Samuel Shirley's splendid new translation, with critical annotation reflecting research of the last half-century, is the only edition of the complete text of Spinoza's correspondence available in English. An historical-philosophical Introduction, detailed annotation, a chronology, and a bibliography are also included.

Of all Plato’s dialogues, the Parmenides is notoriously the most difficult to interpret. Scholars of all periods have disagreed about its aims and subject matter. The interpretations have ranged from reading the dialogue as an introduction to the whole of Platonic metaphysics to seeing it as a collection of sophisticated tricks, or even as an elaborate joke. This work presents an illuminating new translation of the dialogue together with an extensive introduction and running commentary, giving a unified explanation of the (...) Parmenides and integrating it firmly within the context of Plato's metaphysics and methodology. Scolnicov shows that in the Parmenides Plato addresses the most serious challenge to his own philosophy: the monism of Parmenides and the Eleatics. In addition to providing a serious rebuttal to Parmenides, Plato here re-formulates his own theory of forms and participation, arguments that are central to the whole of Platonic thought, and provides these concepts with a rigorous logical and philosophical foundation. In Scolnicov's analysis, the Parmenides emerges as an extension of ideas from Plato's middle dialogues and as an opening to the later dialogues. Scolnicov’s analysis is crisp and lucid, offering a persuasive approach to a complicated dialogue. This translation follows the Greek closely, and the commentary affords the Greekless reader a clear understanding of how Scolnicov’s interpretation emerges from the text. This volume will provide a valuable introduction and framework for understanding a dialogue that continues to generate lively discussion today. (shrink)

Contains material previously published in the author's Socrates to Sartre : a history of philosophy; Philosophical problems.

According to Phenomenal Conservatism (PC), if it seems to a subject S that P, S thereby has some degree of (defeasible) justification for believing P. But what is it for P to seem true? Answering this question is vital for assessing what role (if any) such states can play. Many have appeared to adopt a kind of non-reductionism that construes seemings as intentional states which cannot be reduced to more familiar mental states like beliefs or sensations. In this paper I (...) aim to show that reductive accounts need to be taken more seriously by illustrating the plausibility of identifying seemings and conscious inclinations to form a belief. I briefly close the paper by considering the implications such an analysis might have for views such as PC. (shrink)

Though the notion of common-sense plays an important role in Kant’s aesthetic theory, it is not immediately clear what Kant means by this term. This essay works to clarify the role that common-sense plays in the logic of Kant’s argument. My interpretive hypothesis is that a careful examination of the way common-sense functions in Kant’s account of judgments of taste can help explain what this notion means. I argue that common-sense names the capacity to discern the relation between the cognitive (...) faculties by means of a feeling, and I conclude that this understanding of common-sense lays the groundwork for an account of the unity of judgments of taste. I conclude that attending to Kant’s notion of common-sense is especially important because it highlights the anthropological significance of Kant’s account of beauty. (shrink)

Converse contended that the ideological disorganization, attitudi‐nal inconsistency, and limited information of American voters make them a politically disengaged mass, not a responsible electorate. I illustrate the shortcomings of Converse's line of reasoning by showing that he misread his two most prominent examples of the electoral consequences of his theory: voting on the Vietnam War in the 1968 New Hampshire primary, and public opinion about the 1948 Taft‐Hartley Act. In both cases, voters were better able to sort candidates and policies (...) than Converse reported, despite their lack of ideological sophistication or their knowledge of specific legislation. Converse's interpretive errors here stem from mistaken assumptions about information processing and recall, and from questionable normative standards about what constitute meaningful and competent political orientation. His criteria underestimate the public's ability to make responsible choices, and the effect of campaigns on the choosing process. (shrink)

The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Volume 60, Issue 2, Page 277-303, June 2022.

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis provoked an organizational ethics dilemma: how to develop ethical pandemic policy while upholding our organizational mission to deliver relationship- and patient-centered care. Tasked with producing a recommendation about whether healthcare workers and essential personnel should receive priority access to limited medical resources during the pandemic, the bioethics department and survey and interview methodologists at our institution implemented a deliberative approach that included the perspectives of healthcare professionals and patient stakeholders in the policy development process. Involving (...) the community more, not less, during a crisis required balancing the need to act quickly to garner stakeholder perspectives, uncertainty about the extent and duration of the pandemic, and disagreement among ethicists about the most ethically supportable way to allocate scarce resources. This article explains the process undertaken to garner stakeholder input as it relates to organizational ethics, recounts the stakeholder perspectives shared and how they informed the triage policy developed, and offers suggestions for how other organizations may integrate stakeholder involvement in ethical decision-making as well as directions for future research and public health work. (shrink)

The Philosophy of Adam Smith contains essays by some of the most prominent philosophers and scholars working on Adam Smith today. It is a special issue of The Adam Smith Review, commemorating the 250th anniversary of Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. Introduction Part 1: Moral phenomenology 1. The virtue of TMS 1759 D.D. Raphael 2. The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the inner life Emma Rothschild 3. The standpoint of morality in Adam Smith and Hegel Angelica Nuzzo Part 2: Sympathy (...) and moral judgment 4. Smith and Rousseau in dialogue: sympathy, pitié, spectatorship and narrative Charles L. Griswold 5. Adam Smith’s concept of sympathy and its contemporary interpretations Bence Nanay 6. Smith’s ambivalence about honour Stephen Darwall 7. Sentiments and spectators: Adam Smith’s theory of moral judgment Geoffrey Sayre-McCord 8. Smith’s anti-cosmopolitanism Fonna Forman-Barzilai 9. Resentment and moral judgment in Smith and Butler Alice MacLachlan Part 3: Economics, religion, aesthetics and value theory 10. Adam Smith’s problems: individuality and the paradox of sympathy Robert Urquhart 11. Scepticism and naturalism in Adam Smith Ryan Patrick Hanley 12. Adam Smith’s solution to the paradox of tragedy Arby Ted Siraki 13. Smithian intrinsic value Patrick Frierson Memoir on Adam Smith’s life 14. Adam Smith’s smile: his years at Balliol College, 1740–6, in retrospect Ian Simpson Ross. (shrink)

Kaplan and Craver :601–627, 2011) and Piccinini and Craver :283–311, 2011) argue that only mechanistic explanations of cognition are genuine causal explanations, because only evidence of mechanisms reveals the causal structure of cognition. I first argue that this claim is grounded in a commitment to the mechanistic account of causality, which cannot be endorsed by a defender of causal-nonmechanistic explanations. Then, I defend the epistemic theory of causality, which holds that causal explanations are not genuine to the extent that they (...) reveal mechanistic causal structure, but, rather, to the extent that they have evidential support and yield successful prediction, explanation, and control inferences. Finally, I enact an epistemic unification of causal explanation in cognitive science, according to which both mechanistic and nonmechanistic explanations of cognition can be genuine causal explanations. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that Aquinas’s doctrine of prophecy develops from the early period to his more mature articulation as a result of his complex handling of the metaphysical thought of Avicenna. Aquinas subtly distances himself from the implication of Avicenna’s emanationist framework for prophecy, namely that prophetic knowledge is acquired through perfected natural intellectual habit. Yet at the same time he accommodates this aspect insofar as it aligns with Augustine’s biblical neo-Platonism. He does so, as I shall demonstrate, (...) with Augustine’s notion of prayer as a kind of inquiry that disposes the soul to aptly receive the prophetic light by the extension of divine grace. In this, Aquinas incorporates Avicenna’s notion of prophetic habit without committing to the emanationist model from which it arises. (shrink)

This article examines the ways that new communications technologies change the organization of politics as well as the content of news. Changes in the media lead to changes in the mediators, the persons who choose and interpret the news for the public. When new mediators convey different news stories or offer different interpretations from the previous regime, they redistribute control of politics and culture.

L’objectif de ce texte de Ricœur est de relier mémoire et narrativité en prenant appui sur l’exemple de l’architecture. « J’adopte, écrit le philosophe, la définition la plus générale de la mémoire – celle que l’on trouve dans un petit texte d’Aristote précisé-ment intitulé De la mémoire et de la réminiscence, et qui reprend d’ailleurs des nota-tions, en particulier de Platon dans le Théétète, concernant l’eikôn, l’image: « rendre présent de l’absence », « rendre présent de l’absent » ; ainsi (...) que la notation qui dis-tingue deux absents : l’absent comme simple irréel, qui serait donc l’imaginaire, et l’absent-qui-a-été, l’auparavant, l’antérieur, le proteron. Ce dernier est, pour Aristote, la marque distinctive de la mémoire quant à l’absence: il s’agit donc de rendre pré-sente l’absence qui-a-été. J’ai trouvé une grande complicité de pensée aux deux ex-trêmes de notre histoire de l’Occident, entre les Anciens − avec cette idée de l’absence rendue présente et de l’antériorité − et un propos de Heidegger, auquel je tiens beau-coup, quel que soit mon éloignement de son idée de l’être-pour-la-mort: la pensée qu’il faut dédoubler notre concept du passé en ce qu’il appelle le révolu, le vergangen, et ce-qui-a-été, le gewesen. Du même coup, on rend justice à la définition des Anciens, car l’auparavant-rendu-présent est doublement marqué grammaticalement: il n’est plus, mais il a été. Et il me semble que c’est la gloire de l’architecture de rendre pré-sent non pas ce qui n’est plus mais ce qui a été à travers ce qui n’est plus. ». (shrink)

El artículo es una presentación de una de las obras más emblemáticas del pensamiento político peruano de inicios del siglo XX: Carácter de la literatura del Perú independiente, la primera obra de José de la Riva-Agüero y Osma. La historiografía ha considerado este texto como una obra de historia de la literatura; también como un trabajo “liberal”. Carácter de la literatura sería en realidad una obra de filosofía social positivista. Pero sería además una versión peruana del positivismo monarquista royaliste. Riva-Agüero (...) habría tenido un referente oculto: el libro de filosofía social positivista de Javier Prado, Estado social del Perú durante la dominación española, que habría puesto de cabeza. Tres temas básicos eran el eje de una oculta polémica político-conceptual: la religión, la monarquía y la tradición. Una oculta teoría de psicología colectiva le serviría de sustento: los peruanos tendrían un carácter pragmatista y un sentimiento social empático con el pasado, más apropiado para reivindicar la tradición que para condenarla. La Guerra del Pacífico y un baile social de la aristocracia de la Lima de 1904 serán el escenario de la controversia. (shrink)

This paper develops a version of the acquaintance theory of introspective justification. In the process, it rejects the view that acquaintance is sui generic in favor of a view that identifies acquaintance with availability for selection by attention mechanisms. Moreover, unlike many recent accounts of knowledge by acquaintance, it explains the epistemic significance of acquaintance in terms of the epistemic basing relation without any need to appeal to the structure or existence of phenomenal concepts. Lastly, while in ideal cases acquaintance (...) will provide a kind of infallible justification, the paper shows how to extend these ideas to allow that acquaintance can provide fallible introspective justification. (shrink)

The paper focuses on religious nationalism, particularly on the one developed in Peru during the Interwar period. Thus, it presents the results of a research on the political writings published in the Revista de la Universidad Católica del Perú [Journal of the Catholic University of Peru] in a period of time that goes from 1932, year in which the publication was founded, to 1944, year in which the main sponsor of the Universidad Católica del Perú –the historian and catholic political (...) thinker José de la Riva Agüero–died. A praise and a presentation of fascism published in 1937 reveals a thread that leads to a concealed editorial line. Such a line makes possible to connect the catholic Peruvian intellectuals with the agenda of European nationalism. (shrink)

This essay investigates Kant’s understanding of the philosopher’s proper activity. It begins by examining Kant’s well-known claim in the Critique of Pure Reason that the philosopher is the legislator of human reason. Subsequently, it explicates Kant’s oft-overlooked description of the transcendental philosopher as an admirer of nature’s logical purposiveness, in the ‘First Introduction’ to the Critique of the Power of Judgment. These two accounts suggest very different ways of thinking about the philosopher’s character and concerns. For, while Kant’s philosopher-legislator pursues (...) the practical, world-transformative task of furthering reason’s moral vocation, the transcendental philosopher’s admiration of nature’s purposiveness is a form of a contemplative openness to the contingent but wonderful orderliness of things. I conclude that Kant ultimately recognizes that the tension between legislation and admiration is characteristic of the philosopher and that it is the heart of philosophy’s vitality. (shrink)

In this volume Samuel Parkison explores the significance of the doctrine of the beatific vision for the life of the church. Engaging in close readings of biblical texts and ancient, medieval, early modern, and modern theologians, Parkison shows that the beatific vision - that ultimate hope of seeing and being in the presence of God - is a central Christian conviction shared across the history of the church. Parkison not only invites readers into the wide-ranging developments of the doctrine, (...) but shows us the implications of the Beatific Vision for how the church envisions itself today. (shrink)

Two articles by Lewis Feuer caught my attention in the '40s when 1 was wondering, asa student physicist, about the relations of physics to philosophy and to the world in turmoil. One was his essay on 'The Development of Logical Empiricism' (1941), and the other his critical review of Philipp Frank's biography of Einstein, 'Philosophy and the Theory of Relativity' (1947). How extraordinary it was to find so intelligent, independent, critical, and humane a mind; and furthermore he went further, as (...) I soon realized when I looked for his name on other publications. I recall arguing with myself over his exploration of 'Indeterminacy and Economic Development' (1948), and even more when I read his 'Dialectical Materialism and Soviet Science' (1949). More papers, and then the fascinating, sometimes irritating, always insightful, books. His monograph on Psychoanalysis and Ethics 1955, the beautiful sociological and humanist study of Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism (1958), his essays on 'The Social Roots of Einstein's Theory of Relativity' (1971) together with the book on Einstein and the Genera tions of Science (1974), the splendid reader from the works of Marx and Engels, Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy (1959) which was a major text of the '60s, the stimulating essays on the social formation which seems to have been required for a modern scientific movement to develop, set forth most convincingly in The Scientific Intellectual (1963). (shrink)

Debating Terrorism is an innovative new textbook, addressing a number of key issues in contemporary terrorism studies from both 'traditional' and 'critical' perspectives. In recent years, the terrorism studies field has grown in quantity and quality, with a growing number of scholars rooted in various professional disciplines beginning to debate the complex dynamics underlying this category of violence. Within the broader field, there are a number of identifiable controversies and questions which divide scholarly opinion and generate opposing arguments. These relate (...) to theoretical issues, such as the definition of terrorism and state terrorism, substantive issues like the threat posed by al Qaeda and the utility of different responses to terrorism, different pathways leading people to engage in terrorist tactics, and ethical issues such as the torture of terrorist suspects and targeted assassination. This volume aims to bring together in one place many of the field's leading scholars to debate the key issues relating a set of 12 important controversies and questions. The format of the volume involves a leading scholar taking a particular position on the controversy, followed by an opposing or alternative viewpoint written by another scholar. In addition to the pedagogic value of allowing students to read opposing arguments in one place, the volume will also be important for providing an overview of the state of the field and its key lines of debate. This textbook will be essential reading for all students of terrorism and political violence, critical terrorism studies, critical security studies, security studies and IR in general. (shrink)

Socio-cultural changes in the pattern of development of a group of people often occur when there is an introduction of foreign cultures. The annexation of Gold Coast brought the Asante Empire under British rule, and from the beginning of the twentieth century Gold Coast witnessed a total transformation of the economy from it subsistence nature to a cash economy. Economic changes associated with diversification and rapid expansion of Gold Coast export mitigated for a demand in labour force. However, the research (...) focused on the people of Kumasi and using the Winick theory of alcohol dependency sought to unveil the socio-cultural changes that occurred within the period under review. Furthermore, with the use of qualitative narrative, interviews, secondary and primary data, the research was undertaken and findings revealed some changes in customs, values, and lifestyle of individuals in the community. It further indicated the role played by colonial influence and administration’s reliance on imported alcohol coupled with the introduction of a new kind of local gin (akpeteshie). It was also discovered that, European influence contributed greatly to changes that occurred in the social and cultural uses of distilled liquor in Kumasi. European liquor came to be identified with modernity and European lifestyle. Furthermore, the introduction of railway transport, road transport and creation of urbanization by colonial government policies promoted a new form of social drinking notable among the youth which was devoid of any form of restrain by elders and chiefs. In addition, there was the emergence of social classes who appreciated the European way of life and drinking because it depicted prestige wealth. On the other hand, the emergence of akpeteshie promoted social disorder and the decline in palm wine. (shrink)

"A second major aspect of this work is Yalom's desire to use the lens of Latin American literature - particularly magical realism - to delve into Mexican culture and history.

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