A noção de saúde física e mental -- O surgimento da doença -- Os Ajogun -- Especificando conteúdos (ramos de conhecimento). A medicina Ioruba -- Òsányìn, o dono de todos os vegetais -- A folha e a sabedoria -- Omolu, o grande médico -- Os àwon Òrìsà se (...) apoderam das folhas -- O Sistema Ioruba de Nomenclatura e classificação das plantas -- O ritual Sàsányìn -- As plantas, seus cantos e encantos -- Glossário de ervas : ficha catalográfica -- Glossário de aplicação das ervas -- Glossário por nome de ervas : português -- Glossário por nome de ervas : ioruba -- Glossário por nome de ervas : nome científico -- Glossário de ervas Òrìsà -- Glossário de palavras em ioruba utilizadas no texto -- Apêndice: àse e atitude sustentável. (shrink)

This is a talk given in honor of O'Neill at the Pacific APA when she won the Berggruen Prize in 2018.

John Meier distinguishes ‘the real Jesus’ from ‘the historical Jesus’. Meier claims that whatever happened to the real Jesus after his death, his resurrection cannot belong to the historical Jesus because that event is in principle not open to the observation of any observer. But why think that the resurrection is not observable in this way? Meier finds justification in Gerald O'Collins' view that although the resurrection of Jesus is a real event, it is not an event in space and (...) time and hence should not be called historical, since a necessary condition of historical occurrences is that they are known to have happened in our space‐time continuum. Is this a good argument for the resurrection's being in principle excludable from the historical Jesus? A close examination of the argument reveals that it is not and that Meier's adoption of such a procedure contradicts Meier's own historical methodology. (shrink)

Seguindo os passos de Stanley Cavell e de Stephen Mulhall, argumentarei neste artigo que o cinema pode oferecer contribuições genuínas para a filosofia. Para tanto procurarei mostrar que os principais obstáculos para considerar o cinema como capaz de fazer filosofia derivam de pontos de vista bastante restritivos sobre a natureza da racionalidade, da cognição, do significado - e, finalmente, da filosofia e do cinema eles mesmos. Apresentarei alguns desses obstáculos e indicarei formas de removê-los, adotando uma interpretação mais ampla dessas (...) noções. A compreensão resultante será então elaborada em mais detalhes por meio da leitura de um filme específico - Rashomon, de Akira Kurosawa - que considero uma obra exemplar de ficção cinematográfica capaz de refletir filosoficamente sobre a natureza da realidade e de nossa própria existência. Essa leitura será enriquecida por meio de um "interlúdio heideggeriano" que trata da importância dos estados de ânimo para nos sintonizar com o mundo. Finalmente, e com essas considerações em mãos, concluirei minha análise de Rashomon e farei um balanço dos resultados. (shrink)

The intention of this article is to reconstruct the debate between Hans-Georg Gadamer and Jürgen Habermas which occurred between the end of the 1960s and the start of the 1970s. In order to observe this period the later developments of these thinkers won’t be taken into account. The article plans to examine the central problematic of the debate related to the difficult relationship between historic tradition and critical reflection. The tension between these two terms will be used as a reference (...) for discussing the relationships between hermeneutics and critical theory. (shrink)

The Quine-Putnam Indispensability argument is the argument for treating mathematical entities on a par with other theoretical entities of our best scientific theories. This argument is usually taken to be an argument for mathematical realism. In this chapter I will argue that the proper way to understand this argument is as putting pressure on the viability of the marriage of scientific realism and mathematical nominalism. Although such a marriage is a popular option amongst philosophers of science and mathematics, in light (...) of the indispensability argument, the marriage is seen to be very unstable. Unless one is careful about how the Quine-Putnam argument is disarmed, one can be forced to either mathematical realism or, alternatively, scientific instrumentalism. I will explore the various options: (i) finding a way to reconcile the two partners in the marriage by disarming the indispensability argument (Jody Azzouni [2], Hartry Field [13, 14], Alan Musgrave [18, 19], David Papineau [21]); (ii) embracing mathematical realism (W.V.O. Quine [23], Michael Resnik [25], J.J.C. Smart [27]); and (iii) embracing some form of scientific instrumentalism (Ot´ avio Bueno [7, 8], Bas van Fraassen [30]). Elsewhere [11], I have argued for option (ii) and I won’t repeat those arguments here. Instead, I will consider the difficulties for each of the three options just mentioned, with special attention to option (i). In relation to the latter, I will discuss an argument due to Alan Musgrave [19] for why option (i) is a plausible and promising approach. From the discussion of Musgrave’s argument, it will emerge that the issue of holist versus separatist theories of confirmation plays a curious role in the realism–antirealism debate in the philosophy of mathematics. I will argue that if you take confirmation to be an holistic matter—it’s whole theories (or significant parts thereof) that are confirmed in any experiment—then there’s an inclination to opt for (ii) in order to resolve the marital tension outlined above.. (shrink)

W.V.O. Quine has famously objected that (1) properties are philosophically suspect because (2) there is no entity without identity and (3) the synonymy criterion for property identity won't do because there's no such concept as synonymy. (2) and (3) may or may not be right but do not prove (1). I reply that Leiniz's Law handles property identity, as it does for everything else, then respond to a variety of objections and confusions.

U članku se pokušava odrediti svjetonazorno polazište bioetike, posebno one »integrativne «. Prvo će biti istaknut značaj tzv. pogleda na svijet za obrazovanje filozofskih pozicija. Zatim se pokreće pitanje o svjetonazornoj pozadini bioetičkih pozicija, pri čemu se kao njihov zajednički nazivnik pokazuje »bioprotekcionizam« kao vrsta umjerenog biocentrizma. Naposljetku se preispituje osnova integrativne bioetike koja inače ima zadatak promišljati svjetonazorne pretpostavke bioetičkih učenja. U tu svrhu će se ponuditi dvije interpretacije koje će rezultirati ukazivanjem na perspektivizam odnosno pluriperspektivizam kao onaj pogled (...) na svijet koji do izražaja dolazi upravo u integrativnoj bioetici.Im Aufsatz wird der Versuch unternommen, den weltanschaulichen Ausgangspunkt der Bioethik zu ermitteln, vor allem der „integrativen Bioethik“. Zuallererst wird die Bedeutung der sog. Weltanschauungen für die Bildung der philosophischen Positionen hervorgehoben. Des Weiteren wird die Frage nach dem weltanschaulichen Hintergrund der bioethischen Positionen aufgeworfen, wobei sich „Bioprotektionismus“, eine gemäßigte Variante des Biozentrismus, als ihr gemeinsamer Nenner erweist. Schließlich wird die Grundlage der integrativen Bioethik überprüft, die ansonsten die Aufgabe hat, die weltanschaulichen Voraussetzungen der bioethischen Lehren zu reflektieren. Zu diesem Zweck werden zwei Interpretationen angeboten, die zum Perspektivismus bzw. Pluriperspektivismus hinführen, als jener Weltanschauung, welche gerade in der integrativen Bioethik zur Geltung kommt. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN RES SIGNIFICATA AND MODUS SIGNIFICANDI IN AQIDNAS'S THEOLOGICAL EPISTEMOLOGY GREGORY RoccA, O.P. Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology Berkeley, California ST. THOMAS AQUINAS often refers to the distinction between res significata and modus significandi. He asserls that, whie the :absolute and analogical predicates of positive theology may be pveditcated of God with regard to their RS,1 they mrust,be denied of God with regard to their MS.2 (...) The distinotion, then, is an imporlant element in his 1 For brevity's sake I will refer to res significata, by RS and to modus significand.i by MS; I will also speak of the res/modus distinction. The following abbreviations for Aquinas's works will be used: BDH=Flropositio in librum Boethii De hebdomadibus (Marietti ed., 1954); DA=the disputed question De anima (ed. J. H. Robb [Toronto: PIMS, 1968]) ; DDN=Flropositi super librum Dionysii De divinis nominibus (Marietti ed., 1950); DP=De potentia (Marietti ed., 1949); DSS=De substantiis separatis (Leonine Commission, vol. 40, 1969); DV=De veritate (Leonine Co=ission, vol. 22, 197276 ); Herm.=Sententia libri Peri hermeneias (Marietti ed., 1955); John= Leotura super Johannem (Marietti ed., 1952); Meta.=Sententia libri Metaphysioorum (Marietti ed., 1950); Phys.=Sententia libri Physioorum (Marietti ed., 1965) ; Quod. = Quaestiones quodlibetales (Marietti ed., 1956) ; BOG= Summa contra gentiles (Marietti ed., vols. 2-3, 1961) ; SDO=Eropositio super librum De causis (Marietti ed., 1955) ; SS=Scriptum super libros Sententiarum (Paris: Lethielleuro, 1929, 1933, 1947); ST=Summa theologiae (Alba/ Rome: Editiones Paulinae, 1962). The English translations are my own. For Thomas's positive theology of the divine names, see Gregory Rocca, "Analogy as Judgment and Faith in God's Incomprehensibility: A Study in the Theological Epistemology of Thomas Aquinas" (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1989) 540-615. 2 A characteristic text: "In every name predicated by us [of God], imperfection is found with respect to the name's mode of signifying [MS], 173 174 GREGORY ROCCA, O.P. theological epistemology and onomatofogy.3 For some, however, the distinction wou1d ultimately lead us back to the univocist camp of Duns Scotus,4 for they see it as hiding within itself 1 a latent core of univocity. One writes that the predication involved in 1anafogy of attribution is both univocal and equivocail: " It is univocal, insofar as it ai1ways denotes the siame proprietas rei; it is equivoca,J since, through a differrent modus significandi, it •connotes ' a different existentiail mode of the denoted proprieta.'J." 5 Another writes, in simil.ar fashion, that "the :same property is signifi·ed, hut the way in which the property inheres in the subject is different." a Another contends tha;t the idis:tinJCtion between RS and MS is a" bogus distinction between what words realily mean and what they mean to us." 7 If the res/niodus distinction is an imwhich does not belong to God, though the thing signified [RS'] is suitable to God in some eminent manner " (SOG l.30.277) ; the same sentiment is found in many other texts such as SS L35.LL ad2 and ST l.13.3. Thomas often explains the saying of Pseudo-Dionysius, that negations about God are true while affirmations are vague, by claiming that affirmations are true as regards their RS but not as regards their MS (SS l.22.l.2. adl; l.4.2.l. ad2; SOG l.30.277; DP 7.5 ad2; ST l.13.12. adl; SDO 6.161). a Hampus Lyttkens, however, thinks the distinction plays no essential role in Thomas's theory of the divine names (" Die Bedeutung der Gottesprltdikate bei Thomas von Aquin," N eue Zeitschrift fur systematisahe Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 6 [1964] 277-80). Klaus Muller claims the application of the res/modus distinction to the divine names " says really nothing at all" (Thomas van Aquins Theorie und Praxis der Analogie. Der Streit um das rechte Vorurteil und die Ana,lyse einer aufsohlussreichen Diskrepanz in der "Summa theologiae ", Regensburger Studien zur Theologie 29 [Frankfurt am Main/Bern/NY: Peter Lang, 1983] 100). 4 See Richard Swinburne, The Coherence of Theism (Oxford: Clarendon, HJ77) 78-80. s Jan Pinborg, Logik und Semantik im Mittelalter: liJin uberblick, Afterword by... (shrink)

Platonism is the most pervasive philosophy of mathematics. Indeed, it can be argued that an inarticulate, half-conscious Platonism is nearly universal among mathematicians. The basic idea is that mathematical entities exist outside space and time, outside thought and matter, in an abstract realm. In the more eloquent words of Edward Everett, a distinguished nineteenth-century American scholar, "in pure mathematics we contemplate absolute truths which existed in the divine mind before the morning stars sang together, and which will continue to exist (...) there when the last of their radiant host shall have fallen from heaven." In What is Mathematics, Really?, renowned mathematician Rueben Hersh takes these eloquent words and this pervasive philosophy to task, in a subversive attack on traditional philosophies of mathematics, most notably, Platonism and formalism. Virtually all philosophers of mathematics treat it as isolated, timeless, ahistorical, inhuman. Hersh argues the contrary, that mathematics must be understood as a human activity, a social phenomenon, part of human culture, historically evolved, and intelligible only in a social context. Mathematical objects are created by humans, not arbitrarily, but from activity with existing mathematical objects, and from the needs of science and daily life. Hersh pulls the screen back to reveal mathematics as seen by professionals, debunking many mathematical myths, and demonstrating how the "humanist" idea of the nature of mathematics more closely resembles how mathematicians actually work. At the heart of the book is a fascinating historical account of the mainstream of philosophy--ranging from Pythagoras, Plato, Descartes, Spinoza, and Kant, to Bertrand Russell, David Hilbert, Rudolph Carnap, and Willard V.O. Quine--followed by the mavericks who saw mathematics as a human artifact, including Aristotle, Locke, Hume, Mill, Peirce, Dewey, and Lakatos. In his epilogue, Hersh reveals that this is no mere armchair debate, of little consequence to the outside world. He contends that Platonism and elitism fit well together, that Platonism in fact is used to justify the claim that "some people just can't learn math." The humanist philosophy, on the other hand, links mathematics with geople, with society, and with history. It fits with liberal anti-elitism and its historical striving for universal literacy, universal higher education, and universal access to knowledge and culture. Thus Hersh's argument has educational and political ramifications. Written by the co-author of The Mathematical Experience, which won the American Book Award in 1983, this volume reflects an insider's view of mathematical life, based on twenty years of doing research on advanced mathematical problems, thirty-five years of teaching graduates and undergraduates, and many long hours of listening, talking to, and reading philosophers. A clearly written and highly iconoclastic book, it is sure to be hotly debated by anyone with a passionate interest in mathematics or the philosophy of science. (shrink)

This piece, included in the drift special issue of continent. , was created as one step in a thread of inquiry. While each of the contributions to drift stand on their own, the project was an attempt to follow a line of theoretical inquiry as it passed through time and the postal service(s) from October 2012 until May 2013. This issue hosts two threads: between space & place and between intention & attention . The editors recommend that to experience the (...) drifiting thought that attention be paid to the contributions as they entered into conversation one after another. This particular piece is from the BETWEEN SPACE & PLACE thread: April Vannini, Those Between the Common * Laura Dean & Jesse McClelland, Ballard: A Portrait of Placemaking * Amara Hark Weber, Crossroad * Isaac Linder & Berit Soli-Holt, The Call of the Wild: Terro(i)r Modulations * Ashley D. Hairston, Momma taught us to keep a clean house * Sean Smith, The Garage (Take One) * * * * Momma taught us to keep a clean house. Dust the wood furniture every two weeks. Clean the bathrooms once a week. Wipe down the baseboards once a season (Those damn baseboards. I still got bruises on my knees from scrubbing those things). Sweep away the cobwebs—and pray that those spiders are either dead or delirious (Livin in the country don’t mean you like bugs, especially the ones with too many legs ). Didn’t matter that the house was full of stuff: Great-Grandma’s heirloom dresser, that weird Mammy salt shaker and matching Uncle Tom pepper grinder (Where the hell did Momma get those P.O.S.’s?), the outdated drapes from Belks, Dad’s favorite wooden TV tray, and that uuuuugly love seat that some crazy uncle thought was a glorious find from the Salvation Army (Momma tried to make it pretty with some pillows, but no amount of love could help that seat). Spring Cleaning meant pullin all that furniture away from the walls and holdin your breath to see what time collected in the crevices. Then you gotta be careful not to breathe out too heavy cause the dust would go flying fore you got a chance to catch it. If you didn’t, you’d quickly find out if you’re allergic to dust. Quarter cup of lemon Lysol in a bucket of steaming water and an old wash rag. Maybe two. A dust towel and citrus-scent Pledge. Me and my brothers would fight over who cleaned what. Somehow the twins always got the easy stuff: vacuuming or moving dirt around with the feather-duster. Finishing in enough time to fly down the street on their bikes with the neighborhood kids. Older sister never got off that easy. Each of my stubby fingers morphed into plump, lemon-fresh golden raisins by the time that whole damn house was done. I would finish just in time to sit with Nadine on the porch, counting the seconds til the sun turned off and the fireflies fluttered on. The craziest thing: despite all that cleaning, the house still smelled like Momma’s cookin. That Old House. Might have been some of Grandma’s and Great-Grandma’s cookin mixed in there too. Pork chops. Ham hock soaked in collards. Pinto beans and mustard greens. Corn bread and my Auntie’s famous macaroni and cheese. Didn’t matter if the oven was cold and the valve of the gas stove had been shut for days. A stranger woulda thought someone’d been slavin away in that kitchen for a week straight. No Sweet Citrus & Zest Fabreze back then. Lysol would mask the odors for a little while. Not long enough to overpower the 50 years of goodness marinated in buttermilk, kneaded with lard, and fried in Crisco that’d been embedded in the wallpaper and window treatments. All that grime—dead skin, hair follicles, Carolina clay, carpet lint, yippee-little-dog fur—was evidence of life. We were a socially-awkward newly-minted teenager, two rowdy twin boys, a multi-tasking mother, and a road-warrior father. Eventually a strangely-feline Yorkie was added to the mix. And don’t forget about the stray distant relative stopping by unannounced. No corner of that damn house was unmarked. Hand-sewn pillows in the living room that we were forbidden to breathe on somehow had tiny burnt orange paw prints on them (sneaky little dog). It drove Momma crazy. And tore up my fingernails. They still won’t grow back right. Wipe all that shit off just for it to build up again. But that house was inherited and fully paid for. No reason to move. I did move. I was ready to move on. Move up. Move out. Over that small town. Into the big city. Here the streets take on the smells of Momma’s house. Plus piss, shit, and unbathed skin. A hot day means everything cooks and stews in its own juices, making the stench 10x more intense. The apartment is another story. 11 floors up. Big, east-facing windows. Great view of the skyline dotted with some green foliage. And the great lake. Immaculate. Odorless. Not even a trace of tobacco from the previous tenant’s bad habits. No lingering scent of lemon Lysol. No street stench seeping through the window panes. No stray cat hairs. Or dog fur. Not a speck of dust. Futon. Throw pillows. Photos. Knickknacks. Bowls of fresh citrus. Cursedly-assembled desk set from IKEA. Yet the void is too big to fill. Too clean. (shrink)

Imagine a gadget, call it “brain-ovision,” for brain scanning that doesn’t create pictures of brains at all. That’s right, no orbs spattered with colorful “activations” that need to be interpreted by neuroanatomists. Instead, with brain-o-vision, what a brain sees is what you get—an image of what that brain is experiencing. If the person who owns the brain is envisioning lunch, up pops a cheeseburger on the screen. If the person is reading a book, the screen shows the words. For that (...) matter, if the brain owner is feeling pain, perhaps brain-o-vision could reach out and swat the viewer with a rolled-up newspaper. Brain-ovision could give us access to another person’s consciousness. Technologies for brain-o-vision are beginning to seem possible. We are learning how brain activations map onto emotions, memories, and mental processes, and it won’t be long before we might translate activations into Google searches for images of what the brain is thinking. There is a specific brain area linked with face perception, for instance, and even a neuron that fires when it sees Jennifer Aniston. So why, in principle, shouldn’t we be able to scan a brain and discover when it is looking at her—and eventually even learn what she’s wearing? Of course, it may be many years to the beta version. But imagine that everything works out and brain-o-vision goes on sale at Wal- Mart. Could the device solve the problem of whether consciousness causes behavior? With direct evidence of a person’s consciousness, we could do science on the question. We could observe regularities in the relation between consciousness and behavior. If the consciousness always preceded the behavior, we could arrive at the inductive inference of causation and, as scientists, be quite happy that we had established a causal connection. (shrink)

A potential proselyte asks the great rabbi Hillel to explain the Torah to him while he stands ‘on one leg.’ Hillel responds with, essentially, the Golden Rule. This Talmudic anecdote is invariably read as critical of anyone who wants a Torah for Dummies. I offer a different interpretation. The Torah-based position, theologically speaking, rests on one principle and one principle alone, God. ‘How can an account of the creation as a whole rest on one principle only? Won’t such a structure (...) stand unsteadily, like a person on one leg?’ Hillel’s response to the request for a distillation of the Torah does home in on the Bible’s novelty. It homes in on what God does and what pagan deities cannot do. But God’s contribution, while needed to account for the human sector of the creation, cannot manage the extra-human sector. For that, a principle that belongs to paganism is required. The whole can stand steadily, as can the proselyte, only on two legs. So his conversation must be with reservations. He might not be able to intone the main creedal profession of the Torah-based religion, the Shema. ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord [alone] is our God, the Lord is one’ (Deuteronomy 6:4). The Torah’s defenders have more of a case to make. (shrink)

In his recent article “Jean Renoir’s Timely Lessons for Europe,” New York Times film critic A.O. Scott recalls that when it was released worldwide in 1937, Renoir’s La grande illusion (Grand Illusion) won the admiration of statesmen as diverse in political opinion as Benito Mussolini and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, prompting the latter to declare “All the democracies in the world must see this film” (qtd. in Scott). The new digital restoration of La grande illusion has offered Scott the opportunity to (...) school his contemporary America readers in the economic, social and political crises that gripped France, and much of continental Europe, when Renoir set out to make his now monumental and timeless contribution to .. (shrink)

A necessary companion to the acclaimed Stone Reader, Modern Ethics in 77 Arguments is a landmark collection for contemporary ethical thought. Since 2010, The Stone—the immensely popular, award-winning philosophy series in The New York Times—has revived and reinterpreted age-old inquires to speak to our modern condition. This new collection of essays from the series does for modern ethics what The Stone Reader did for modern philosophy. New York Times editor Peter Catapano and best-selling author and philosopher Simon Critchley have curated (...) an unparalleled collection that illuminates just how imperative ethical thinking is in our day-to-day life. Like its predecessor, Modern Ethics in 77 Arguments explores long-standing ethical and moral issues in light of our most urgent dilemmas. Divided into twelve sections, the book opens with a series of broad arguments on existence, human nature and morality. Indeed, “big” questions of the human condition are explored by some of our best-known and most accomplished living philosophers: What is the meaning of our existence? Should we really “do what we love”? How should we respond to evil? Is pure altruism possible? Along with these examinations of timeless moral conundrums, readers will find arguments in the more contentious areas of religion and government: Can we have a moral life without God? Does it really matter if God exists? Is patriotism moral? Accessible and provocative, these pieces expose the persistence of the most basic themes and questions of moral and ethical life. Many of the essays stress the crucial importance of directly engaging the most pressing moral dilemmas in modern life. Should we be the last generation, knowing all the harm we’ve done to our planet? Should we embrace our inner carnivores, or swear off all animal products? From gun control and drone warfare to the morals of marriage and reproduction, readers will view familiar debates in new, surprising lights. The editors have meticulously arranged this book to reflect a wide range of perspectives, voices and rhetorical strategies. By directly addressing some of the most complex and troubling issues we face today—racial discrimination, economic inequality, immigration, citizenship and more—the volume reveals the profound power of ethics in shaping our perceptions of nearly every aspect of our lives. A jargon-free, insightful compendium, Modern Ethics in 77 Arguments offers a panoramic view of morality and is a critical addition to The Stone Reader that will energize and enliven the world of ethical thought in both the classroom and everyday American life. Including… The Meaningfulness of Lives by Todd May * A Life Beyond “Do What You Love” by Gordon Marino * Evolution and our Inner Conflict by Edward O. Wilson * Morals Without God? by Frans de Waal * Does It Matter Whether God Exists? by Gary Gutting * The Moral Hazard of Drones by John Kaag and Sarah Kreps * Can Refugees Have Human Rights? by Omri Boehm * Dear White America by George Yancy * Girlfriend, Mother, Professor? by Carol Hay * The End of “Marriage” by Laurie Shrage * When Vegans Won’t Compromise by Bob Fischer and James McWilliams * Should This Be the Last Generation? by Peter Singer. (shrink)

This guide accompanies the following article: ‘Logic and Divine Simplicity’. Philosophy Compass 6/4 : pp. 282–294, doi: Author’s IntroductionFirst‐order formalizations of classical theistic doctrines are increasingly used in contemporary work in philosophy of religion and philosophical theology, as a means for clarifying the conceptual structure of the doctrines and their role in inferential procedures. But there are a variety of different ways in which such doctrines have been formalized, each representing the doctrines as having different conceptual structures. Moreover, the adequacy (...) of such formalizations as such has, at least with respect to some classes of doctrines, been disputed. One reason for disputing their adequacy derives from the conceptual impact of classical theism’s doctrine of divine simplicity.Author RecommendsFrege, Gottlob ‘Begriffsschrift: a formula language of pure thought,’ trans. Michael Beany, in The Frege Reader, ed. Beany. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 47–78. The preface contains interesting remarks about the purpose of formalization as understood by the chief pioneer of modern formal logic. These remarks are also connected by Frege to his views on the relation between thought and language more generally.Russell, Bertrand, and Whitehead, A.N. Principia Mathematica, Vol. I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.The preface and first section of the long introduction contain remarks on the purpose and advantages of formalization. Chapter 1 of the introduction contains what is probably one of the first formalizations ever of a theistic doctrine, and is given in terms of a definite description analysis.Suppes, Patrick ‘The Desirability of Formalization in Science,’The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 65, No. 20, pp. 651–64.Clear and concise discussion of some of the advantages of formalization in philosophical inquiry, written by a prominent contemporary American philosopher‐logician.Nieznański, Edward ‘The Beginnings of Formalization in Theology,’ in Advances in Scientific Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Paul Weingartner, eds. Gerhard Schurz and Gregory J.W. Dorn. Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Ropodi, pp. 551–9.A valuable paper that narrates, among other things, the programme of formalizing theistic doctrines that emerged in Poland in the 1920s under the influence of the Lvov‐Warsaw School. Various examples of formalizations are also given.Quine, W.V.O. Mathematical Logic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.In Section 27 of this classic study, Quine offers a formalization of theistic doctrines which seeks to avoid the difficulties of earlier formalizations by means of a subtle extensional singleton set analysis. The proposal has not won many adherents, but is worthy of careful study nonetheless.Woleński, Jan ‘Theism, Fideism, Atheism, Agnosticism,’ in Logic, Ethics and All That Jazz: Essays in Honour of Jordan Howard Sobel, eds. Lars‐Göran Johansson, Jan Österberg, and Rysiek Sliwinski. Uppsala: Uppsala Philosophical Studies, pp. 387–400.A concise but lucid survey of some attempts to formalize theistic doctrines and some problems besetting these attempts. Woleński also proposes his own method of formalization, which could be described as a simplified version of Quine’s method in Mathematical Logic.Bocheński, Joseph The Logic of Religion. New York: New York University Press.The first book‐length treatment of the relation between modern logic and theism. It covers much ground, and remains very readable.Alston, William P. ‘Religious Language and Verificationism,’ in The Rationality of Theism, eds. Paul Moser and Paul Copan. London: Routledge, pp. 17–34.Identifies some problems with attempts at articulating theistic doctrines by means of subject‐predicate language. Highly relevant to formalizations of theistic doctrines, even though this topic is not dealt with explicitly.Kraal, Anders ‘Logic and Divine Simplicity,’Philosophy Compass.Offers a survey of three main methods of formalizing theistic doctrines, and of some variants of these methods. Argues that certain formalizations of theistic doctrines are bound to be rejected as conceptually inadequate by all who understand the doctrines at hand within the framework provided by the traditional doctrine of divine simplicity.Sample Syllabus Week I: The Idea of Formalization and the Project of Formalizing Theistic Doctrines Reading:Frege, Gottlob ‘Begriffsschrift: a formula language of pure thought,’ trans. Michael Beany, in The Frege Reader, ed. Beany. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 47–78. Russell, Bertrand, and Whitehead, A.N. Principia Mathematica, Vol. I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Suppes, Patrick ‘The Desirability of Formalization in Science,’The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 65, No. 20, pp. 651–64.Nieznański, Edward ‘The Beginnings of Formalization in Theology,’ in Advances in Scientific Philosophy: Essays in Honour of Paul Weingartner, eds. Gerhard Schurz and Gregory J.W. Dorn. Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Ropodi, pp. 551–9. Week II: Formalizing Theistic Doctrines: Three Alternative Methods Reading:Woleński, Jan ‘Theism, Fideism, Atheism, Agnosticism,’ in Logic, Ethics and All That Jazz: Essays in Honour of Jordan Howard Sobel, eds. Lars‐Göran Johansson, Jan Österberg, and Rysiek Sliwinski. Uppsala: Uppsala Philosophical Studies, pp. 387–400.Russell, Bertrand, and Whitehead, A.N. Principia Mathematica, Vol. I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Quine, W.V.O. Mathematical Logic. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Week III: Arguments for and Against Some Formalizations of Theistic Doctrines Reading:Bocheński, Joseph The Logic of Religion. New York: New York University Press. Kraal, Anders ‘Logic and Divine Simplicity,’Philosophy Compass, Vol. 6, No. 4, pp. 282–94.Focus Questions1 What do Frege, Russell and Whitehead, and Suppes understand the purpose or purposes of logical formalization to be, and why do they think formalization can achieve these purposes?2 Woleński sketches some simple ways of formalizing theistic doctrines such as ‘God exists’ or ‘God is almighty’ in terms of 1‐place predicates which he subsequently abandons in favour of other methods. What reasons lead him to abandon these more simple methods of formalization?3 What are the advantages of the definite description formalization of theistic doctrines offered by Russell and Whitehead?4 Quine offers a subtle formalization of the theistic doctrine ‘God exists’ in terms of singleton sets. What problems are Quine’s formalization intended to accommodate, and how does it seek to accommodate them?5 Which relative merits or demerits are there in Bocheński’s and Kraal’s respective arguments for and against the adequacy of certain formalizations of theistic doctrines? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 282-287 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Wrestling with the Ox: A Theology of Religious Experience Wrestling with the Ox: A Theology of Religious Experience. By Paul O. Ingram. New York: Continuum, 1997. 276 pp. Paul Ingram has set out a formidable task for himself. Even though he identifies himself as an historian of religion, he has chosen to push beyond phenomenological description of the (...) religious enterprise to make a prescriptive proposal, a theology that can illuminate and guide the great faith traditions. Simultaneously, his proposal aims at interpreting the necessity and the outlines of interreligious dialogue. Such dialogue, he argues, is not a peripheral enterprise reserved for a handful of religious exotics. It is central to understanding any and all religious traditions in the postmodern world.All religions have been discovered to reflect inescapable historical and cultural relativization. The old assumptions of unconditional claims and absolute assertions are no longer tenable. The world shared by all the religions today is characterized by an unavoidable religious pluralism. It is in this context that religious affirmations must be expressed and religious life embraced. According to Ingram, this is no accident. It is an ontological inevitability. As process philosophy and its roots in modern physics [End Page 282] --and, interestingly, the Buddhist recognition of dependent co-arising (pratitya samutpada)--understand, reality is unending process. This entails the inevitable relativization and contextualization of everything--including the religions. The theological questions that emerge are crucial ones. Among them: Is there an ultimate unity underlying this diversity, generic features common to all conditioned forms of religious faith and practice? What does religious pluralism show about the nature of the Sacred and of being human? Is any one religious Way best or is this even a question worth pursuing?Ingram proposes that the answers to these questions and the only viable response to religious pluralism can be found in interreligious dialogue. He does not even consider religious exclusivism as a viable option. This means only "inclusivist" and "pluralist" approaches are worthy of consideration, approaches that he names the "theology-of-religions model" and the "primordial model" respectively. Both recognize the problem of the relativity of belief and seek to overcome it. Both see the importance of interreligious dialogue as fundamental to religious affirmation. But Ingram rejects the theology-of-religions model because, despite its openness to other religions and its willingness to have interreligious encounter shape the affirmations and life of the believing community, it is self-encapsulated. One moves out from a particular community of faith, "passing over"--to use the language of John Dunne--into another religious Way in order to be creatively transformed, but only to return once again to the original community of faith. One stays within "the theological circle" (Tillich), one does not get beyond it. Some Christians, accordingly, make a blanket assertion about the ultimate and unsurpassable lordship of Christ despite their indebtedness to the creative transformation that interreligious dialogue can produce.Ingram clearly prefers the "primordial model" even though he recognizes that some of its classical proponents have made it vulnerable to criticism. Aldous Huxley's "perennial philosophy" and Sri Ramakrishan's assertion that "all paths lead to the summit" will not do. Huxley assumes that the mystical recognition of the ineffable common root of all religion critiques the historical and culturally relative expressions of this ultimate reality. But Huxley's attempt to make an end run around the problems involved won't work. His approach is ahistorical, makes uncritical assumptions about the nature of mysticism and religious experience, and is totally undialogical. The particularities of the differing religious Ways are dissolved in a universal solvent that is anything but self-evident. The same holds true for Ramakrishnan's subtly imperialistic (and very Hindu) model. It too has no room for religious particularity and imposes a pre-conceived common denominator on the multiplicity of religious phenomena.Ingram derives his term "primordial model" from Huston Smith's argument that a "primordial tradition" can be discerned underlying the multiplicity and variety of religious expressions. His is... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:160 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY A PLATONIC PARALLEL IN THE DISSOI LOGOI The Dissoi Logoi or Two-/old Arguments (Diels-Kranz, II, 405-416) is an anonymous sophistic treatise written in literary Doric at some time subsequent to the end of the Peloponnesian War in 404-403.1 As early as 1911, A. E. Taylor wrote that the treatise "must be seriously reckoned with in any attempt to reconstruct the history of Greek thought in (...) the generation immediately anterior to Plato." 2 But scholars have been slow to take up Taylor's challenge. From those writing in English we have had little beyond the summary in Kathleen Freeman's Companion a and the papers of Adolfo Levi4 and E. S. Ramage." There is not even a full English translation in print, s In this paper I shall call attention to one brief passage which seems to me to be of exceptional interest since it offers a solution to a type of sophistical argument which occurs in Plato's Euthydemus. In so doing, I hope to arouse interest in a document much neglected by historians of ancient thought. Dzssoz Loaox, V, 15. With respect to the assertion that the same man both is and is not, I put the following question: "Does he exist with respect to some particular thing, or just in general?" Then if someone denies that the man exists, he is mistaken, because he is treating (the particular and) universal senses as the same. Because everything exists in some sense. GENI~I~AL REMAI~KS.The nature of the solution offered is clearly based on a distinction similar to that made by Aristotle in On Sophistical Re]utations (166b 37 ft.) between expressions used "in a certain respect" and "absolutely." The formulation of the fallacy to which the distinction is intended to be applied, however, is considerably less clear. Is it supposed that the opponent has put forward an argument purporting to demonstrate (a) that the same man both is and is not, or (b) that a particular man, thought to exist, does not in fact exist? This question can best be answered by an analysis of the Euthydemus passage, to which I now turn. EUTttYDgMUS 283b-e: The sophist Dionysodorus inquires of Socrates and his friends whether they genuinely wish their young prot4g6, Cleinias, to become wise. On gaining their assurance that they do, he then proceeds as follows: 1) You wish him to become wise and not to be ignorant (283d 1). 1This terminus post quem is derived from I, 8, in which the author lists a number of victories and speaks of that won by the Spartans over the Athenians as being "the most recent." "The 6,~ao~X6-tot,"Varia Socratica, Fizst Series (Oxford, 1911), p. 128. aCompanion to the Pre-Socratic Philosophers, (Oxford, 1946),pp. 417-423. ""On 'Two-fold Statements,'" American Journal o/Philology, LXI (1940), 292-~06. 5"An Early Trace of Socratic Dialogue," American Journal of Philology, LXXXII (1961), 418-424. 6The present writer has cempleted a translation which is to be published in Mind in the near future. NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 161 2) You wish him to become what he is not, and no longer to be what he is now (literally: what he is now, no longer to be [283d 2-3]). 3) You wish for his death, since you wish him no longer to be (283d 5-6). The obvious way of dealing with this argument is to make precisely the distinction made by the author of the Dissoi Logoi at V, 15: we should say to Dionysodorus, "Your conclusion that the friends of Cleinias wish for his death is the result of an illegitimate step: you went from 'you wish him not to be ignorant' to 'you wish him not to be'. To have made this step is to have ignored the distinction between existence with respect to some particular thing, i.e., ignorance, and existence in general." (A later critic might point out to Dionysodorus that he has confused the copulative and existential uses of the verb "to be.") It now becomes possible to return to the question, which of the two formulations, (a) or (b... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy of Music Education Review 12.1 (2004) 80-83 [Access article in PDF] Response to Yiannis Miralis, "Manos Hadjidakis: The Story of an Anarchic Youth and a 'Magnus Eroticus'" Lenia Serghi Ionian University, Corfu Manos Hadjidakis and his work are like his song, "O Mythos," for they take you from reality to fantasy and bring you back again. For my generation Hadjidakis was a myth with substance, since he was (...) a real person and his work represented our reality.The first time I heard of Hadjidakis was in relation to his song, "The Children of Pireas," that won him an Oscar for Best Song in 1960-61 as the main theme of his music for the film, Never on Sunday. The first record, a 45-single in the early 1960s, aroused a strong emotional response in the youth of the time.My next and most important experience with Hadjidakis' music was in London during the International Theatre Festival in the Spring of 1964. The Art Theatre of Greece under the Direction of the acclaimed Karolos Koun gave its first performances outside Greece. They presented Aristophanes' comedy, The Birds, and the Aeschylean tragedy, The Persaes. After forty years these performances are still topics of discussion in theater and musical circles. The performance of The Birds took the audience by surprise. The strong, vivid rhythm with the superb [End Page 80] melodies and the chorus filling the stage with its movements and dance gave a new perspective to the production of ancient comedy and drama. The audience was exuberant and the clapping went on without end. It was the unveiling of a new world of music for the theater, a music which could create strong emotions.Perhaps one of the most important works of Hadjidakis is the cycle of songs, The Megalos Eroticos-Magnus Eroticus, composed in 1972 for two voices, choir, and twelve instruments. The song cycle consists of eleven songs based on the lyrics of Greek poets from antiquity till the present time, like Sappho, Euripides, Solomos, Sepheris, Gatsos, Elytis, and Kavafis. Included in the collection is the famous poem, "S'agapo" [I love you], by Myrtiotissa, one of the important women poets of the twentieth century, which according to Hadjidakis was his inspiration for writing Magnus Eroticus. As he says: I think I succeeded [in creating] a beautiful piece of work, and deeply, it belongs to her as a whole. If Magnus Eroticus belongs to somebody it belongs to the memory of Myrtiotissa.1In Magnus Eroticus the combination of lyrics and music is at the highest level of sensibility and the musical style of each song is superb. Music follows the verse to express its deepest meaning while maintaining its uniqueness. In 1973, Pantelis Voulgaris made Magnus Eroticus into a film of the same title.Without doubt Hadjidakis was one of the troubadours of love; in fact he considered himself as a tragoudopoios. Etymologically tragoudopoios comes from the words tragoudi (song) and the verb poio (make, create), and is the root of the word poieses (poetry). A tragoudopoios could be a follower of the rhapsodoi of Homer's time, or the troubadours of medieval times who created songs.In my view, the comparison made by some critics of Hadjidakis' songs with those of Schubert and Brahms is not so successful, especially for the songs written in the 50s, 60s, and 70s, songs that were very popular and represented the reality of Greek life of that period. Similarities to these composers may exist in his later work of the 80s, when his style of art song had become more sophisticated.As a person and composer, Hadjidakis himself could be considered a Magnus Eroticus. I am not sure, though, that he could be considered an anarchist, as Miralis suggests. As Hadjidakis used to say, "[P]erhaps I would have been an anarchist if I didn't have my mother." I would say he was more a lover of democracy in its wider sense.One could say, perhaps, that Hadjidakis was an anarchist in spirit... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:_Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2502\REVIEWS.252 : 2006-02-27 11:52
eviews WITTGENSTEIN APPROACHED G L Philosophy / U. of Iowa Iowa City,  ,  -@. Brian McGuinness. Approaches to Wittgenstein: Collected Papers. London and New York: Routledge, . Pp. xv, . .. his book is a joy to read. Brian McGuinness is among the foremost Tscholars of Wittgenstein’s life and work. For better than  years, his papers have given (...) perhaps the most clear and authoritative account of the complex intellectual and personal journey of Wittgenstein. The collection of these important papers in one book is an outstanding gift to all who are interested in early analytic philosophy. The papers are not presented diachronically, but topically, starting with McGuinness’s discussions of the interplay between Wittgenstein’s philosophy and his conception of himself, as Austrian patriot, as teacher, as Jew, as architect, as penitent. There is much controversy in all of this. It is upsetting to learn that Wittgenstein remarked (likely sometime shortly after the events of Pearl Harbor in ) that “Things will be terrible when the war is over, whoever wins. Of course very terrible if the Nazis won, but terribly slimy if the Allies win” (p. ). In spite of McGuinness’s attempts at charitable explanation, it is hard to excuse this remark. Wittgenstein should have recognized that it was imperative that the Allies win, for surely he could not, by then, have been blind to the pogroms of Nazism (if not the implementation of their Final Solution to the Jewish question). It is just disappointing to discover Wittgenstein’s dalliance with anti-Semitism or with Weininger’s deplorable Sex and Gender. Nonetheless, McGuinness offers a wonderful and balanced portrait of Wittgenstein with a welcome minimum of hyperbole either concerning his genius, achievements and influences, or his eccentricities and failings.  As also in McGuinness’s Wittgenstein, a Life: Young Ludwig (London: Duckworth, and Berkeley : U. of California P., ; reprinted as Young Ludwig: Wittgenstein’s Life, – with a new Preface [Oxford: Clarendon P., ]) russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s.  (winter –): – The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U.  - _Russell_ journal (home office): E:CPBRRUSSJOURTYPE2502\REVIEWS.252 : 2006-02-27 11:52  Reviews In a second part, the book delves into the origins and nature of Wittgenstein ’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Since the papers in this part do not come diachronically, it would be nice for each to have a date by its title, so that if there is an historical development of McGuinness’s ideas it could be more easily tracked. But evolving or not, the interpretations in McGuinness’s papers are of the very highest quality. I know of no one else who has come closer to unravelling the often cryptic entries in the Tractatus. Though some of McGuinness’s assumptions about Russell’s philosophy are now challenged by new interpretations —in particular, it seems that Russell never held a theory of types of entities —there remain a great many gems in these papers. Among them are the following: Wittgenstein’s conception of solipsism is not Cartesian and epistemic, but concerns the limits of logical form and the proper ethical attitude towards life (p. ); the Notes on Logic were offered as satisfying the dissertation requirement for Wittgenstein’s .. degree (p. ); Wittgenstein included among the “logical constants” such notions as that of a “predicate” and a “dual complex”, not just logical particles such as “not”, “or”, “all” and “some” (p. ); Wittgenstein’s Grundgedanke was independent of his “picture theory” (p. ); Wittgenstein’s “logical atomism” was to be a purified form of Russell’s so that it forms “true logical atomism” with no differences of type and with the unification provided by neutral monism of mental and physical particulars (p. ); Wittgenstein and Russell had similar attractions to Spinozistic ethics, the conception of the world sub specie aeternitatis and the “mystical” as what inspires the scientific attitude (pp. , ); Hertz’s elimination of the concept of “force” in physics was an inspiration for Wittgenstein’s elimination of “classes”, “probability”, and the logical constants (p. ); structured variables were central to Wittgenstein’s Tractarian programme (p. ); Wittgenstein’s conception of philosophical analysis has important ties to Kuhn’s concept of a paradigm (pp. , , ). These... (shrink)

Animals, Equality and Democracy examines the structure of animal protection legislation and finds that it is deeply inequitable, with a tendency to favor those animals the community is most likely to see and engage with. Siobhan O'Sullivan argues that these inequities violate fundamental principle of justice and transparency.

The talk is mainly defensive. I won’t offer positive accounts of the “paradoxical” cases I will discuss (but, see “Extras”). I’ll begin with Harman’s defense of classical deductive logic against certain (epistemological) “relevantist” arguments.

Sounds are audible, and sound sources are audible. What is the audible relation between audible sounds and audible sources? Common talk and philosophy suggest three candidates. The first is that sounds audibly are properties instantiated by their sources. I argue that sounds are audible individuals and thus are not audibly instantiated by audible sources. The second is that sounds audibly are effects of their sources. I argue that auditory experience presents no compelling evidence that sounds audibly are causally related to (...) audible sources. The third is that sounds audibly are related mereologically to their sources. I present and offer a defence of this third candidate. (shrink)

I propose a theory of freedom of choice on which it is a variable quality of individual conscious choices that has several dimensions that admit of degrees, even though - as many theorists have traditionally supposed - it also has as a necessary condition the possession of a capacity that is all or nothing. I argue that the proposed account better fits the phenomenology of ostensibly free actions, as well as empirical findings in the human sciences.

Paradigms in philosophy and cognitive science until recently have treated perception in typical human beings as relatively fixed and unchanging. Recent research instead supports the claim that perception can be altered over time by training, deliberate practice or mere exposure. If so, we do not all bring to a scene the same stock of perceptual capacities, and our differences are not just deficits or superpowers. This paper describes six questions an account of perceptual learning ought to address, which pose difficult (...) challenges to Kevin Connolly’s (2019) groundbreaking Offloading View of perceptual learning. In light of these questions, it sketches an alternative simple view according to which perceptual learning is acquiring a new or enhanced perceptual capacity in a particular way. The relevant capacity is a capacity perceptually to detect and differentiate a feature, where doing so constitutively if not wholly implicates perception. The relevant way is by means of an independently characterized learning process, rather than by adaptation, pure development, or mere accident. The perceptual change thus results from a smart process – one that is flexible, resilient, and responsive to feedback, rather than rigid, fragile and brute. Such a process can yield perceptual know-how. Thanks to perceptual learning, one comes to know how to perceive, in a sense that means being able to do so. Some specialists hone this to develop perceptual skills that are implicated in expert performance. (shrink)

The most pressing problems facing humanity today - over-population, energy shortages, climate change, soil erosion, species extinctions, the risk of epidemic disease, the threat of warfare that could destroy all the hard-won gains of civilization, and even the recent fibrillations of the stock market - are all ecological or have a large ecological component. in this volume philosophers turn their attention to understanding the science of ecology and its huge implications for the human project. To get the application of ecology (...) to policy or other practical concerns right, humanity needs a clear and disinterested philosophical understanding of ecology which can help identify the practical lessons of science. Conversely, the urgent practical demands humanity faces today cannot help but direct scientific and philosophical investigation toward the basis of those ecological challenges that threaten human survival. This book will help to fuel the timely renaissance of interest in philosophy of ecology that is now occurring in the philosophical profession. Provides a bridge between philosophy and current scientific findings Covers theory and applications Encourages multi-disciplinary dialogue. (shrink)

Recent studies within neuroscience and cognitive psychology have explored the place of conscious willing in the generation of purposive action. Some have argued that certain findings indicate that the commonsensical view that we control many of our actions through conscious willing is largely or wholly illusory. I rebut such arguments, contending that they typically rest on a conflation of distinct phenomena. Nevertheless, I also suggest that traditional philosophical accounts of the will need to be revised: a raft of studies indicate (...) that control over one’s own will among human beings is limited, fragile, and – insofar as control depends to an extent on conscious knowledge – admitting of degrees. I briefly sketch several dimensions along which freedom of the will may vary over time and across agents. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Notes and Discussions :REFLECTIONS ON THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE Every discipline worthy of a name deserves to be criticized periodically, asked to explain its objects and assess its march. The history of science is no exception. Indeed, criticism at this juncture should be all the more welcomed since the subjcct has now won its place in the curriculum of Anglo-Saxon educational institutions, particularly in the United States where Ph.D. (...) program offerings are multiplying almost faster than students. 1 The pioneering days of the 1930's and 1940's are past--if not totally forgotten--and men of the "second generation" like myself who received their training in the 1950's will gain much from having their methodological presuppositions questioned. Curiously enough, there has been little discussion of this kind in print for the last decade, with the exception of articles published in Poland and Russia, where the discipline is passing through its own pioneering crisis.2 In the West, the older debates stirred up largely by British Marxists are nowadays generally disregarded and have had surprisingly little productive effect upon the field. Within the last few years, the most effective methodological discussions have stemmed from Karl Popper and his generally brilliant lot of disciples. Dr. Joseph Ag~ssi, now Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois and a member of this group, recently wrote a deliberately provocative essay entitled "Towards an historiography of science." a Agassi begins it with the arresting statement that the study of the history of science is "in a lamentable state" and ends with the implicit suggestion that an examination of the historiography of science is one of the most revealing ways to discover the discipline's failings. For Agassi, it is clear that the root of the historian's problems has been a false set of philosophical premises about the nature of science, and of its history as well. He finds that the discipline has suffered from two diseases named "inductive philosophy " and "conventionalist philosophy," for which there is a major new panacea, Popper's "critical philosophy of science." This refreshingly straightforward argument provides the essay with a ready-made structure, at the same time as it infuses it throughout with a polemical tone. Because of this tone and because of the importance of Agassi's message, he deserves to be answered. On one subject, I cannot agree more with Agassi--the need for a critical examination of the hisComell, Harvard, and the University of Wisconsin have a long-standing tradition of graduate study in the history of science. In the last few years, they have been joined by: the Case IImtitute of Technology; Indiana; Johns Hopkins; M.I.T.; Princeton ; the Universities of California (Berkeley and U.C.L.A.), Kansas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Washington; and Yale. Profeasor Duane Roller of Oklahoma has prepared a report on the present state of teaching of the history of science in the United States. 2Abstracts of the discussions can be found in the Bulletin signalgtique : Philosophie. Sciences humaines of the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. See especially Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki u (1962), special issue; and Organon (1964), no. 1. 8History and Theory. Studies in the philosophy o] history, Beiheft 2 (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1963),117pp. [235] 236 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY toriography of science. On the other hand, his interpretation of the way history of science has and is being written seems more like a misinformed caricature than a sincere effort to understand the past in all its complexity. But let us first examine his discussion of "inductivism," "conventionalism," and "Popperianism." Inductivists or Baconians---he uses the terms interchangeably--write history the way they insist science itself has developed. Just as they assume scientific theories to have emerged from the collection of evidence, they expect that the piling up of historical facts strung along a time-axis adds up to history. As Agassi sagely observes, historians of science, like other induetivists, delude themselves into the belief that such an approach guards them from subjectivity and prejudice. To be sure, philosophers since Kant have known that such naive empiricism is in fact fundamentally misleading, for even the most ardent Baconian has... (shrink)

Abstract: The systemic role of corruption and its link to low human development is explored. The extractive resource industry is presented as an arena where conditions for corruption—monopoly and discretion without accountability—are especially intense. Corruption is maintained by a self-reinforcing cycle. Multiple stakeholders are involved in the maintenance of and/or opposition to the cycle: investing corporations, host country regimes and officials, inter-governmental bodies like the OECD, industry associations, non-governmental organization (NGO) watchdogs like Transparency International, and international agencies facilitating global investment (...) like the World Bank. Complementarity of interests between the demand and supply sides provides strong incentives for entrenched players to maintain corruptive relationships, to protect past gains and sustain current ones. Compulsory international regulation, maximum transparency, effective detection, and enforcement are recommended to enhance accountability, thereby reversing the cycle. It is also necessary to create a corporate culture built on integrity, if regulation itself is to succeed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS The Logic of God Incarnate. By THOMAS V. MORRIS. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1986. Pp. 220. $19.95. Thomas V. Morris, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, has written a technical yet provocative study on the Incarnation. As a faithful Christian he believes in and desires to defend the traditional Christian doctrine of the Incarnation proclaimed in the New Testament and defined by the (...) early councils of the Church, especially Chalcedon, that is, that Jesus is the One eternal Son existing in two natures. He also holds that, while the truth of the Incarnation is revealed, it must nonetheless stand the test of logic and reason. The Incarnation cannot be illogicaJ or meaningless. " If the church has been guided by God in such matters as the formulation of its creeds, conciliar decrees, and catechisms,.... we would not expect glaring logical flaws in its central doctrinal affirmations" (p. 46). The stated purpose of Morris's study is to defend the traditional doctrine against those who would hold it to be logically incoherent and meaningless. "In the course of thinking about the Incarnation for some years now, I have come to see that a few simple metaphysical distinctions and a solid dose of logical care will suffice to explicate and defend the doctrine against all extant criticisms of a philosophical nature" (p. 9). Morris meticulously analyzes and critiques a number of arguments that oppose the possibility of coherence of the Incarnation by attempting to demonstrate that such arguments are.either false and illogical themselves, or that they do not apply to a true understanding of the Incarnation. Moreover, Morris proposes a novel understanding of the Incarnation which he believes is both logical and intelligible, and which conforms to the Christian tradition. This goal of upholding the intelligibility of the Incarnate leads Morris to a three-fold task. He first of all must refute his chief adversaries, those who would deny the sensibleness of saying God became man in Jesus. Such critics deny the validity of the Incarnation on the ground..'! that it is meaning·less, and the'l'efore impossible to juxtapose the incommensurable. attributes of divinity and humanity, e.g., perfection/imperfection, immutability/corruptibility. They hold that Jesus could not have had both these sets of properties at once (cf. p. 20). Morris refuses to capitulate to such arguments. He nevertheless insists that any solution to the issue which would undermine human logic or which would fail to uphold the Christian's belief is no solution at all (cf. p. 32). 367 368 BOOK REVIEWS Secondly, Morris's task leads him to refute any attempts at a " OneNature " solution, which would "squash" together the human and divine natures in Jesus to form a single nature. Such proposals jeopardize either the integrity of Jesus's divinity (Arianism) or his humanity (Docetism, Monophysitism), inevitably composing a mythical tertium quid (cf. pp. 33-38). Morris presents a clear case against such corruptions of the Incarnation. Thirdly, Morris's task brings him to analyze contemporary kenotic Christology. He thoroughly discusses this approach, for the reason that it is directly involved in the issue at hand, namely, the incompatibility between divine and human properties in Christ. Secondarily, however, Morris's interest in kenoticism reflects his own hope that some variation of the approach might posibly arrive at a Christological solution (cf. p. 92). While he ultimately rejects kenoticism, Morris flirts with the various alternatives, and, as we shall see, his own perception of the Incarnation remains tinged with a kenotic flavor. How then is it possible to predicate of one and the same individual divine and human attributes intelligibly and coherentlyT To use contemporary computer jargon, the question might be phrased: is it possible that God and man can he "incarnation-friendly¥" Morris believes so. Morris first of all sets out to define the terms-divine nature and human nature. He believes part of the incompatibility problem lies in attributing to Jesus's humanity unnecessarily hostile aspects. He distinguishes between being "merely human" and being "fully human"· To be " merely human " is to possess not only those properties that narrowly define one's nature or kind, such as rationality, but... (shrink)

Sobre el libro: Isaiah Berlin ha sido, además de un original e intuitivo historiador de las ideas y autor de numerosos conceptos teórico-políticos, un reconocido teorizador de la libertad y defensor acérrimo del pluralismo. Rasgos que lo han convertido en un innegable referente intelectual en nuestra época. Sobre el editor: El Editor de la presente obra, Pablo Badillo O'Farrell, con motivo del centenario del nacimiento de Berlin, ha reunido un número de contribuciones de estudiosos italianos y españoles que ofrecen, desde (...) muy diferentes perspectivas, un amplio abanico de miradas diversas sobre la obra y el pensamiento del autor, que van desde el análisis y confrontación del pluralismo valorativo y la ética de la libertad, al de la interculturalidad o la identidad personal y el nacionalismo, pasando por la confrontación de historicismo, historia de las ideas y contra-corriente. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:322 BOOK REVIEWS the Holy Office, who in the early 1800s recognized that empirical demonstrations of the earth's motion had finally been given and convinced Pope Pius VII to revoke the longstanding decree against Copernicanism. Unfortunately his greatest opponent turned out to be another Dominican, Father Filippo Anfossi, Master of the Sacred Palace at the time, who had views similar to those voiced by Cardinal Bellarmine in 1615 (pp. (...) 473-475). The story is told in great detail by Walter Brandmiiller and Johannes Griepl, Copemico, Galilei e la Chiesa: Fine delta controversia (1820), gli atti del Sant'Uffizio, Vatican City 1992-summarized in my notice in The Catholic Historical Review 80 (1994): 380-83. It is ironic, of course, that the battle was fought out by two Thomists, the one a progressive and the other a traditionalist, but it is indeed fortunate that it was the progressive Thomist who won out in the end. The Catholic University ofAmerica Washington, D.C. WILLIAM A. WALLACE, O.P. Love Your Enemies: Discipleship, Pacifism and Just War Theory. By LISA SOWLE CAHILL. Minneapolis, Minn.: Fortress Press, 1994. Pp. xii + 252. $17.00 (paper). Lisa Cahill's Love Your Enemies: Discipleship, Pacifism and Just War Theory provides an excellent introduction to questions of peace-making and war-making in the history of Western Christianity. Cahill canvasses the standard sources for her history: the generally pacifist period of the New Testament and the early church (chapters two and three); the emergence of the just war tradition with Augustine and Aquinas (chapters four and five); just war, crusade, and pacifist responses during the Reformation period (chapters six through eight); and just war and pacifist responses in the twentieth -century American debate (chapters nine and ten). Love Your Enemies is relatively comprehensive, even-handed, and well-written. Beyond its general competence, Love Your Enemies provides rich theological fare, situating questions on war and peace in the context of Christian discipleship as a whole. One result of using discipleship as the organizing motif is that pacifism gets an unusually sympathetic and fair hearing. Cahill serves as an excellent reporter on these contentious questions. While often intimating her sympathies, she consistently avoids taking decisive positions or closing avenues of exploration. The title of her final chapter -the "Fragility of the Gospel"-reflects this approach. In this chapter Cahill emphasizes that Christian communities must continuously challenge themselves and their society to live out the gospel of peace (239-44). BOOK REVIEWS 323 What does it mean to live as a follower of Jesus today (ix)? This is Cahill's central question. To this end she asks two further questions. First, what is the way of discipleship established by Jesus with regard to doing violence? Second, to what extent can Christians hope to apply this ethic of discipleship to the wider civil society (40)? These questions arise in a variety of forms throughout the book. For instance, Cahill elegantly shows how a Christian's eschatological commitments (i.e., beliefs about the extent to which God's peaceful rule can be established by a community of believers and/or the extent to which this can be realized in "the world") can affect her response to the possibility of doing violence. While setting as one's task the attempt to find a way to combine Christian discipleship with public responsibility has many strengths, it is not without possible pitfalls. Typically, "Christian responsibility" is contrasted with "the evangelical imperative of non-violence" (see 55-56). But this notion of "responsibility" often begs the central question-i.e., for the Christian, can the most "responsible" stance be anything but what Cahill proclaims to be the evangelical stance of non-violence? While Cahill does acknowledge the strength of the argument by advocates of "responsibility" (i.e., those ~ho set up the non-violent stance in opposition to the faithful following of Jesus), she does not explicitly endorse their move. From her self-professed Catholic context, Cahill strives fo harmonize a neo-Thomist understanding of natural law-that there is "an objective moral order, knowable by reason, that yields universal moral laws by which all human persons and communities should abide" (3)-with a more particularistic... (shrink)