The central issue addressed in this CUP monograph is whether and how Christian ethics might be able to make a significant contribution to health care ethics today in the public forum of a Western, pluralistic society. It is the twenty-sixth monograph in the larger project (edited by Robin Gill) New Studies in Christian Ethics that has received considerable international attention. It offers a fresh basis for health care ethics derived from a detailed exegesis of the Synoptic virtues of compassion, care, (...) faith and humility in order to deepen the widely used secular principles of beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy and justice in health care ethics. In an early review David Atkinson concluded that Gills excellent, clear, and well-written book is a significant contribution. (shrink)

This article builds on my previous article on Dirk H. Th. Vollenhoven (Ive 2015) and provides an overview of the development of the systematic philosophy of Herman Dooyeweerd. This article seeks to provide an overview of the key developments in the thinking of Dooyeweerd, both in the convergences arising from the conversation of the two brothers-in-law and long-term colleagues and in their divergences. Dooyeweerd and Vollenhoven worked within the tradition of Abraham Kuyper, the father of Reformational philosophy. The development of (...) their respective philosophical systematics has tended to be addressed separately. However, I argue that the close cooperation between the two philosophers was critical in the formulation of the philosophy of the cosmonomic Idea. The philosophical conversation between the two persisted, despite critical divergences, largely aired privately. Their respective insights remained a source of mutual stimulus and complementarity foundational for Reformational philosophy. (shrink)

Disclosure of financial interests in scientific research is the centerpiece of the new conflict of interest regulations issued by the U.S. Public Health Service and the National Science Foundation that became effective October 1, 1995. Several scientific journals have also established financial disclosure requirements for contributors. This paper measures the frequency of selected financial interests held among authors of certain types of scientific publications and assesses disclosure practices of authors. We examined 1105 university authors (first and last cited) from Massachusetts (...) institutions whose 789 articles, published in 1992, appeared in 14 scientific and medical journals. (shrink)

Predicted relationships between media preference and authoritarianism were derived from theoretical and experimental studies. It was hypothesized that authoritarians would be more likely to believe their preferred media sources than would nonauthoritarians, and that the authoritarian’s position on political issues would be closer to the position represented by positively evaluated media but farther from the position of negatively evaluated media. Results from mail questionnaires obtained from 445 Detroit adults supported the hypotheses. Coercive force also was strongly related to authoritarianism when (...) the media were described as disagreeing with the views of important political leaders. (shrink)

The rapid commercialization of applied genetics in the mtd-1970s, accompanied by a sudden rise in academic-corporate partnerships, raised questions about the impacts these linkages have had on the social and professional norms of scientists. The extent and pattern of faculty tnvolvement in commercialization of biological research is largely an unexplored area. This article provcdes a quantitative assessment of the linkages between biology faculty in American uncverscties and the newly formed biotechnology industry. The results of thes study, covering the period 1985-88, (...) show that academic scientists responded en masse to participating in the commercialization of genetecs research by estabhshmg formal associations with many of the new biotechnology compances. A data base consisting of 889 U.S. and Canadian biotechnology companies and 832 sccentcsts who had formal ties to them was developed over a four-year period. The patterns of academic-corporate Icnkages are revealed by institution. Three universities with the most commercially active faculty are Harvard, Stanford, and MIT. Of the 359 bcomedeca! scientists and geneteccsts who were members of the Nateonal Academy of Sceences, at minimum, 37% had formal ties with the biotechnology industry. (shrink)

Approximately one in two hundred persons in the Marshall Islands have active tuberculosis. We examine the historical antecedents of this situation in order to assign ethical responsibility for the present situation. Examining the antecedents in terms of Galtung’s dialectic of personal versus structural violence, we can identify instances in the history of the Marshall Islands when individual subjects made decisions with large-scale ecologic, social, and health consequences. The roles of medical experimenters, military commanders, captains of the weapons industry in particular, (...) and industrial capitalism in general are examined. In that, together with Lewontin, we also identify industrial capitalism as the cause of tuberculosis, we note that the distinction between personal versus structural violence is difficult to maintain. By identifying the cause of the tuberculosis in the Marshall Islands, we also identify what needs be done to treat and prevent it. (shrink)

future evolution of the field. These ideas thou h old 'th k oug o, are ei er un nown oz misunderstood, Our point here is that a stron realistic os". g ' ' posi'.ion has consequences: it offers a completely natural..

Most academic papers on ethics in pandemics concentrate on the duties of healthcare professionals. This paper will consider non-professional healthcare workers: do they have a moral obligation to work during an influenza pandemic? If so, is this an obligation that outweighs others they might have, e.g., as parents, and should such an obligation be backed up by the coercive power of law? This paper considers whether non-professional healthcare workers—porters, domestic service workers, catering staff, clerks, IT support workers, etc.—have an obligation (...) to work during an influenza pandemic. It uses data collected as part of a study looking at the attitudes of healthcare workers to working during a pandemic to suggest the philosophical arguments explored. These include: being in a position to do good, the ethics of work, competing obligations to family members and in particular to children and the obligations of citizens in a state of national emergency. We also look at whether compulsory measures are justified to support a national health service during a health emergency. We conclude that even if they are, compulsion should not be restricted to non-professionals who happen to be working in the health service at the time. Rather, compulsion involving a larger pool of people with the relevant skills and abilities is more equitable. (shrink)

The publication in this issue of Leonard B. Meyer’s superbly detailed analysis of the Trio of Mozart’s G Minor Symphony became the occasion of us to reexamine and restate some of the general aims of Critical Inquiry. From its inception Critical Inquiry was based on the assumption that we can indeed understand each other, at least to the point where critical exchange becomes meaningful and fruitful. It is this belief, for example, that has led us to eschew the more fiery (...) debates and to concentrate instead on articles in which distinguished critics of all the arts attempt to explore the issues that divide them—the correspondence between Gombrich and Bell, for example, Booth’s attempt to represent his understanding of Abrams followed by Abrams’ representation of how he understands his own work, or, similarly, the exchange between Angus Fletcher and Northrop Frye. Even in our more heated Critical Response section, we have tended to reject those arguments that reflect primarily the egos of the disputants in favor of discourse that reveals the actual issues that separate them. We have been fully conscious that such a focus eliminates some of the excitement of fiery battle, and we are aware as well that we have not always succeeded in our attempt. (shrink)

Situé au carrefour des études culturelles et visuelles (cultural and visual studies), de l’histoire matérielle (material history), de l’histoire du livre et de l’édition, et de la littérature, l’ouvrage publié sous la direction de Ann R. Hawkins et Maura Ives (toutes deux dix-neuvièmistes, spécialistes à la fois de la bibliographie et des women’s studies) regroupe douze études savantes qui brossent un large panorama de la situation littéraire, sociale et symbolique des écrivaines de langue an...

Fred Dretske asserts that the conscious or phenomenal experiences associated with our perceptual states—e.g. the qualitative or subjective features involved in visual or auditory states—are identical to properties that things have according to our representations of them. This is Dretske's version of the currently popular representational theory of consciousness . After explicating the core of Dretske's representational thesis, I offer two criticisms. I suggest that Dretske's view fails to apply to a broad range of mental phenomena that have rather distinctive (...) subjective or qualitative features. I also suggest that Dretske's view, in identifying conscious experiences with features of our perceptual states, casts its aim too low. It deflates further than it should and, in consequence, fails to capture what are arguably some of the most important phenomena associated with our conscious lives. (shrink)

Democracy and the state are two political notions that have come under considerable duress in late modernity. This paper considers a prominent critic of both, Sheldon Wolin. The paper examines three elements that figure in Wolin's analyses of democracy and the modern state in a central way: community, memory, and the culture of history. A theorisation of these elements can illuminate what is at stake in the articulation of political conceptions that yield communal forms through the constitution of political (...) space. Wolin's analyses of democracy, the state, and modern power can be of help, first, in elucidating the political valences of the three elements themselves; second, in specifying relationships of mutuality among them; and third, in theorising what is at issue in the transposition of these elements from the domestic sphere to the international. The paper speaks mainly to the first and second concerns. A path is explored for thinking what is at stake in the third, namely, locating in and then transposing from the domestic sphere a ‘we’ which does not enjoy a precise ontology, but which is nonetheless capable of giving collaborative efforts in world-political spheres another political ground. (shrink)

Nous présentons 21 monnaies du Péloponnèse appartenant à la collection de la Fondation du monde hellénique (FHW), qui fut achetée en novembre 2007 au collectionneur allemand K. E. Reinhard Donat. Dans cette collection sont représentés les ateliers suivants : Corinthe, un statère et deux pièces en bronze du ive‑iiie s. av. J.‑C. ; Sicyone, un triobole et deux pièces en bronze datant respectivement du ive s., du iie s. et du ier s. av. J.‑C. ; Aegira, une pièce en bronze (...) de Plautilla ; Boura, une pièce en bronze inédite de Septime Sévère ; Patras, une pièce en bronze d’Auguste ; Élis, une pièce en bronze, vers 146‑43 av. J.‑C. ; Thouria, deux pièces en bronze de Caracalla ; Kyparissia, une pièce en bronze de Géta ; Pylos, trois pièces en bronze de Septime Sévère, de Géta (inédite) et de Plautilla ; Gytheion, trois pièces en bronze de Julia Domna (inédite), de Géta (inédite) et de Plautilla ; Argos, une pièce en bronze, ive‑iiie s. av. J.‑C. ; Mantinée, une pièce en bronze de Caracalla. (shrink)

‘Menander has set up a confrontation between this law [the law about epikleroi] and love… He wants the audience to regard the law as stupid and wrong… Surely one of Menander's purposes in writing this play was to make the Athenians consider seriously whether the law ought to be changed.’ Thus Professor D. M. MacDowell in the concluding paragraph of his article ‘Love versus the Law: an Essay on Menander's Aspis’. A similar view was already implicit in E. Karabelias' treatment (...) of the play as indicative of the general attitude to this law in Athens in Menander's day: ‘A n'en point douter, l'épiclérat est ressenti, á l'epoque de Ménandre, comme une anomalie intolérable pour les mceurs de la societe athénienne à la fin du ive s.av.n.è L'épiclérat est odieux et ridicule… L'hostilité envers l'épiclérat est done un signe des temps’. And Professor E. G. Turner has written: ‘it is hard to imagine that the institution of the epiclerate emerged in good standing from this derisory treatment’. (shrink)

The only test theory used by workers in the field of testing special relativity to analyze the significance of their experiments is the proof by H. P. Robertson [Rev. Mod. Phys. 21, 378 (1949)] of the Lorentz transformations from the results of the experimental evidence. Some researchers would argue that the proof contains an unwarranted assumption disguised as a convention about synchronization procedures. Others would say that alternative conventions are possible. In the present paper, no convention is used, but the (...) Lorentz transformations are still obtained using only the results of the experiments in Robertson's proof, namely the Michelson-Morley, Kennedy-Thorndike, and Ives-Stilwell experiments. Thus the revised proof is a valid test theory which is independent of any conventions, since one appeals only to the experimental evidence. The analysis of that evidence shows the directions in which efforts to test special relativity should go. Finally it is shown how the resulting test theory still has to be improved for consistency in the analysis of experiments with complicated experimental setups, how it can be simplified for expediency as to what should be tested, and how it should be completed for a missing step not considered by Robertson. (shrink)

Publication d'un miroir à boîte, provenant d'une tombe fortuitement découverte à Lamia en 1983. Le type du miroir et l'étude iconographique et comparative de la représentation en relief du couvercle se rapportant à une scène dionysiaque mettent en évidence son caractère attique, ainsi que sa datation aux environs du dernier quart du ive s. av. J.-C. Les éléments iconographiques analysés ici sont rapprochés de parallèles provenant tant de la sculpture et de la céramique que des terres cuites et des bronzes. (...) On constate que certains types et motifs de cette nouvelle représentation remontent à la dernière phase du ν s. av. J.-C, ce qui prouve, une fois encore, l'importance de l'influence du langage artistique de cette période sur les arts mineurs en général, et sur l'évolution de la toreutique en particulier. Ainsi sont mis en lumière des rapports étroits entre l'imagerie du ive s. avancé et celle des dernières décennies du ve s., phénomène qui va se poursuivre par la suite avec des variations. Les questions de la composition et de la signification de la scène sont brièvement traitées. (shrink)

After reviewing the foundations of special relativity and the room left for rival theories, a set of nonrelativistic para-Lorentzian transformations is derived uniquely, based on (a) a weaker first principle, (b) the requirement that the transformations sought do not give rise to the clock “paradox” (in a refined version), and (c) the compliance of the transformations with the classical experiments of Michelson-Morley, Kennedy-Thorndike, and Ives-Stilwell. The corresponding dynamics is developed. Most of the experimental support of special relativity is reconsidered (...) in the light of the new theory. It is concluded that the relativity of simultaneity has so far not been tested. (shrink)

For a period of almost twenty years Aldous Huxley made use in his novels and biographies of the theories of physique and character developed by the psychometrist William Sheldon. This is most clearly seen in the novel Time must have a stop, whose characters follow Sheldon's theories in the most intricate and precise fashion. Huxley's use of Sheldon's work in this novel will be examined, and his motives for embarking on this relatively rare use of science in (...) literature discussed. (shrink)

Numismatique François de Callatay et Caroline Mattheeuws, À propos d'une série exceptionnelle de grands bronzes thasiens (fin ive- début me siècle) p. 481-490 L'acquisition par le Cabinet des Médailles de Bruxelles d'un lot de trente-cinq grands bronzes thasiens aux types «Tête de Déméter/Bustes des Dioscures» permet d'affiner la connaissance de cette émission exceptionnelle. Tous les exemplaires sont contremarques et beaucoup présentent des traces de surfrappe. L'étude du style combinée à celle des poids permet de déceler une manipulation monétaire qui avait (...) échappé jusqu'à présent. Avant de réaliser cette émission en surfrappant une émission existante au type de l'Héraclès imberbe, on s'était d'abord servi de nouveaux flans d'un poids lourd (ca 13 g). L'étude du contexte archéologique confirme d'autre part pour ces bronzes, sans toutefois qu'il soit permis de les situer à l'année près, une datation à l'extrême fin du ive s. av. J.-C. (shrink)

Inhalt: Vorwort. Abendvortrag. Wolfgang JANKE: Besonnenheit. Der philosophiegeschichtliche Ort von Fichtes Spätphilosophie. Sektion I: Phasen der Spätphilosophie 1800-1812. Ives RADRIZZANI: Die Bestimmung des Menschen: der Wendepunkt zur Spätphilosophie. Daniel BREAZEALE: Die Neue Bearbeitung der Wissenschaftslehre : Letzte »frühere« oder erste »spätere« Wissenschaftslehre? Toshio HONDA: Vom »Tun« zum »Sehen«. Reinhard LOOCK: Das Bild des absoluten Seins beim frühen und späten Fichte. Karen GLOY: Fichtes Dialektiktypen. Sektion II: Grundfragen. Jürgen STOLZENBERG: Zum Theorem der Selbstvernichtung des absoluten Wissens in Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre von (...) 1801. Kunihiko NAGASAWA: Die Absolutheit des absoluten Wissen in der WL 1801. Helmut GIRNDT: Strukturprobleme der Wissenschaftslehre 1804. Das Denken des Absoluten in Asien und Europa. Eine kritische Reflexion auf Fichtes Diktum: »Alle Philosophie vor Kant hat das Absolute in das Sein gesetzt.« Hitoshi MINOBE: Das Absolute in der Wissenschaftslehre 1804. Peter Lothar OESTERREICH: Die Rede vom Absoluten in der Spätphilosophie Fichtes. Dominik SCHMIDIG: Von Wahrheit ergriffen... >Wissenschaftslehre< und Gefühl. Ludo de VOS: Wahrheit in der Wissenschaftslehre. Manuel JIMÉNEZ-REDONDO: Logos und Erscheinung beim späten Fichte. Diogo FERRER: Der Begriff der Existenz und der Gang der Wissenschaftslehre 1805. Christoph ASMUTH: Fichtes Theorie des Ich in der Königsberger Wissenschaftslehre von 1807. Günter ZÖLLER: Denken und Wollen beim späten Fichte. Michael GERTEN: Das Verhältnis von Wissen, Moralität und Liebe. Zum Philosophiebegriff des späten Fichte. F. SCOTT SCRIBNER: Die »Physicierung des Idealismus« im Tagebuch über den animalischen Magnetismus: Die letzte Wissenschaftslehre? oder Das Ende des Idealismus? (shrink)

Inhalt: Vorwort. Abendvortrag. Wolfgang JANKE: Besonnenheit. Der philosophiegeschichtliche Ort von Fichtes Spätphilosophie. Sektion I: Phasen der Spätphilosophie 1800-1812. Ives RADRIZZANI: Die Bestimmung des Menschen: der Wendepunkt zur Spätphilosophie. Daniel BREAZEALE: Die Neue Bearbeitung der Wissenschaftslehre : Letzte »frühere« oder erste »spätere« Wissenschaftslehre? Toshio HONDA: Vom »Tun« zum »Sehen«. Reinhard LOOCK: Das Bild des absoluten Seins beim frühen und späten Fichte. Karen GLOY: Fichtes Dialektiktypen. Sektion II: Grundfragen. Jürgen STOLZENBERG: Zum Theorem der Selbstvernichtung des absoluten Wissens in Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre von (...) 1801. Kunihiko NAGASAWA: Die Absolutheit des absoluten Wissen in der WL 1801. Helmut GIRNDT: Strukturprobleme der Wissenschaftslehre 1804. Das Denken des Absoluten in Asien und Europa. Eine kritische Reflexion auf Fichtes Diktum: »Alle Philosophie vor Kant hat das Absolute in das Sein gesetzt.« Hitoshi MINOBE: Das Absolute in der Wissenschaftslehre 1804. Peter Lothar OESTERREICH: Die Rede vom Absoluten in der Spätphilosophie Fichtes. Dominik SCHMIDIG: Von Wahrheit ergriffen... >Wissenschaftslehre< und Gefühl. Ludo de VOS: Wahrheit in der Wissenschaftslehre. Manuel JIMÉNEZ-REDONDO: Logos und Erscheinung beim späten Fichte. Diogo FERRER: Der Begriff der Existenz und der Gang der Wissenschaftslehre 1805. Christoph ASMUTH: Fichtes Theorie des Ich in der Königsberger Wissenschaftslehre von 1807. Günter ZÖLLER: Denken und Wollen beim späten Fichte. Michael GERTEN: Das Verhältnis von Wissen, Moralität und Liebe. Zum Philosophiebegriff des späten Fichte. F. SCOTT SCRIBNER: Die »Physicierung des Idealismus« im Tagebuch über den animalischen Magnetismus: Die letzte Wissenschaftslehre? oder Das Ende des Idealismus? (shrink)

Inhalt: Klaus HAMMACHER: Nachruf auf Dr. Richard Schottky. Edit DÜSING: Johannes Schurr zum Gedenken. TEIL I. Jürgen STOLZENBERG: Fichtes Satz »Ich bin«. Argumentanalytische Überlegungen zu Paragraph 1 der Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre von 1794/95. Kunihiko NAGASAWA: Intellektuelle Anschauung und Dialektik. Sven JÜRGENSEN: Die Unterscheidung der Realität in Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre von 1794. Wilhelm METZ: Fichtes genetische Deduktion von Raum undä Zeit in Differenz zu Kant. Peter ROHS: Über die Zeit als das Mittelglied zwischen dem Intelligiblen und dem Sinnlichen. Daniel BREAZEALE: Philosophy (...) as the Divided Self: On the »Existential« and »Scientific« Tasks of the Jena Wissenschaftslehre. Endre KISS: Zwischen Apriorismus und Empirismus im Kontext der Isomorphie zweier Apriorismen. Zur Rekonstruktion von Fichtes philosophischer Konzeption. TEIL II. Erich HEINTEL: Gewißheit und Wahrheit bei Fichte. H.M. EMRICH: Identität und Versprechen. Hans Georg von MANZ: Selbstgewißheit und Fremdgewißheit. Fichtes Konzeption des Anderen als Konstituens der Selbsterfassung unter Berücksichtigung der Perspektive Lévinas'. Alois K. SOLLER: Die Unbegreiflichkeit der Wechselwirkung der Geister. Das Problem einer »Interpersonalitätslehre« bei Fichte. Carla DE PASCALE: Die Trieblehre bei Fichte. Karen GLOY: Die Naturauffassung bei Kant, Fichte und Schelling. Albert MUES: Der Grund der Dualität der Materie und des Indeterminismus in der physikalischen Natur. Die Lösung eines quantenphysikalischen Rätsels. Marco IVALDO: Zur Geschichtserkenntnis nach der Transzendentalphilosophie. Faustino ONCINA COVES: Geheimnis und Öffentlichkeit bei Fichte. Frank ASCHOFF: Rückkehr zur Metaphysik? Reinholds Abkehr von der Philosophie Fichtes. Ives RADRIZZANI: Der Übergang von der Grundlage zur Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo. L. de Vos: Die Realität der Idee. TEIL III. Wilhelm LÜTTERFELDS: Fichtes Konzept absoluter Einheit - ein performativer Selbstwiderspruch? Urs RICHLI: »Ich aber fordere Sie auf, absolute Genesis ins Auge zu fassen!« Realität und absolute Negativität in Fichtes Wissenschaftslehre von 1804 und in Hegels Wissenschaft der Logik. Hartmut TRAUB: Realität und System. Das Realitätsproblem in Fichtes Theorie der Fünffachheit. (shrink)

Despite the increased prevalence of bioethics research that seeks to use empirical data to answer normative research questions, there is no consensus as to what an appropriate methodology for this would be. This review aims to search the literature, present and critically discuss published Empirical Bioethics methodologies.

By using tissue typing in conjunction with preimplantation genetic diagnosis doctors are able to pick a human embryo for implantation which, if all goes well, will become a “saviour sibling”, a brother or sister capable of donating life-saving tissue to an existing child.This paper addresses the question of whether this form of selection should be banned and concludes that it should not. Three main prohibitionist arguments are considered and found wanting: the claim that saviour siblings would be treated as commodities; (...) a slippery slope argument, which suggests that this practice will lead to the creation of so-called “designer babies”; and a child welfare argument, according to which saviour siblings will be physically and/or psychologically harmed. (shrink)

Attempts to conduct systematic reviews of ethical arguments in bioethics are fundamentally misguided. All areas of enquiry need thorough and informative literature reviews, and efforts to bring transparency and systematic methods to bioethics are to be welcomed. Nevertheless, the raw materials of bioethical articles are not suited to methods of systematic review. The eclecticism of philosophy may lead to suspicion of philosophical methods in bioethics. Because bioethics aims to influence medical and scientific practice it is tempting to adopt scientific language (...) and methods. One manifestation is the increasing innovation in, and use of, systematic reviews of ethical arguments in bioethics. Yet bioethics, as a broadly philosophical area of enquiry, is unsuited to systematic review. Bioethical arguments are evaluative, so notions of quality and bias are inapplicable. Bioethical argument is conceptual rather than numerical, and the classification of concepts is itself a process of argument that cannot aspire to neutrality. Any ‘systematic review’ of ethical arguments in bioethics thus falls short of that name. Furthermore, labels matter. Although the bioethics research community may find that adopting the language and the outward methods of clinical science offers apparent prospects of credibility, policy influence and funding, we argue that such misdirection carries risks and is unlikely to pay dividends in the long term. Bioethical sources are amenable to the review methods of the social sciences, and it is on these methods that specific methods of bioethics literature review should be built. (shrink)

An existential psychodynamic theory is presented based on Ernest Becker's claim that self‐esteem and cultural worldviews function to ameliorate the anxiety associated with the uniquely human awareness of vulnerability and mortality. Psychological equanimity is hypothesized to require (1) a shared set of beliefs about reality that imbues the universe with stability, meaning, and permanence; (2) standards by which individuals can judge themselves to be of value; and (3) promises of safety and the transcendence of death to those who meet the (...) standards of value. An empirical research program in support of this theory is then described, and the personal and interpersonal implications of these ideas are briefly considered. (shrink)

Social phenomena—quite like mental states in the philosophy of mind—are often regarded as potential troublemakers from the start, particularly if they are approached with certain explanatory commitments, such as naturalism or social individualism, already in place. In this paper, we argue that such explanatory constraints should be at least initially bracketed if we are to arrive at an adequate non-biased description of social phenomena. Legitimate explanatory projects, or so we maintain, such as those of making the social world fit within (...) the natural world with the help of, e.g., collective intentionality, social individualism, and the like, should neither exclude nor influence the prior description of social phenomena. Just as we need a description of the mental that is not biased, for example, by (anti)physicalist constraints, we need a description of the social that is not biased, for example, by (anti)individualist or (anti)naturalist commitments. Descriptive social ontology, as we shall conceive of it, is not incompatible with the adoption of explanatory frameworks in social ontology; rather, the descriptive task, according to our conception, ought to be recognized as prior to the explanatory project in the order of inquiry. If social phenomena are, for example, to be reduced to nonsocial (e.g., psychological or physical) phenomena, we need first to understand clearly what the social candidates for the reduction in question are. While such descriptive or naive approaches have been influential in general metaphysics (see Fine 2017), they have so far not been prominent in analytic social ontology (though things are different outside of analytic philosophy, see esp. Reinach (1913). In what follows, we shall outline the contours of a descriptive approach by arguing, first, that description and explanation need to be distinguished as two distinct ways of engaging with social phenomena. Secondly, we defend the claim that the descriptive project ought to be regarded as prior to the explanatory project in the order of inquiry. We begin, in Section 2, by considering two different ways of engaging with mental phenomena: a descriptive approach taken by descriptive psychology and an explanatory approach utilized in analytic philosophy of mind. We take these two ways of approaching the study of the mind to be analogous to the distinction we want to draw in social ontology between a descriptive and an explanatory approach to the study of social phenomena. We consider next, in Section 3, how our approach compares to neighboring perspectives that are familiar to us from general metaphysics and philosophy more broadly, such as Aristotle’s emphasis on “saving the appearances”, Strawson’s distinction between descriptive and revisionary metaphysics, as well as Fine’s contrast between na¨ive and foundational metaphysics. In Section 4, we apply the proposed descriptive/explanatory distinction to the domain of social ontology and argue that descriptive social ontology ought to take precedence in the order of inquiry over explanatory social ontology. Finally, in Section 5, we consider and respond to several objections to which our account might seem to be susceptible. (shrink)