Unter Berücksichtigung von Ishiguros Gegenargumenten untersucht dieser Aufsatz erneut die traditionelle Interpretation von Leibniz' These, daß es keine kausale Wechselwirkung zwischen den Substanzen gebe und daß die kausalen Erklärungen für die Eigenschaften einer Substanz völlig in ihrer Natur lägen. Ishiguros Argumente benutzen die Unterscheidung zwischen dem Begriff einer Substanz und ihrer Natur, und in der Tat kann die Philosophie von Leibniz ohne diese Unterscheidung nicht voll gewürdigt werden. Aber sie lassen nicht erkennen, daß für Leibniz keine eindeutige Entsprechung zwischen ihnen (...) besteht. Sie lassen nicht erkennen, daß die kausale Erklärung für die Eigenschaften einer Substanz nicht völlig in ihrer eigenen Natur liegt. Die traditionelle Interpretation der prästabilierten Harmonie wird von allem, was Leibniz sagt, unterstützt und sollte wieder zur Geltung kommen. (shrink)

Wittgenstein's contribution to musical aesthetics is not often discussed, which is surprising, given his rare musicality and musical connections. His distinctive achievement is to have focused on the question of musical understanding, and to have connected this with two other philosophical problems: the nature of the first-person case, and the understanding of facial expressions. Wittgenstein's third-person approach to philosophical psychology leads him to emphasize the role of performance in the understanding of music, and also to introduce an ‘intransitive’ concept of (...) expression. At times Wittgenstein seems to be arguing for an entirely non-relational account of musical meaning; however, a proper analysis of the first-person case shows that his theory of musical understanding might allow that, at some level, you understand a piece of music only if you imaginatively grasp the state of mind expressed by it. (shrink)

The Philosophical Society of Edinburgh which had flourished for a few years after 1738 was as good as dead in 1748. Lord Morton, its President, now lived most of the time in London whence he wrote to Sir John Clerk in 1747 that he regarded the Society as ‘annihilated’, apparently thinking that the death of Colin MacLaurin in 1746 and the temporary retirement to the countryside of its other Secretary, Andrew Plummer, had put an end to it. Sir John had (...) hoped to revive it through association with the Royal Society of London, but Morton did not encourage him in this scheme, about which he had ‘great doubts’. The Society needed a mathematician and an experimenter who could carry on the consulting work which MacLaurin had done, but Morton glumly wondered if ‘the new professor of Mathematics [Matthew Stewart] will be as zealous as MacLaurin had been.’ The Society's other officers, Dr John Clerk and Alexander Lind, are not known to have tried to revive the Society. Perhaps they were discouraged by the fact that ten of the members of the Society were dead, and that six more had left the kingdom. At least three others were likely to have been habitually absent from meetings because they lived some distance from Edinburgh. Of the remaining forty-five known members in 1748, nine were over sixty-one years of age with four being between seventy-one and seventy-six. In 1737 the average age of thirty-eight of the founders had been 46.0, but by 1748 it had risen to 53.9 for the thirty-three men for whom it can be calculated. Disruption, death, and age had diminished enthusiasm for the Society and jeopardized its survival. Only two meetings are known to have been held in 1746. Sir John's letter to Morton about affiliation with the Royal Society is the only clear sign of life in 1747. We may well ask why this floundering body survived, to whom and to what it owed its revival? The answers to these questions tell us something about the intellectual needs and interests of the Edinburgh intelligentsia of the mid-eighteenth century. (shrink)

W. V. Quine was quite simply the most distinguished analytic philosopher of the later half of the twentieth century. His celebrated attack on the analytic/synthetic tradition heralded a major shift away from the views of language descended from logical positivism. His most important book, Word and Object, introduced the concept of indeterminacy of radical translation, a bleak view of the nature of the language with which we ascribe thoughts and beliefs to ourselves and others. Quine is also famous for the (...) view that epistemology should be naturalized, that is conducted in a scientific spirit with the object of investigating the relationship between the inputs of experience and the outputs of belief. The eleven essays in this volume cover all the central topics of Quine's philosophy: the underdetermination of physical theory, analycity, naturalism, propositional attitudes, behaviorism, reference and ontology, positivism, holism and logic. (shrink)

The use of composite outcomes is becoming widespread in clinical trials. By combining individual outcome measures into a composite, researchers claim a composite can increase statistical precision and trial efficiency, expediting the trial by reducing sample size and cost, and consequently enabling researchers to answer questions that could not otherwise be answered. Another rationale given for using a composite is that it provides a measure of the net effect of the intervention that is more patient-relevant than any single outcome measure. (...) Critics, on the other hand, argue that the use of composites threatens the scientific objectivity of the trial by introducing new risks, and that in practice components are inconsistently defined, unreasonably combined, and inadequately reported. Philosophical scrutiny can help shed light in these disagreements and disentangle ethical and epistemological issues of composites in clinical trials. I examine common use of composites in cardiovascular trials, and show how composite results can be problematic, even misleading, if the proper range of scientific decisions and their consequences are ignored when judging the composite. Philosophies of science that are principled on normative versions of the argument from inductive risk can help explicate issues with composites. I conclude by suggesting ways of remedying composite issues in clinical trials. (shrink)

This book is intended as an equivalent to or substitute for that "more reflective reading" which Rousseau considered essential to an understanding of his ideas. It is designed to complement perusal of the texts themselves, and the arrangement is such that chapters on each of Rousseau's major writings can be consulted separately or the commentary may be read through in sequence. The author's purpose is not to present a "key" to Rousseau's political philosophy, but rather to explore the works themselves (...) in an effort to reveal Rousseau's "system," from which the reader may then draw his own conclusions. Originally published in 1976. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

This paper offers a general approach to ethics before considering its implications for the question of how to respond to religious preferences in healthcare, especially those of patients and healthcare workers. The first section outlines the two main components of the approach: (1) demoralizing, that is, seeking to avoid moral terminology in the discussion of reasons for action; (2) welfarism, the view that our ultimate reasons are grounded solely in the well-being of individuals. Section 2 elucidates the notion of religious (...) preferences and describes the history and importance of their protection by human rights legislation. The following section defends the ‘Preference Principle’, according to which there is a reason to satisfy any preference (in so far as that satisfaction advances well-being). Section 4 discusses the implications of this principle for religious preferences in healthcare, again seeking to bring out the special social and political importance of respect, and respect for such preferences in particular. The paper ends with a brief description of how to approach such problems from the perspective of a demoralized welfarism. (shrink)

Art v. aestheticism : the case of Walter Pater -- The importance of T.E. Hulme -- A craving for reality : T.S. Eliot today -- Wallace Stevens : metaphysical claims adjuster -- The permanent Auden -- The first half of Muriel Spark -- The qualities of Robert Musil -- James Fitzjames Stephen v. John Stuart Mill -- The legacy of Friedrich Nietzsche -- The world according to Satre -- The perversions of Michel Foucault -- The anguishes of E.M. Cioran -- (...) The trivialization of outrage -- "The two cultures" today -- Frances Fukuyama and the end of hisory -- Josef Pieper : leisure and its discontents. (shrink)

Philosophical and empirical work on the nature of the emotions is extensive, and there are many theories of emotions. However, all agree that emotions are not knee jerk reactions to stimuli and are open to rational assessment or warrant. This paper's focus is on the condition or conditions for compassion as an emotion and the likelihood that it or they can be met in nursing practice. Thus, it is attempting to keep, as far as possible, compassion as an emotion separate (...) from both moral norms and professional norms. This is because empirical or causal conditions that can make experiencing and acting out of compassion difficult seem especially relevant in nursing practice. I consider how theories of emotion in general and of compassion in particular are somewhat contested, but all recent accounts agree that emotions are not totally immune to reason. Then, using accounts of constitutive conditions of the emotion of compassion, I will show how they are often likely to be quite fragile or unstable in practice and particularly so within much nursing practice. In addition, some of the conditions for compassion will be shown to be problematic for nursing practice. It is difficult to keep ideas of compassion separate from morality, and this connection is noticeable in the claims made of compassion for nursing and so I will briefly highlight one such connection that of the need for normative theory to give an account of the value that emotions such as compassion presume and that compassionate motivation is separate from moral motivation and may conflict with it. The fragility or instability of the emotion of compassion in practice has implications for both what can be expected and what should be expected of compassion; at least if what is wanted is a realist rather than idealist account of “should.”. (shrink)

It has been claimed that there are certain acts that nurses as people practising nursing must never do because they are nurses and this is regardless of what the same agent should do; that certain actions are not part of proper nursing practice. The concept of an internal morality has been discussed in relation to medicine and has been used to ground the actions proper to medicine in a realist tradition. Although the concept of an internal morality of nursing is (...) not explicitly mentioned in the literature the underpinning ideas about the proper practice of nursing based on philosophical realism I argue equate with it and a discussion of the method of an internal morality can help to understand how arguments against euthanasia related to the profession of nursing are far from clear. Ultimately, although the idea of particular acts proper to nurses qua nurses is not clear, the concept of an internal morality can help to get practitioners to see how the profession is tightly linked to moral actions, even so the hard problems in bioethics such as the morality of euthanasia remain hard for all and the easy ones easy for all. (shrink)

The author endeavors to show how dialectical methods can reveal and clarify Ayn Rand’s philosophy from the two vital perspectives of the lives of individual human beings in relation to the world and in relation to other people and the social institutions under which they live. In so doing, he applies Chris Matthew Sciabarra’s Tri-Level Analysis model of social relations (derived from Rand’s social commentaries) and relates Rand’s metaphysical value-judgments to the cardinal values and virtues of her ethics.