Classic analysis of the subject and the development of personal probability; one of the greatest controversies in modern statistcal thought. New preface and new footnotes to 1954 edition, with a supplementary 180-item annotated bibliography by author. Calculus, probability, statistics, and Boolean algebra are recommended.

This paper presents arguments and evidence from psychology and neuroscience supporting Lipton’s 2004 claim that scientists create knowledge through an abductive process that he calls “Inference to the Best Explanation”. The paper develops two conclusions. Conclusion 1 is that without conscious effort on our part, our brains use a process very similar to abduction as a powerful way of interpreting sensory information. To support Conclusion 1, evidence from psychology and neuroscience is presented that suggests that what we humans perceive through (...) our senses is not reality, but rather, our ‘brain’s “best guess” of the causes of its sensory input. The implication of this best guessing is that our brains use a process very similar to abduction throughout our lives to inform us of what is happening in the world around us. In addition, an argument based on Darwinian evolution is presented claiming that our brains do an excellent job of interpreting sensory information from the outside world. (If they did not, we, as a species, could hardly have survived.) Combining these two claims leads to Conclusion 1. Building on Conclusion 1, Conclusion 2 is that Lipton and others are correct in claiming that scientists use abduction when creating scientific theories. Abduction must be strong, because Nature chose abduction for its own sensemaking purposes. This paper’s contribution to knowledge is in pointing out that recent psychological and neuroscientific research has major implications for the philosophical world’s confidence in the probable validity of abductive inference. The punchline is simple: Nature chose abduction! (shrink)

Whilst some philosophical progress has been made on the ethical evaluation of playing video games, the exact subject matter of this enquiry remains surprisingly opaque. ‘Virtual murder’, simulation, representation and more are found in a literature yet to settle into a tested and cohesive terminology. Querying the language of the virtual in particular, I suggest that it is at once inexplicit and laden with presuppositions potentially liable to hinder anyone aiming to construct general philosophical claims about an ethics of gameplay, (...) for whom assumptions about the existence of ‘virtual’ counterparts to morally salient phenomena may prove untrustworthy. Ambiguously straddling the pictorial and the performative aspects of video gaming, the virtual leaves obscure the ways in which we become involved in gameplay, and particularly the natures of our intentions and attitudes whilst grappling with a game; furthermore, it remains unclear how we are to generalise across encounters with the virtual. I conclude by briefly noting one potential avenue of further enquiry into our modes of participation in games: into the differences which a moral examination of playfulness might make to ethical evaluation. (shrink)

FRED SEDDON provides a chapter by chapter examination of Greg Nyquist’s Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature. Nyquist gives a detailed exploration of all of the major branches of Rand’s philosophy as well as Rand’s philosophy of history and her philosophical anthropology.

In 1972, George Seddon wrote Sense of Place, documenting his experience and research into the Swan Coastal Plain, which has since become a landmark Australian environmental publication. Among its claims to influence is having given modern currency to the term sense of place. Although Seddon did not coin the phrase, it was this book that introduced the phrase into the fields of landscape and environmental design. The book includes information on landforms, climate, geology, soils, flora, the Swan River, (...) the coast, offshore islands, wetlands, and urban areas. Mr. Warner in his Adirondack story, shot a bear by aiming, not at his eye or heart, but at him 'generally'. But we cannot aim 'generally' at the universe, or if we do, we will miss our game. So said William James, the philosopher, and it is good advice on how to take aim at environmental problems. Sense of Place is a topographic essay, not on the universe, but the environs of Perth, Western Australia. It is in three parts: The Land - The Plants - Man. The landforms, climate, drainage geology and plant-cover are discussed in detail, to construct a picture of the region before European settlement. The last third deals with the land use by Aboriginal and European, and the major environmental resources of the region. (shrink)

I suggest a revised meta-linguistic account that distinguishes between the language used to talk about a particular language -- the meta-language -- from direct speech reports made within a language -- the object language. Making this distinction leads to a kind of meta-linguistic analysis of competence with names that is not simply tautologous, so long as competence with names is not construed as knowing this: 'Tyler' is whatever is called 'Tyler'. Rather, it should be this: the name 'Tyler' is whatever (...) speakers of an object language call "Tyler," where the double quotes represent direct speech acts. This makes it possible that the schema, 'X' is whatever speakers of an object language call "X," could very well be informative, and serve as an explanation of what a speaker understands when competent with a name. Well, it would insofar as a speaker could learn something about the meaning of the the name 'Tyler' by examining its utterances. In fact, something like this must have to have some truth to it. After all, even non-fluent children learn to speak a language, in part, by attending to utterances of certain expressions in particular situations. The major difference is that when we are finally competent with the expression 'duck' it is not because we have grasped the previous schema. It is because we will engage in duck-awareness behaviors when our environment has something to with ducks at a certain time. In contrast, simply understanding the previous schema is exactly what competence with names consists in. (shrink)

In this essay, Seddon provides a brief rejoinder to Long's reply to his review of the monograph Reason and Value: Aristotle versus Rand. Despite his criticisms, Seddon maintains that reading Long's monograph will pay rewards for all those interested in the history of philosophy as it impacts Ayn Rand's thought.

Classic analysis of the subject and the development of personal probability; one of the greatest controversies in modern statistcal thought.

The reviewer looks at Roger E. Bissell's latest work, What's in Your File Folder? Essays on the Nature and Logic of Propositions. He considers a range of topics including propositions, syllogisms, the meaning of existence, the nature of entities and characteristics, axioms, causality, and logic, among others.

This book strives to deal with Hegel's thought by means of a thorough, unitarian and logical approach and to enforce the idea that philosophy is rigorous as far as it is able to consistently tackle the question of self-consciousness. It results that the logic underlying every philosophical interest traces back to the self-referring investigation about life in the mode of self-consciousness, by which social practices and their history can be grasped. Once we assess that self-consciousness is life through the concept, (...) we would be able to realize the logical structure underlying its historical outcomes. (shrink)

Seddon echoes comments he made in his original Spring 2003 Journal of Ayn Rand Studiesreview of GregNyquist's book, Ayn Rand Contra Human Nature. He argues that Nyquist's reply still does not grasp fully the Objectivist view of logic and the role of induction.

This paper analyzes the oft-quoted sentence from Immanuel Kant's first Critique of Pure Reason, viz., "I have therefore found it necessary to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith." Seddon argues that Kant is hardly the mystic mat Ayn Rand and many Objectivists have caricatured him as being.

This new translation of Epictetus' Handbook brings his ancient teachings to those who wish to live the philosophic life by finding a way to live happily in the world without being overwhelmed by it. This modern English translation of the complete Handbook is supported by the first thorough commentary since that of Simplicius, 1500 years ago, along with a detailed introduction, extensive glossary, index of key terms, and helpful tables that clarify Stoic ethical doctrines as a glance. Accompanying the Handbook (...) is the Tablet of Cebes , a curious and engaging text from an unknown author. In complete contrast to the Handbook 's more conventional philosophical presentation, the Tablet is an allegory that shows progress to philosophical wisdom as a journey through a landscape inhabited by personifications of Happiness, Fortune, the Virtues and Vices. (shrink)

In this review, two significant works published in e-book format demand the attention of Rand scholars: Roger E. Bissell's book How the Martians Discovered Algebra: Explorations in Induction and the Philosophy of Mathematics and Michelle Marder Kamhi's Who Says That's Art? A Commonsense View of the Visual Arts. Covering wildly different territory, the two works make an important contribution to the literature.

We statisticians, with our specific concern for uncertainty, are even more liable than other practical men to encounter philosophy, whether we like it or not. For my part, I like it comparatively well. That is why the honor of opening this session of discussion has come to me, though my background makes my knowledge and idiom somewhat different from your own.

ABSTRACT In Exploring “Atlas Shrugged”: Ayn Rand’s Magnum Opus, Edward W. Younkins examines Rand’s 1957 novel as philosophy, literature, political economy, and business-education text. The book is constituted mostly by previously published essays. Despite some interpretive difficulties throughout, the introduction and appendix represent worthwhile additions to this collection.

‘The heavens’ are among the oldest and most enduring heritage of human cultures: a scene of ancient myths and modern space opera. That something is part of somebody’s cultural heritage implies that there may be ethical duties to conserve it or otherwise treat it with respect, and space is no exception to this principle: recent work by Tony Milligan asserts that the cultural significances of the Moon may count against any prospect of lunar mining on a significantly destructive scale. Current (...) literature on the ethics of cultural heritage, however, tends ordinarily to be suited to more familiar sorts of heritage: artefacts and places contested by terrestrial governments and settled ethnic groups, rather than the distant worlds above us. So long as space exploration is conducted by those same terrestrial governments and their agencies, current international agreements about protection of ‘the common heritage of mankind’ may seem adequate as a guiding light for their ethics in space. Private space exploration, however, introduces further difficulties. -/- Private individuals and corporations often have complex cultural affiliations of their own; and expansion into space may foster the development of identities not strongly grounded in the national and regional cultures of Earth. To look up and observe space is part of the heritage we share as human beings, whilst the names of the ‘heavenly bodies’ we perceive and the stories we tell about them are hallmarks of particular terrestrial cultures; but what responsibilities are borne towards this heritage by people who go out to explore and inhabit and exploit it? This essay considers in what ways, and to what extent, the roles which space has played within the cultures that have developed on Earth might place moral constraints upon private explorers of space. I argue that space qua heritage is best conceptualised as an intellectual resource: explorers will not find legendary heroes or crystal spheres, but it has been possible (for example) for human cultures to feature Moon Goddesses by virtue of the fact that there is a Moon. Drawing on ideas of stewardship which have been influential in archaeological ethics, I develop an account of how duties of conservation might put practical constraints upon the exploitation of this resource. (shrink)

Robert Mayhew has edited a series of books featuring essays examining the novels of Ayn Rand. This book is the third in the series, and it is a highly recommended collection. Among the best essays are those written by Shoshana Milgram, Jeff Britting, Tore Boeckmann, and Mayhew. The book does, however, suffer from a few scholarly lapses.

Over the last 30 years the effects of economic globalisation have transformed education and its relationship to work and everyday working lives. Market reform and the appropriation of ‘learning’ to fuel the knowledge economy produced a lifelong learning educational order, complemented by social inclusion to manage residual and resistant populations. In the process education was decentred, learning spaces were diversified within an education market that served the world of work. Educators were remaindered by a rising tide of coaches, counsellors, learning (...) managers and mentors who ‘facilitate’ rather than ‘teach’. In this groundbreaking book the author contextualises these changes as a way of re-reading our times and its educational effects. The chapters examine the interface of policy and practice and map the shifting relations between educational work and social organisations of learning by developing three key themes: _Liquid learning_: drawing on Bauman’s characterisation of ‘liquid modernity’, the concept of liquid leaning details the cultural conditions that confront educators and those who seek to use education as a social instrument to address economic, social, cultural, environmental and political development _Making spaces of orientation_: designing and realising strategies to address the challenges of "liquid modernity" _Educational work_: considering the specialist expertise that educators as an occupational group bring to the challenges of liquid learning. The case examples that make up the main body of this book show how spaces of orientation are made and how they can be designed to support learning for living in interdependence. Each of these cases is informed by substantial empirical research and fine-grained analyses are used to define the nature of educational work, the resources that are mobilised in constructing contexts for learning, and its contribution to the art of politics that makes spaces of orientation. As the author demonstrates, educators have expertise that is critical in the contemporary globalised world and its politics. (shrink)

This essay argues that Rand's conception of truth marshals all the strengths of the four theories of truth detailed by philosopher Nicholas Rescher: correspondence, coherence, intuitionistic, and pragmatic.

The author responds to Michelle Marder Kamhi’s reply to his review of her book, Who Says That’s Art? He takes her to task on a few issues, but largely sees this as a mere skirmish between two colleagues who agree on many fundamentals.

Exploring the metaphysics of time, this book examines key questions about the nature of time. It begins by examining the distinction between the two main theories of time, the static view and the tensed view, arguing that the temporal properties of ‘past’, ‘present’ and ‘future’ are not in fact properties of events. Other topics also discussed include fatalism, the ‘open’ future, death and dying, whether there are logical impediments to travelling in time, and the metaphysical implications of precognition. Revised and (...) expanded second edition . (shrink)

Current treatments of cultural heritage as an object of moral concern (whether it be the heritage of mankind or of some particular group of people) have tended to treat it as a means to ensure human wellbeing: either as ‘cultural property’ or ‘cultural patrimony’, suggesting concomitant rights of possession and exclusion, or otherwise as something which, gaining its ethical significance from the roles it plays in people’s lives and the formation of their identities, is the beneficiary at most of indirect (...) moral obligations. In contrast, I argue that cultural heritage, as something whose existence can go well or badly, can itself qualify as a moral patient towards which we may have obligations which need not be accounted for in terms of subsequent benefits to human beings. Drawing inspiration from environmental ethics and suggesting that heritage, like an ecosystem, is a complex network of interrelations which invites a holistic understanding, I develop a framework for thinking about cultural heritage which shows how such a thing can feature in our ethical reflections as intrinsically worthy of respect in spite of its most obvious differences from the ‘natural’ world: the very human origins of cultural heritage and its involvement with human life in all its forms. As part of the development of this framework I consider the epistemic difficulties which arise when for all our holistic sophistication we do find ourselves in the predicament of having to judge the moral worth of some item of heritage, possibly someone else’s heritage and possibly something which we find ourselves disposed to value more because of than despite any mysteries surrounding it. I conclude by offering some tentative illustrations of how such a framework might operate in the practical course of normative moral reasoning about what should be done with items of cultural heritage. -/- [Erratum note: p. 30 conflates the Kumasi palace looting of 1874 with that of 1896.]. (shrink)

This volume brings together eleven essays that address a range of issues extending from broader questions of social justice to the sexual intimacy that bears the mark of our fleshly existence. Collectively, these essays extend the reach of Paul Ricoeur’s early to late works by taking up some of the major social, political and religious challenges facing us in a postmodern, ultrapluralistic world.

Why do humans make music? Theories of the evolution of musicality have focused mainly on the value of music for specific adaptive contexts such as mate selection, parental care, coalition signaling, and group cohesion. Synthesizing and extending previous proposals, we argue that social bonding is an overarching function that unifies all of these theories, and that musicality enabled social bonding at larger scales than grooming and other bonding mechanisms available in ancestral primate societies. We combine cross-disciplinary evidence from archeology, anthropology, (...) biology, musicology, psychology, and neuroscience into a unified framework that accounts for the biological and cultural evolution of music. We argue that the evolution of musicality involves gene–culture coevolution, through which proto-musical behaviors that initially arose and spread as cultural inventions had feedback effects on biological evolution because of their impact on social bonding. We emphasize the deep links between production, perception, prediction, and social reward arising from repetition, synchronization, and harmonization of rhythms and pitches, and summarize empirical evidence for these links at the levels of brain networks, physiological mechanisms, and behaviors across cultures and across species. Finally, we address potential criticisms and make testable predictions for future research, including neurobiological bases of musicality and relationships between human music, language, animal song, and other domains. The music and social bonding hypothesis provides the most comprehensive theory to date of the biological and cultural evolution of music. (shrink)

This article questions traditional experimental approaches to the study of primate cognition. Beecuse of a widespread assumption that cognition in non-human primates is genetically encoded and “natural,” these approaches neglect how profoundly apes’ cultural rearing experiences affect test results. We deseribe how three advanced cognitive abilities - imitation, theory of mind and language - emerged in bonobos maturing in a bi-species Pan/Homo culture, and how individual rearing differences led to individual forms of these abilities. These descriptions are taken from a (...) rich ethnographic material, and we argue for the scientific superiority of participant-based ethnographic studies of primate cognition in shared Pan/Homo cultures. (shrink)

A new edition of a comprehensive introduction to the philosophy of language, substantially updated and reorganized. The philosophy of language aims to answer a broad range of questions about the nature of language, including “what is a language?” and “what is the source of meaning?” This accessible comprehensive introduction to the philosophy of language begins with the most basic properties of language and only then proceeds to the phenomenon of meaning. The second edition has been significantly expanded and reorganized, putting (...) the original content in a contemporary context and offering substantial new material, with extended discussions and entirely new chapters. After establishing the basics, the book discusses general criteria for an adequate theory of meaning, takes a first pass at describing meaning at an abstract level, and distinguishes between meaning and other related phenomena. Building on this, the book then addresses various specific theories of meaning, beginning with early foundational theories and proceeding to more contemporary ones. New to this edition are expanded discussions of Chomsky's work and compositional semantics, among other topics, and new chapters on such subjects as propositions, Montague grammar, and contemporary theories of language. Each chapter has technical terms in bold, followed by definitions, and offers a list of main points and suggested further readings. The book is suitable for use in undergraduate courses in philosophy and linguistics. Some background in philosophy is assumed, but knowledge of philosophy of language is not necessary. (shrink)

Any plausible account of the act of pretending, either by presupposition or constitution, involves an assumption that the facts are other than what they are. An examination of various accounts of pretence shows this to be the feature that distinguishes it from other actions such as imagining, fantasizing, creating, or hypothesizing. This discovery has implications for standard analyses of the nature of fiction. To wit, whatever is occurring when engaged in reading a work of fiction, it is not an act (...) of pretence, since in reading a work of fiction, whether the facts are other than what they are is irrelevant to understanding and enjoying the story. The rather long history of appeals to pretence to explain the nature of fiction and our engagement with it, then, fail. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to examine F. S. C. Northrop's approach to Russian Communism via his analysis of (1) the fundamental types of all possible concepts and (2) how an exposition of the basic concepts of Russian Communism enable us to understand not only the past performances of the Soviet Union but also to predict what they are likely to do in the future. This goal is accomplished by an examination of three essays that Northrop penned over a (...) period of 14 years. Although a few critical remarks are tendered, my essay tends to be descriptive in an effort to introduce those unfamiliar with Northrop to the work of this vast mind. Readers of this journal will no doubt profit from exposure to Northrop's entire corpus. (shrink)

Paul Ricoeur and the Lived Body’s explorations into the ethical, social, cultural, and affective dimensions of our corporeal existence draw on Paul Ricoeur’s reflection on the lived body. Starting with the fact that one’s own body is irreducible to an object, these essays critically contribute to discourses on the body.

The aim of this article1 is to provide insight into the anthropological framework that could inform the pastoral and therapeutic care of those we encounter, professionally or in our personal lives, who experience same-sex attraction. Our question here is not whether or not persons are free to ignore the natural order but to consider how to minister to those who wish to engage in the struggle to conform themselves to it—or those whom we hope to persuade to do so. Since (...) entering into such conversations often requires a starting place in experience, we need an approach that will permit us to integrate human experience into a fuller account of the human person. The thesis of this article is that the account of the human person proposed by Pope St. John Paul II, as the philosopher Karol Wojtyła provides the answers we need. I demonstrate that his approach permits us to acknowledge the experience of actual existing persons without compromising the more properly “ontological” framework that we know reveals the unchanging truth about human personhood.2 I show that his account gives us the foothold we are seeking in our efforts to help those struggling with SSA. (shrink)

This article argues that the descriptive turn evident in contemporary capitalism challenges orthodox sociological emphases on the central importance of causality and the denigration of descriptive methods. The article reviews the different evocations of descriptive sociology pronounced by three very different contemporary sociologists: Andrew Abbott, John Goldthorpe, and Bruno Latour, and lays out their different approaches to the role of the `sociological descriptive'. It is argued that their apparent differences need to be placed in a broader re-orientation of sociology away (...) from its historical interface with the humanities and towards the natural sciences. How this reorientation involves a new role for visual methods which have traditionally been decried in orthodox sociology is examined, and the article concludes with suggestions for how sociology might best orient itself to the descriptive turn. (shrink)

A parallel argument to the doxastic voluntarist argument -- a general voluntarism argument -- can be constructed against both ethical and semantic internalism. In the ethical case, the parallel argument begins with the idea that if ethical internalism is true, that is, if we cannot help but be motivated to do the right thing internally, then it would appear that our being moved to do the right thing is involuntary in the same was as our beliefs are involuntary. If correct, (...) this leaves the ethical internalist with a dilemma. Like the epistemologist faced with the doxastic voluntarism argument, she can either deny the plausible ought implies can principle in order to maintain that the idea that ethical obligations make sense, or she must rest content with the idea that ethical internalism has the status of a descriptive account of moral behavior rather than a prescriptive theory. But, the ethical internalist is engaged in giving an account of the nature of moral action, it is entirely unclear what differentiates moral behaviors from any other kind of internally motivated actions -- the normativity of morality is lost. If we believe that normativity is constitutive of morality, then ethical internalism fails even as a description of its nature. In the semantic case, if we cannot for instance simply decide that 'Glory' means the same as 'There's a nice knockdown argument for you', it is unclear how meaning could be determined internally and yet be normative at the same time. If ought implies can, and we cannot change the meaning of our expressions internally, then the normativity of meaning cannot come from the inside, it must come from without, but how could the normativity of linguistic behavior come from without given that it is an artefact? The semantic internalist therefore faces the same dilemma that both doxastic voluntarism and ethical internalism face. (shrink)

Since land is older than the borders which humans have drawn and redrawn upon its surface, it may seem that, unlike the artefacts which people make with materials taken from the landscapes around them, land itself is endlessly open for new waves of migrants to embrace as part of their own heritage. Yet humans do mark landscapes, sometimes in lasting ways: not only roads and buildings but agriculture, forestry, dams and diverted rivers, quarrying and mining and more. It is landscape (...) archaeologists who are most able to trace the material evidence of how landscapes were used and by whom; and so when interests in land are contested, archaeological evidence may be cited in order to distinguish the long-established community from the geographical Johnny-come-lately, or to cast doubt on whether this can meaningfully be done. (An example is litigation concerning forests in southern Belize, once logging had made them profitable: the ethnographic and archaeological question of whether peoples inhabiting the area were descended from the ancient Maya, or whether from more recent immigrants, became a point of legal disputation.) This chapter assesses the ethical use of scientific knowledge when settlement, and the traces of settlement which archaeology can uncover, can leave newer immigrants finding that the very ground beneath their feet already looks like someone else’s cultural artefact. (shrink)