We have a reason to pursue good patterns of reasoning in the determination of the means to the satisfaction of our desires. To deny this, it seems, would be to turn our backs on rationality. Furthermore, we would agree that we all have the same reason to do so. Is this reason internal or external? If external reasons are incoherent, as Bernard Williams claims, what choice do we have but to assume that it is internal? ;If we assume that it (...) is internal, however, we run into difficulties. How does the internalist explain the fact that all individuals have the same reason to pursue good patterns of reasoning? She could argue as Williams does, and claim that every rational deliberator, by virtue of being a rational deliberator, has a desire to be rationally and factually correctly informed. If she is right, all rational deliberators have an internal reason to strive towards soundness and completeness. I show that this argument fails. There are other arguments available to the internalist. I argue, however, that they all result in the necessity of acknowledging a third class of reasons, non-contingent reasons. ;Non-contingent reasons are a bit like external reasons and a bit like internal reasons. On the one hand, they resemble external reasons, for they recommend actions independently of the particular desires that we happen to have. On the other hand, however, non-contingent reasons resemble internal reasons, for neither non-contingent reasons nor internal reasons recommend actions independently of the efficacy of those actions to satisfy our desires. Even so, non-contingent reasons are very different from internal reasons. Internal reason statements ten us what we ought to do in order to satisfy a particular desire; their truth therefore depends upon the content of an individual's desires. Non-contingent reasons ten us what we ought to do in order to be a reliable and efficient desire satisfier; their truth depends upon whether the recommended action is a means to the satisfaction of all of our desires. (shrink)

One measure of the validity of [Joseph] Frank's insight is the extent to which other versions of his ideas appear in other contexts: for if "spatial form" refers to something real, it cannot have escaped notice by other readers. One thinks, for example, of Northrop Frye's description of the critic viewing all the elements of the poem as a simultaneous array before him; or of Gaston Bachelard's evocative descriptions of The Poetics of Space. Or Pound's interest in ideographic script; or (...) the frequent critical association of modern literature with impressionist painting. Or Eliot's poet synthesizing Spinoza, the sound of the typewriter, and the smell of cookery into a unified whole. Or—at the root of it all, perhaps—Poe's insistence on the unified effect of the story or poem.1 All of these instances reflect a more or less casual assumption of the basic premise of Frank's essay. More recently another critic, Frank Kermode, has offered an alternative description of this general problem. In The Romantic Image2 he assesses symbolist poetic theory; here the verbal image , autonomous and autotelic, presumably unites meaning and feeling without intervening reflection or discourse: the "image" so hypostatized seems very close to a "spatial" form, and certainly the suppression of discourse, of reflection generally, follows from the disruption of syntax and narrative that results from the impulse toward "spatial" effects. Provisionally, we might say that Joseph Frank's essay is grounded in an essentially formalist conception of the literary work as artifact, and that the striking features of his argument result from an attempt to assimilate extended works to a theory basically lyric in its orientation: as corollary, we must assume that the modern writers he cites had themselves operationally defined the concept in the course of their writing. · 1. Northrop Frye, "Literary Criticism," in The Aims and Methods of Scholarship in Modern Languages and Literature, ed. James Thorpe , p.65. See also Fables of Identity: Studies in Poetic Mythology , p. 21. Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space, trans. Maria Jolas . Ernest Fenollosa, The Chinese Written Character as a Medium for Poetry, ed. Ezra Pound . T.S. Eliot, "The Metaphysical Poets," Selected Essays , p. 247. Edgar Allan Poe, review of Twice-Told Tales, in Works, 17 vols., ed. James A. Harrison 11: 104-13.· 2. Frank Kermode, The Romantic Image . William Holtz, professor of English at the University of Missouri-Columbia, is currently preparing an edition of an unpublished juvenile manuscript by Charlotte Brontë. (shrink)

On the centennial of the death of William James (1842-1910), I approached faculty members at eighteen major theological centers of learning requesting them to identify the twelve most important books in the field of the psychology of religion written between James' 1902 classic The Varieties of Religious Experience up to Peter Homan's 1970 Theology After Freud. The request was for each faculty member (by agreement to remain anonymous) to identify the twelve books during that time period (1902-1970) which, (...) in their opinion, constituted major contributions to the development of the discipline of psychology of religion. By mutual agreement, James was credited with being the purported founder of the psychology of religion and Homans the quintessential culmination of the discipline's respectability. Though obviously subjective, the survey did register a consensus of scholars teaching in the field and what follows is a critical assessment of the merits of those books which they selected. (shrink)

In Between Facts and Norms Jürgen Habermas works out the legal and political implications of his Theory of Communicative Action, bringing to fruition the project announced with his publication of The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere in 1962. This new work is a major contribution to recent debates on the rule of law and the possibilities of democracy in postindustrial societies, but it is much more.The introduction by William Rehg succinctly captures the special nature of the work, noting (...) that it offers a sweeping, sociologically informed conceptualization of law and basic rights, a normative account of the rule of law and the constitutional state, an attempt to bridge normative and empirical approaches to democracy, and an account of the social context required for democracy. Finally, the work frames and caps these arguments with a bold proposal for a new paradigm of law that goes beyond the dichotomies that have afflicted modern political theory from its inception and that still underlie current controversies between so- called liberals and civic republicans.The book includes a postscript written in 1994, which restates the argument in light of its initial reception, and two appendixes, which cover key developments that preceded the book.Habermas himself was actively involved in the translation, adapting the text as necessary to make it more accessible to English-speaking readers. (shrink)

Divine Nature and Human Language is a collection of twelve essays in philosophical theology by William P. Alston, one of the leading figures in the current renaissance in the philosophy of religion. Using the equipment of contemporary analytical philosophy, Alston explores, partly refashions, and defends a largely traditional conception of God and His work in the world a conception that finds its origins in medieval philosophical theology. These essays fall into two groups: those concerned with theological language and those (...) that deal with the nature, status, and activity of God. In Part 1, Alston develops a conceptual scheme for discussing the topic of theological language. He also argues that there is a core of literal talk about God and even a core of predicates univocally applicable to God and creatures. Furthermore, he shows that God can be referred to directly as well as descriptively. In Parts II and III, the author sketches out a middle way between a classical conception of God exemplified by Aquinas and the more recent “process” or “panentheist” conception exemplified by Hartshorne. Alston argues that such a God can act so as to have real effects in the world and can enter into genuine dialogue and otherwise interact with human beings. In addition, he defends the idea that God provides a foundation for morality. The first collection of Alston's ground breaking work in the philosophy of religion, Divine Nature and Human Language will be welcomed by scholars and students of the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, theology, and religious studies. (shrink)

This generous omnium-gatherum brings together all the writings William James published that have not appeared in previous volumes of this definitive edition of ...

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Récurrente sous différentes formes dans le domaine de la lexicométrie, l’analyse cooccurrentielle vise à dévoiler les attractions lexicales qui opèrent dans un texte en restituant un état intermédiaire entre la séquence textuelle et l’inventaire lexical, état qui doit combiner l’explicitation syntagmatique de l’une avec la hiérarchisation statistique de l’autre. Pour dépasser les résultats des méthodes de cooccurrence classiques et identifier des systèmes cooccurrentiels plus complexes à l’oeuvre dans le texte, il s’avère nécessaire de substituer à l’approche analytique des associations lexicales (...) une vue synthétique de ces attractions prééminentes en contexte. (shrink)

In _The Fragility of Things_, eminent theorist William E. Connolly focuses on several self-organizing ecologies that help to constitute our world. These interacting geological, biological, and climate systems, some of which harbor creative capacities, are depreciated by that brand of neoliberalism that confines self-organization to economic markets and equates the latter with impersonal rationality. Neoliberal practice thus fails to address the fragilities it exacerbates. Engaging a diverse range of thinkers, from Friedrich Hayek, Michel Foucault, Hesiod, and Immanuel Kant to (...) Voltaire, Terrence Deacon, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Alfred North Whitehead, Connolly brings the sense of fragility alive as he rethinks the idea of freedom. Urging the Left not to abandon the state but to reclaim it, he also explores scales of politics below and beyond the state. The contemporary response to fragility requires a militant pluralist assemblage composed of those sharing affinities of spirituality across differences of creed, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity. (shrink)

The pedagogical technique of the playful Plato, especially his ability to create living discourses that directly address the student, is the subject of Plato the Teacher. “The crisis of the Republic” refers to the decisive moment in his central dialogue when philosopher-readers realize that Plato’s is challenging them to choose justice by going back down into the dangerous Cave of political life for the sake of the greater Good, as both Socrates and Cicero did.

The background of these remarks is that in 1967, in ‘’Constructive reasoning” [27], I sketched an argument that finitist arithmetic coincides with primitive recursive arithmetic, P RA; and in 1981, in “Finitism” [28], I expanded on the argument. But some recent discussions and some of the more recent literature on the subject lead me to think that a few further remarks would be useful.

Now under what circumstances is a conditional true? Even to raise this question is to depart from everyday attitudes. An affirmation of the form ‘if p then q’ is commonly felt less as an affirmation of a conditional than as a conditional affirmation of the consequent…. If, after we have made such an affirmation, the antecedent turns out true, then we consider ourselves committed to the consequent, and are ready to acknowledge error if it proves false. If on the other (...) hand the antecedent turns out to have been false, our conditional affirmation is as if it had never been made. (shrink)

The final work of the esteemed philosopher William Demopoulos supplants logical empiricism's accounts of physical theories, which fail to satisfactorily engage modern physics. Arguing for a new appreciation of the tightly woven character of theory and evidence, Demopoulos offers novel insights into the distinctive nature of quantum reality.

The reductionistic vision of evolutionary theory, "the gene's eye view of evolution" is the dominant view among evolutionary biologists today. On this view, the gene is the only unit with sufficient stability to act as a unit of selection, with individuals and groups being more ephemeral units of function, but not of selection. This view is argued to be incorrect, on several grounds. The empirical and theoretical bases for the existence of higher-level units of selection are explored, and alternative analyses (...) discussed critically. The success of a multi-level selection theory demands the recognition and development of a multi-level genetics. The way to accomplish this is suggested. The genotype/phenotype distinction also requires further analysis to see how it applies at higher levels of organization. This analysis provides a way of defining genotype and phenotype for cultural evolution, and a treatment of the innate-acquired distinction which are both generalizeable to analyze problems of the nature and focus of scientific change. (shrink)

This article reports original research examining characteristics of the active followers of the American animal rights movement. Typical respondents were Caucasian, highly educated urban professional women approximately thirty years old with a median income of $33,000. Most activists think of themselves as Democrats or as Independents, and have moderate to liberal political views. They were often suspicious of science and made no distinctions between basic and applied science, or public versus private animal-based research. The research suggests that animal rights activism (...) is in part a symbolic manifestation of egalitarian social and political views concerning scientific and technological change. (shrink)

William Vitek enlarges our understanding by treating the act of promising as a social practice and complex human experience. Citing engaging examples of promises made in everyday life, in extraordinary circumstances, and in literary works, Vitek grapples with the central paradox of promising: that human beings can intend a future to which they are largely blind. _Promising_ evaluates contemporary approaches to the topic by such philosophers as John Rawls, John Searle, Henry Sidgwick, P.S. Atiyah, and Michael Robbins but transcend (...) their more limited focus on promissory obligation. Vitek's innovative approach moves beyond theories of language, ethics, and law to unveil a complex human activity subject to shifting interpretations and changes in nature. (shrink)

From its genesis in the 1960s, the focus of inquiry in neuroscience has been on the cellular and molecular processes underlying neural activity. In this pursuit neuroscience has been enormously successful. Like any successful scientific inquiry, initial successes have raised new questions that inspire ongoing research. While there is still much that is not known about the molecular processes in brains, a great deal of very important knowledge has been secured, especially in the last 50 years. It has also attracted (...) the attention of a number of philosophers, some of whom have viewed it as evidence for a ruthlessly reductionistic program that will eventually explain how mental processes are performed in the brain in purely molecular terms. As neuroscience developed, however, there emerged a smaller group of researchers who focused on systems, behavioral, and cognitive neuroscience. These investigators have also made impressive advances in the last 50 years and they have been the focus of an even larger group of philosophers, who have appealed to systems level understanding of the brain as providing the appropriate point of connection to the information processing accounts advanced in psychology. (shrink)

Once we realize that the indivisible and infinitely repeatable One of the arithmetic lesson in Republic7 is generated by διάνοια at Parmenides 143a6-9, it becomes possible to revisit the Divided Line’s Second Part and see that Aristotle’s error was not to claim that Plato placed Intermediates between the Ideas and sensible things but to restrict that class to the mathematical objects Socrates used to explain it. All of the One-Over-Many Forms of Republic10 that Aristotle, following Plato, attacked with the Third (...) Man, are equally dependent on Images and above all on the Hypothesis of the One. (shrink)

Emilsen, William W On the cusp of the Second Vatican Council the distinguished American Lutheran historical theologian, Jaroslav Pelikan, then at the University of Chicago, published a groundbreaking volume titled The Riddle of Roman Catholicism. In this book Pelikan gave a sympathetic yet critical examination of the evolution of Roman Catholicism, its distinctive beliefs and, most importantly, he offered a discussion of the theological issues Protestants face in their conversations with Roman Catholics on Christian unity. The Riddle of Roman (...) Catholicism met an obvious need. It was quickly reprinted by Abingdon Press in the United States and published by Hodder and Stoughton in Great Britain the following year. It was also widely acclaimed in both the Protestant and Catholic presses. The Christian Century magazine, representing the voice of mainstream Protestantism in America, published excerpts from the book claiming that it 'sets the stage for realistic discussion of Christendom's sad divisions'. The Presbyterian theologian and ecumenist from Princeton, John A. Mackay, reviewed it in Theology Today as an 'outstanding book', 'the most significant to appear on Roman Catholicism in many years'. Daniel Walther, professor of church history at the Seventh-day Theological Seminary at Andrews University in Michigan extolled Pelikan's book as 'a significant omen of the new Protestant approach', one that attempted 'to end the "hot war" between the confessions'. Catholic scholars, too, were receptive. Bonaventure Schepers's review in the Thomist, for example, thanked Pelikan for his 'courage and honesty' and invited the journal's readers 'to rejoice with us at the appearance of his important work'. Gustave Wiegel's lengthy review in the Jesuit review, America, named it as 'probably the most important' of the many interesting Protestant studies of Roman Catholicism at the time. Although Pelikan was still a relatively young scholar at the time, The Riddle of Roman Catholicism established him as a serious thinker on the topic of Christian unity. (shrink)

It is debated among open theists whether propositions about the contingent future should be regarded as straightforwardly true or false, as all false without exception, or as lacking truth-values. This article discusses some recent work on this topic and proposes a solution different than the one I have previously endorsed.

Desmond explores perplexity regarding ultimacy--the metaphysical perplexity that precedes and exceeds scientific and commonsense curiosity.

The French author Michel de Montaigne is widely regarded as the founder and greatest practitioner of the personal essay. His extraordinary curiosity and discernment, combined with his ability to mix thoughtful judgment with revealing anecdote, make him one of the most readable of all writers. In 1580 and then again in 1588 he published his Essays, a vast collection of meditations on topics ranging from love and sexuality to freedom, learning, doubt, self-scrutiny, and peace of mind. One of the most (...) original books ever to emerge from Europe, Montaigne's masterpiece has been enormously influential among writers and philosophers from its first appearance down to the present day. In Montaigne: A Very Short Introduction, William M. Hamlin introduces readers to the life, thought, and published work of this unforgettable figure from Renaissance Europe. (shrink)

In this essay I advance major criticisms of recent work on the concept of liberty by, Among others, I berlin, G maccallum, H j mccluskey, S I benn, And f oppenheim. Emerging from these critical analyses is a new definition of 'liberty, In the spirit of negative liberalism', Which differentiates it from the related but distinct goods of human autonomy, Opportunity, Ability, Power, And self-Development.