John Preston has claimed that we must understand Paul Feyerabend's later, post-1970, philosophy in terms of a disappointed Popperianism: that Feyerabend became a sceptical, relativistic, literal anarchist because of his perception of the failure of Popper's philosophy. I argue that this claim cannot be supported and trace the development of Feyerabend's philosophy in terms of a commitment to the central Popperian themes of criticism and critical explanatory progress. This commitment led Feyerabend to reject Popper's specific methodology in favour of (...) a pluralistic methodology, but the commitment to the central values of criticism and critical explanatory progress remained . Moreover, methodological pluralism does not imply scepticism, relativism, or literal anarchism. Feyerabend was not a disappointed Popperian, but, in many respects, a die-hard pluralistic Popperian. (shrink)

The present essay offers a brief commentary on Paul Klee’s The Tightrope Walker. Klee’s painting is brought into connection with Nietzsche’s famous figure of the Seiltänzer in the prologue to Thus Spoke Zarathustra and to the recent film, Man on Wire. The general context of the essay, “descensional reflection,” is inspired by Heidegger’s remark that thinking in our time is “on the descent” from metaphysics.

Farrell, Marie Review(s) of: Falling in Love with God: Recognising the Call of Christian Love, by Frank Fletcher MSC, ed. (Strathfield: St Paul's, 2010), pp.143, $24.95.

Reviews : Clare O'Farrell, Foucault—Historian or Philosopher? ; James W. Bernauer, Michel Foucault's Force of Flight: Toward an Ethics for Thought ; Paul Rabinow, French Modern: Norms and Forms of the Social Environment ; Jonathon Crary, Techniques of the Observer: On Vision and Modernity in the Nineteenth Century.

In this essay, I propose a standard of practical rationality and a grounding for the standard that rests on the idea of autonomous agency. This grounding is intended to explain the “normativity” of the standard. The basic idea is this: To be autonomous is to be self-governing. To be rational is at least in part to be self-governing; it is to do well in governing oneself. I argue that a person's values are aspects of her identity—of her “self-esteem identity”—in a (...) way that most of her ends are not, and that it therefore is plausible to view action governed by one's values as self-governed. This is also plausible on independent grounds. Given this, I say, rational agents comply with a standard—the “values standard”—that requires them to serve their values, and to seek what they need in order to continue to be able to serve their values. Footnotesa I am grateful to many people for helpful comments and discussion over the many years in which I have been developing the ideas in this essay. With apologies to those whose help escapes my memory, I would like to thank Nomy Arpaly, Sam Black, Michael Bratman, Justin D'Arms, Dan Farrell, Pat Greenspan, Don Hubin, Dan Jacobson, Marina Oshana, Michael Ridge, Michael Robins, David Sobel, Pekka Väyrynen, and David Velleman. I presented early versions of some of the ideas in this essay to audiences in the departments of philosophy at the University of Alberta, the University of Maryland at College Park, l'Université de Montréal, the University of Southern California, and the University of Florida, to the 1999 Conference on Moral Theory and Its Applications, Le Lavandou, France, and to the 2001 Conference on Reason and Deliberation, Bowling Green State University. I am grateful for the helpful comments of those who participated in the discussions on all of these occasions and especially to the other contributors to this volume, and its editors. I owe special thanks to Ellen Paul for encouraging me to integrate my thinking on identity with my thinking on rationality and for her useful comments. (shrink)

In The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner writes: “Time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops, does time come to life.” The following words relate to the role of memory frames in human life. They also begin the analysis of the ideas of twentieth and twenty-first century philosophers such as Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger, Paul Ricoeur and David Farrell Krell. Even though there is a strict reference (...) to the Modernist thinkers, the author goes slightly deeper, reminding earlier concepts of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and Protagoras. The second part of the article has been devoted to the notions connected with time frames and memory such as experiencing of the passage of time, reminding, forgetting, forgiving as well as postmemory. (shrink)

In The Sound and the Fury William Faulkner writes: “Time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little wheels; only when the clock stops, does time come to life.” The following words relate to the role of memory frames in human life. They also begin the analysis of the ideas of twentieth and twenty-first century philosophers such as Henri Bergson, Martin Heidegger, Paul Ricoeur and David Farrell Krell. Even though there is a strict reference (...) to the Modernist thinkers, the author goes slightly deeper, reminding earlier concepts of Plato, Socrates, Aristotle and Protagoras. The second part of the article has been devoted to the notions connected with time frames and memory such as experiencing of the passage of time, reminding, forgetting, forgiving as well as postmemory. (shrink)

_Criticism and Conviction_ offers a rare opportunity to share personally in the intellectual life and journey of the eminent philosopher Paul Ricoeur. Internationally known for his influential works in hermeneutics, theology, psychoanalysis, and aesthetics, until now, Ricoeur has been conspicuously silent on the subject of himself. In this book--a conversation about his life and work with François Azouvi and Marc de Launay--Ricoeur reflects on a variety of philosophical, social, religious, and cultural topics, from the paradoxes of political power to (...) the relationship between life and art, and life and death. In the first of eight conversations, Ricoeur traces the trajectory of his life, recounting the origins of his convictions and the development of his intellect against the tragic events of the twentieth century. Declaring himself the "son of a victim of the First World War," Ricoeur, an orphan, sketches his early years in the house of stern but loving grandparents, and the molding of his intellect under the tutelage of Roland Dalbiez, Gabriel Marcel, and André Philip. Ricoeur tells the intriguing story of his capture and five-year imprisonment by the Germans during World War II, where he and his compatriots fashioned an intellectual life complete with a library and lectures, and where he, amazingly, was able to continue his dissertation research. Elegantly interweaving anecdotal with philosophical meditations, Ricoeur recounts his relationships with some of the twentieth century's greatest figures, such as Heidegger, Jaspers, and Eliade. He also shares his views on French philosophers and explains his tumultuous relationship with Jacques Lacan. And while expressing his deepest respect for the works of Claude Lévi-Strauss and Michel Foucault, Ricoeur reserves his greatest admiration for the narratologist Algirdas Julien Greimas. Ricoeur also explores the relationship between the philosophical and religious domains, attempting to reconcile the two poles in his thought. And readers who have struggled with Ricoeur's work will be grateful for these illuminating discussions that provide an invaluable key to his writings on language and narrative, especially those on metaphor and time. Spontaneous and lively, _Criticism and Conviction_ is a passionate confirmation of Ricoeur's eloquence, lucidity, and intellectual rigor, and affirms his position as one of this century's greatest thinkers. It is an essential book for anyone interested in philosophy and literary criticism. (shrink)

Between 1930 and 1956, John Wisdom set the tone in analytic philosophy in the United Kingdom. Nobody expressed this better than J. O. Urmson in his Philosophical Analysis: Its Development Between the Two World Wars (1956) where, after Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wisdom is the most frequently quoted philosopher. Wisdom was the leading figure of the Cambridge School of Therapeutic Analysis (which included other thinkers such as B. A. Farrell, G. A. Paul, M. Lazerowitz, and Norman Malcolm); (...) the other major British school of analytic philosophy was that of ordinary language philosophy centered primarily at Oxford University. Wisdom adopted the positions of both G. E. Moore and Wittgenstein, but he rejected the radical critique of metaphysics levelled by the Wittgenstein-inspired Vienna Circle. In contrast to Wittgenstein, Wisdom was not a philosopher of language: he maintained that most significant philosophical problems originate not with language but, in the first instance, as a result of our encounter with problems of the real world. From this standpoint, Wisdom introduced into analytic philosophy the discourse on the meaning of life and on problems of philosophy of religion. Be this as it may, prior to the appearance of Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations (1953), Wisdom’s published works were read as indicators of the directions that Wittgenstein’s thought was taking following the latter’s return to philosophy in 1929. By the 1960s, Wisdom’s influence had radically diminished. This was due largely to the ascendancy of exact philosophy of language and analytic metaphysics. This development, together with increasing emphasis on the power of scientific knowledge and its techniques, largely overshadowed the exploration of philosophical puzzles, human understanding (“apprehension”), and techniques of deliberation, which were Wisdom’s three chief theoretical concerns. (shrink)

In this paper I will set out my understanding of Bas van Fraassen’s constructive empiricism, some of the difficulties which I believe beset the current version, and, very briefly, some valuable lessons I believe are nonetheless to be learned by considering this view.We’ll need to begin with a review of how van Fraassen conceives of this kind of discussion.

This volume brings together Paul Williams's previously published papers on the Indian and Tibetan interpretations of selected verses from the eighth and ninth chapters of the Bodhicaryavatara. In addition, there is a much longer version of the paper 'Identifying the Object of Negation', and nearly half the book consists of a wholly new essay, 'The Absence of Self and the Removal of Pain', subtitled 'How Santideva Destroyed the Bodhisattva Path'. This book will be of interest to those concerned with (...) the history and interpretation of Indian and Tibetan philosophy. (shrink)

What Numbers Could Not Be’) that an adequate account of the numbers and our arithmetic practice must satisfy not only the conditions usually recognized to be necessary: (a) identify some w-sequence as the numbers, and (b) correctly characterize the cardinality relation that relates a set to a member of that sequence as its cardinal number—it must also satisfy a third condition: the ‘<’ of the sequence must be recursive. This paper argues that adding this further condition was a mistake—any w-sequence (...) would do, no matter how undecidable its ‘<’ relation. (shrink)

Human-extended machine cognition is a specific form of artificial intelligence in which the casually-active physical vehicles of machine-based cognitive states and processes include one or more human agents. Human-extended machine cognition is thus a specific form of extended cognition that sees human agents as constituent parts of the physical fabric that realizes machine-based cognitive capabilities. This idea is important, not just because of its impact on current philosophical debates about the extended character of human cognition, but also because it helps (...) to focus scientific attention on the potential role of the human social environment in realizing novel forms of artificial intelligence. The present paper provides an overview of human-extended machine cognition and situates the concept within the broader theoretical framework of active externalism. The paper additionally shows how the concept of human-extended machine cognition can be applied to existing forms of human–machine interaction, especially those that occur in the context of the contemporary Internet and Web. (shrink)

A framework is presented for studying ethical conduct in public accounting practice. Four levels of analysis are distinguished: individual, local office, multi-office firm and professional institute. Several propositions are derived from the framework and discussed: (1) The effects of ethical vs. unethical behavior on an accountant's prospects for advancement are asymmetrical in nature; (2) the way individuals perceive or frame the decision problem at hand will make an ethical response more or less likely; (3) the economic incentives present in competitive (...) markets influence the work goals of firms and offices, and lead to ethical dilemmas for individuals; and (4) initiatives at the firm or institute level aimed at compliance with professional ethical standards will by themselves have little effect on individual ethical behavior. Research into ethical behavior of practitioners will capture self-conscious and biased responses unless it is designed so as to permit indirect observation and recording of spontaneous comments. To assure valid research findings, practitioners should be interviewed and their motives assessed indirectly. A longitudinal approach is recommended, beginning with students who are choosing an accounting career. Two types of questions for use in these interviews are described. (shrink)

Educational research is dominated by a particular model: data is gathered and analysed. Much literature on methods concerns either ways of processing data, or ethical issues regarding its collection and handling. The present paper looks beyond these matters to the taken‐for‐granted idea of data itself. What can be meant by ‘data’? How does this connect with ideas of the given? What is the place of giving in education—in teaching and learning, in research itself? These issues are explored in the light (...) of information technology’s impact on research, uncovering ethical dimensions that the seeming naturalness of data otherwise obscures. (shrink)

: Certain themes of L.A. Paul’s Transformative Experience are explored in the context of an argument with a vampire. The major disagreement is about the extent to which third-party data should inform our decisions as to whether to embark on a transformative experience. Three case-studies are explored: becoming a vampire, having a child, and eating durian. Keywords: Transformative Experience; Decision; Epistemologically Transformative Experience; Personally Transformative Experience Discutendo con il vampiro Riassunto: Affronterò alcuni aspetti del libro di L.A. Paul (...) Transformative Experience nell’ambito di una discussione con un vampiro. Il punto di maggiore disaccordo verte sulla misura in cui fattori terzi dovrebbero informare le nostre decisioni in merito a un’esperienza trasformativa. Prenderò in considerazione tre casi: diventare vampiro, avere un figlio, mangiare il durian. Parole chiave: Esperienza trasformativa; Decisione; Esperienza epistemologicamente trasformativa; Esperienza personalmente trasformativa. (shrink)

This volume presents introductory chapters from internationally-renowned experts on eleven of Leibniz's key philosophical writings. Offering accessible accounts of the ideas and arguments of his work, along with information on their composition and context, this book is an invaluable companion to the study of Leibniz.

Non-reductive Physicalism together with environment-dependence of content has been thought to be incompatible with the claim that beliefs are efficacious partly in virtue of their possession of content, that is, in virtue of their intentional properties. I argue that this is not so. First, I provide a general account of property causation. Then, I explain how, even given the truth of Non-reductive Physicalism and the environment-dependence of content, intentional properties will be efficacious according to this account. I go on to (...) relate my discussion to that concerning whether Anomalous Monism is committed to epiphenomenalism. I close by considering how my proposal suggests we should conceive of different levels of causation in a layered world. (shrink)

Why do so many people remain so passive in the face of today’s massive, looming economic, political, and ecological crises, such as climate change? Despite some notable rhetorical and regulatory examples, attempts to stem climate change have, as a rule, not come to frame the activities of most citizens. The inability to confront the imperative of social transformation today is a complex, manifold problem. At root, it has to do with fundamental systemic features of a global social system that we (...) all contribute to reproducing in our everyday lives. While these features do not preclude political engagement, innovation, and action, they do undermine the bases of movements towards truly systemic transformation. This article focuses on one such feature, reification, as a social-structural foundation of passivity that impedes the social innovations required to tackle the climate crisis. (shrink)

A critical survey of arguments for and against the morality and the legality of recreational drug use, deploying Feinberg's analysis of liberty-limiting principles.

Recent history makes clear that the quantum leaps being made in technology are the leading edge of a groundswell of paradigm shifts taking place in science, politics, economics, social institutions, and the expression of cultural values. Indeed it is the simultaneity and interdependence of these changes occurring in every dimension of human experience and endeavor that makes the present so historically distinctive. The essays gathered here give voice to perspectives on the always improvised relationship between technology and cultural values from (...) Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia, Europe, and the Pacific. Contributors: Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas, Roger T. Ames,Yoko Arisaka, Carl Becker, Francesca Bray, James Buchanan, Arindam Chakrabarti, Frank W. Derringh, Rolf Elberfeld, Charles Ess, Andrew Feenberg, Susantha Goonatilake, H. Jiuan Heng, Peter Hershock, Thomas P. Kasulis, George Khushf, David Farrell Krell, Joel J. Kupperman, William R. LaFleur, Lois Ann Lorentzen, David Loy, Joseph Margolis, Hans-Georg Möller, Robert Cummings Neville, Peimin Ni, Monica Atieno Opole, Kuruvilla Pandikattu SJ, Helen Petrovsky, Ramon Sentmartí, Kristin Shrader-Frechette, Vasanthi Srinivasan, Marietta Stepaniants, Vyacheslav S. Stiopin, Henk ten Have, Paul B.Thompson, Mary Tiles, David B.Wong. (shrink)

The implicit content indicating location associated with “raining” and other weather predicates is a definite description meaning “the location occupied by x,” where the individual variable “x” can be referential or bound. This position has deleterious consequences for certain varieties of radical contextualism.

Paul Thom's book presents Kilwardby's science of logic as a body of demonstrative knowledge about inferences and their validity, about the semantics of non-modal and modal propositions, and about the logic of genus and species. This science is thoroughly intensional. It grounds the logic of inference on "that in virtue of which" the inference holds. It bases the truth conditions of propositions on relations between conceptual entities. It explains the logic of genus and species through the notion of essence. (...) Thom interprets this science as a formal logic of intensions with its own proof theory and semantics. This comprehensive reconstruction of Kilwardby's logic shows the medieval master to be one of the most interesting logicians of the thirteenth century. (shrink)

Electronic health record (EHRs) have largely replaced obsolete paper medical charts. This replacement has produced an increased demand on physicians’ time and has compromised efficiency. In an attempt to overcome this perceived obstacle to productivity, physicians turned to medical scribes to perform the work required by EHRs. In doing so, they have introduced an uninvited participant in the physician-patient relationship and compromised patients’ confidentiality. Scribes may be a successful work around for physicians frustrated by EHRs, but patients’ confidentiality should not (...) be sacrificed in the process. (shrink)

This essay replies to the responses of Harold Netland, Charles Taliaferro, and Kate Waidler to my symposium paper, “Gethsemane Epistemology.” It contends that a God worthy of worship would not need the arguments of traditional natural theology, and that such arguments would not lead to such a God in the way desired by God. In addition, it explains why Paul’s position in Romans 1 offers no support to the arguments of traditional natural theology.

This paper examines a nonreductive supervenience relation central to a philosophically popular version of nonreductive physicalism inspired by Donald Davidson. The paper argues that this global supervenience relation faces a serious epistemological problem that blocks its being superior to weaker, less general supervenience relations.

A scholastic-Cartesian schema faithfully maps ordinary, effective ways of dealing with intentionality; yet its apparent incoherence provokes philosophers into opting for one of two stances, 'Cartesian' or 'direct realist', seemingly incompatible, yet each seem in accord with ordinary thought. A wide range of canonical and current theories, realist, idealist and hybrid, essentially involve one option or the other. We should instead consider why the language of intentionality, with its apparent anomalies, works so well. Released from the obligation to opt for (...) one stance over the other, we can identify a robust realism different in kind from anything currently on offer. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:History of Philosophy and History of Ideas PAUL OSKAR KRISTELLER THE TF.~MS "history of philosophy" and "history of ideas" are frequently associated in current public and professional discussions, and many statements seem to suggest that the two terms are more or less synonymous, or that the former term, being old-fashioned, might well be replaced with the latter which for many ears appears to have a more fashionable and (...) glamorous ring. Hence there arises the question what each of these terms really means, or what it should mean, and whether and to what extent it is justifiable to identify them with each other, to reduce the history of philosophy to the history of ideas, or to treat the former as a part or subdivision of the latter. I am not convinced that these questions can be answered through an appeal to ordinary usage since this usage is fluid and reflects at best the intellectual formulations and decisions of a remote or recent past. We may have reason to question the very validity of these decisions, and perhaps to suggest or make different decisions, and in case we are successful and obtain a reasonable amount of approval, these different decisions will be reflected in the ordinary usage of tomorrow, though not yet in that of today. The attempt to discuss the meaning and relationship of the history of philosophy and the history of ideas is obviously difficult and hazardous. It involves not only the discussion of such complicated notions as history and philosophy (and idea), but also the shifting balance of the intellectual globe that includes the continents or territories denoted by those terms, and even of the academic globe that purports to be, with varying success, its faithful image. In a short paper, I cannot hope to present an original or adequate discussion of these difficult problems, but merely try to raise a few questions which to my knowledge have not received sufficient attention and may be of interest to philosophers and historians. The history of philosophy has been of recurrent interest to philosophers and other scholars, especially in classical antiquity and again in the Renaissance period. It came to occupy a central place in European thought during the last century, especially in the wake of German idealism. Hegel recognized "history" as a major area of reality and of philosophical concern, as Vico and Herder had done before him, and thus left a living heritage not only to his followers down to Croce and Gentile, but also to Marx and his [1] 2 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY disciples, and to many other thinkers who cannot be called Hegelians. Hegel also did not conceive political history in isolation, but in his phenomenology and philosophy of the spirit came close to a concept of culture or civilization in which political and social institutions, religion and the arts, the sciences and philosophy are interrelated as manifestations of the same spirit and subject to the same "dialectical" laws of historical development. The vast progress which the historical disciplines made during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, not only in the field of political and economic history but in the history of languages and literatures, of the arts and religions, and of civilization in general was not influenced by Hegel's theories, but rather opposed to them. Yet this vast body of knowledge and of learning imposed itself as an epistemological problem to such thinkers as Dilthey, Rickert, and Cassirer. Finally, Hegel considered philosophical thought itself as dialectical, that is, in a certain sense as historical, and thus foreshadowed not only Mannheim's sociology of knowledge, or Croce's claim that philosophy and history are identical, but also Heidegger's conception of historicity as a basic aspect or dimension of human thought and being. Within such a framework, the history of philosophy occupies a significant and even a central position for the philosopher since it elucidates the basic stages through which philosophical thinking passed before it reached its present situation. Any attempt to grasp or answer our present philosophical prob- ]ems thus presupposes at least a general understanding of the historical developments which have prepared or produced these problems. In the English-speaking world, both... (shrink)

The "genetic bomb" marks a turn in the history of humanity. The accident is a new form of warfare. It is replacing revolution and war. Sarajevo triggered the First World War. New York is what Sarajevo was. September 11th opened Pandora's box. The first war of globalization will be the global accident, the total accident, including the accident of science. And it is on the way. In 1968, Virilio abandoned his work in oblique architecture, believing that time had replaced space (...) as the most important point of reflection because of the dominance of speed. We were basically on the verge of converting space time into space speed... Speed facilitates the decoding of the human genome, and the possibility of another humanity: a humanity which is no longer extra-territorial, but extra-human. Crespuscular Dawn expands Virilio's vision of the implosion of physical time and space, onto the micro-level of bioengineering and biotechnology. In this cat-and-mouse dialogue between Sylvere Lotringer and Paul Virilio, Lotringer pushes Virilio to uncover the historical foundations of his biotech theories. Citing various medical experiments conducted during World War II, Lotringer asks whether biotechnology isn't the heir to eugenics and the "science for racial improvement" that the Nazis enthusiastically embraced. Will the endocolonizataion of the body come to replace the colonization of one's own population by the military? Both biographical and thematic, the book explores the development of Virilio's investigation of space and time that would ultimately lay the foundation for his theories on biotechnology and his startling declaration that after the colonization of space begins the colonization of the body. (shrink)