‘Altruistic punishment’ (i.e., costly punishment that serves no instrumental goal for the punisher) could serve, as suggested by the pertinent experimental literature, as a powerful enforcer of social norms. This paper discusses foundations, extensions, and, in particular, limits and open questions of this concept-and it does so mostly based on experimental evidence provided by the author. Inter alia, the paper relates the (standard) literature on negative emotions as a trigger of second party punishment to more recent experimental findings on the (...) phenomenon of ‘spontaneous cooperation’ and ‘spontaneous punishment’ and demonstrates its (tight) emotional basis. Furthermore, the paper discusses the potential for free riding on altruistic punishment. While providing valuable insights into the understanding of social order, ‘altruistic punishment’ is thus not the golden keystone of social stability. (shrink)

This clear, riveting book will be of great interest not only to philosophers and to historians of philosophy but also to anyone interested in the great ...

Chaotic dynamics has been hailed as the third great scientific revolution in physics this century, comparable to relativity and quantum mechanics. In this book, Peter Smith takes a cool, critical look at such claims. He cuts through the hype and rhetoric by explaining some of the basic mathematical ideas in a clear and accessible way, and by carefully discussing the methodological issues which arise. In particular, he explores the new kinds of explanation of empirical phenomena which modern dynamics can (...) deliver. Explaining Chaos will be compulsory reading for philosophers of science and for anyone who has wondered about the conceptual foundations of chaos theory. (shrink)

Philosophers have not taken the evolution of human beings seriously enough. If they did, argues Peter Munz, many long standing philosophical problems would be resolved. One of philosophical concequences of biology is that all the knowledge produced in evolution is a priori, i.e., established hypothetically by chance mutation and selective retention, not by observation and intelligent induction. For organisms as embodied theories, selection is natural and for theories as disembodied organisms, it is artificial. Following Popper, the growth of knowledge (...) is seen to be continuous from the amoeba to Einstein'. Philosophical Darwinism throws a whole new light on many contemporary debates. It has damaging implications for cognitive science and artificial intelligence, and questions attempts from within biology to reduce mental events to neural processes. More importantly, it provides a rational postmodern alternative to what the author argues are the unreasonable postmodern fashions of Kuhn, Lyotard and Rorty. (shrink)

A central theme of this collection is that the philosophy of language, at least a core portion of it, has matured to the point where it is now being spun off ...

_The Nature of the Mind_ is a comprehensive and lucid introduction to major themes in the philosophy of mind. It carefully explores the conflicting positions that have arisen within the debate and locates the arguments within their context. It is designed for newcomers to the subject and assumes no previous knowledge of the philosophy of mind. Clearly written and rigorously presented, this book is ideal for use in undergraduate courses in the philosophy of mind. Main topics covered include: * the (...) problem of other minds * the dualist/physicalist debate * the nature of personal identity and survival * mental-state concepts The book closes with a number of pointers towards more advanced work in the subject. Study questions and suggestions for further reading are provided at the end of each chapter. _The Nature of the Mind_ is based on Peter Carruthers' book, _Introducing Persons_, also published by Routledge. (shrink)

This volume brings together eleven essays by the distinguished philosopher of science, Peter Achinstein. The unifying theme is the nature of the philosophical problems surrounding the postulation of unobservable entities such as light waves, molecules, and electrons. How, if at all, is it possible to confirm scientific hypotheses about "unobservables"? Achinstein examines this question as it arose in actual scientific practice in three nineteenth-century episodes: the debate between particle and wave theorists of light, Maxwell's kinetic theory of gases, and (...) J.J. Thomson's discovery of the electron. The book contains three parts, each devoted to one of these topics, beginning with an essay presenting the historical background of the episode and an introduction to the philosophical issues. There is an illuminating evaluation of various scientific methodologies, including hypothetico-deductivism, inductivism, and the method of independent warrant which combines features of the first two. Achinstein assesses the philosophical validity of both nineteenth-century and modern answers to questions about unobservables, and presents and defends his own solutions. (shrink)

Chapter 1: Introduction. S = <{We}c<w; C,U,n,0,w> is the substructure formed by restricting the lattice <^P(w); C , U, n,0,w> to the re subsets We of the ...

We only need to think for a moment about surfaces and other interfaces to realise their enormous importance in everydaylife. There are numerous branches of physics, chemistry, biology, and materials science concerned wholly or largely with surfaces, and one sometimes comes across the expression ‘surface science’ Among the natural phenomena connected with surfaces which have aroused scientific interest are surface tension, surface waves, photoelectric emission, reflection, refraction, evaporation, adsorption, adhesion, thin films, detergents, catalysts, cell membranes, skin. All of these phenomena (...) are complex, interesting, and some of them are still far from completely understood. Are surfaces important for philosophy? An epistemologist might well answer affirmatively, thinking of Quine’s "surface irritations" as the basis of our knowledge of the physical world, or Berkeley’s theory of vision, or the view that we perceive a material object in virtue of suitable causal interaction with its surfaces. But at first sight it seems that there is not much of interest for an ontologist. In his work on surfaces, especially in the book of that name, Avrum Stroll has shown to the contrary that there is much ontological interest in surfaces} Every ontologist delights in a newly discovered or hitherto neglected member of the ontological zoo: surfaces are not exactly new, but they have been neglected, and we can be grateful to Stroll for bringing them to greater prominence. (shrink)

Newton deplored speculation in science, Einstein reveled in it. What exactly are scientific speculations? Are they ever legitimate? Are they subject to constraints? This book defends a pragmatic approach to these issues and applies it to speculations within science and to speculations about science.

While well-known for his longer book-length work, philosopher Peter Unger's shorter articles have, until now, been less accessible. Collected in two volumes, Philosophical Papers includes articles spanning over 40 years of Unger's long and fruitful career. Volume two focuses on Unger's important work in metaphysics.

In the 1960s, the history and philosophy of science made common cause in the search for universal patterns of theory change: philosophers provided models, historians offered examples. But the two enterprises pulled apart during the 1970s. Now there is a new arena of joint concern. Historians and philosophers are searching for the conditions under which standards of theoretical and experimental demonstration are established. I argue against the picture of these standards as independent of (or reducible to) the context of their (...) introduction. Instead, I suggest that we think of scientific developments as simultaneous solutions to multiple constraints; the constraints issue from domains as diverse as the technical, the aesthetic and the political. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Tensism is the view that tense is not merely a property of language and the mind, but of the world itself. Perspectivalism extends this idea to all perspectival properties be they person or locational. One challenge that perspectivalism faces is the problem of expressing the contents of the beliefs and utterances of persons that are in other perspectival positions. One proposed solution to this problem is to allow for semantic theories that "realign" the expression of contents so that the (...) contents expressed by persons in other perspectival positions can be re-expressed from one's own perspectival position. In this paper I argue that a similar semantic realignment strategy could be deployed in helping perspectivalists generally come to grips with a puzzle raised by the Special Theory of Relativity. In short, the strategy is to realign the expression of contents in another inertial frame so that they are expressed from within your inertial frame. As we will see, the strategy is not puzzle free. (shrink)

This paper consists of two parts. In the first, we discuss the neuropsychological correlates of belief in a 'paranormal' or magical causation of coincidences. In particular, we review experimental evidence demonstrating that believers in ESP and kindred forms of paranormal phenomena differ from disbelievers with respect to indices of sequential response production and semantic-associative processing. Not only do believers judge artificial coincidences as more 'meaningful' than disbelievers, they also more strongly suppress coincidental productions (i.e. repetitions) in their generation of random (...) sequences. These findings illuminate the cognitive mechanisms underlying the formation and maintenance of paranormal beliefs for which the right cerebral hemisphere is hypothesized to play a central role. These same right hemispheric semantic-associative processing characteristics are centrally implicated in the creative thought process as well as the genesis of delusional (pathological) beliefs (e.g. ideas of reference). (shrink)

Vol. 1: First published in German under the title: Sph'aren I. Blasen.

MONTAIGNE criou um novo gênero literário – o ensaio -, seus próprios Ensaios tiveram uma vasta influência sobre o pensamento e a literatura do Renascimento e dos séculos posteriores. Observador sereno e irônico da comédia humana, era notavelmente muito consciente do etnocentrismo de outros povos. Atraído pela diversidade humana, estava preparado para tomar a vida privada tão seriamente quanto a vida pública. MONTAIGNE tem sido muito freqüentemente tratado como um “moderno” nascido fora de sua época. Peter Burke apresenta-o como (...) um cavalheiro do campo, um homem do Renascimento e um membro da geração dos anos 1530 que floresceu numa sociedade dividida pela guerra civil, descreve as reações da posteridade aos Ensaios e pergunta se MONTAIGNE pode, em algum sentido, ser considerado nosso contemporâneo. (shrink)

In these two lectures, first published in 1994, Peter Diamond explores how time is modelled in theoretical analyses of individual industries and of an entire economy. In the first lecture he considers equilibrium in a single market by examining the distinction between the short run and the long run in Marshallian analysis. He proposes an explicit modelling of time in place of Marshall's use of different atemporal models for different time frames. In the second lecture he turns to models (...) of an entire economy, and begins by considering how and why models of an entire economy should differ from models of a single industry. Both cyclical and seasonal data on the behaviour of macro-economies are examined. (shrink)

A delightful book of spiritual maxims about a timeless topic-love: how to find it and how to keep it. Hegel called Peter Deunov "a world historical figure whose significance will only gradually be realized over the coming centuries.? In this beautiful gift book, Deunov shares his sacred words of wisdom on the many facets of love. Since time immemorial, human beings have experienced love as an exciting yet often elusive emotion that begs the question-How do you find it? And (...) once you find it, how do you keep it? Our very happiness depends on our ability to love and be loved. Deunov said, ?love brings fullness to life.? By applying his timeless principles, readers will bring fullness to their lives every day. Chapters Include : The Essence of Love, The Language of Love, Man and Woman, Happiness,Falling in Love, Jealousy, The Kiss; Flesh, Passion and Sex. (shrink)

This paper outlines an interpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s remark in the _Big Typescript_ in which he compares the philosopher bewitched by the workings of language to “the suffering of an ascetic”. The interpretation takes as its starting point Friedrich Nietzsche’s terse account of the philosopher, the history of philosophy, and his diagnosis of ascetic self-misunderstanding, from the Third Essay, “What do ascetic ideals mean?”, in _On the Genealogy of Morality_. In its assumption of an affinity between Wittgenstein’s remark and Nietzsche’s (...) descriptions, and in its analysis, this paper introduces a “method of voice borrowing” to approach the question: “Wittgenstein and Nietzsche?” The juxtaposition of Wittgenstein’s conception of the philosopher’s linguistic self-misunderstanding with Nietzsche’s notion of the ascetic self-misunderstanding leads finally to the question of what is gained by introducing this method, and hence by reading Wittgenstein’s remark on the suffering of an ascetic with the help of Nietzsche’s voice. (shrink)

An exploration of the relationship between quantum theory and concepts of individuality and identity from ancient Greece to the present.

Through extensive textual analysis, this book concludes that the prevailing opinion about the nature of modern and contemporary philosophy is wrong. It maintains that almost all modern and contemporary philosophy is deconstructed, secularized, Augustinian theology, not philosophy. The work is divided into eight chapters, a guest Foreword by Herbert I. London notes, bibliography, and an index. Chapter 1 considers Cartesian thought, Hobbes, and Newton. Chapter 2 examines Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Chapter 3 investigates Lessing and Rousseau. Chapters 4 and 5 (...) treat Kant. Chapters 6 and 7 deal with Hegel. Chapter 8 concludes that a lack of philosophical and historical experience coupled with a widespread inability to read philosophical texts according to the intention of the author causes us to mistake secularized theology for philosophy and is a main cause for the decline of contemporary universities. (shrink)

This volume contains the first critical edition of the Scriptum super III-VIII libros Politicorum by Peter of Auvergne as well as a pragmatical edition of Books III-VIII of the medieval Latin translation of Aristotle's Politics. Intended as the continuation of Aquinas' unfinished commentary on the first three books of the Politics, the Scriptum became-together with Aquinas' commentary-the commentary on the Politics. From its appearance in the late thirteenth century to the end of the sixteenth century, the Scriptum represented the (...) most authoritative and influential interpretation of Books III-VIII of the Politics.The introduction to the volume provides both an overview of Peter's political thought and a case study of the production and dissemination of a university text. An examination of the manuscripts traces the preparation of the text from its first transcription and revision by a scribe close to the author-if not the author himself-to the preparation of the finished exemplar and its diffusion through the system of peciae. The introduction also explains how the text was adapted to fit the standards of humanistic Latin when it was first printed in the fifteenth century: its language was adjusted to humanistic standards, many formulations were reshaped, and passages were suppressed. These changes were subsequently preserved in all later editions of the text. Freed from this humanistic patina with which it has been transmitted since the early age of printing age, the Scriptum is now restored to its original version. (shrink)

In Behind Every Lesson There is a Wonderful Journey, Peter Burwash shows us how he took advantage of one the most important success keys to create an extraordinary life. The open secret that Peter reveals is that every successful person took the time to gather lessons from other successful people and imbibe those lessons. Parents, friends, teachers, employers, famous athletes, politicians, movie stars/ producers, comedians, spiritual leaders, entrepreneurs all helped the author through word and deed to transform his (...) life. Peter retraces the pivotal encounters he had with those who helped him rise from obscure beginnings in eastern Canada to become a top international tennis pro, an internationally sought after motivational speaker, the CEO of Peter Burwash Inernational (PBI), a worldwide tennis management company, and a successful author, husband, and father. In his humble and genuine style the author gives the reader a treasure house of wisdom. Some lessons are directly from his long and impressive list of mentors and some lessons are his personal realizations earned by working for decades to transform his own life both externally and internally. All are valuable gems for your taking. (shrink)