The Lysis is one of Plato's most engaging but also puzzling dialogues; it has often been regarded, in the modern period, as a philosophical failure. The full philosophical and literary exploration of the dialogue illustrates how it in fact provides a systematic and coherent, if incomplete, account of a special theory about, and special explanation of, human desire and action. Furthermore, it shows how that theory and explanation are fundamental to a whole range of other Platonic dialogues and indeed to (...) the understanding of the corpus as a whole. Part One offers an analysis of, or running commentary on, the dialogue. In Part Two Professors Penner and Rowe examine the philosophical and methodological implications of the argument uncovered by the analysis. The whole is rounded off by an epilogue of the relation between the Lysis and some other Platonic texts. (shrink)

In a recent paper, Guy Kahane asks whether God’s existence is something we should want to be true. Expanding on some cryptic remarks from Thomas Nagel, Kahane’s informative and wide-ranging piece eventually addresses whether personal anti-theism is justified, where personal anti-theism is the view that God’s existence would make things worse overall for oneself. In what follows, I develop, defend, but ultimately reject the Meaningful Life Argument, according to which if God’s existence precludes the realization of certain goods that seem (...) to an agent to constitute a meaningful life, it is rational for an agent both to believe that personal anti-theism is true and to prefer that God not exist. (shrink)

divisibility in Physics VI. I had been assuming at that time that Aristotle's elimination of reference to the infinitely large in his account of the potential inf inite--like the elimination of the infinitely small from nineteenth century accounts of limits and continuity--gave us everything that was important in a theory of the infinite. Hilbert's paper showed me that this was not obviously so. Suddenly other certainties about Aristotle's (apparently) judicious toning down of (supposed) Platonic extremisms began to crumble. The upshot (...) of work I had been doing earlier on Plato's 'Third Man Argument' began to look different from the way it had before. I was confronted with a possibility I had not till then so much as entertained. What if the more extreme posi tions of Plato on these issues were the more likely to be correct? The present work is the first instalment of the result ing reassessment of Plato's metaphysics, and especially of his theory of Forms. It has occupied much of my teaching and scholarly time over the past fifteen years and more. The central question wi th which I concern myself is, "How does Plato argue for the existence of his Forms (if he does )7" The idea of making this the central question is that if we know how he argues for the existence of Forms, we may get a better sense of what they are. (shrink)

Introduction: Burnout, inertia, meltdown, and shutdown have been identified as important parts of some autistic people’s lives. This study builds on our previous work that offered early academic descriptions of these phenomena, based on the perspectives of autistic adults.Objectives: This study aimed to explore the unique knowledge and insights of eight autistic children and youth to extend and refine our earlier description of burnout, inertia, and meltdown, with additional exploration of shutdown. We also aimed to explore how these youth cope (...) with these phenomena and what others around them do that make things better or worse, with a hope to glean knowledge to design better supports.Methods: One-to-one interviews were conducted with eight children and youth, who shared their experience with BIMS. To match individual communication strengths of children and youth, we took a flexible approach to interviews, allowing for augmentative communication systems and use of visual images to support verbal interviews, as needed. We conducted a reflexive, inductive thematic analysis, using an iterative process of coding, collating, reviewing, and mapping themes.Findings: Our analysis has identified that these youth describe BIMS as a multi-faceted experience involving emotional, cognitive and physical components. Moreover, these multifaceted experiences are often misunderstood by neurotypical adults, which contributes to inadequate support in managing BIMS. Of the four experiences, these youth identified meltdowns as most common.Conclusion: By gaining first-hand perspectives, we have identified novel insights into BIMS and developed a more holistic understanding of these phenomena. These youths’ descriptions of supportive strategies for BIMS stress the importance of compassion and collaboration from trusted adults. This new knowledge will provide a foundation for how to better support autistic children and youth. Further research is required to develop an understanding of BIMS, especially with respect to how it is experienced by children and youth. Future research should leverage the insights and experiential knowledge of autistic children and youth to co-design support tool for BIMS. (shrink)

Selon Kirk Lougheed, favoriser une version objective de l’argument du sens de la vie établit une sorte d’antithéisme, c’est-à-dire une perspective qui maintient que l’existence d’un Dieu théiste aggraverait les choses et qu’il est donc plus rationnel de préférer que Dieu n’existe pas. Cette version objective est présentée par Lougheed comme une amélioration par rapport à ma version subjective de l’argument du sens de la vie. Je soutiens que la version de Lougheed ne réussit pas mieux que la version subjective (...) que j’ai développée, puis rejetée. (shrink)

Pro-theism is the view that God’s existence would be good in that God’s existence increases the value of a world. Anti-theism is the view that God’s existence would decrease the value of a world. We develop and defend the morally good agent argument for pro-theism. The basic idea is that morally good agents tend to add value to states of affairs, and God, moral agent par excellence is no exception. Thus, we argue that the existence of God would be, on (...) balance, a good thing and therefore something that one can rationally desire to be true. (shrink)

Despite the importance of Suárez’s defense of the freedom of the will at the threshold of early modern philosophy, his account has received scant recent attention. This paper aims partially to redress that neglect. Suárez’s position can be understood as a balancing act between desiring to attribute libertarian freedom to agents and desiring to maintain the will’s status as a rational appetite. Hence, he rejects an intellectualism that says that choices are necessitated by the intellect’s judgements (since he does not (...) think that the judgements themselves can be directly free), but affirms that only what is judged good can be chosen. (shrink)

This volume, the fourth in the Edinburgh Leventis Studies series, comprises a selection of papers from the conference held in Edinburgh March 2005 in conjunction with Professor Terry Penner's tenure of the A. G. Leventis Visiting Research Chair in Greek. It brings together contributions from leading Plato scholars from Britain, Europe and North America on a closely defined topic central to Plato's thought and to Ancient Philosophy--Plato's Form of the Good. The importance of the collection lies in the combination and (...) presentation in one place of a range of different approaches to the good in Plato's Republic, and different solutions to the problems posed and proposed by these approaches. The two central issues, which form an underlying thread throughout the collection, are: first whether Plato's Republic is centred on what is good for individual humans, or on some quasi-moral good; and secondly, what the Form of the Good is. Pursuing the Good goes beyond recent studies in the field, and will appeal to classicists and philosophers alike. To the advanced student, it represents a wide-ranging introduction to central issues of Plato's philosophy; for the academic it will provide stimulus through antithetical and controversial solutions to questions old and new. (shrink)

Intersectionality emphasizes that race, class, and gender distinctions are inextricably intertwined, but fully interrogating the co-constitution of these axes of stratification has proven difficult to implement in large-scale quantitative analyses. We address this gap by exploring gender differences in how social status shapes race in the United States. Building on previous research showing that changes in the racial classifications of others are influenced by social status, we use longitudinal data to examine how differences in social class position might affect racial (...) classification differently for women and men. In doing so, we provide further support for the claim that race, class, and gender are not independent axes of stratification; rather they intersect, creating dynamic feedback loops that maintain the complex structure of social inequality in the United States. (shrink)

Thanks to Barbeyrac, Pufendorf and others, there is a long-familiar picture of Grotius as offering a groundbreaking account of natural law. By now there is also a familiar observation that there is no agreement what makes Grotius’s account innovative. Sometimes this leads to skepticism about how innovative Grotius’s account of natural law really is. Some scholars suggest that Grotius’s account of natural law resembles Suárez’s account. But others continue to argue that Barbeyrac is right to see Grotius as breaking the (...) ice of previous philosophy and laying the groundwork for a distinctively modern moral philosophy. I plan to contribute to the debate by arguing that, properly understood, Grotius’s position is similar to Suárez’s on a range of fundamental questions, and, furthermore, that seeing Grotius as making a radical break with the past violates his own self-conception. 1. (shrink)

By building upon Raz's analysis of the spectrum of voluntary obligations, the author produces a typology of agreements, and then assesses the extent to which these different kinds of agreements underpin the common law of contract. While recognizing that the law of contract purports to deal with a broad range of voluntarily undertaken obligations, the typology of agreements suggests that the present law is primarily suited to dealing only with bargains. This suggests that there are situations in which agreements should (...) be legally recognized, but which should not be dealt with by all of the conceptual tools of contract law, for these agreements and voluntary undertakings serve the interests of those undertaking them in significantly different ways than do bargains. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The “What is X?” Question, the Sciences, Virtue, and the Forms Plato's “Argument from the Sciences” for the Existence of Forms, as Apparently Represented by Aristotle, and Aristotle's Criticism of that Argument Plato the Parmenidean Sciences and Pseudo‐Sciences The Good and the Sciences A Proposal: The Forms are Attributes; and There are No Attributes that are not Forms What about Plato's Other Reasons for Believing in Forms (Logical, or Mystical‐Metaphysical‐Theological)? And Won't These Reasons Make of (...) Forms Something Rather More than Simply Attributes? Objections to the Theory of Forms The Theory of Forms in Later Dialogues Note. (shrink)

So far, interpreters have not made the import of this last clause clear. F. J. Church translates the last phrase ‘they act at random’. Burnet says of Adam that he seems to have been the first to point out that the meaning cannot be ‘they act at random’. Instead, ‘the phrase expresses indifference’. Adam′s idea, which Burnet here commends, is that the many are thoughtless in their treatment of the individual; and Adam compares 48C below: the many would lightly put (...) someone to death and just as lightly bring him back to life again. The Burnet-Adam point is evidently that the many have a policy of acting indifferently, or just as it occurs to them—by contrast with the ‘at random’ in Church′s translation, which suggests that they act without policy at all. (shrink)

So far, interpreters have not made the import of this last clause clear. F. J. Church translates the last phrase ‘they act at random’. Burnet says of Adam that he seems to have been the first to point out that the meaning cannot be ‘they act at random’. Instead, ‘the phrase expresses indifference’. Adam′s idea, which Burnet here commends, is that the many are thoughtless in their treatment of the individual; and Adam compares 48C below: the many would lightly put (...) someone to death and just as lightly bring him back to life again. The Burnet-Adam point is evidently that the many have a policy of acting indifferently, or just as it occurs to them—by contrast with the ‘at random’ in Church′s translation, which suggests that they act without policy at all. (shrink)

I examine here a wide array of interlocking Socratic doctrines, especially as they show up in the ideas of Socratic Ignorance and the Examined Life —along with such other Socratic claims as the following. First, that No one errs willingly. Second, that, in acting intentionally, everyone is always seeking their own greatest available good, given their present circumstances, where that greatest good is taken over the rest of their lives. Third, that those who don’t see that harming others will not, (...) over the rest of their lives, serve their own greatest good, deserve not punishment but instruction. I conduct this examination with my eye on two blatant contemporary inequalities across race and class. The first is that involved in differentially funding different schools and thereby shortchanging the ability of those of our children who need it most to work out better means to their own greatest good over the rest of their lives; the second is that across race, class, and educational background in our extensive incarceration practices. In the longest part of this essay, I argue that a principal philosophical presupposition of punishment practices can be shown to be well wide of the mark by the Socratic theory I explore here. This is the presupposition that there is some kind of philosophical justification—for example, in modern “under the description” theories—for the decidedly questionable view that we can almost always determine quite sufficiently what a person’s intentions are for purposes of justifiably and usefully punishing supposed malefactors. (shrink)

Even for persons who hold to the ethical acceptance of abortion practices in general, questions of detail often arise. If you assume the distinction between the physical human organism alone and the person that is associated with that organism, then you must face the question of whether it is permissible to abort a fetus if the corresponding person has come into being. We take the position that the abortion of a fetus that has achieved this level of development should be (...) declared unethical except in special circumstances. Our purpose here is to identify the point in the development of the fetus that serves as the marker for this level. (shrink)

Some claim that cognitive science of religion either completely “explains religion away,” or at the very least calls the epistemic status of religious belief into question. Others claim that religious beliefs are the cognitive outputs of systems that seem highly reliable in other contexts, and thus CSR provides positive epistemic support for religious belief. I argue that CSR does not provide evidence for atheism, but if one is an atheist, CSR lends “intellectual aid and comfort,” CSR does not provide evidence (...) for theism, but if one is a theist, CSR provides qualified support for Reformed Epistemology. (shrink)

(2013). ‘The Pope and Prince of All the Metaphysicians’: Some Recent Works on Suárez. British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 21, No. 2, pp. 393-403. doi: 10.1080/09608788.2013.771251.

Arriaga is an early modern scholastic who recognizes the importance of relations to philosophical discussions. He offers a classification of different kinds of relations, focusing on the distinction between categorial relations and transcendental relations. I suggest that this distinction might be seen as akin to one version of the modern distinction between external and internal relations. Like Suárez, whom he characterizes as a “giant among the scholastics,” Arriaga offers a reductionist account of categorial relations. He criticises Suárez’s account, however, for (...) formally identifying a relation with the foundation in one relatum, something Suárez does in order to preserve a real distinction between converse relations. Arriaga, in contrast, argues that a categorial relation is formally identical to the foundation and terminus. Arriaga gives less attention to transcendental relations, even though he thinks they are real relations, but I offer some suggestions for how he may be thinking about them. (shrink)

Suárez distingue entre cuatro formas diferentes de intentar un fin de acción: con una intención actual, virtual, habitual o interpretativa. Esta distinción se repite en muchos libros y artículos en siglos posteriores como una parte estándar de la teoría de la acción, y Suárez es evidentemente la fuente de muchos de los autores posteriores. Este artículo examina el tratamiento de Suárez de la distinción. La intención interpretativa recibe la mayor atención, ya que Suárez parece dar varias caracterizaciones inconsistentes de ella (...) en diferentes obras. El artículo concluye con algunas notas sobre la posterior recepción de la distinción y comenta brevemente las lecciones que se deben aprender sobre cómo rastrear la influencia de Suárez. (shrink)

Introduction. According to the well-established opinion of specialists in social sciences and humanities, a person diffracts his selves in the modern world: real spaces (professions, statuses) and virtual (accounts, profiles). In the diffraction of a person through spaces of different order, each “new” self acquires relative autonomy (a trace of the self in the network, which is present regardless of the attitude to it), and at the same time there remains the connection that, as it were, keeps the self with (...) his digital images and “prints”. The main questions of the article are: in what relation and in relation to what is it possible to talk about the identity of a modern person; what fundamentally significant do the researches on human identity give us today; what do those who ask questions about personal identity in the digital age focus their attention on? In order to answer these questions, let us turn to scientific articles from domestic and foreign journals. This article presents the analytics of publications from Scopus and RSCI databases, in which the problem of personal identity is posed. The purpose of the article is to analyze scientific publications on human identity and summarize the main ideas presented in those publications. Methods. The research is based on general scientific methods, analysis and synthesis, induction, deduction, and abstraction. The author analyzes scientific publications on the basis of the interpretation method and a systematic approach method. Content analysis was used as a method, but it was used within the scope of the purpose. The publications were selected on the basis of the authors’ research of various aspects of identity and the difference in interpreting the phenomenon. Results. Analysis of Scopus publications made it possible to assert that the problem of identity is moving out of the anthropological context and acquiring new technical and technological frameworks (for example, scholars are raising the problem of the digital data identity, digital identification in the context of online transactions). At the same time, the anthropological view of identity remains. It is found for instance in the context of narratives, texts of a person about self that are posted on the Internet. In this context, the concept of “Person Life View” (M. Schechtman) is presented as a variant of a person’s holistic view of the self. The analysis of domestic publications makes it possible to conclude that representatives of social sciences and humanities in their research strive to overcome the dynamic view of a person (dissolving of identity or an absent self), are in search of models of “stability” of identity. Conclusion. Posing the question about the personal identity of a modern person, it seems that the border between the directly human (consciousness and body, for example) and the technical and technological (the Internet and the objective world) is becoming more and more destabilized every day. This predetermines the direction of the research. Contemporary scholars, who publish the results of their work in journals included in scientific databases, are faced not only with the problem of substantiating human identity as a theoretical concept that reflects the modern situation, but also with the problem of finding models in which a person is able to embody the idea of “stability” of identity in the everyday life. (shrink)