This complete life story of David Hume, one of Scotland’s greatest thinkers, follows the Enlightenment from its early roots to its full blossoming in 18th-century Edinburgh. Using original sources, many for the first time, this biography details every aspect of the philosopher’s life—from the lukewarm reception of his now pivotal work, Treatise of Human Nature, to the fame and near excommunication brought about by his famous Essays and History. Also detailed are the stories behind his nickname, “The Great Infidel,” the (...) numerous guests seeking an invitation to dine at his table, and his lengthy intellectual involvement with a married aristocrat. This work is a well-rounded picture of the man, the century in which he lived, his famous ideas, and above all, his humanity. (shrink)

This essay calls for an independent theory of features in object-oriented philosophy. Theories of features are in general motivated by at least two interconnected demands: 1) to explain why objects have the characteristics they have, 2) to explain how regular divisions in those characteristics can be intuited. While a theory of universal properties may be the most internally consistent means of addressing these demands, an object-oriented metaphysics needs to address them without a concept of shared features. This means that regular (...) divisions of invariant features and our intuitions of them cannot be explained by the repetition of self-same characteristics or natural laws. They can instead be explained by the immanent repetition of similar features. However, this requires a new, radically aesthetic understanding of what it means to be similar in the first place, one in which similarity is an emergent process rather than a state of affairs existing between resembling particulars. (shrink)

The classical ethical questions of whether and to what extent moral criticism is a sort of rational criticism have received renewed interest in recent years. According to the approach that I refer to as rationalist, accounts of moral responsibility are grounded by explanations of the conditions under which an agent is rationally answerable for her actions and attitudes. In the sense that is relevant here, to answer for an attitude or action is to give reasons that at least purport to (...) justify it. To hold someone answerable for an attitude or action is thus to hold her rationally liable for it. T. M. Scanlon’s view is perhaps the most well-known example of this approach. The rationalist approach has recently been attacked by David Shoemaker for being too narrow: the charge is that attitudes exist for which an agent is responsible even though she cannot, in the relevant sense, answer for them. If there are morally significant attitudes that are attributable to an agent even though she cannot answer for them, then it would seem incomplete, misguided, or worse to treat morality as fundamentally a matter of demanding and giving reasons. By developing some remarks based on G. E. M. Anscombe’s _Intention_, I defend the rationalist approach against this critique. I show how an agent may be answerable for an attitude even though she cannot answer for it. The objective of this paper is thus twofold: to contribute to the discussion of the connection between rational liability and ethical responsibility, and to provide an example of the broad relevance of Anscombe’s thought to contemporary practical philosophy. (shrink)

The potential harms associated with global climate change demand an urgent response. But at the same time, the nature and extent of both the problem and our proper response to it are continually contested, within the academic community and wider society. What should be the ethical import of this disagreement? In this paper I set out John Rawls' theory of reasonable disagreement as a way of analysing such contestation. On Rawls' account, reasonable disagreement is founded in diversity rather than straightforward (...) error. I argue that many aspects of the scientific and ethical debate on climate change can be usefully viewed from within such a perspective. This raises, I suggest, serious problems for deciding what the human response to global warming must be. Lastly, I survey two responses which might be thought to cope with such pervasive disagreement. Neither, however, is clearly effective. In my conclusion I suggest that reasonable disagreement might be tackled best in a model of deliberative democracy. Such a model, however, does not generate easy answers to the problems of climate change. (shrink)

Prometheanism -- Brassier at Goldsmiths -- Brassier's nihilism -- The path ahead -- Vitalist idealism -- Grant at Goldsmiths -- Philosophies of nature after Schelling -- A new sense of idealism -- Object-oriented ontology (OOO) -- OOO at Goldsmiths -- The withdrawn -- Objects and their qualities -- Vicarious causation -- The crucial place of aesthetics -- Speculative materialism -- Meillassoux at Goldsmiths -- After finitude -- Glimpses of the divine inexistence -- The two axes of speculative realism.

Abstract:Niki Young speaks with Graham Harman about his Object-Oriented Philosophy in relation to his understanding of Heidegger's tool-analysis, and more.

The Prince and the Wolf contains the transcript of a debate which took place on February 5, 2008 at the London School of Economics (LSE) between the prominent French sociologist, anthropologist, and philosopher Bruno Latour and the Cairo-based American philosopher Graham Harman.

_The Social Thought of Ortega y Gasset_ is the third and final volume of John T. Graham's massive investigation of the thought of Ortega, the renowned twentieth-century Spanish essayist and philosopher. This volume concludes the synthetic trilogy on Ortega's thought as a whole, after previous studies of his philosophy of life and his theory of history. As the last thing on which he labored, Ortega's social theory completed what he called a "system of life" in three dimensions—a unity in (...) the plurality of philosophy, history, and sociology as three fundamental disciplines that enter into and overlap each other and other humanities. In this volume, Graham investigates Ortega's social thought as expressed in his central work, _Man and People,_ and in several pragmatic fields, interpreting it all in terms of comprehensive categories of postmodernism and interdisciplinarity. While others have studied Ortega's social thought and recently his postmodernity, no one has done so in the context of his thought as a whole or by such a variety of methods. The "unity in plurality" of Ortega's system is evident in the broad and varied structure of his sociology, which he intended to serve for postmodern times. His own postmodernism was rooted in Nietzsche but also in the pragmatism—from James, Peirce, and Dewey—that informs all parts of this trilogy. Ortega was the first educator with an interdisciplinary theory and practice—another aspect of the "unity in plurality" of his system. He found inspiration in both ancient and modern precedents for what he saw as a postmodern method of investigating themes and problems that are common to all the human sciences. Innovations at his Institute of Humanities were early postmodern precedents for a new interdisciplinary social method for use by specialists in a variety of fields. All of those interested in Ortega can utilize such methods to elucidate his thought as a whole as well as to pursue their own collaborative work. Home Complete Catalog Order Information Search. (shrink)

Common Good, Uncommon Questions explores a variety of moral issues.

Selon les auteurs le nouveau "College" d'enseignement supérieur devra être petit démocratique, auto-administré et résidentiel ; son but sera de créer une authentique communauté de culture, de connaissances académique et d'économie. Les collèges Ruskin, Bauhaus et Black Mountain sont décrits comme précurseurs.

In the context of multidimensional measures of well-being, a key question for policy is whether particular groups have differing priorities and are therefore likely to react differently to given economic or social shocks. We explore this issue by presenting the results of two related analyses that suggest positive answers on both counts. First, we apply reference class weights to unique data on adult capabilities in the UK and show that relative weights vary across some groupings. Furthermore, in some cases, deprivation (...) rankings of groups vary depending on which weights are used. Second, we explore possible behavioural consequences of different weights by examining the extent to which groups respond differently to three economic and social shocks (unemployment, widowhood and ill health). In this case, we find that weights and responses vary noticeably with age and region and sometimes with gender. We conclude that whilst equal weighting may be practically unavoidable when constructing indices of welfare in the absence of information on weights, their estimation from survey or experimental data is likely to be justified and may change views about policy needs or efficacy. (shrink)

Committee: Fred Dretske (Advisor), Michael Bratman, Debra Satz, Ken Taylor. My thesis is that testimonial knowledge of particular matters of fact is a species of perceptual (non-inferential) knowledge. There are two rival views. The first holds that testimonial knowledge is a species of inductive knowledge. According to inductivism, we learn from others because we have inductively established that testimony is a reliable source. I argue that this view is too demanding. The second holds that testimonial knowledge is, like memory, preservative. (...) According to preservativism, a hearer learns from a speaker because the speaker's knowledge is transferred to the hearer. Testimony preserves knowledge across subjects at a time as memory preserves knowledge within a subject over time. This view is subject to counter-example. What matters to whether the hearer teams is not whether the speaker knows, but whether the hearer's cognitive state of taking the speaker to state that P adequately grounds the belief that P. One way to account for "adequate grounds" is in terms of Information-carrying I argue that knowledge is not preserved or transferred through testimony, rather Information is conveyed. This shows that testimonial knowledge is perceptual knowledge, for perceptual knowledge depends on adequate grounds and not prior knowledge. Testimonial knowledge, like standard cases of perceptual knowledge, is original. Call my position originalism. ;There are three main sources of opposition. First, linguistic acceptance is inferential in a way that perceptual belief is not. Second, acceptance, if reliable, is reliable in a way that perceptual belief is not. Third, testimony involves agency, free will, and the following of norms and perceptual belief does not. In reply I argue that linguistic acceptance that the world is a certain way does not depend on believing that the speaker stated that it is that way, that even if there are differences between the way in which testimony is reliable and the way standard cases of perception are reliable, those differences are only contingent or epistemologically irrelevant, and that even though testimony does involve agency and norms in a way that vision, taste, and so on do not, that fact does not matter to whether testimonial knowledge is a species of perceptual (non-inferential) knowledge. (shrink)

The pervasiveness of lying -- Why the lie? The reasons and justifications for lying -- How and why different types of people lie -- Taking the Lie-Q test : learning where you fit -- Everyday social lies -- Lying in public -- Lying at work -- Lying in business -- Lying to friends & relatives -- When men & women lie-the dating game -- Lies with husbands, wives, & intimate others -- The lies of parents & children -- Lying to (...) oneself -- The strategy of deceiving and perceiving (or how to detect when someone is lying) -- Conclusion (or how to deal with different kinds of lies and liars). (shrink)

A meteor that fell in northern Greece in 467 BC was said to have been predicted by Anaxagoras. It seems rather that his theory entailed (“predicted”) the possibility of such bodies. The meteor provided a rare case of an observation confirming a theory. The subsequent recognition of the meteor shows that early philosophical theories could have testable consequences and that empirical evidence was being sought to evaluate theories at this early time.

A new culture of care -- Maximising capacity -- Assessing capacity -- Advocacy and empowerment -- Advance care planning -- Best interests -- Liberty and choice.

Sustainable Learning: Inclusive Practices for 21st Century Classrooms provides readers with the knowledge and skills to be confident and effective inclusive teachers. The authors show that these skills are essential to quality teaching – teaching that is evidence-based, purposeful, relevant and responsive to students' needs. The book employs three overarching frameworks to examine inclusive practices in education: equity, values and sustainability. Chapter features include: • 'Think and do' exercises • Examples, case studies and vignettes • Tables, figures and diagrams to (...) help readers visualise core ideas, theories and themes. It encourages teachers to see all students as developing learners and to consider the complexities and diversity of learning in the 21st century. In doing so, it canvasses topics such as a sustainable approach to inclusion, learning processes, teaching processes, differentiation, assessment to support teaching and learning, and life-long learning. (shrink)