Since its publication in 1959, Individuals has become a modern philosophical classic. Bold in scope and ambition, it continues to influence debates in metaphysics, philosophy of logic and language, and epistemology. Peter Strawson's most famous work, it sets out to describe nothing less than the basic subject matter of our thought. It contains Strawson's now famous argument for descriptive metaphysics and his repudiation of revisionary metaphysics, in which reality is something beyond the world of appearances. Throughout, Individuals advances some highly (...) influential and controversial ideas, such as 'non-solipsistic consciousness' and the concept of a person a 'primitive concept'. (shrink)

Pada musim semi, entah kenapa, tidak banyak ikan. Karena tangkapannya sangat tidak stabil, Pekakak mulai berpikir. Lalu membuat beberapa rencana. Dengan otoritas komandonya, dia memanggil Bangau: – Ini adalah musim penangkapan ikan yang sangat sulit. Jika kita ingin kenyang, kita harus membuat usaha patungan. Bangau mengangguk, menambahkan: - Saya setuju; mari kita beternak ikan kakap putih dan ikan mas krusia. Jenis ini berumur panjang dan sangat produktif. Pekakak dan Bangau sepakat untuk berbagi tugas beternak, dan tidak ada diskriminasi yang diizinkan. (...) Namun imbalannya berbeda: Pekakak bertanggung jawab untuk ikan kakap putih dan, dengan demikian, dapat memiliki lebih banyak ikan kakap putih, sedangkan Bangau mendapat ikan mas krusia. Siapapun yang memelihara ikan mana yang lebih banyak akan menikmati 80% dari panen akhir ikan tersebut. Keduanya akan mengevaluasi dan membagi produk ternak pada akhir musim beternak. Ini berarti mengantongi sendiri ikan hasil usaha patungan untuk diri sendiri itu dilarang. (shrink)

In recent years, many philosophers of modern physics came to the conclusion that the problem of how objectivity is constituted (rather than merely given) can no longer be avoided, and therefore that a transcendental approach in the spirit of Kant is now philosophically relevant. The usual excuse for skipping this task is that the historical form given by Kant to transcendental epistemology has been challenged by Relativity and Quantum Physics. However, the true challenge is not to force modern physics into (...) a rigidly construed static version of Kant's philosophy, but to provide Kant's method with flexibility and generality. In this book, the top specialists of the field pin down the methodological core of transcendental epistemology that must be used in order to throw light on the foundations of modern physics. First, the basic tools Kant used for his transcendental reading of Newtonian Mechanics are examined, and then early transcendental approaches of Relativistic and Quantum Physics are revisited. Transcendental procedures are also applied to contemporary physics, and this renewed transcendental interpretation is finally compared with structural realism and constructive empiricism. The book will be of interest to scientists, historians and philosophers who are involved in the foundational problems of modern physics. (shrink)

How should we respond to the humanity of others? Should we care for others’ well-being? Respect them as autonomous agents? Largely neglected is an answer we can find in the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Buddhism: we should love all. This paper argues that an ideal of love for all can be understood apart from its more typical religious contexts and moreover provides a unified and illuminating account of the the nature and grounds of morality. I defend a novel (...) account of love for all that avoids serious worries about the incoherence or impossibility of loving everyone. Doing so requires countenancing a neglected form of love. Love admits as its object not just individual entities like people and groups; we can also bear a love for the Fs in general---for all the Joneses, all the philosophers, or even all the human beings. I go on to argue that while it is possible for ordinary agents like us to love all, we shouldn't. Instead, we should approximate love for all. The minimal approximation of love for all is, surprisingly, respect; I derive the basic, structural features of deontological ethics (including anti-paternalism and anti-aggregation) from the ideal of loving all. (NB: This paper used to be titled "Ethics in the Shadow of Love" and has been cited as an unpublished manuscript under that title.). (shrink)

This book delves into esoteric knowledge, describing the structure of the universe (Brahmanda or Cosmic Egg) as a series of astral biospheres. These biospheres, or lokas, are linked to spiritual consciousness and degrees of divine bliss (Ananda). Advanced spiritual figures, such as Rishis and Mahatmas, can navigate these realms and help others evolve. The article presents a detailed comparison between “Puranic Hinduism” and “Sanatana Dharma”, specifically addressing their differences in cosmogenesis and spiritual evolution. The difference between the cosmogenesis of Puranic (...) Hinduism and Sanatana Dharma is that while the former is founded on the concept of Trimurti as taught by the Puranas, the latter is a Manu-centric and Guru-centric spiritual system. This has a lot of significance concerning the rituals and the social order they have produced. Here, the Cosmic Purusha is identifiable with Manu, not with Trimurti or the God of Abrahamic religions, because of their different spiritual status in the cosmological hierarchy. (shrink)

Central to Thomas Sprat's History of the Royal Society was the description and justification of the method adopted and advocated by the Fellows of the Society, for it was thought that it was their method which distinguished them from ancients, dogmatists, sceptics, and contemporary natural philosophers such as Descartes. The Fellows saw themselves as furthering primarily a novel method, rather than a system, of philosophy, and the History gave expression to this corporate self-perception. However, the History's description of their method (...) was not necessarily accurate. Rather, as will be argued below, by a combination of subtle misrepresentation and selective exposition, Sprat portrayed a method which would further the aims of social and ecclesiastical stability and material prosperity, essential for the Royal Society since its continued existence depended upon the creation of a social basis for the institutionalized pursuit of natural philosophy. Some link had to be forged between the activities of the Society and the intellectual and social aspirations of the Restoration. To understand the intent and meaning of Sprat's History and the method there portrayed, we must therefore look to the institutional needs which it fulfilled. (shrink)

Three recent empirical studies on the use of placebos and two papers arguing for the deliberate use of placebos in clinical practice are analysed. Empirical studies demonstrate that placebos are commonly used. The concept of the placebo is currently understood in different ways, many of which do not refer to inert substances or treatments. The papers arguing for the use of placebos are shown to fail to make their case.

Say a reason to ø is legal just in case at least a part of the reason is the fact that ø-ing is legally required. This paper is about the widely accepted claim that legal reasons have a certain distinctive formal property—content-independence. I argue that, on two important interpretations, this claim is false. It is false either because legal reasons contingently lack the relevant property or because no reason lacks it. I also argue that, given these two interpretations, content-independence could (...) not be a property of singular legal reasons. (shrink)

This chapter explores what it can mean to say that culinary products (i.e., recipes and their outputs) are creative. It answers this question by distinguishing between three different kinds of creativity (idle, productive, and super-productive creativity) and two different kinds of creative domains, locked-in and expandable ones. It argues that culinary products can be creative in the three different ways just mentioned and that, accordingly, the creative domain constituted by the culinary arts turns out to be an expandable one.

Originally published in 1957, The Uniqueness of the Individual is a collection of 9 essays published from the ten years preceding publication. The essays deal with some of the central problems of biology. These are among the questions put and answered from the standpoint of modern experimental biology. What is ageing and how is it measured? What theories have been held to account for it, and with what success? Did ageing evolve, and if so how? Is Lamarckism and adequate explanation (...) of evolutionary process? Does evolution sometimes go wrong? Do human beings evolve in a way peculiar to themselves? Other essays touch upon the problems of scientific method and of growth and transformation. This book will be of interest to natural historians, evolutionists and anthropologists. (shrink)

If the agent responsible for an action is to be given praise or blame by the moral community for that action, then accurate responsibility ascriptions must be made. Since the moral community may have to evaluate the actions of corporate agents, care must be taken to insure that the assumption of Methodological Individualism (MI) does not infect that process. Nevertheless, there is no guarantee that accurate responsibility ascriptions will be made in cases connected with corporate action as long as corporate (...) scapegoating may occur. Because corporate scapegoating is a behavior pattern that attempts to falsify correct responsibility ascriptions it will be of interest to the moral theorist. Once I have considered three objections to the idea of corporate scapegoating I shall offer a fictional description of it found in Ayn Rand''s work,Atlas Shrugged. Finally, I shall raise a question about its present day use by corporations in our society. (shrink)

The text of Euripides' Troades depends mainly upon the versions preserved in two manuscripts, viz. Palatinus 287 and Vaticanus 909 . Both these manuscripts are well known and have been several times collated. Their importance in relation to one another and to the other existing manuscripts for the study of the text of Euripides in general has been frequently discussed and is no longer a subject of major controversy. The notes which follow are designed to put on record a number (...) of corrections to the readings ascribed to P and V for the Troades in the apparatus criticus of Prinz-Wecklein and later editors; and to correct and amplify the general descriptions of P and to call attention to certain difficulties in the current views of its relationship to Laurentianus xxxii. (shrink)

Justice Stephen J. Field was the champion of a form of liberalism often said to be especially friendly to capitalism, the approach to the Constitution traditionally identified with “Lochnerism,” i.e., a laissez-faire oriented judicial activism. More recently a form of judicial revisionism has arisen, challenging the accepted descriptions of “Lochnerism” and of Field's jurisprudence. This article is an attempt to extend the revisionist approach by arriving at a more satisfactory understanding of the grounding of Field's jurisprudence in the natural rights (...) philosophy. Field, it turns out, orienting around natural rights, was not so unambiguously friendly to capitalism as previous generations of scholars maintained, but his approach is surely friendlier than the constitutional theories that have replaced natural rights since Field's day. (shrink)

A new realist interpretation of quantum mechanics is introduced. Quantum systems are shown to have two kinds of properties: the usual ones described by values of quantum observables, which are called extrinsic, and those that can be attributed to individual quantum systems without violating standard quantum mechanics, which are called intrinsic. The intrinsic properties are classified into structural and conditional. A systematic and self-consistent account is given. Much more statements become meaningful than any version of Copenhagen interpretation would allow. A (...) new approach to classical properties and measurement problem is suggested. A quantum definition of classical states is proposed. (shrink)

Lenin's work "On the Significance of Militant Materialism," written in the spring of 1922, is justly regarded as the philosophical testament of our leader. In it, the tasks of the day were merged with the tasks of the entire epoch on the basis of a profound analysis of reality.

In what sense can the sciences be said to constitute a (set of) specific cultural tradition(s) within broader culture? This is the proper way of posing the problem of the 'two cultures' today. For G. Bachelard the opposition between 'poem' and 'theorem' was fundamental, the elements of poetical imagination being radically different from the symbolical constructions of conceptual invention. In this article a sophisticated version of this point of view is proposed. The nowadays popular attempts to bridge all gaps between (...) the cultures by an appeal to creative imagination ('science as art', 'mathematics and poetry') are criticized. The real basis of considering research traditions nevertheless as cultural realities in a nontrivial sense is not to be found in a mediation between cognitive faculties, but has to be revealed by a comparative analysis of their respective products. In fact, science, as well as other cultural practices, is subject to variations of style (Granger, Hacking ...). Research styles are not in the first place due to external, sociological determinants, but to such factors as the necessity of individuating any idea in a work, the presence of changing images of science within each discipline, and the fundamental role of the not-yet-explicit, given the specific temporal structure of conceptual innovation with its „essential tension” (Kuhn) between the old and the new. (shrink)