Value is increasingly found in human subjects and in particular within their minds. This places the individual at the centre of economic life and therefore the inner life of individual merits more attention. A key element of humanity is memory and it drives such phenomena as trust and goodwill, essential in modern business. Bergson’s philosophy examines the interaction of mind and matter and in this reflects the dualism of the knowledge economy. His work on memory offers important insights for those (...) seeking to account for and manage intangible assets. Our paper examines, through the prism of Bergsonian philosophy, the implications for accounting practice of the increased importance of intangible assets in modern corporations. (shrink)

Bergson, writing in 1896, anticipated “sensorimotor contingencies” under the concept that perception is “virtual action.” But to explain the external image, he embedded this concept in a holographic framework where time-motion is an indivisible and the relation of subject/object is in terms of time. The target article's account of qualitative visual experience falls short for lack of this larger framework. [Objects] send back, then, to my body, as would a mirror, their eventual influence; they take rank in an order corresponding (...) to the growing or decreasing powers of my body. The objects which surround my body reflect its possible action upon them. – Henri Bergson (1896/1912, pp. 6–7). (shrink)

The claim that animals, as well as people, ‘have rights’ may often mean only that their interests ought to be given some moral weight: they should not be treated ‘cruelly’ or ‘inconsiderately’. The more demanding claim may also be made that animals should not be subjected to simple-mindedly utilitarian calculation: their choices, their liberty, should sometimes be respected even if this prevents the realization of some notionally ‘greater good’. Finally, talk of rights may have a clearly political context: if, and (...) only if, animals have rights, governments are entitled to legislate on how they should be treated. If they do not, then any laws on the subject are merely moralistic, and such as to be regretted by any sincere liberal. It is this last doctrine that I shall be investigating in this paper, with particular attention to the writings of Regan and McCloskey. Only in this context, so it seems to me, does much hang upon the question of whether animals ‘really’ have rights: for those outside the liberal, or libertarian, tradition it is enough to know that we ought not to disregard the suffering of our fellow-creatures, nor treat it merely ‘aggregatively’. (shrink)

Plutarch is virtually unique in surviving classical authors in arguing that animals are rational and sentient, and in concluding that human beings must take notice of their interests. Stephen Newmyer explores Plutarch's three animal-related treatises, as well as passages from his other ethical treatises, which argue that non-human animals are rational and therefore deserve to fall within the sphere of human moral concern. Newmyer shows that some of the arguments Plutarch raises strikingly foreshadow those found in the works of (...) such prominent animal rights philosophers as Peter Singer and Tom Regan in maintaining that non-human animals are the sorts of creatures that have intellectual qualities that cause them to be proper objects of man's concern, and have interests and desires that entitle them to respect from their human counterparts. This volume is groundbreaking in viewing Plutarch's views not only in the context of ancient philosophical and ethical thought, but in its place, generally overlooked, in the history of speculation on human-animal relations, and in pointing out how remarkably Plutarch differs from such predominantly anti-animal thinkers as the Stoics. (shrink)

Stephen Clark’s article The Rights of Wild Things from 1979 was the starting point for the consideration in the animal ethics literature of the so-called ‘predation problem’. Clark examines the response of David George Ritchie to Henry Stephens Salt, the first writer who has argued explicitly in favor of animal rights. Ritchie attempts to demonstrate—via reductio ad absurdum—that animals cannot have rights, because granting them rights would oblige us to protect prey animals against predators that wrongly violate their rights. (...) This article navigates the reader through the debate sparked off by Clarke’s article, with as final destination what I consider to be the best way to deal with the predation problem. I will successively discuss arguments against the predation reductio from Singer’s utilitarian approach, Regan’s deontological approach, Nussbaum’s capability approach, and Donadson and Kymlicka’s political theory of animal rights. (shrink)

Medicalized Death and the Right to Die Movement Prior to the 20th Century, most Americans died at home, surrounded by family, friends, and neighbors. Religion, not medicine, governed the death bed for there was little physicians could do for the dying. Eventually, however, advances in medicine and technology would lead to dramatic changes in the timing and location of death: patients not only began living longer, they were also dying longer, and unlike their predecessors, were more likely to die alone, (...) in institutions, and among strangers. Modern medicine, in its zeal to conquer death, had become obsessed with its curative function and ability to extend the lives of the dying. To many in the medical community, death represented failure and was something to be avoided at all costs, and like many other social problems in the United States, had become medicalized. (shrink)

Felix Guattari was a modernist. He not only liked a lot of modernist artists, but his ‘aesthetic paradigm’ found its generative diagram in modern art. The most important aspect of this diagram was its insistence on the production of the new, the way it produced a utopian projection of a ‘people to come’, and so a politics whose only horizon was the future. Also important for Guattari's diagram of the ‘modern’ were the forces of abstraction, autonomy and immanent critique. Together (...) these elements construct an artwork that is radically singular and separate, composed of a-signifying, a-temporal and invisible forces, sensations that go beyond our human conditions of possibility. In this Guattari's modernism must be understood as being quite different from his co-option by contemporary art theorists influenced by post-Operaist thought. Post-Operaism understands politics as ‘being-against’, a dialectical form of negation that finds its political condition of possibility in what already exists. Because such thought sees modern art as being entirely subsumed by the institutions and markets that contain it, art itself must be negated in order for aesthetic powers to become political. This has lead post-Operaist thought to align itself strongly with the avant-garde positions of institutional-critique and art-into-life, or ‘non-art’. Guattari's modernism takes him in a very different direction, affirming modern art despite its institutional enframing, because art is forever in the process of escaping itself. This makes modern art the model in Guattari's thought for politics itself. (shrink)

Testimony: A Philosophical Introduction. By Shieber Joseph.

First Published in 2005. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This paper objects to internalist theories of justification from testimony on the grounds that they can’t accommodate intuitions about a pair of cases. The pair of cases involved is a testimonial version of the cases involved in the New Evil Demon Argument. The role of New Evil Demon cases in motivating contemporary internalist theories of knowledge and justification notwithstanding, it is argued here that testimonial cases make an intuitive case against internalist theories of justification from testimony.

The core thesis of this essay is that “progressive Confucianism” is a clear and viable category, a label for many though not all contemporary Confucians, which succeeds in capturing what is useful about so-called “liberal” Confucianism without suffering from various problems to which I show “liberal Confucianism” falls prey. The essay begins with examples of progressive Confucians being labeled as “liberal” in ways that are misleading. I next turn to the use of “liberal” by influential twentieth-century New Confucians and then (...) look at some contemporary theorists who are often labeled “liberal Confucians.” Overall, for reasons having to do both with content and with rhetoric, I argue that even some Confucians who have been content to be called “liberal Confucians” should resist this label and identify as progressive Confucians instead, although others with “dualcommitments” may still prefer “liberal Confucian” or even “Confucian liberal.” The essay concludes with some further clarification of the senses in which progressive Confucians use the idea of “progress.” . (shrink)

I reply to three commentators—Friederike Moltmann, Daniel Rothschild, and Zoltán Szabó—on six topics—sense and reference, the unity of subject matter, questions, presupposition, partial truth, and content mereology.

" In 'Vagueness and Alternative Logic' (Realism and Reason, Cambridge 1983, pp. 271-86, especially 285-6), Hilary Putnam puts forward a suggestion for a formal treatment of the logic of vagueness. … Putnam admits that, at the time of writing, he had not thought this idea through. What will already be apparent to the alert reader is that, in order to disclose serious difficulties for the proposal, Putnam would not have had to think far.".

It has become a truism that we humans are genetically about 99% identical to chimpanzees. The origins of this assertion are clear: among early studies of DNA sequences, nucleotide identity between humans and chimpanzees was found to average around 98.9%.1 However, this figure is correct only with respect to regions of the genome that are shared between humans and chimpanzees. Often ignored are the many parts of their genomes that are not shared. Genomic rearrangements, including insertions, deletions, translocations and duplications, (...) have long been recognized as potentially important sources of novel genomic material2,3 and are known to account for major genomic differences between humans and chimpanzees.4 Further, such changes have been implicated in a number of genetic disorders, such as DiGeorge, Angelman/Prader‐Willi and Charcot‐Marie‐Tooth syndromes5. BioEssays 28: 335–338, 2006. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Can we conceive cogently of all knowledge – in particular, all knowledge of truths – as being knowledge-how? This paper provides reasons for thinking not only that is this possible, but that it is conceptually advantageous and suggestive. Those reasons include adaptations of, and responses to, some classic philosophical arguments and ideas, from Descartes, Hume, Peirce, Mill, and Ryle. The paper’s position is thus a practicalism – a kind of pragmatism – about the nature of knowledge, arguing that all knowledge (...) is knowledge-how to act – to do this, to do that. Such a conception can include, too, a distinctive view of the metaphysical relation between knowledge and belief. We see that, contrary to what most contemporary epistemologists say, knowledge need not be a form of belief. Instead, a belief that p can be a way simply of enriching or strengthening knowledge that p. It can do this in a paracticalist way, by allowing one to do more with the knowledge. (shrink)

David Armstrong is one of Australia's greatest philosophers. His chief philosophical achievement has been the development of a core metaphysical programme, embracing the topics of universals, laws, modality and facts. This book offers an introduction to the full range of Armstrong's thought. It begins with a discussion of Armstong's naturalism.

Recently a new question has emerged in the philosophy of religion: not whether God exists, but whether God’s existence is or would be preferable. The existing literature on the subject is sparse. The present essay, in dialogue form, is an attempt to marshal and evaluate arguments on both sides.

This essay examines Darwin's positiva use of theology in the first edition of the Origin of Species in three steps. First, the essay analyses the Origin's theological language about God's accessibility, honesty, methods of creating, relationship to natural laws and lack of responsibility for natural suffering; the essay contends that Darwin utilized positiva theology in order to help justify descent with modification and to attack special creation. Second, the essay offers critical analysis of this theology, drawing in part on Darwin's (...) mature ruminations to suggest that, from an epistemic point of view, the Origin's positiva theology manifests several internal tensions. Finally, the essay reflects on the relative epistemic importance of positiva theology in the Origin's overall case for evolution. The essay concludes that this theology served as a handmaiden and accomplice to Darwin's science. (shrink)

This volume examines the ethical issues that arise as a result of national security intelligence collection and analysis. Powerful new technologies enable the collection, communication, and analysis of national security data on an unprecedented scale. Data collection now plays a central role in intelligence practice, yet this development raises a host of ethical and national security problems, such as: privacy; autonomy; threats to national security and democracy by foreign states; and accountability for liberal democracies. This volume provides a comprehensive set (...) of in-depth ethical analyses of these problems by combining contributions from both ethics scholars and intelligence practitioners. It provides the reader with a practical understanding of relevant operations, the issues that they raise, and analysis of how responses to these issues can be informed by a commitment to liberal democratic values. This combination of perspectives is crucial in providing an informed appreciation of ethical challenges that is also grounded in the realities of the practice of intelligence. This book will be of great interest to all students of intelligence studies, ethics, security studies, foreign policy, and International Relations. (shrink)

Temporality underpins how living systems coordinate and function. Unlike measures that use mathematical conventions, lived temporalities grant functional cohesion to organisms-in-the-world. In foxtail grasses, for example, self-maintenance meshes endogenous processes with exogenous rhythms. In embrained animals, temporalities can contribute to learning. And cowbirds coordinate in a soundscape that includes conspecifics: social learning allows them to connect copulating with past events such that females exert ‘long-distance’ control over male singing. Using Howard Pattee’s work, we compare the foxtail’s self-maintenance, gender-based cowbird learning (...) and how humans manage multi-scalar activity. We argue that, while all living things coordinate, temporal ranging is typical of vertebrates. As primates, humans too use temporal ranging – they can draw on social learning, anticipate winter and manage coordinated action. However language behaviour grants new control over the scales of time. People connect the impersonal to lived experience in narratives, as they draw on autobiography and enact cultural practices. Humans become singular individuals who use temporal experience to manage affect, relationships, beliefs, fictions, and knowledge. Individual subjectivity permits collaborative and competitive activity based on linking events with quite different histories. As a result, alone of the vertebrates, we claim that humans become time-rangers. (shrink)

The unique discourse of Confucian ritual practice encompasses a powerful and sophisticated way of talking about individual fulfillment within the context of more substantive or universal conceptions of the good life. To make this case, I will consider both the text of the "Analects" and the influential readings of the "Analects" offered by Fingarette in "Confucius: The Secular as Sacred" and by Hall and Ames in "Thinking through Confucius". Though the two interpretive works are helpful in articulating the classical Confucian (...) contribution to the problem of balancing conformity and individuality, I will argue that an alternative reading is required to appreciate fully how values thought to embody and express the fullest humanity might be inculcated in ethical agents without undoing their individuality. Such an alternative is developed here. (shrink)

Charisma is a concept with a peculiar history. It arose from theological obscurity through social science, from which it passed into popular culture. As a social science concept, its significance derives in large part from the fact that it captures a particular type of leadership. But it fits poorly with other concepts in social science, and is problematic as an explanatory concept. Even Weber himself was torn in his use of the concept between the individual type-concept and a broader use (...) of it to characterize the sacral character of culture and institutions. Which use is fundamental? Neither use seems to be able to be extended to account for the other, and in practice the term serves as a heterogenous residual category. Shils’ argument that the charisma of central institutions was fundamental was an attempt to make sense of the examples of institutional charisma that fell into this residual category, such as the jury, and assimilated charisma to the idea of the holy. But this conflicts with Weber’s idea of the originary or creative character of individual charisma, which by definition cannot derive from preexisting sacral qualities. Weber’s account of individual charisma focuses on success, and this suggests the idea that the power of the charismatic leader arises from the ability to confound and surpass expectations - to be extraordinary. This allows us to reconsider ‘originary’ charisma, and assimilate it both to rational choice and to Steiner’s account of taboo. A leader who produces a change in our risk perceptions by proving our previous perceptions wrong by the success of the leader’s actions is providing a novel rational choice for us: a new option together with new estimates of the risk in a course of action. Weber explained the situation of primitive or magical morality in terms of magical charisma producing taboos that were then rationalized, leading to permanent norms - which relies on the notion of charisma without explaining it. But Steiner goes further, by suggesting that taboo represents the intellectual organization of danger through the act of interdiction. The power to interdict is not based on some other power, but rather the power to organize danger through interdiction is originary. Is there originary charisma today? Or is the commonplace use of the term ‘charisma’ a transformation of the concept into something else? In popular culture, the term refers to role-models who break new ground, and if we consider the ‘dangers’ that they appear to their audiences to overcome, the phenomenon is not so different. Charisma seems to collapse into personal style, but in a world in which the old interdicts have lost their power, style itself becomes a matter of experimental success in the face of social danger. (shrink)

The attitudes that characterize the contemporary “neuro-turn” were strikingly commonplace as part of the self-fashioning of social identity in the biographies and personal papers of past neurologists and neuroscientists. Indeed, one fundamental connection between nineteenth- and twentieth-century neurology and contemporary neuroscience appears to be the value that workers in both domains attach to the idea of integration, a vision of neural science and medicine that connected reductionist science to broader inquiries about the mind, brain, and human nature and in so (...) doing supposedly resolved once and for all questions germane to the human sciences, humanities, and arts. How those attitudes were produced and reproduced first in neurology and then in neuroscience; in what way they were constructed and disciplined, thereby eventuating in the contested sciences and medicines of the mind, brain, and nervous system; and even how they garnered ever-wider contemporary purchase in cultures and societies are thus fascinating problems for historians of science and medicine. Such problems shed light on ethics, practices, controversies, and the uneasy social relations within those scientific and medical domains. But more to the point of this essay: they also account for the apparent epistemological weight now accorded “the neuro” in our contemporary moment. They thus illuminate in a rather different way why historians have suddenly discovered the value of “the neuro.”. (shrink)

Skeptical theism is a popular - if not universally theistically endorsed - response to the evidential problem of evil. Skeptical theists question how we can be in a position to know God lacks God-justifying reason to allow the evils we observe. In this paper I examine a criticism of skeptical theism: that the skeptical theists skepticism re divine reasons entails that, similarly, we cannot know God lacks God-justifying reason to deceive us about the external world and the past. This in (...) turn seems to supply us with a defeater for all our beliefs regarding the external world and past? Critics argue that either the skeptical theist abandon their skeptical theism, thereby resurrecting the evidential argument from evil, or else they must embrace seemingly absurd skeptical consequences, including skepticism about the external world and past. I look at various skeptical theist responses to this critique and find them all wanting. (shrink)

This is a comment on the paper by Barnes and the responses from Scerri and Worrall, debating the thesis that a fact successfully predicted by a theory is stronger evidence than a similar fact known before the prediction was made. Since Barnes and Scerri both use evidence presented in my paper on Mendeleev’s periodic law to support their views, I reiterate my own position on predictivism. I do not argue for or against predictivism in the normative sense that philosophers of (...) science employ, rather I describe how scientists themselves use facts and predictions to support their theories. I find wide variations, and no support for the assumption that scientists use a single ‘Scientific Method’ in deciding whether to accept a proposed new theory.Keywords: Predictivism; Novel predictions; Accommodation; Periodic law; Periodic table; Dmitri Mendeleev. (shrink)

Inferentialism claims that the rules for the use of an expression express its meaning without any need to invoke meanings or denotations for them. Logical inferentialism endorses inferentialism specically for the logical constants. Harmonic inferentialism, as the term is introduced here, usually but not necessarily a subbranch of logical inferentialism, follows Gentzen in proposing that it is the introduction-rules whch give expressions their meaning and the elimination-rules should accord harmoniously with the meaning so given. It is proposed here that the (...) logical expressions are those which can be given schematic rules that lie in a specific sort of harmony, general-elimination harmony, resulting from applying a certain operation, the ge-procedure, to produce ge-rules in accord with the meaning defined by the I-rules. Griffiths claims that identity cannot be given such rules, concluding that logical inferentialists are committed to ruling identity a non-logical expression. It is shown that the schematic rules for identity given in Read, slightly amended, are indeed ge-harmonious, so confirming that identity is a logical notion. (shrink)