This book is a study of the second-edition version of the 'Transcendental Deduction', which is one of the most important and obscure sections of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. By way of a close analysis of the B-Deduction, Adam Dickerson makes the distinctive claim that the Deduction is crucially concerned with the problem of making intelligible the unity possessed by complex representations - a problem that is the representationalist parallel of the semantic problem of the unity of the proposition. (...) Along the way he discusses most of the key themes in Kant's theory of knowledge, including the nature of thought and representation, the notion of objectivity, and the way in which the mind structures our experience of the world. (shrink)

Gathering information from both published and unpublished material and interviews with Gibson's family, colleagues, and friends, Reed (philosophy, Drexel U.) chronicles Gibson's life and intellectual development and his attempts to synthesize several contrasting intellectual traditions into what he ultimately called an "ecological approach" to psychology. Annotation(c) 2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com).

"What does it really mean to "be undocumented," particularly in the contemporary United States? Political philosophers, policymakers and others often define the term "undocumented migrant" legalistically-that is, in terms of lacking legal authorization to live and work in one's current country of residence. Socially Undocumented: Identity and Immigration Justice challenges such a pure "legalistic understanding" by arguing that being undocumented should not always be conceptualized along such lines. To be socially undocumented, it argues, is to possess a real, visible, and (...) embodied social identity that does not always track one's actual legal status in the United States. By integrating a descriptive/phenomenological account of socially undocumented identity with a normative/political account of how the oppression with which it is associated ought to be dealt with as a matter of social justice, this book offers a new vision of immigration ethics. It addresses concrete ethical challenges associated with immigration, such as the question of whether open borders are morally required, the militarization of the Mexico-U.S. border, the perilous journey that many Mexican and Central American migrants undertake to get to the United States, the difficult experiences of many socially undocumented women who cross U.S. borders to seek prenatal care while visibly pregnant, and more"--. (shrink)

Contemporary literary theory takes truth and meaning to be dependent on shared conventions in a community of discourse and views authors’ intentions as irrelevant to interpretation. This view, argues Reed Way Dasenbrock, owes much to Anglo-American analytic philosophy as developed in the 1950s and 1960s by such thinkers as Austin and Kuhn, but it ignores more recent work by philosophers like Davidson and Putnam, who have mounted a counterattack on this earlier conventionalism. This book draws on current analytic philosophy (...) to resuscitate the notion of objective truth and intentionalist models of meaning and interpretation, thereby moving beyond the antifoundationalism of postmodern theory. It addresses the work of Rorty and Fish as representative of literary conventionalism, discusses the futility of Derrida’s anti-intentionalism, and shows how poststructuralist thinkers like Althusser and Foucault have contributed to the "new thematics" of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation that dominates literary theory today. Examining the counter-arguments of conventionalists to have their theory judged by its consequences, Dasenbrock shows how damaging this antiobjectivism and anti-intentionalism have been for literary studies. (shrink)

Kant claims that an intuitive understanding—such as God would possess—could cognize things in themselves. This claim has prompted many interpreters of Kant's theoretical philosophy to propose that things in themselves correspond to how an intuitive understanding would cognize things. In contrast, I argue that Kant's theoretical philosophy does not endorse the common proposal that all things in themselves correspond to how an intuitive understanding would cognize things. Instead, Kant's theoretical philosophy maintains that things in themselves might or might not correspond (...) to how an intuitive understanding would cognize things. I then consider whether Kant's moral philosophy and theory of reflecting judgment might provide alternative grounds for claiming that we should regard things in themselves as corresponding to how an intuitive understanding would cognize things. I argue that Kant's moral philosophy does not provide such grounds, but his theory of reflecting judgment does. Thus, interpretations of Kant's transcendental idealism should attend to the differences between Kant's theoretical philosophy, moral philosophy, and theory of reflecting judgment in assessing the relationship between intuitive understanding and things in themselves. (shrink)

People are unable to report how they decide whether to move backwards or forwards to catch a ball. When asked to imagine how their angle of elevation of gaze would change when they caught a ball, most people are unable to describe what happens although their interception strategy is based on controlling changes in this angle. Just after catching a ball, many people are unable to recognise a description of how their angle of gaze changed during the catch. Some people (...) confidently choose incorrect descriptions that would guarantee failure of interception demonstrating unconscious knowledge co-existing with systematically different conscious beliefs. Where simple solutions to important evolutionary problems exist, unconscious perception needs to be impervious to conscious beliefs. (shrink)

Donald Davidson is probably the most eminent living analytic philosopher, and his writings in philosophy of language and philosophy of action have shaped much of the recent work in both these fields. However, despite the obvious shared concerns of literary theory and these aspects of philosophy, up to this point literary theorists have not paid much attention to Davidson's ideas or have only known about them through the interpretations of other philosophers like Richard Rorty. Literary theorists have seen more relevance (...) to their concerns in Continental philosophy and, among analytic philosophers, in the essentially anti-analytic work of J. L. Austin and Ludwig Wittgenstein than in the harder tradition of analytic philosophy—more concerned with logic and philosophy of science—represented by the work of Donald Davidson. _Literary Theory after Davidson _challenges both views, stressing the variety of ways in which Davidson's thought can contribute to the development of literary theory. Davidson himself has contributed a new essay to the collection that explores the interrelations between his theories of language and literature. (shrink)

ObjectiveThe novel coronavirus is linked to increases in emotional distress and may be particularly problematic for those with pre-existing mental and physical conditions, such as chronic pain and posttraumatic stress disorder. However, little empirical research has been published on resilience factors in these individuals. The present study aims to examine authenticity as a resilience factor among those with chronic pain and/or PTSD.MethodsPrior to the national response to the pandemic, participants were screened for pain-related disability and PTSD symptoms, and on the (...) basis of those responses were categorized into one of four groups: healthy, chronic pain only, PTSD only, or comorbid chronic pain and PTSD. During the CV-19 pandemic, participants responded again to the ODI and PCL-5, in addition to the Wood Authenticity Scale, Brief Pain Inventory, and items related to the CV-19 pandemic.ResultsA total of 110 participants, aged 42.19, completed the survey during the pandemic. The comorbid group endorsed higher levels of CV-19 Threat and Impact compared to all other groups. Authenticity moderated this relationship relevant to CV-19 Threat among those in the chronic pain only group, and not in any other group.ConclusionThe comorbid group endorsed higher levels of CV-19 Threat and Impact compared to all other groups. Importantly, greater authenticity was associated with less CV-19 Threat in the chronic pain only group, and not in any other group. The present study also highlights the importance of engaging authentically for those with chronic pain during the pandemic. (shrink)

This article examines the role of emotions during insurgent conditions by focusing on the Nicaraguan revolution, in particular the two-year period (1977–1979) leading to the overthrow of the Somoza regime. Based on an analysis of testimonial accounts from an oral history volume, ¡Y Se Armó La Runga!, and a NVivo-10 content analysis of testimonies therein, it sets out to make a case for the significance of hope as a dominant emotion during guerrilla offensives. The manuscript answers the following questions: 1) (...) What is the role of hope during guerrilla offensives?; 2) what other emotions are in play during these events?; and 3) in what ways does hope combine with other emotions to maintain insurgent activism? In addition to defining and coding eleven negative and positive emotions (analyzed as secondary emotions), it evaluates the varied relationships these have to hope. To accomplish the latter varied emotion chains are identified for each respective secondary emotion. (shrink)

This paper presents the results of a national study of the beliefs and perceptions of small business professionals concerning ethics within their company and business in general. The study examined their views on the relationship between success and ethical conduct as well as the extent and nature of ethical conflicts experienced by the respondents. Some comparisons are made with similar studies that have been conducted in the past. Respondents have the most ethical conflicts with customers and employees, and with regard (...) to honesty in contracts/agreements. Most also believe that ethical standards are lower than they were 10 and 20 years ago, primarily because society's moral standards are lower. Additionally, they believe that the behavior of top management has the most influence on decisions in ethical situations. Finally, consistent with prior studies, they believe that they have the most responsibility to customers, ahead of employees and stockholders. (shrink)

Plato seems to have been pessimistic about how most people stand with regard to virtue. However, unlike the Stoics, he did not conclude that most people are vicious. Rather, as we know from discussions across several dialogues, he countenanced decent ethical conditions that fall short of genuine virtue, which he limited to the philosopher. Despite Plato's obvious interest in this issue, commentators rarely follow his lead by investigating in detail such conditions in the dialogues. When scholars do investigate what kind (...) of virtue, if any, Plato thinks is open to non-philosophers, they typically look to the Republic. But in the Republic Plato sets out an ideal city; therefore, the virtue available to non-philosophers there is likely different from what he thinks is available to them in the real world. If we want to determine Plato's thoughts about the virtue of actual non-philosophers, we must look elsewhere. In this paper, I set my sights on the Phaedo. (shrink)

Some disability rights advocates criticise prenatal testing and selective abortion on the grounds that these practices express negative attitudes towards existing persons with disabilities. Disability rights advocates also commonly criticise and oppose physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and euthanasia on the same grounds. Despite the structural and motivational similarity of these two kinds of arguments, there is no literature comparing and contrasting their relative merits and the merits of responses to them with respect to each of these specific medical practices. This paper (...) undertakes such a comparison. My thesis is that a number of potentially significant weaknesses of the expressivist argument against reproductive technologies are avoided when the argument is used against PAS. In particular, I try to show that three common criticisms of the expressivist argument applied to reproductive technologies, whatever merit they have, have even less merit when they are used to reply to the expressivist argument applied to PAS. This is important because the expressivist argument applied to the end of life scenario does not get as much attention as the argument applied to the beginning of life scenario, and yet it has a relatively stronger position. (shrink)

I argue that Aristotle believes that virtue comes in degrees. After dispatching with initial concerns for the view, I argue that we should accept it because Aristotle conceives of heroic virtue as the highest degree of virtue. I support this interpretation of heroic virtue by considering and rejecting alternative readings, then showing that heroic virtue characterized as the highest degree of virtue is consistent with the doctrine of the mean.

It is known that the spaces of orders on orderable computable fields can represent all Π10 classes up to Turing degree. We show that the spaces of orders on orderable computable abelian and nilpotent groups cannot represent Π10 classes in even a weak manner. Next, we consider presentations of ordered abelian groups, and we show that there is a computable ordered abelian group for which no computable presentation admits a computable set of representatives for its Archimedean classes.

There is a growing trend among some physicians, psychiatrists, bioethicists, and other mental health professionals not to treat physician-assisted suicide (PAS) as suicide. The grounds for doing so are that PAS fundamentally differs from other suicides. Perhaps most notably, in 2017 the American Association of Suicidology argued that PAS is distinct from the behavior that their organization seeks to prevent. This paper compares and contrasts suicide and PAS in order to see how much overlap there is. Contrary to the emerging (...) view that emphasizes their differences, I argue that there is significant overlap such that we ought not to separate PAS into its own category, making it diverge from how we think about and address suicide more generally. I start by examining several prominent theories of suicide and argue that PAS fits squarely within them. I then examine several apparent differences between PAS and other kinds of suicide and argue that these differences are merely apparent or they do not justify treating PAS as a fundamentally different kind of thing from suicide. (shrink)

Einstein insisted that the only acceptable interpretation of the quantum theory was an ensemble interpretation, that this way of understanding the quantum formalism eliminated all the problems associated with interpreting the theory as a complete description of individual systems. But he never developed his ensemble interpretation in any detail or explained how it was supposed to resolve the difficulties with the individual interpretation. We offer a reconstruction of Einstein's position that is consonant with his other beliefs and examine the “prism” (...) reconstruction recently proposed by Arthur Fine. We show the plausibility of our reading, as an interpretation of Einstein, and criticize Fine's proposal, as an alternative interpretation and as an attempt to understand quantum theory. As we reconstruct it, Einstein's position is, nevertheless, problematic. We therefore conclude with a plausible, if unoriginal, suggestion as to the reason he failed to develop his remarks on ensembles more fully. (shrink)

Interactive robots are used increasingly not only in entertainment and service robotics, but also in rehabilitation, therapy and education. The work presented in this paper is part of the Aurora project, rooted in assistive technology and robot-human interaction research. Our primary aim is to study if robots can potentially be used as therapeutically or educationally useful ‘toys’. In this paper we outline the aims of the project that this study belongs to, as well as the specific qualitative contextual perspective that (...) is being used. We then provide an in-depth evaluation, in part using Conversation Analysis, of segments of trials where three children with autism interacted with a robot as well as an adult. We focus our analysis primarily on joint attention which plays a fundamental role in human development and social understanding. Joint attention skills of children with autism have been studied extensively in autism research and therefore this behaviour provides a relevant focus for our study. In the setting used, joint attention emerges from natural and spontaneous interactions between a child and an adult. We present the data in the form of transcripts and photo stills. The examples were selected from extensive video footage for illustrative purposes, i.e. demonstrating how children with autism can respond to the changing behaviour of their co-participant, i.e. the experimenter. Furthermore, our data shows that the robot provides a salient object, or mediator for joint attention. The paper concludes with a discussion of implications of this work in the context of further studies with robots and children with autism within the Aurora project, as well as the potential contribution of robots to research into the nature of autism. (shrink)

The practice whereby terminally ill patients choose to end their own lives painlessly by ingesting a drug prescribed by a physician has commonly been referred to as physician-assisted suicide. There is, however, a strong trend forming that seeks to deny that this act should properly be termed suicide. The purpose of this paper is to examine and reject the view that the term suicide should be abandoned in reference to what has been called physician-assisted suicide. I argue that there are (...) no good conceptual or philosophical reasons to avoid the suicide label. I contend that intending one’s death is essential to the nature of suicide, and this intention is normally required on the part of the terminally ill patient when she knowingly takes a life-ending drug. Additionally, the analysis shows that any plausible strategy that avoids the term suicide is counteracted by the way in which advocates of the practice want to make it legal. (shrink)

How the romantic displaced the rational in French thought.

This article examines the relationship between aesthetics and teleology in Kant and Hutcheson.

Epistemic circularity occurs when a subject forms the belief that a faculty F is reliable through the use of F. Although this is often thought to be vicious, externalist theories generally don't rule it out. For some philosophers, this is a reason to reject externalism. However, Michael Bergmann defends externalism by drawing on the tradition of common sense in two ways. First, he concedes that epistemically circular beliefs cannot answer a subject's doubts about her cognitive faculties. But, he argues, subjects (...) don't have such doubts, so epistemically circular beliefs are rarely called upon to play this role. Second, following Thomas Reid, Bergmann argues that we have noninferential, though epistemically circular, knowledge that our faculties are reliable. I argue, however, that Bergmann's view is undermined by doubts a subject should have and that there is no plausible explanation for how we can have noninferential knowledge that our faculties are reliable. (shrink)

This article asks how military ethics should respond to adversaries deliberately conducting hostilities below the threshold of war. Three options are considered: a novel, limited force paradigm; an expanded hostilities paradigm, i.e., within the law of armed conflict; and an international law enforcement paradigm derived primarily from human rights law. None is problem-free. Mindful of under-deployed classic just war reasoning arguments for discrimination between vices opposed to peace, this article argues against an expanded hostilities paradigm and shows that the retributive, (...) ‘equilibrium of justice’ test used sometimes to support such an expansion is necessary but not sufficient. It explains the need for further examination of whether/how Aquinas and his interpreters can/should conceive of actions under the paradigm of war occurring against non-state actors. (shrink)

A familiar post-Kantian criticism contends that Kant enslaves sensibility under the yoke of practical reason. Friedrich Schiller advanced a version of this criticism to which Kant publicly responded. Recent commentators have emphasized the role that Kant’s reply assigns to the pleasure that accompanies successful moral action. In contrast, I argue that Kant’s reply relies primarily on the sublime feeling that arises when we merely contemplate the moral law. In fact, the pleasures emphasized by other recent commentators depend on this sublime (...) feeling. These facts illuminate Kant’s views regarding the relationship between morality, freedom, and the development of moral feelings. (shrink)

The traditional argument for skepticism relies on a comparison between a normal subject and a subject in a skeptical scenario: because there is no relevant difference between them, neither has knowledge. Externalists respond by arguing that there is in fact a relevant difference—the normal subject is properly situated in her environment. I argue, however, that there is another sort of comparison available—one between a normal subject and a subject with a belief that is accidentally true—that makes possible a new argument (...) for skepticism. Unlike the traditional form of skeptical argument, this new argument applies equally well to both internalist and externalist theories of knowledge. (shrink)

Hintikka has criticized psychologists for "hasty epistemologizing," which he takes to be an unwarranted transfer of ideas from psychology (a discipline dealing with questions of fact) into epistemology (a discipline dealing with questions of method and theory). Hamlyn argues, following Hintikka, that Gibson's theory of perception is an example of such an inappropriate transfer, especially insofar as Hamlyn feels Gibson does not answer several important questions. However, Gibson's theory does answer the relevant questions, albeit in a new and radical way, (...) which suggests that the alleged distinction between psychology and epistemology is suspect. In fact, contrary to Hintikka and Hamlyn's claims, Gibson's theory of perception appears to be a valuable source of epistemological as well as psychological ideas. (shrink)

This paper looks at a dispute decision theory about how best to characterize expected utility maximization and express the logic of rational choice. Where A1, … , An are actions open to some particular agent, and S1, … , Sn are mutually exclusive states of the world such that the agent knows at least one of which obtains, does the logic of rational choice require an agent to consider the conditional probability of choice Ai given that some state Si obtains, (...) Prob(Ai/Si). Or, is the logic of choice better represented by considering the probability of the counterfactual if Ai then Si, Prob(Ai ⟥-> Si). Causal decision theory, developed by Allan Gibbard, William Harper, and David Lewis defend the counterfactual analysis; whereas, Richard Jeffrey and others defend the conditional probability analysis, evidential decision theory. I argue that the problems posed by cases of decision instability favor evidential decision theory. (shrink)

Knowledge is standardly taken to be belief that is both true and justified (and perhaps meets other conditions as well). Timothy Williamson rejects the standard epistemology for its inability to solve the Gettier problem. The moral of this failure, he argues, is that knowledge does not factor into a combination that includes a mental state (belief) and an external condition (truth), but is itself a type of mental state. Knowledge is, according to his preferred account, the most general factive mental (...) state. I argue, however, that Gettier cases pose a serious problem for Williamson’s epistemology: in these cases, thesubject may have a factive mental state that fails to be cognitive. Hence, knowledge cannot be the most general factive mental state. (shrink)

Almost every contemporary theory of knowledge is a version of fallibilism, yet an adequate statement of fallibilism has not yet been provided. Standard definitions cannot account for fallibilistic knowledge of necessary truths. I consider and reject several attempts to resolve this difficulty before arguing that a belief is an instance of fallibilistic knowledge when it could have failed to be knowledge. This is a fully general account of fallibilism that applies to knowledge of necessary truths. Moreover, it reveals, not only (...) the connection between fallibility and error, but the connection between fallibility and accidental truth as well. (shrink)