The emergence of experimental philosophy was one of the most significant developments in the early modern period. However, it is often overlooked in modern scholarship, despite being associated with leading figures such as Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, Isaac Newton, Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, David Hume and Christian Wolff. Ranging from the early Royal Society of London in the seventeenth century to the uptake of experimental philosophy in Paris and Berlin in the eighteenth, this book provides new terms of reference for (...) understanding early modern philosophy and science, and its eventual eclipse in the shadow of post-Kantian notions of empiricism and rationalism. Experimental Philosophy and the Origins of Empiricism is an integrated history of early modern experimental philosophy which challenges the rationalism and empiricism historiography that has dominated Anglophone history of philosophy for more than a century. (shrink)

We examined Confucian moral philosophy, primarily the Analects, to determine how Confucian ethics could help managers regulate their own behavior (self-regulation) to maintain an ethical standard of practice. We found that some Confucian virtues relevant to self-regulation are common to Western concepts of management ethics such as benevolence, righteousness, wisdom, and trustworthiness. Some are relatively unique, such as ritual propriety and filial piety. We identify seven Confucian principles and discuss how they apply to achieving ethical self-regulation in management. In addition, (...) we examined some of the unique Confucian practices to achieve self-regulation including ritual and music. We balanced the framework by exploring the potential problems in applying Confucian principles to develop ethical self-regulation including whistle blowing. Confucian moral philosophy offers an indigenous Chinese theoretical framework for developing ethical self-regulation in managers. This is relevant for managers and those who relate to managers in Confucian-oriented societies, such as China, Korea, Japan, and Singapore. We recommend further research to examine if the application of the Confucian practices outlined here actually work in regulating the ethical behavior of managers in modern organizations. (shrink)

Desire-based accounts of practical argument about incompatible ends seem limited either to advice about means or to coercive threats. This paper argues that this can be avoided if the parties to the dispute desire its resolution by means other than force more than they desire the satisfaction of any particular ends. In effect, this means they must argue as if in a position of equal power. This leads to an explanation of the apparent objectivity of moral claims and of why (...) moral reasons appear to be categorical and external. It also explains how notions such as reciprocal altruism and TIT-FOR-TAT can play a role in an evolutionary account of morality. The paper concludes with an argument to the effect that a desire-based metaethic must accept the is-ought gap and explains why there may appear to be no is-ought gap from within a given normative perspective. (shrink)

This title is written to match GCSE Religious Studies AQA B, option 2 and can be used as part of a full course or short course. It contains summaries and practise exam questions at the end of each section to help prepare for exams.

RésuméFerdinand de Saussure postule une science générale des signes qu’il ap-pelle sémiologie. La langue n’en serait qu’un cas particulier caractériée par l’arbitrariété totale de ses unités. Cette caractéristique reviendrait aussi à l’écriture qui n’est cependant pas un systéme sémiologique primaire, mais un système secondaire dont la fonction est de représenter un système pri-maire. Il existe en outre des systèmes tertiaires comme, par example, l’alphabet Morse, l’écriture Braille, les systèmes de chiffrage, etc. Les modes de manifestation peuvent être soit acoustique soit (...) visuel. Tandis que la langue et l’écriture sont totalement arbitraires, les autres systèmes sémiologiques peuvent être motivés jusqu’à un certain de-gré. À côté des sémiologies utilitaires il existe aussi des sémiologies esthé-tiques comme, par example, les légendes. La sémiologie elle-même n’est qu’un cas particulier de la sémiotique qui tient aussi compte des signes naturels. Les frontières entre langue, sémiologie et et sémiotique sont souvent flottantes et imprécises. (shrink)

I explore a strand of reception history that follows Rudolf Carnap’s shift from a purely syntactical analysis of constructed languages to his conception of pure semantics. My exploration focuses on Gustav Bergmann’s and Everett Hall’s interpretation of pure semantics, their understanding of what constitutes a ’formal’ investigation of language, and their arguments concerning the relationship between expressions and their extra-linguistic referents. I argue that Bergmann and Hall strongly misread Carnap’s semantic project and, subsequently, their misunderstanding is passed down through colleagues (...) and students. (shrink)

This volume presents new work in history and historiography to the increasingly broad audience for studies of the history and philosophy of science. These essays are linked by a concern to understand the context of early modern science in its own context.

We compare astronomers' removal of Pluto from the listing of planets and psychiatrists' removal of homosexuality from the listing of mental disorders. Although the political maneuverings that emerged in both controversies are less than scientifically ideal, we argue that competition for "scientific authority" among competing groups is a normal part of scientific progress. In both cases, a complicated relationship between abstract constructs and evidence made the classification problem thorny.

Music is an important philosophical theme in Confucian writings, one that is intimately related to ritual. But the relationship between music and ritual requires clarification. This paper seeks to argue for a general sense of music that reflects a particular aspect of ritual that has to do with performance. There is much material available in classical texts, such as the 'Record of Music' ('Yueji'), that allows for nuanced explications of the musical qualities of such performances. Thus explicated, those musical terms (...) provide for a way of speaking about the overall effects of ritual that is not bound to specific choreographic details or particular ritual rules. Finally, it is suggested that the Confucian notion of ren 仁 could be usefully compared to the generalised notion of music. (shrink)

Counternomics—counterfactuals whose antecedents run contrary to the laws of nature—are commonplace in science but have enjoyed relatively little philosophical attention. This article discusses a puzzle about our counternomic epistemology, focusing on cases in which experimental observations are used as evidence for counternomic claims. I show that these cases resist being characterized in familiar interventionist lines, and I suggest a characterization of my own.

This paper presents a unified argument against three widely held contemporary analyses of lawhood—Humean reductionism about laws, the dispositionalist view of laws, and the view of laws as relation...

Early modern experimental philosophers were opposed to speculation, and yet many endorsed speculative theories. This chapter gives a partial explanation of why this is so, using Robert Boyle’s acceptance and promotion of the corpuscular philosophy as a case study. It argues that, in addition to furnishing experimental evidence for the corpuscular hypothesis in his Forms and Qualities, Boyle attempted to establish its epistemic superiority over other speculative theories on the grounds that it is founded upon superior principles. In his ‘Excellency (...) and Grounds of the Mechanical Hypothesis’, Boyle claims that the principles of the corpuscular philosophy are more intelligible, more parsimonious, ontologically primary, simpler and more comprehensive than those of its rivals. On grounds of comparative plausibility then, according to Boyle, the corpuscular philosophy is eminently preferable to its rivals. The final section of the chapter traces the legacy of Boyle’s appraisal of the epistemic status of the corpuscular philosophy in the writings of many of his compatriots from the mid-1660s to the Cyclopedia of Ephraim Chambers of 1728. (shrink)

This paper examines problems of order and periodicity which arise when the attempt is made to define a confirmation function for a language containing elementary number theory as applied to a universe in which the individuals are considered to be arranged in some fixed order. Certain plausible conditions of adequacy are stated for such a confirmation function. By the construction of certain types of predicates, it is proved, however, that these conditions of adequacy are violated by any confirmation function defined (...) for the type of language in question. Various possible solutions to these difficulties are explored and found to be inadequate. In particular, a proposal which stems from the suggestion to restrict a fundamental principle of confirmation to hypotheses containing only non-positional predicates is cited. This proposal, however, is shown to prevent confirmation functions from taking periodicities into account, and so is deemed unsatisfactory. A general theorem is proved to the effect that if non-positional predicates are taken to satisfy the conditions of adequacy which have been formulated, then no periodicity predicates whatsoever (i.e., predicates used in formulating hypotheses which foretell periodicities) can be subject to these conditions, on pain of contradiction. Yet it seems that periodicity predicates must be subject to these conditions of adequacy if a confirmation function is to recognize periodic occurrences. Thus, an impasse seems to be reached. In the final sections we consider the beginnings of one possible solution to these difficulties. Our proposal involves treating sets of individuals, rather than individuals themselves, as instances of an hypothesis which predicts a periodicity. On this basis we formulate new conditions of adequacy which are free from the previous difficulties and which will permit a confirmation function that satisfies them to take periodicities into account. (shrink)

Measurement of scientific productivity is difficult. The measures used (impact factor of the journal, citations to the paper being measured) are crude. But these measures are now so universally adopted that they determine most things that matter: tenure or unemployment, a postdoctoral grant or none, success or failure. As a result, scientists have been forced to downgrade their primary aim from making discoveries to publishing as many papers as possible—and trying to work them into high impact factor journals. Consequently, scientific (...) behaviour has become distorted and the utility, quality and objectivity of articles has deteriorated. Changes to the way scientists are assessed are urgently needed, and I suggest some here. (shrink)

This paper examines the points of disagreement between Neo-Darwinian and recent Neo-Aristotelian discussions of the status of purposive language in biology. I discuss recent Neo-Darwinian “evolutionary” treatments and distinguish three ways to deal with the philosophical status of teleological language of purpose: teleological error theory, methodological teleology, and Darwinian teleological realism. I then show how “non-evolutionary” Neo-Aristotelian approaches in the work of Michael Thompson and Philippa Foot differ from these by offering a view of purposiveness grounded in life-cycle patterns, rather (...) than in long-term evolutionary processes or natural selection. Finally, I argue that the crucial difference between Neo-Darwinian and Neo-Aristotelian approaches regards the question of whether or not reproduction deserves the status of an “ultimate” aim of organisms. I offer reasons to reject the concept of an “ultimate” aim in evolutionary biology and to reject the notion that reproduction serves a purpose. I argue that evolutionary biology is not in the position to determine what the “ultimate” explanation of natural purpose is. (shrink)

Aristotle Poetics: Editio Maior of the Greek Text with Historial Introductions and Philological Commentaries. Edited by Leonardo Tarán and Dimitri Gutas. Mnemosyne Supplements, vol. 338. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Pp. xiii + 536. $226, €162.

In this comparative analysis of twelve focus groups conducted in Austria, France, and the Netherlands, we investigate how lay people come to terms with two biomedical technologies. Using the term ‘‘technopolitical culture,’’ we aim to show that the ways in which technosciences are interwoven with a specific society frame how citizens build their individual and collective positions toward them. We investigate how the focus group participants conceptualized organ transplantation and genetic testing, their perceptions of individual agency in relation to the (...) two technologies and to more collective forms of acting and governing, and also their understanding of the two technologies’ relationship to broader societal value systems. Against the background of the sustained political effort to build common European values, we suggest that more fine-grained attention toward the culturally embedded differences in coming to terms with biomedical technologies is needed. (shrink)

Michael Ruse, in Taking Darwin Seriously seeks to establish that taking Darwin seriously requires us to treat morality as subjective and naturalistic. I argue that, if morality is not objective, then we have no good reason for being moral if we can avoid detection and punishment. As a consequence, we will only continue to behave morally as long as we remain ignorant of Ruse''s theory, that is, as long as the cat is not let out of the bag. Ruse offers (...) a number of arguments to show that his theory can overcome such problems. I argue that they all fail. Ruse also argues that he can offer a naturalistic account of ethics which steps around the naturalistic fallacy and avoids the confusion of reasons with causes. His principal argument for this view is an analogy between spiritualism and morality. I argue that this analogy fails. (shrink)

This paper examines how people in West Africa are reacting to the Ebola virus disease, an epidemic presently prevalent in the region. Certain lifestyle changes are suggested. Additionally, the heart of the paper focuses on the request by governments to be allowed access to experimental drugs, such as Zmapp and TKM-Ebola, for their infected populations. The author argues that granting such a request would circumvent research ethics procedures, which could potentially constitute significant risk to users of the drugs. The Pfizer (...) Kano meningitis trial of 1996 is cited as an example to buttress how unapproved drugs could prove fatal. (shrink)

Treating the principle of charity as a non-empirical, foundational principle leads to insoluble problems of justification. I suggest instead treating semantic properties realistically, and semantic terms as theoretical terms. This allows us to apply ordinary scientific reasoning in meta-semantics. In particular, we can appeal to widespread verbal agreement as an empirical phenomenon, and we can make use of probabilistic reasoning as well as appeal to theoretical simplicity for reaching the conclusion that there is a high rate of agreement in belief (...) between speakers who have a high rate of verbal agreement. Although this does not by itself imply that the beliefs agreed upon are generally true, it does imply that any single speaker who is party to such a verbal agreement is justified in taking the other speakers to have mostly true beliefs. She is so justified because of the fact that it is incoherent to take her own beliefs not to be mostly true. Indirectly, this justifies a version of the principle of charity as an empirically correct principle. (shrink)

_The Scope of Morality _ was first published in 1980. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. The scope of morality, Peter A. French contends, is much narrower than many traditional and contemporary works in ethical theory suggest. We trivialize morality if we think it has something to say about everything we do; it touches us all, but not at all times. (...) This essay in philosophical ethics focuses upon the origin, purpose, and function of the various concepts to be found in a more or less mature morality. The author draws a distinction between moral concepts that arise from an individual's wish to live a worthwhile life and those directed towards the development of virtue in the moral community. Moral concepts, in his view, are subjective creations of human beings rather than laws with an objective basis in nature. The ethics of sociobiology, of the lifeboat and spaceship models, and of game theory all come under his critical eye in this useful and progressive work. _The Scope of Morality_, says Hector-Neri Castaneda, "represents a serious effort at discussing the nature of morality, taking into account the most important contributions of recent writers.". (shrink)

A new formalism for predicate logic is introduced, with a non-standard method of binding variables, which allows a compositional formalization of certain anaphoric constructions, including donkey sentences and cross-sentential anaphora. A proof system in natural deduction format is provided, and the formalism is compared with other accounts of this type of anaphora, in particular Dynamic Predicate Logic.

How does a picture teach a viewer to look at it, understand it, and make meaning?. “Cross-mediality and narrative textual form: A semiotic snalysis of the lexical and visual signs and codes of the picture bnook.” Semiotica, 118 : 1–70 and Peter Pericles Trifonas.. “Texts and images.” In International handbook of semiotics, Vols. 1&2, edited by Peter Pericles Trifonas. The Netherlands: Springer. Pp. 1139–1154.) The suggestion for a pictorial grammar has been derived from the fact that pictures have (...) no unique visual metalanguage and therefore require recourse to language as an instrument for pictorial analysis. The lexical-visual relationship in a text is more complex than is suggested in the question. Proponents for the semiotic autonomy of pictures have objected that the commentaries of crossmedial contexts have not asserted the semiotic priority of the lexical over the visual message. ‘Is an autonomous semiotics of visual perception possible, or does the semiotic analysis of pictorial text always require recourse to the model of language?’. (shrink)