This fourth edition of one of the classic logic textbooks has been thoroughly revised by John Burgess. The aim is to increase the pedagogical value of the book for the core market of students of philosophy and for students of mathematics and computer science as well. This book has become a classic because of its accessibility to students without a mathematical background, and because it covers not simply the staple topics of an intermediate logic course such as Godel's Incompleteness (...) Theorems, but also a large number of optional topics from Turing's theory of computability to Ramsey's theorem. John Burgess has now enhanced the book by adding a selection of problems at the end of each chapter, and by reorganising and rewriting chapters to make them more independent of each other and thus to increase the range of options available to instructors as to what to cover and what to defer. (shrink)

The excellent quality and depth of the various essays make [the book] an invaluable resource....It is likely to become essential reading in its field.—CHOICE.

Dummett's case against platonism rests on arguments concerning the acquisition and manifestation of knowledge of meaning. Dummett's arguments are here criticized from a viewpoint less Davidsonian than Chomskian. Dummett's case against formalism is obscure because in its prescriptive considerations are not clearly separated from descriptive. Dummett's implicit value judgments are here made explicit and questioned. ?Combat Revisionism!? Chairman Mao.

David Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature presents the most important account of skepticism in the history of modern philosophy. In this lucid and thorough introduction to the work, John P. Wright examines the development of Hume's ideas in the Treatise, their relation to eighteenth-century theories of the imagination and passions, and the reception they received when Hume published the Treatise. He explains Hume's arguments concerning the inability of reason to establish the basic beliefs which underlie science and morals, (...) as well as his arguments showing why we are nevertheless psychologically compelled to accept such beliefs. The book will be a valuable guide for those seeking to understand the nature of modern skepticism and its connection with the founding of the human sciences during the Enlightenment. (shrink)

In this first full-length study of male homosexuality in Cather's short stories and novels, John P. Anders examines patterns of male friendship ranging on a continuum from the social to the sexual. He reveals how Cather's work assumes an unexpected depth and complexity by drawing on both the familiar tradition of friendship literature inspired by classical and Christian texts and a homosexual legacy that is part of, yet distinct from, established literary traditions. Anders argues that Cather's artistic achievement is (...) distinguished by her sexual aesthetics, an elusive literary style inextricably associated with homosexuality. His analysis demonstrates how a homosexual ethos and eros helped Cather develop a sensitivity to human variation and a style to accommodate it and thus became the objective correlative of her art, dramatizing the diversity of human nature as it deepens the mystery of her work. (shrink)

Introduction A brief look at the competing present-day interpretations of Hume's philosophy will leave the uninitiated reader completely baffled. On the one hand , Hume is seen as a philosopher who attempted to analyse concepts with ...

In a broad-based study of experiences in psychological research, 65 undergraduates participating in a wide range of psychological experiments were interviewed in depth. Overall findings demonstrated that participants hold varying views, with only 32% of participants characterizing their experiences as completely positive. Participants' descriptions of their debriefing experiences suggest substantial variability in the content, format, and general quality of debriefing practices. Just over 40% of the debriefing experiences were viewed favorably. Positive debriefing experiences were described as including a thorough explanation (...) of the study and detailed information concerning the broader relevance of the experiment to the field of psychology. The most common complaint, characterizing 28.8% of the responses, was that the debriefing was unclear and that insufficient information was provided. Participants' views of psychological research and the discipline of psychology were also elicited. Results are discussed in terms of ethical and methodological implications. (shrink)

A student of Étienne Gilson and Joseph Owens, John P. Doyle taught medieval and Scholastic philosophy at Saint Louis University for forty years. Of continuing interest to Doyle has been the thought of Francisco Suárez, S.J. On this topic Doyle has published over a dozen articles and four English translations of portions of Suárez's key works. This volume celebrates the life and career of one of those rare kinds of scholars who has mastered an entire field of inquiry and (...) thought. (shrink)

Sixty-five undergraduates participating in a wide range of psychological research experiments were interviewed in depth about their research experiences and their views on the process of informed consent. Overall, 32% of research experiences were characterized positively and 41 % were characterized negatively. One major theme of the negative experiences was that experiments were perceived as too invasive, suggesting incomplete explication of negative aspects of research during the informed consent process. Informed consent experiences were viewed positively 80% of the time. However, (...) most of the participants had a limited view of the purpose of informed consent: Less than 20% viewed the process as a decision point. Results suggest a number of common pitfalls to standard informed consent practices that have not generally been recognized. Results are discussed in terms of both ethical and methodological implications. Suggestions for improving the informed consent process are also provided. (shrink)

In his classic, The Idea of a University, John Henry Cardinal Newman advanced three arguments for the inclusion of theology in the liberal arts curriculum. These include the very nature of a university in its profession to teach all subjects, the interdisciplinary value of theology, and the danger of academic quackery and usurpation, when a subject matter is not given its due place in the curriculum. The arguments for theology are intimately connected to Newman's high ideal of education, rightly (...) celebrated by educators today. The crisis in contemporary liberal education is reflected in a dispute between Edward O. Wilson and Richard Rorty over the concept of "consilience." Yet there are promising signs of a renewal of liberal education through a deeper appreciation of theology in the course of studies in higher education. (shrink)

Highlighting previously neglected democratic strains in Machiavelli's major writings, McCormick excavates institutions through which the common people of ancient, medieval, and Renaissance republics constrained the power of wealthy citizens and public magistrates, and he imagines how such institutions might be revived today.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:John P. Anton C. P. CAVAFY'S ARS POETICA ' It is generally recognized that Constantine P. Cavafy (1863-1933) was not born a poet but became one only through persistence and labor, reaching his "first step" sometime after the midpoint of his life. In his effort to assess the quality of his earlier poetic production and sharpen his sensitivity in facing self-criticism, he decided to put in writing his (...) personal thoughts on his work sometime in 1903. The text was written in English in a personal shorthand Cavafy had devised for his own use. It was found among the papers he left to A. Sengopoulos and published for the first time in 1963 by M. Peridis, who also supplied the suitable title Ars Poetica. It falls outside the scope of this essay to discuss the antecedents of this document. Taken as a whole, the text has all the clarity and directness required of a testament designed to serve as a personal guide and handbook. The problems it discusses are limited to the needs of the poet. In this regard, the Ars Poetica has neither the range of topics nor the theoretical scope of, for instance, Aristotle's Poetics. It is quite certain that the ideas that preoccupy Cavafy in the Ars Poetica had been on his mind for a period of years. However, the Ars Poetica is his first prose piece where he gives a systematic treatment to technical and critical issues directly related to the assessment of his work and his role as a poet. In order to project here a clear image of Cavafy's struggle to reach his technical maturity which came after 1910, we need first to discuss the persistent problems he faced during this crucial decade, then to examine the attitudes and values he embodied in certain representative early poems, and finally to relate them to the guiding principles he formulated in his self-addressed poetics of 1903. A number of interrelated problems confronted Cavafy in his late twenties and throughout his thirties. They emerged one by one, to 85 86Philosophy and Literature make more pressing the demand for a consistent solution and a complete recasting of his outlook. Coming to terms with them was extremely difficult. Aside from the emotional and sexual pressures he had to face alone, there was the absence of suitable ideas and conceptual tools to provide him with even the rudiments of an intellectual framework. Whatever he borrowed from Europe and England, or resurrected from his own Hellenic heritage, proved either beyond assimilation or insufficiently digested. The lingering issues fell roughly into four areas. (i) Despite his determination to devote his life to the writing of poetry, the quality of his work was discouraging. He knew this and as a result he often expressed uncertainty about his ability to proceed. Time and again he appeared suffering from a feeling of inadequacy, but nevertheless he sought to engage a reflective mood from which to draw encouragement and hope. (ii) On the theoretical side, he identified with the long tradition which assigned a coveted cultural role to the savant-poet as discloser of truth and spokesman for humanity; this despite the prevailing climate of opinion in his immediate environment which recognized no such high position in his case. Cavafy knew that his standing with the Greek community of Alexandria had gradually dwindled with the loss of family wealth and his lowly employment, and also that his expectations to be respected in his role as a poet and leader in communal affairs were futile. This denial of personal recognition in a society dominated by commerce and finance contributed to his mood of depression. The feeling of being an outcast, despite his associations with the upper social circles of Alexandria, became a constant irritant to his sense of pride. (iii) The course of culture, the destiny of human institutions and the workings of history, became puzzles as he tried to view them through the opaque glass of disillusionment. These were the grand themes actively discussed in the writings of leading European intellectuals, but to the young poet they had a different personal urgency. His vital concern in this connection was not understanding science... (shrink)

This is the first in-depth critical appraisal in English of the political, legal, and cultural writings of Carl Schmitt, perhaps this century's most brilliant critic of liberalism. It offers an assessment of this most sophisticated of fascist theorists without attempting either to apologise for or demonise him. Schmitt's Weimar writings confront the role of technology as it finds expression through the principles and practices of liberalism. Contemporary political conditions such as disaffection with liberalism and the rise of extremist political organizations (...) have rendered Schmitt's work both relevant and insightful. John McCormick examines why technology becomes a rallying cry for both right- and left-wing intellectuals at times when liberalism appears anachronistic, and shows the continuities between Weimar's ideological debates and those of our own age. (shrink)

The great logician Gottlob Frege attempted to provide a purely logical foundation for mathematics. His system collapsed when Bertrand Russell discovered a contradiction in it. Thereafter, mathematicians and logicians, beginning with Russell himself, turned in other directions to look for a framework for modern abstract mathematics. Over the past couple of decades, however, logicians and philosophers have discovered that much more is salvageable from the rubble of Frege's system than had previously been assumed. A variety of repaired systems have been (...) proposed, each a consistent theory permitting the development of a significant portion of mathematics. This book surveys the assortment of methods put forth for fixing Frege's system, in an attempt to determine just how much of mathematics can be reconstructed in each. John Burgess considers every proposed fix, each with its distinctive philosophical advantages and drawbacks. These systems range from those barely able to reconstruct the rudiments of arithmetic to those that go well beyond the generally accepted axioms of set theory into the speculative realm of large cardinals. For the most part, Burgess finds that attempts to fix Frege do less than advertised to revive his system. This book will be the benchmark against which future analyses of the revival of Frege will be measured. (shrink)

This paper challenges the recommendation of 1981 President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research that all jurisdictions in the United States should adopt the Uniform Determination of Death Act, which endorses a whole-brain, rather than a higher-brain, definition of death. I argue that the Commission was wrong to reject the "personhood argument" for the higher-brain definition on the grounds that there is no consensus among philosophers or the general population as to what (...) constitutes "personhood". I claim that philosophers agree that some potential for cognitive function is necessary for personhood and that, when this is absent in cases of anencephaly and persistent vegetative state (PVS), the individual should be considered dead. I further argue that the lack of consensus among the general population is due in large measure to misunderstandings about the medical reality of PVS and beliefs influenced by feelings for a specific individual in PVS. I also examine and reject two tutiorist arguments which have been used to support the Commission's position: that the higher-brain definition would threaten the severely senile and severely retarded, and that there are not currently adequate medical techniques for determining when all higher-brain activities have ceased. Keywords: death, personhood, persistent vegetative state, anencephaly CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

Over the past two decades ethics committees have proliferated in healthcare institutions across the country. Catalysts for this growth include the endorsement of ethics committees by the New Jersey Supreme Court in the Quinlan case, by the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical Research in its report entitled Deciding to Forgo Life Sustaining Medical Treatment, by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in its 1985 “Baby Doe” regulations, by numerous other courts in (...) treatment decisionmaking opinions issued after Quinlan, and more recently by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations. (shrink)

The author argues that the core of Hume’s Academic skepticism lies in his commitment to an external world and objective causal powers that are cognitively opaque to human understanding. Three central topics of Hume’s theory of the understanding are discussed—the existence of absolute space, the existence of a world external to our senses, and the existence of objective causal powers. In each case, Hume draws a Pyrrhonian opposition between judgments based on his “Copy Principle” and the “fictions” or “illusions” formed (...) through association of ideas. While he suspends judgment concerning the existence of absolute space, he argues that the association-based beliefs in an external world and objective causal powers are necessary for human life and indispensible in science. In adopting such beliefs about external reality, while at the same time denying their intelligibility, Hume was following ancient Academic skepticism. (shrink)

This collection of recent articles by leading scholars is designed to illuminate one of the greatest and most influential philosophical books of all time. It includes incisive commentary on every major theme and argument in the Meditations, and will be valuable not only to philosophers but to historians, theologians, literary scholars, and interested general readers.

In the course of my efforts to distinguish and relate the methods and achievements of René Girard and James Alison, I have developed the hypothesis that a particular pair of theological terms might provide a helpful conceptual tool for carrying out this task—fides quae creditur and fides qua creditur. These terms were given their classic formulation within Protestant scholasticism at the beginning of the seventeenth century, where they were used to distinguish between two dimensions of Christian faith: the “object” or (...) “content” of faith , and the kind of activity that faith is or the form that it takes within the subject .My proposal, stated most briefly, is that Alison’s use of Girard’s .. (shrink)

Richard Rorty reimagined the traditional liberal private-public divide to face contingency. This chapter explains Rorty’s understanding of it as a crucial component of any just and stable political order in the post-secular West. Rorty’s continued defense of the liberal private-public divide has been criticized from the political right and left. His foundation-neutral model is, however, equipped (or can easily be modified) to answer these objections. And this is good news, because Rorty has shown us that the leading post-secular alternatives (e.g., (...) identity politics) threaten freedom, risk humiliation, and undermine solidarity. (shrink)

Though several editions of Locke's Letter of Toleration art available, the unique value of this volume lies in the fact that it conbines both the text of the Letter and interpretative, critical essays. Several essays are reprints of the most important articles on the Letter , but there is also new material , specially commissioned for the volume and published here for the first time. Given the importance of Locke's Letter on Toleration , this volume will be welcomed by both (...) students and teachers of political philosophy, the history of political thought, as well as philosophy and politics generally. (shrink)

Darwinism, Democracy, and Race examines the development and defence of an argument that arose at the boundary between anthropology and evolutionary biology in twentieth-century America. In its fully articulated form, this argument simultaneously discredited scientific racism and defended free human agency in Darwinian terms. The volume is timely because it gives readers a key to assessing contemporary debates about the biology of race. By working across disciplinary lines, the book's focal figures--the anthropologist Franz Boas, the cultural anthropologist Alfred Kroeber, the (...) geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky, and the physical anthropologist Sherwood Washburn--found increasingly persuasive ways of cutting between genetic determinist and social constructionist views of race by grounding Boas's racially egalitarian, culturally relativistic, and democratically pluralistic ethic in a distinctive version of the genetic theory of natural selection. Collaborators in making and defending this argument included Ashley Montagu, Stephen Jay Gould, and Richard Lewontin. Darwinism, Democracy, and Race will appeal to advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and academics interested in subjects including Philosophy, Critical Race Theory, Sociology of Race, History of Biology and Anthropology, and Rhetoric of Science. (shrink)

Is religion a positive reality in your life? If not, have you lost anything by forfeiting this dimension of your humanity? This book compares the theology of Tillich with the psychology of Jung, arguing that they were both concerned with the recovery of a valid religious sense for contemporary culture. _Paul Tillich, Carl Jung and the Recovery of Religion_ explores in detail the diminution of the human spirit through the loss of its contact with its native religious depths, a problem (...) on which both spent much of their working lives and energies. Both Tillich and Jung work with a naturalism that grounds all religion on processes native to the human being. Tillich does this in his efforts to recover that point at which divinity and humanity coincide and from which they differentiate. Jung does this by identifying the archetypal unconscious as the source of all religions now working toward a religious sentiment of more universal sympathy. This book identifies the dependence of both on German mysticism as a common ancestry and concludes with a reflection on how their joint perspective might affect religious education and the relation of religion to science and technology. Throughout the book, John Dourley looks back to the roots of both men's ideas about mediaeval theology and Christian mysticism making it ideal reading for analysts and academics in the fields of Jungian and religious studies. (shrink)

In justifying Russian aggression against Ukraine, President Vladimir Putin asserts that Ukraine is neither a distinct nation nor a viable state. In response, this essay will establish a Christian account of Ukraine’s right to self-defense not only via just war criteria but also in relation to its purpose theologically as a nation-state. This essay, after reviewing Christian ethical positions that either reject or embrace the nation-state, draws on the Niebuhr brothers and Karl Barth to develop key theological criteria for judging (...) whether particular nation-states are true to their divine purpose. While affirming the role of the nation-state in protecting a people’s distinct identity, Christians will call on the nation-state to direct its people outward, toward their shared humanity with the world’s other nations. The essay concludes that the Ukrainian nation-state is fulfilling these criteria, whereas the Russian nation-state is not. (shrink)

Depue & Collins [D&C] propose a well-conceived and nicely detailed theory of the involvement of dopaminergic connections in extraversion. Since these systems are hypothesized to be associated with reward sensitivity, other neural systems that are involved with reward sensitivity should be considered as well. In this commentary it is argued that there is now enough evidence for the involvement of the left and right frontal regions of the brain in approach and withdrawal behavior that it should also be considered in (...) theories of personality such as D&C's. Integration of predominantly subcortical and cortical theories of personality/brain function may produce a more comprehensive picture of temperament and personality. (shrink)

Paper edition ($18.95) not seen. The essays in this collection have been selected from a much larger set of papers on Aristotle's ethics, presented before the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy during the past decade.

What is the simplest and most natural axiomatic replacement for the set-theoretic definition of the minimal fixed point on the Kleene scheme in Kripke’s theory of truth? What is the simplest and most natural set of axioms and rules for truth whose adoption by a subject who had never heard the word "true" before would give that subject an understanding of truth for which the minimal fixed point on the Kleene scheme would be a good model? Several axiomatic systems, old (...) and new, are examined and evaluated as candidate answers to these questions, with results of Harvey Friedman playing a significant role in the examination. (shrink)

I heartily thank Chiara Destri (2015) for these generous, thoughtful and erudite criticisms of my article on Rousseau’s treatment of the Roman Republic in the Social Contract (McCormick 2007). More...

The Solution of the Fist: Dostoevsky and the Roots of Modern Terrorism addresses the political and psychological aspects of terrorism as seen through the eyes of a first-generation observer of terrorism, Fyodor Dostoevsky. Through an in-depth analysis of the first novel ever written about terrorism,The Demons, this book explains Dostoevsky's uniquely privileged position in observing this modern political phenomenon.

The purpose of this paper is to inquire into the meaning of the troublesome Aristotelian expression ‘Ο λόγοσ τῆσ οὐσίασ as it occurs at the very opening of Categories 1a 1–2, 7. That the passage has presented serious difficulties to commentators and translators alike can be easily ascertained through a survey and comparison of the relevant literature. It would seem from the disagreements among translators that the passage is either vague in the original Greek or that Aristotle did not have (...) a special doctrine to put across at the very opening such that would require technical formulations that would comply with the ontology presented in this treatise. (shrink)

Parsons has given a (nonconstructive) proof that the first-order fragment of the system of Frege's Grundgesetze is consistent. Here a constructive proof of the same result is presented.

Jung's explanation of the religious tendency of the psyche addresses many sides of the contemporary debate on religion and the role that it has in individual and social life. This book discusses the emergence of a new mythic consciousness and details ways in which this consciousness supersedes traditional concepts of religion to provide a spirituality of more universal inclusion. _On Behalf of the Mystical Fool_ examines Jung's critique of traditional western religion, demonstrating the negative consequences of religious and political collective (...) unconsciousness, and their consequent social irresponsibility in today's culture. The book concludes by suggesting that a new religiosity and spirituality is currently emerging in the West based on the individual’s access to the sense of ultimacy residual in the psyche, and seeking expression in a myth of a much wider compass. This book will be of interest to scholars and students at all levels who are engaged in the expanding field of Jungian studies. It will also be key reading for anyone interested in the theoretical and therapeutic connections between the psyche and religious experience. (shrink)

The last thirty years has witnessed an explosion of scholarly books and articles on Locke which, claims Harpham, has "recast our most basic understanding of Locke as a historical actor and political theorist, the Two Treatises as a document, and liberalism as a coherent tradition of political discourse". The seven articles in this volume attempt to assess this "new scholarship," which is described as revisionist and historicist. This volume is now probably the best introduction to the "new scholarship." The introduction (...) by Edward Harpham, "Locke's Two Treatises in Perspective," and the bibliography provide a nice summary of key ideas, books, and articles. The essence of the new perspective is best stated by Richard Ascraft [[sic]] in "The Politics of Locke's Two Treatises of Government": "Locke's thought is thus both philosophically more conservative and politically more radical than we have hitherto supposed. In short, Locke is at once closer to Aristotle and Hooker and to the levelers and Sidney than the prevailing interpretations of his political thought maintain". Ashcraft attempts to separate Locke from the philosophy of Hobbes on such issues as resistance, toleration, justice and natural law, obligation; he directs his argument against Macpherson and Strauss, whose presences haunt the borders of the new scholarship. Eldon Eisenach, in his "Religion and Locke's Two Treatises of Government," interprets Locke's philosophy as marked by a deep skepticism regarding the reach of natural reason and informed by a "deep faith in the efficacy of biblical revelation" as the source of our moral and political duties. Eisenach comes close to dissenting from the new scholarship by wondering whether "Dunn and Ashcraft" are whistling in the dark concerning the coherence of Locke's "worldview"; but he closes ranks with the assertion that the Essay lays out a path to salvation. Eisenach concludes that Locke is not antireligious and secular, but a defender of biblical Christianity. The new scholarship must emphasize all the more a "spiritualist and assertively evangelical Locke". David Resnick, in "Rationality and the Two Treatises," attempts to recover the portrait of Locke as an antitraditionalist, committed to a critical rationalism. Resnick uses Weber's theory of rationality to render a consistent account of Locke's social analysis. Yet Resnick also insists that Locke's political philosophy is not self-interested and atomistic but is rooted in a fully Christian worldview: "Locke's deeply held theological convictions about the existence, benevolence and rationality of God ground his reasoning in a metaphysically stable framework". This religious assumption provides a basis for Locke's "rationality." But a new inconsistency is opened up by this resolution--a rationalism rooted in religious faith, by a philosopher who continually urged their distinction. Karen Iversen Vaughn, in "The Economic Background to Locke's Two Treatises of Government," attempts to correct the new scholarship's neglect of the economic premises of Locke's political philosophy; this neglect is part of an overreaction to Macpherson, but Vaughn offers a moderate economic interpretation of Locke. Vaughn shows the importance of rational self-interest in economic behavior, the necessity of political society to set conditions for economic pursuit: limit on sovereign power is an example of self-interest and evidence that "economic aspects of man's behavior permeated all aspects of life". Further, "civil society requires enforceable rules to contain the self-seeking actions of all men, so that life, liberty and property can be protected". Vaughn's essay opens the back door to the "self-interested" Locke of the "old scholarship." Ronald Hamowy, in "Cato's Letters, John Locke, and the Republican Paradigm," also seeks to redress the imbalance of the new scholarship, arguing that Locke's philosophy was not displaced by the civic humanist tradition and republican virtue. He offers a detailed analysis of Cato's Letters by John Tenchard and Thomas Gordon. Like Locke, "Cato" defines political authority in terms of inalienable rights. His analysis of liberty is strikingly Lockean, and not republican. Pocock's assessment of Locke's irrelevance to Whiggism and the American founding must be rejected. In the final essay, "Locke's Two Treatises and Contemporary Thought: Freedom, Community and the Liberal Tradition," Stephen L. Newman compares contemporary American libertarian and communitarian alternatives to the liberal welfare state. Newman offers a very trenchant criticism of libertarianism as decidedly non-Lockean by dint of its utter depoliticization of all behavior and its tendency to restore the execution of natural law to the private citizen and private groups. On the other hand, communitarianism fails to provide a sufficiently specific and robust notion of the common good, and more consistent writers like Walzer and Barber fall back not upon a teleological community, but autonomy mixed with participation. Locke's distinction of politics from economics, family, and social groups still provides the most workable and realistic account of politics available in the modern world; hence Newman concludes that libertarianism and communitarianism offer "impoverished" political theories. (shrink)