Political realism criticises the putative abstraction, foundationalism and neglect of the agonistic dimension of political practice in the work of John Rawls. This paper argues that had Rawls not fully specified the implementation of his theory of justice in one particular form of political economy then he would be vulnerable to a realist critique. But he did present such an implementation: a property-owning democracy. An appreciation of Rawls s specificationist method undercuts the realist critique of his conception of justice as (...) fairness. (shrink)

This monograph investigates the development of hydrostatics as a science. In the process, it sheds new light on the nature of science and its origins in the Scientific Revolution. Readers will come to see that the history of hydrostatics reveals subtle ways in which the science of the seventeenth century differed from previous periods. The key, the author argues, is the new insights into the concept of pressure that emerged during the Scientific Revolution. This came about due to contributions from (...) such figures as Simon Stevin, Pascal, Boyle and Newton. The author compares their work with Galileo and Descartes, neither of whom grasped the need for a new conception of pressure. As a result, their contributions to hydrostatics were unproductive. The story ends with Newton insofar as his version of hydrostatics set the subject on its modern course. He articulated a technical notion of pressure that was up to the task. Newton compared the mathematical way in hydrostatics and the experimental way, and sided with the former. The subtleties that lie behind Newton's position throws light on the way in which developments in seventeenth-century science simultaneously involved mathematization and experimentation. This book serves as an example of the degree of conceptual change that new sciences often require. It will be of interest to those involved in the study of history and philosophy of science. It will also appeal to physicists as well as interested general readers. (shrink)

In this discussion note, I examine scattered comments about evil from John Dewey’s works. After a brief consideration of what critics like Reinhold Niebuhr have said about the weaknesses of Dewey’s theodicy, I will offer my own critique. In short, I argue that Dewey subverts his own theory of inquiry when he comes to the problem of the origin and genesis of evil.

As a preliminary to the justification of equal opportunity, we require a few words on the concept. An opportunity is a chance to attain some goal or obtain some benefit. More precisely, it is the lack of some obstacle or obstacles to the attainment of some goal(s) or benefit(s). Opportunities are equal in some specified or understood sense when persons face roughly the same obstacles or obstacles of roughly the same difficulty of some specified or understood sort. In different contexts (...) we might have different sorts of benefits or obstacles in mind. But in the current social context, and in the context of this discussion, we refer to educational and occupational opportunities, chances to attain the benefits of higher education and of socially and economically desirable positions, benefits assumed to be desired by many or most individuals, other things being equal. And we generally divide obstacles into two broad classes: those imposed by the social system or by other persons in the society, for example, the hardships of life in the lower economic classes or barriers from prejudices based on race, sex, or ethnic background; and those imposed by natural disabilities, for example, low intelligence or lack of talents.The initial question is whether a moral society is obligated to create equality in opportunities in the senses just defined. I shall assume here initially that there is some such obligation on the part of society or the state, although I shall specify its nature and limits more precisely below. With the exception of certain libertarians, almost everyone, liberal and conservative alike, agrees in this assumption. (shrink)

... THIRD WORLD EPISTEMOLOGY L. Jonathan Cohen . Sir Karl Popper's striking hypothesis about a third world of objective knowledge deserves careful scrutiny ...

It has been argued that there is an irreconcilable difference between those advocating animal liberation or animal rights, on the one hand, and those preferring a wider environmental ethic, which includes concern for non-sentient life-forms and species preservation, on the other. In contrast, I argue that it is possible to provide foundations for both seemingly environmentalist positions by exploring some of the potential of a 'collective-projectivist' reading of Hume – one that seems more consistent with Hume's texts than other readings. (...) In short, this article seeks to advance our understanding of some of the possibilities within Humean moral theory, while simultaneously providing new foundations for both animal welfare and a wider environmental ethic. (shrink)

Hegel and the Spirit explores the meaning of Hegel's grand philosophical category, the category of Geist, by way of what Alan Olson terms a pneumatological thesis. Hegel's philosophy of spirit, according to Olson, is a speculative pneumatology that completes what Adolf von Harnack once called the "orphan doctrine" in Christian theology--the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Olson argues that Hegel's development of philosophy as pneumatology originates out of a deep appreciation of Luther's dialectical understanding of Spirit and that Hegel's (...) doctrine of Spirit is thus deeply interfused with the values of Würtemberg Pietism. Olson further maintains that Hegel's Enzyklopdie is the post-Enlightenment philosophical equivalent of a Trinitätslehre and that his Rechtsphilosophie is an ecclesiology. Thus Hegel and the Spirit demonstrates the truth of Karl Barth's observation that Hegel is the potential Aquinas of Protestantism. Exploring Hegel's philosophy of spirit in historical, cultural, and personal religious context, the book identifies Hegel's relationship with Hölderlin and his response to Hölderlin's madness as key elements in the philosopher's religious and philosophical development, especially with respect to the meaning of transcendence and dialectic. (shrink)

That there is a heritable or familial component of susceptibility to chronic non‐communicable diseases such as type 2 diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease is well established, but there is increasing evidence that some elements of such heritability are transmitted non‐genomically and that the processes whereby environmental influences act during early development to shape disease risk in later life can have effects beyond a single generation. Such heritability may operate through epigenetic mechanisms involving regulation of either imprinted or non‐imprinted genes but (...) also through broader mechanisms related to parental physiology or behaviour. We review evidence and potential mechanisms for non‐genomic transgenerational inheritance of ‘lifestyle’ disease and propose that the ‘developmental origins of disease’ phenomenon is a maladaptive consequence of an ancestral mechanism of developmental plasticity that may have had adaptive value in the evolution of generalist species such as Homo sapiens. BioEssays 29: 145–154, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Hume’s Treatise, with its celebrated bundle theory of the self, is a significant contribution to the embryonic Newtonian experimental philosophy of the enlightenment. But the theory is inadequate as it stands, as the appendix to the Treatise makes clear. For this account of the self, apparently, rests on contradictory principles — propositions, fortunately, that can be reconciled, according to Hume. My paper is a critical exploration of Hume’s argument for this intriguing suggestion.

This year's volume of collected papers in the Current Legal Problems series provides in-depth analyses some important developments which have taken place in recent months. Public law has witnessed much activity both in the courts and in Parliament during the last twelve months and this is reflected in three essays which examine different aspects of human rights, equality, and the right to privacy. In the wake of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice, two lengthy essays deal with evidence in police (...) investigations and the concept of due process and pre-trial criminal justice. (shrink)

The decision to initiate invasive, first-in-human trials involving Parkinson’s disease presents a vexing ethical challenge. Such studies present significant surgical risks, and high degrees of uncertainty about intervention risks and biological effects. We argue that maintaining a favorable riskbenefit balance in such circumstances requires a higher than usual degree of confidence that protocols will lead to significant direct and/or social benefits. One critical way of promoting such confidence is through the application of stringent evidentiary standards for preclinical studies. We close (...) with a series of recommendations for strengthening the internal and external validity of preclinical studies, reducing their tendency toward optimism and publication biases, and improving the knowledge base used to design and evaluate preclinical studies. (shrink)

This paper interprets Bernard Williams's claim that all practical reasons must meet the internal reasons constraint. It is argued that this constraint is independent of any substantive Humean claims about reasons and its rationale is a content scepticism about the capacity of pure reason to supply reasons for action. The final sections attempt a positive reconciliation of the internal reasons account with the motivation for external reasons, namely, securing practical objecitivy in the form of a commitment to impartiality. Impartiality is (...) given a contractualist interpretation in the limited sense that socialised agents have a central disposition to hold those reasons that are defensible to reasonable interlocutors, but this is not a substantive constraint on their content. Such a commitment plays a structural role in motivation illustrated by the analogy of the internalisation of a relativised a priori principle. Theorists of moral motivation such as Nagel and Scheffler have uncovered the importance of such structural motivations, but they are best treated as an architectonic feature of a socialised agent's motivational set, not as a principle or motive akin to other principles or motives within that set. This gives us critical leverage on the motivational sets of individuals that goes beyond launching "optimistic internal reasons" statements at them, but it does not violate Williams's constraints on the idea of a practical reason in general. (shrink)

Part 1. Plan of This Commentary -- From an Epigram by Filangieri against Improvement in the Art of War -- On Encouragements for Agriculture -- On the Conversion of Rulers to Peace -- On the Salutary Revolution Which Filangieri Foresaw -- On the Union of Politics and Legislation -- On the Influence Which Filangieri Attributes to Legislation -- On the State of Nature, the Formation of Society, and the True Goal of Human Associations -- On Errors in Legislation -- Some (...) Remarks by Filangieri on the Decline of Spain -- On Filangieri's Observations about France -- On the Decline Filangieri Predicted for England -- Part 2. Object of this Second Part -- On the Black Slave Trade -- On Population -- Continuation of the Same Subject -- On Malthus's System Relating to Population -- Some Writers Who Have Exaggerated M. Malthus's System -- On a Contradiction by Filangieri -- On the Division of Properties -- On the Grain Trade -- On Agriculture as a Source of Wealth -- On the Protection Given Industry -- A New Proof of Filangieri's Fundamental Mistake -- On Guilds and Masters -- On Privileges for Industry -- On Taxation -- Part 3. On Criminal Prosecution Confided Exclusively to a Magistrate -- On Secret Indictments -- On Denunciation -- New Thoughts on the Idea of Giving Each Citizen the Right to Prosecute -- New Thoughts on the Idea of Giving Each Citizen the Right to Prosecute -- On the Right to Prosecute Given to Servants, When It Is a Question of Crimes against Society -- That the Prosecuting Magistrate Should Be Responsible, If Not for the Truth, at Least for the Legitimacy of the Accusation -- On Prisons -- On the Shortening of Legal Procedures -- On Defense Witnesses -- On Judgment by Juries -- On the Death Penalty -- On Convict Labor -- On Deportation -- Part 4. On Education -- On Religion -- Of the Growth of Polytheism -- On the Priesthood -- On the Mysteries -- Conclusion. (shrink)

Katrina Forrester’s book poses a problem for any reviewer that, I suspect, will be reflected in the experience of its readers. Unusually, the author is equally.

Rhetoric in Hindustani classical music; a study.

The Vatican recently published directives regarding “beginning of life” issues that explain the Catholic Church's position regarding new technologies in this area. We think that it is important to develop a response that presents the traditional Orthodox Jewish position on these same issues in order to present an alternative, parallel system. There are many points of commonality between the Vatican document and traditional Jewish thought as well as several important issues where there is a divergence of opinion. The latter include (...) the status of the zygote as produced during in vitro fertilization, the acceptable of procreation in a method other than through the conjugal act, and the permissibility of deriving benefit from the products of an illicit act. These points of agreement and disagreement are discussed in detail in this article. (shrink)

The sublime evokes our awe, our terror, and our wonder. Applied first in ancient Greece to the heights of literary expression, in the 18th-century the sublime was extended to nature and to the sciences, enterprises that viewed the natural world as a manifestation of God's goodness, power, and wisdom. In The Scientific Sublime, Alan Gross reveals the modern-day sublime in popular science. He shows how the great popular scientists of our time--Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg, Brian Greene, Lisa (...) Randall, Rachel Carson, Stephen Jay Gould, Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins, and E. O. Wilson--evoke the sublime in response to fundamental questions: How did the universe begin? How did life? How did language? These authors maintain a tradition initiated by Joseph Addison, Edmund Burke, Immanuel Kant, and Adam Smith, towering 18th-century figures who adapted the literary sublime first to nature, then to science--though with one crucial difference: religion has been replaced wholly by science. In a final chapter, Gross explores science's attack on religion, an assault that attempts to sweep permanently under the rug two questions science cannot answer: What is the meaning of life? What is the meaning of the good life? (shrink)

This article considers two different, yet related, theoretical approaches that could be employed to ground the anarchist critique of Marxist-Leninist revolutionary practice, and thus of the state in general: the State-Primacy Theory and the Quadruplex Theory. The State-Primacy Theory appears to be consistent with several of Bakunin's claims about the state. However, the Quadruplex Theory might, in fact, turn out to be no less consistent with Bakunin's claims than the State-Primacy Theory. In addition, the Quadruplex Theory seems no less capable (...) of supporting the anarchist critique of Marxism-Leninism than the State-Primacy Theory. The article concludes by considering two possible refinements that might be made to the Quadruplex Theory. (shrink)

The ethicist's role in the clinical context is not presently well defined. Ethicists can be thought of as moralists, technicians, Sophists, or as teachers and learners. Each of these roles is examined in turn. An argument is made for the ethicist as a teacher who must also learn a great deal about the clinical setting in order to encourage an effective critical examination of basic values. Four specific tasks of this teaching role are discussed: describing moral experience, eliciting assumptions, considering (...) multiple alternatives and justifying choices. (shrink)

What might be termed 'the problem of morality' concerns how freedom-restricting principles may be justified, given that we value our freedom. Perhaps an answer can be found in freedom itself. For if the most obvious reason for rejecting moral demands is that they invade one's personal freedom, then the price of freedom from invasive demands that others would otherwise make may well require everyone accepting freedom in general, say, as a value that provides sufficient reason for adhering to principles that (...) serve to maximize, or at least safeguard, freedom in general. But then it is precisely such a value, freedom in general, which can be argued to ground an adequate moral system. Hence whereas the value of freedom appears at first sight to pose problems for moral systems, it can be employed to ground a certain variety of them. (shrink)

This paper is a response to Ted Toadvine’s article “Gestalts and Refrains: On the Musical Structure of Nature,” in Environmental Philosophy 2.2 (2005). We propose a more generous interpretation of Naess’s gestalt ontology, one that we believe mitigates Toadvine’s criticisms. Gestalt ontology and refrain ontology offer two different yet compatible ontologies for environmental philosophers searching for viable alternatives to scientific reductionism. Encouraging many ontologies also encourages a rich philosophical pluralism.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:IT AIN'T NECESSITY, SO... (With Apologies to George Gershwin) I shall argue in this paper that what Hume calls the idea of necessary connection is mislabelled, and that what he ought to call the idea of necessary connection is not so labelled. My argument is not that there are, on Hume's view, real necessary connections between causes and their effects but rather that there is an idea of genuine (...) necessary connection — what I call logical necessity — which we all mistakenly believe extends to causal connections. The genesis of this mistake is given a psychological explanation in the Treatise. Precisely how does Hume account for the origin of what he calls our idea of necessary connection? I have argued elsewhere that, whatever the answer, it has little philosophical importance. My reason was that, given Hume's view that causal connections are not necessary, the question must be viewed as one within psychology. Recent work on Hume, however, has convinced me that my former opinion was much too quick. Imlay, for example, has challenged Hume's distinction between demonstrative and probable inference on the grounds that Hume gives only one account of necessity for both 2 mathematical and lawlike truths. As I now see much more clearly, there are important philosophical distinctions that must be made in any full explication of Hume's view of the origin of our idea of causal necessity. I shall attempt an answer to the lead question of the second paragraph. My strategy is as follows. I shall first present a synopsis of Hume's account of our belief in causal necessity. Next, I shall develop 87. 88. a view of logical necessity. Finally, I shall briefly examine the exact genesis of the confusion between logical and causal necessity. Consider the following three propositions: (1)Hume does not believe that there are necessary causal connections. (2)All statements of laws of nature are on Hume's view descriptions of constant conjunctions, the logical form of which is captured by the Russellian " (x) [fx => gx]." (3)This logical form captures Hume's first definition of "cause." On these three propositions I and many other philosophers agree. I and an ever-shrinking number of philosophers also believe that Hume is right. But everyone, according to Hume, in some sense believes that causal connections are necessary; the Humean philosopher knows they are not but acts otherwise, while the ordinary person simply acts without the knowledge. Since everyone believes what is false, only a psychological explanation can be given for why we believe it anyway. Thus, Hume's second definition of "cause", and the view that the idea of necessity arises from the determination of the mind to pass from the impression of a cause to an idea of 3 its effect. The three most salient passages from the Treatise on the production of the idea of necessary connection follow. As we shall see, these passages cannot be understood without considering a number of others. For after a frequent repetition, I find, that upon the appearance of one of the objecte, the mind is determin 'd by custom to consider its usual attendant, and to consider it in a stronger light upon account of 89. its relation to the first object. 'Tis this impression, then, or determination, which affords me the idea of necessity. (T 156) Tho ' the several resembling instances, which give rise to the idea of power, have no influence on each other, and can never produce any new quality in the object, which can be the model of that idea, yet the observation of this resemblance produces a new impression in the mind, which is its real model. For after we have observ 'd the resemblance in a sufficient number of instances, we immediately feel a determination of the mind to pass from one object to its usual attendant, and to conceive it in a stronger light upon account of that relation. This determination is the only effect of the resemblance; and therefore must be the same with power or efficacy, whose idea is deriv 'd from the resemblance. The several instances of resembling conjunctions leads us into the notion of power and necessity.... Necessity, then... (shrink)

lthough it was in the early eighties when I began to feel a growing disaff'ection with the radicalized academic left, a decisive nausea-inducing body blow was administered by the PMLA of January 1989. In that infamous issue appeared a letter signed by twenty-four feminist academics attacking the eminent Shakespeare scholar Richard Levin, for "Feminist Thematics and Shakespearean Tragedy," which had appeared in PMLA the year before. Levin's essay, the work of a well-tempered, open-minded, and liberal supporter of many radical reforms (...) in the academy, was a penetrating critique of the feminist identity politics that were trying to wrest Shakespeare into the persona of a feminist scourge of sexism and patriarchy. Levin's temerity in taking on the distortions of identity politics was threatening enough, but his Enlightenment style and Swiftian wit, which he brilliantly deployed to dismantle the tendentious and self-serving hermeneutics of the "dictatorship of virtue" (a phrase I borrow here from Richard Bernstein) that constitutes avant-garde millenarianism in the U.S. academy, served further to inflame the hypersensitive skins of his holier-than-thou critics, who brook no criticism.. (shrink)

Recently in this journal, Michael Huemer has attempted to refute egalitarianism. His strategy consists in: first, distinguishing between three possible worlds ; second, showing that the first world is equal in value to the second world; third, dividing the second and third worlds into two temporal segments each, then showing that none of the temporal segments possesses greater moral value than any other, thereby demonstrating that the second and third worlds as a whole are equal in value; and finally, concluding (...) that none of the three worlds has more value than any other. The present article rebuts Huemer’s critique of egalitarianism first, and most importantly, by showing that his core argument rests upon an equivocation, and second, by refuting his supplementary arguments. (shrink)

School choice has lately risen to the top of the list of potential solutions to America's educational problems, particularly for the poor and the most disadvantaged members of society. Indeed, in the last few years several states have held referendums on the use of vouchers in private and parochial schools, and more recently, the Supreme Court reviewed the constitutionality of a scholarship program that uses vouchers issued to parents. While there has been much debate over the empirical and methodological aspects (...) of school choice policies, discussions related to the effects such policies may have on the nation's moral economy and civil society have been few and far between. School Choice, a collection of essays by leading philosophers, historians, legal scholars, and theologians, redresses this situation by addressing the moral and normative side of school choice.The twelve essays, commissioned for a conference on school choice that took place at Boston College in 2001, are organized into four sections that consider the relationship of school choice to equality, moral pluralism, institutional ecology, and constitutionality. Each section consists of three essays followed by a critical response. The contributors are Patrick McKinley Brennan, Charles L. Glenn, Amy Gutmann, David Hollenbach, S. J., Meira Levinson, Sanford Levinson, Stephen Macedo, John T. McGreevy, Martha Minow, Richard J. Mouw, Joseph O'Keefe, S. J., Michael J. Perry, Nancy L. Rosenblum, Rosemary C. Salomone, Joseph P. Viteritti, Paul J. Weithman, and Alan Wolfe. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Ideal Form of Mutual Recognition Hegel's State of Nature De Facto Authority De Jure Authority Legitimate Authority Constitutional Authority Conclusion Notes References.

If philosophers have discussed life as preparation for death, this seems to make aging coterminous with dying and a melancholy passage that we are condemned to survive. It is important to examine the discourse on aging and end of life and the ways various models either limit possibilities for human agency or suggest means of being innovative in relation to such parameters. I challenge developmental views of aging not by arguing for eternal life, but by using Plato’s conception of form (...) in conjunction with Simmel’s work and Arendt’s meditation on intergenerational solidarity, to evoke a picture of the subject as having capacities that offer avenues for improvisational action. This paper proposes a method for analyzing any social form as a problem-solving situation where the real “problem” is the fundamental ambiguity that inheres in the mix between the finite characteristics of the action and its infinite perplexity. I work through the most conventional chronological view of aging to show how it dramatizes a fundamental ethical collision in life that intensifies anxiety under many conditions, always raising the question of what is to be done with respect to contingency, revealing such “work” as a paradigm of the human condition. (shrink)

The editors of this collection aim to fill a notable gap in the scholarship on Gilles Deleuze, pragmatism, and their reciprocal relations. This task is approached along two main lines, corresponding roughly to the volume’s two parts: on the one hand, by reconstructing Deleuze’s direct or potential engagements with classical pragmatism, while on the other hand by investigating the real or virtual exchanges between Deleuze’s rich philosophical production and most contemporary varieties of pragmatism. As the editors explain in their useful (...) stage-setting introduction to the volume, it is a telling fact that, despite Deleuze’s deep interest in pragmatism and an overlapping of concerns and themes, no work has yet... (shrink)

Humanists hold that the state should be organized along secular lines, as should society's central institutions. The principle lies at the core of the humanist outlook, and not only that, it embodies a view which many readers, perhaps most, will think plain common sense, perfectly civilized, and absolutely uncontroversial. This chapter discusses humanism's implications for political thought and practice. It holds that polity is fully secular if, and only if, the following principle is treated as fundamental to: the design of (...) legislation; the design of core social and political institutions; the day‐to‐day operation of those institutions. The chapter considers some of the arguments which are, at present, most commonly directed against secularism. It also concentrates upon alternatives to secularism whose flaws are, perhaps, less immediately evident, and upon two in particular, namely a certain form of conservatism and a certain form of communitarianism. (shrink)

In this article, I contrast two theories of history: a Marxist theory and an anarchist theory. Both theories, in their respective attempts at explaining epochal transitions, seem to require some plausible construal of Marx's claim that revolutions occur when a society's economic relations ‘fetter’ the development of its productive forces. From an examination of a number of different construals of ‘fettering’—‘development fettering’, ‘use fettering’, ‘ACRU fettering’, ‘net fettering’, and even ‘forfeitur’—I conclude that none of them supports the Marxist theory of (...) revolution, while each is consistent with the anarchist theory of epochal transformation. (shrink)

Horst Dietrich Preuss, Old Testament TheologyRolf P. Knierim, The Task of Old Testament Theology: Essays, Substance, Method and CasesDaniel Patte, Ethics of Biblical Interpretation: A Re‐evaluationBrian D. Ingraffia, Postmodern Theory and Biblical Theology: Vanquishing God's ShadowJohn Barclay and John Sweet, Early Christian Thought in its Jewish ContextStephen T. Davis, Daniel Kendall and Gerald O'Collins, The Resurrection: An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Resurrection of JesusMaureen A. Tilley, Donatist Martyr Stories: The Church in Conflict in Roman North AfricaMaureen A. Tilley, The Bible (...) in Christian North Africa: The Donatist WorldL. G. Patterson, Methodius of Olympus: Divine Sovereignty, Human Freedom and Life in ChristJ. H. D. Scourfield, Consoling Heliodorus: A Commentary on Jerome, Letter 60C. Moreschini and D. A. Sykes, St Gregory of Nazianzus: Poemata ArcanaPeter O'Dwyer, Towards a History of Irish SpiritualityUinseann Ó Maid'n, The Celtic Monk: Rules and Writings of Early Irish MonksDáibhíÓ Cróinín, Early Medieval Ireland 400–1200Gerhard Ladner, God, Cosmos, Humankind: The World of Early Christian SymbolismKevin Trainor, Relics, Ritual and Representation in Buddhism: Rematerializing the Sri Lankan Theravãda TraditionSteven F. Ostrow, Art and Spirituality in Counter‐Reformation Rome: The Sistine and Pauline Chapels in S. Maria MaggioreDavid Morgan, Visual Piety: A History and Theory of Popular Religious ImagesColleen McDannell, Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in AmericaSarah Coakley, Religion and the BodyPaul F. Bradshaw and Lawrence A. Hoffman, Life Cycles in Jewish and Christian WorshipGordon P. Jeanes, The Day Has Come! Easter and Baptism in Zeno of VeronaJohn Macquarrie, A Guide to the SacramentsMegan McKenna, Rites of Justice: The Sacraments and Liturgy as Ethical ImperativesDouglas J. Davies, Death, Ritual and Belief. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:When the writings of Nancy Kingsbury Wollstonecraft surfaced in 2019, having been almost wholly neglected by scholars since their publication in the 1820s, they invited an inevitable and tantalizing comparison with her far more famous sister-in-law, Mary Wollstonecraft, especially since Kingsbury had written an article on "The Natural Rights of Woman." Irrespective of the Wollstonecraft connection, however, Kingsbury's writing stands on its own merits as deserving of serious scholarship by historians of women in philosophy. Nevertheless, reading Kingsbury in the light (...) of her predecessor is highly instructive and helps both bring out what is distinctive about her conclusions and place her in the context of post-Wollstonecraftian thought in the nineteenth century. Kingsbury draws on a similar set of foundational principles as Wollstonecraft, which I place within the republican tradition of political philosophy—freedom, equality, virtue, the common good. Together, these make up an ideal of freedom as independence. Focusing on the issue of education, she argues that increasing women's access to education will do little to improve their intellectual development unless there is an accompanying and extensive restructuring of social and economic norms. In applying the logic of freedom as independence, Kingsbury takes further this aspect of Wollstonecraft's thought and anticipates and prefigures some of the later arguments of feminists and abolitionists writing in the same tradition, including especially Frederick Douglass. (shrink)

Science is widely perceived as an especially systematic approach to knowing; engineering could be conceived as an especially systematic approach to willing. The transcendental precepts of Bernard Lonergan may be adapted to provide the backdrop for this assessment, which is manifest when the scientific and engineering methods are compared. In science, although the will is implicitly involved, the intellect is primary, because the goal is ideal—additional “objective” knowledge. In engineering, although the intellect is implicitly involved, the will is primary, because (...) the goal is pragmatic—some “subjective” outcome, which is often selected by a manager or client, rather than the engineer. Furthermore, engineering problems are rarely well-defined; uncertainties and resource constraints dictate that they be conceptualized and solved heuristically. As a result, different engineers will follow different design procedures and develop different models, none of which is uniquely “correct.” Because tradeoffs are always necessary, engineering decision-making—and human behavior in general—is more intentional than rational. Recognizing this can help today’s society to overcome its traditional bias in favor of knowing over willing and to engage engineers more explicitly in addressing the many challenges that it faces, technological and otherwise. (shrink)

This chapter discusses Wittgenstein's influence on Richard Rorty's approach to philosophy throughout his career and his relationship to the analytic tradition. In doing so, it highlights Rorty's tendency, as a pragmatist, to focus on what he regards as the practical consequences of Wittgenstein's later works, especially Philosophical Investigations. And, it concludes with a critical assessment of the use that Rorty makes of a putative distinction between therapeutic and pragmatic Wittgensteinians.

John McDowell has recently changed his line of response to philosophical scepticism about the external world. He now claims to be in a position to use the strategy of transcendental argumentation in order to show the falsity of the sceptic’s misrepresentation of our ordinary epistemic standpoint. Since this transcendental argument begins from a weak and widely shared assumption shared with the sceptic herself the falsity of external world scepticism is now demonstrable even to her. Building on the account of perceptual (...) intentionality defended in the Woodbridge lectures, McDowell argues that the idea of narrow perceptual content is unavailable to anyone, including the sceptic. This argument is assessed by drawing out an analogy with parallel responses to error theories in ethics. (shrink)

It is not at once evident what is meant by “the question of the history of philosophy.” This essay sets forth a way of looking at that question by locating it on the path taken by Nietzsche’s consideration of the question of the philosophy of history.

Expressivism's problem in solving the Frege/Geach problem concerning unasserted contexts is evaluated in the light of Blackburn's own methodological commitment to assessing philosophical theories in terms of costs and benefits, notably quasi-realism's aim of minimising the ontological commitments of a broadly naturalistic worldview. The problem emerges when a competitor theory can explain the same phenomena at lower cost: the minimalist about truth has no problem with unasserted contexts whereas the quasi-realist/expressivist package does. However, this form of projectivism is supposed to (...) be a local and contrastive thesis or the central metaphor of projection makes no sense. So in competition with minimalism, projectivism must - at least for non-contested areas of thought and language - presuppose non-minimal truth. This casts new light on Blackburn's proposal globally to revise the relations between logic and truth so as to model ethical discourse as tracking a notion of commitment to contents that can be either attitudinal or truh evaluable. Why globally revise logic, in order solely to explain the problem of unasserted contexts, when a rival view can do so much better according to the standards set by the quasi-realist? Why do so when a notion of non-minimal truth and a classical explanation of logic are already available to you, given the local and contrastive claims of quasi-realism? (shrink)

There has been a rising interest in the study of Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) in philosophy, political theory, literary studies and the history of political thought in recent decades. The Wollstonecraftian Mind seeks to provide a comprehensive survey of her work, not only placing it in its historical context but also exploring its contemporary significance. Comprising 38 chapters by a team of international contributors this handbook covers: the background to Wollstonecraft’s work Wollstonecraft’s major works the relationship between Wollstonecraft and other major (...) philosophers Wollstonecraftian philosophy Wollstonecraft’s legacy Essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy, Wollstonecraft’s work is central to the study of political philosophy, literature, French studies, political thought, and feminism. (shrink)

Liberalism has been one of the leading incarnations of political thought for the past two centuries and it was also the first form of political theory to acquire a truly global reach. This volume examines the work of the most pivotal thinkers in the liberal tradition, starting with Montesquieu and proceeding to a wide range of authors from the French Revolution to the present. The book is distinctive in encompassing the wide spectrum of views historically encompassed by liberalism, revealing its (...) geographical as well as intellectual scope by including conceptions of liberalism formed in Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. Twenty-four chapters cover thinkers including Madame de Stael, Alexis de Tocqueville, Abraham Lincoln, John Stuart Mill Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq, John Dewey, Hu Shih, Hannah Arendt and John Rawls. Each chapter offers a commentary on a short critical passage from the author concerned. Essayists use their chosen passage to explore the meaning and significance of the author's work for both the historical tradition of liberalism and for political thought more generally. The book is organized chronologically, building up a richly detailed overview of the tradition of liberalism and its key writings. The book will be an indispensible companion to courses on liberal thought, on political ideologies and on the history of political thought and will be of interest to students and scholars of politics, philosophy and history. (shrink)

'Miller's writing style makes the book easy to pick up and difficult to put down. Written at a level appropriate for advanced undergraduates, it is an important and valuable acquisition for academic libraries.' |s CHOICE.

Enquiring into the reality of existence, Alan Bradfield draws on knowledge from philosophy to sub-atomic physics to explore such mysteries as free will, mind, matter, time and self.