I present two puzzles about the metaphysics of stores, restaurants, and other such establishments. I defend a solution to the puzzles, according to which establishments are not material objects and are not constituted by the buildings that they occupy.

This book seeks to read the political thought of classic thinkers of the liberal tradition in the context of their metaphysical and theological writings. Sokolowski demonstrates that the political measures offered by political theorists to remedy the state of unrest and instability are intrinsically connected to their metaphysical conception of order, the self, and the interaction between the two.

Philosophers have appealed to a wide variety of different factors in providing a metaphysics of race: appearance, ancestry, systems of oppression, shared ways of life, and so-called “racial essences”. I distinguish four importantly different questions about racial groups that one may be answering in appealing these factors. I then show that marking these distinctions proves quite fruitful, revealing ways of strengthening existing arguments for the non-existence of racial groups, new avenues for addressing challenges to biological and constructionist accounts of (...) race, and a range of hybrid positions that have been largely overlooked in the literature. (shrink)

Evolutionary debunking arguments abound, but it is widely assumed that they do not arise for our perceptual beliefs about midsized objects, insofar as the adaptive value of our object beliefs cannot be explained without reference to the objects themselves. I argue that this is a mistake. Just as with moral beliefs, the adaptive value of our object beliefs can be explained without assuming that the beliefs are accurate. I then explore the prospects for other sorts of vindications of our object (...) beliefs—which involve “bootstrapping” from our experiences as of midsized objects—and I defend bootstrapping maneuvers against a variety of objections. Finally, I argue for an explanatory constraint on legitimate bootstrapping and show how some attempts to respond to debunking arguments run afoul of the constraint. (shrink)

I am concerned with epistemic closure—the phenomenon in which some knowledge requires other knowledge. In particular, I defend a version of the closure principle in terms of analyticity; if an agent S knows that p is true and that q is an analytic part of p, then S knows that q. After targeting the relevant notion of analyticity, I argue that this principle accommodates intuitive cases and possesses the theoretical resources to avoid the preface paradox.

Conceptions of omissions standardly come in two flavours: omissions are construed either as mere absences of actions or are closely related to paradigmatic ‘positive’ actions. This paper shows how the semantics of the verb ‘to omit’ constitutes strong evidence against the view of omissions as involving actions. Specifically, by drawing from an influential fourfold typology of verbal predicates popularised by Zeno Vendler, I argue that declarative statements involving reference to omissions are semantically stative, which is a finding that makes serious (...) trouble for the conception of omissions as being closely related to paradigmatic actions. But references to omissions, in certain linguistic contexts, undergo a shift of meaning to describe processes or activities engaged in by the agent. Still, despite the semantic flexibility of the verb ‘to omit’, its processive reading does not straightforwardly support the second conception of omissions. A subsidiary aim of this paper is to offer a sketch of the metaphysics of processive action in order to show what those who claim that omissions are closely related to actions might be committed to. (shrink)

One of the central questions of material-object metaphysics is which highly visible objects there are right before our eyes. Daniel Z. Korman defends a conservative view, according to which our ordinary, natural judgments about which objects there are are more or less correct. He begins with an overview of the arguments that have led people away from the conservative view, into revisionary views according to which there are far more objects than we ordinarily take there to be or far (...) fewer. Korman criticizes a variety of compatibilist strategies, according to which these revisionary views are actually compatible with our ordinary beliefs. He goes on to respond to debunking arguments; objections that the conservative's verdicts about which objects that are and aren't are objectionably arbitrary; the argument from vagueness; the overdetermination argument; the argument from material constitution; and the problem of the many. (shrink)

The concept of virtue was of great interest and importance for H. Cohen. In the interpretation of this concept in his latest work “Religion of reason from the sources of Judaism” the most important concepts of this work were brought in the focus: the specificity of definition of what is the religion of reason; understanding of the uniqueness of God; correlation; messianism. For Cohen, a single system of virtues presupposes a single and unique ethics and correlates with the idea of (...) the unity of humanity. The last concept, in his opinion, maturated in the fold of monotheism. Humanity is one, because all people are creations of the unique God. “Religion of reason” treats of the common universal virtues. In the religion of reason, the idea of God and morality are inextricably linked. Cohen rejects metaphysical speculation about the nature of God, about the attributes of God inherent in himself. The religion of the mind speaks of God only in correlation with man. God is a moral ideal and reveals himself to man by giving him moral commandments. Morality connects man and God, and this connection is revealed in detail by Cohen in the theme of virtues. Understanding God as Truth is important for the disclosure of this topic. The corresponding virtue for a person is faithfulness to truth, or truthfulness. In addition to truthfulness in the usual sense, for Cohen, faithfulness to truth requires correct worship of God. The correlation culminates in the idea of messianism, which is interpreted by Cohen as an endless movement of a whole humanity to the social justice. (shrink)

P. Ia. Chaadaev continues to attract the attention of researchers of Russian thought. Some recent publications in our press justify the assertion that scholars are interested not only in this or that side of the views of "the philosopher of Basmannaia Street" but also in the very character of his mentality and its place in the history of Russian philosophical thought. Thus, Viacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov writes in his article "Chaadaev-Our Contemporary" [Chaadaev-nash sovremennik] : "There are several reasons why Chaadaev is (...) not at home in Russia and in the history of Russian thought. One of them is his extreme rationalism and logical orientation. He is the follower of Western European rationalism, mainly, I think, of the French rationalist tradition. For him the chief achievement of civilization is the syllogism, the deduction of logical conclusions from some kind of premises and he takes history to be a unified whole." The same problem of Chaadaevan mentality is raised by P.V. Kuznetsov in his article "The Metaphysical Narcissus: P. Ia. Chaadaev and the Fate of Philosophy in Russia" [Metafizicheskii nartsiss. P. Ia. Chaadaev i sud'ba filosofii v Rossii] , which contrasts Chaadaev's thought with the Eastern "apophatic consciousness.". (shrink)

KANT IS, TO BORROW ONE OF HIS OWN METAPHORS, the keystone of the modern defense of religion. This defense turns on the contention that religion is not to be understood in terms of its own metaphysical claims--the most notable being that God exists--for this claim, as well as the obvious counterclaim, cannot be demonstrated. The existence of God is an antinomy--a claim that theoretical reason can neither prove nor disprove. Religion, however, can be, indeed must be defended, because of the (...) claims that a completely dispassionate, even irreligious, reason must make consequent to an analysis of morality. If we understand the nature of duty, conscience, and the moral law, and the end or good to which the moral law obligates us, we will conclude, Kant argues, that we must accept the existence of God as a postulate of practical reason. Kant's defense of religion rests on a strategy that aims to prove the limits of theoretical reason and the necessity of assuming the primacy of practical reason. (shrink)

This study is the first work ever to interpret the Meditations as theodicy. I show that Descartes' attempt to define the role of God for man's cognitive fallibility in so far as God is the creator of man's nature, is a reiteration of an old Epicurean argument pointing out the incongruity between the existence of God and evil. The question of the nature and origin of error which Descartes addresses in the First Meditation is reformulated in the Fourth Meditation into (...) broader considerations about the nature and scope of human freedom. ;The point of gravity of my thesis is Descartes' conceptions of human freedom and divine liberty. Since the conception of human freedom is the reversal of the doctrine of divine liberty, I analyze the two conceptions as two sides of the same problem--the problem of man's relation to God, or the problem of the relation of finitude to Infinity. I show that Descartes' quest for Certitude--which runs parallel to his attempt to overcome the problem of an evil deity--can be reformulated into the problem of creation. I present the problem of error as the problem of evil, and the problem of human will I present as the problem of human freedom, and the search for Certitude I interpret as the vindication of God's goodness and omnipotence, that is, theodicy. ;There are several points which are essential for Cartesian metaphysics, and which, as I demonstrate, Descartes borrowed from St. Augustine: the doctrine of the eternal truths , the conception of human freedom, the theory of error and the explanation of the will's propensity towards error , and the account of human nature. It is my contention that as much as Descartes insisted on the timelessness of his philosophy, what he had to say on the relationship between God and man is a reflection of the 17th c. theological debates which were fought by the Augustinians and the Molinists and were expressed by Descartes in the language and categories created by St. Augustine. (shrink)

An exceptionally well-edited anthology of basic philosophic texts arranged in chronological order. Each section is preceded by a short introduction. The volumes have many unusual features, including expository sections on Zeno by G. Vlastos, and on Malebranche by W. Doney. The range of this anthology can be judged by the inclusion of the following in their entirety: Plato's Apology, Meno, Symposium, and Phaedrus; Hume's An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding; Descartes' Meditations; and Leibniz' Monadology.--D. Z. L.

Rose and Schaffer (forthcoming) argue that teleological thinking has a substantial influence on folk intuitions about composition. They take this to show (i) that we should not rely on folk intuitions about composition and (ii) that we therefore should not reject theories of composition on the basis of intuitions about composition. We cast doubt on the teleological interpretation of folk judgments about composition; we show how their debunking argument can be resisted, even on the assumption that folk intuitions have a (...) teleological source; and we argue that, even if folk intuitions about composition carry no weight, theories of composition can still be rejected on the basis of the intuitions of metaphysicians. (shrink)

The author claims that concerning the "progress" and "development" of the technoscientific mind in the application of artificial intelligence, the anthropological definition of man has become not only outdated and ineffective, but "man" has become "superfluous" for the logic of the digital age. He develops his argumentative assumptions, critically confronting numerous approaches to this problem, from Heidegger, Severino, G. Anders, Deleuze, Simondon, and Wiener. By showing how the prospects of future philosophy presuppose technological singularity and extropy, the link between posthumanism (...) and transhumanism, the author raises the question of the possibility of thinking differently from metaphysics within the labyrinth of language. (shrink)

A spirit is haunting contemporary thought -- the spirit of Hegel. All the powers of academia have entered into a holy alliance to exorcize this spirit: Vitalists and Eschatologists, Transcendental Pragmatists and Speculative Realists, Historical Materialists, and even "Liberal Hegelians." Which of these groups has not been denounced as metaphysically Hegelian by its opponents? And which has not hurled back the branding reproach of Hegelian metaphysics in its turn? Progressives, liberals, and reactionaries alike receive this condemnation. In light of (...) this situation, it is high time that true Hegelians should openly admit their allegiance and, without obfuscation, express the importance and validity of Hegelianism to the contemporary intellectual scence"-- Back cover. (shrink)

This book is yet another in the recent growth of studies of Kant’s "investigation and establishment of the supreme principle of morality." Its aim is stated in the subtitle and again in a number of variations throughout the book. The author examines and objects to the intrusion of Kant’s "official metaphysics" in what he believes is intended to be, but does not succeed in being, a guide to action. He deplores Kant’s unawareness that he was, in fact, a utilitarian. (...) He argues that Kant’s and all rationalistic ethics are teleological. Along the way he confuses Kant’s carefully distinguished supreme good and complete good and ignores—in good part by omitting considerations of the third section of the Groundwork—Kant’s identification of pure practical reason and the good will. Nevertheless, there are some virtues to this study: the analysis of the language of major passages of the first two sections of the Groundwork and, more effective, the presentation of the author’s own view, in the final thirty pages, of the notion of man as an end in himself; this is a view which Hutchings thinks Kant should have had but also one which many readers have long since attributed to him. (shrink)

I provide a theory of the metaphysical foundations of identity: an account what grounds facts of the form a=b. In particular, I defend the claim that indiscernibility grounds identity. This is typically rejected because it is viciously circular; plausible assumptions about the logic of ground entail that the fact that a=b partially grounds itself. The theory I defend is immune to this circularity.

Particularists in material-object metaphysics hold that our intuitive judgments about which kinds of things there are and are not are largely correct. One common argument against particularism is the argument from arbitrariness, which turns on the claim that there is no ontologically significant difference between certain of the familiar kinds that we intuitively judge to exist (snowballs, islands, statues, solar systems) and certain of the strange kinds that we intuitively judge not to exist (snowdiscalls, incars, gollyswoggles, the fusion of (...) the my nose and the Eiffel Tower). Particularists frequently respond by conceding that there is no ontologically significant difference and embracing some sort of deflationary metaontology (relativism, constructivism, quantifier variance). I show -- by identifying ontologically significant differences -- that the argument can be resisted without retreating to any sort of deflationary metaontology. (shrink)

A challenger of traditions and boundaries A pivotal figure in 20th-century philosophy, Nelson Goodman has made seminal contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, and the philosophy of language, with surprising connections that cut across traditional boundaries. In the early 1950s, Goodman, Quine, and White published a series of papers that threatened to torpedo fundamental assumptions of traditional philosophy. They advocated repudiating analyticity, necessity, and prior assumptions. Some philosophers, realizing the seismic effects repudiation would cause, argued that philosophy should retain the (...) familiar framework. Others considered the arguments compelling, but despaired of doing philosophy without the framework. Goodman disagreed with both factions. Rather than regretting the loss of structure, he capitalized on the opportunities that arise when the strictures of tradition are loosened. (shrink)

A challenger of traditions and boundaries A pivotal figure in 20th-century philosophy, Nelson Goodman has made seminal contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, and the philosophy of language, with surprising connections that cut across traditional boundaries. In the early 1950s, Goodman, Quine, and White published a series of papers that threatened to torpedo fundamental assumptions of traditional philosophy. They advocated repudiating analyticity, necessity, and prior assumptions. Some philosophers, realizing the seismic effects repudiation would cause, argued that philosophy should retain the (...) familiar framework. Others considered the arguments compelling, but despaired of doing philosophy without the framework. Goodman disagreed with both factions. Rather than regretting the loss of structure, he capitalized on the opportunities that arise when the strictures of tradition are loosened. Available individually by volume 1. Nominalism, Constructivism, and Relativism in the Work of Nelson Goodman (0-8153-2609-2) 296 pages 2. Nelson Goodman's New Riddle of Induction (0-8153-2610-6) 312 pages 3. Nelson Goodman's Philosophy of Art (0-8153-2611-4) 284 pages 4. Nelson Goodman's Theory of Symbols and its Applications (0-8153-2612-2) 344 pages. (shrink)

The concept of vice-wrongful or criminal conduct-poses a metaphysical clash with the non-moral values of impairment, injury, and incapacity that drive illness/disorder concepts. Nevertheless, vice and disorder concepts have interpenetrated psychiatry past and present through practical social-service interactions between the mental health, adult and juvenile criminal justice, and intellectual disability systems. This chapter will unpack and briefly review the philosophical issues, including considerations of moral and legal responsibility, diagnostic constructs, and the medicalization of vice in contemporary psychiatry.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology 11.4 (2004) 357-359 [Access article in PDF] A Madness for the Philosophy of Psychiatry John Z. Sadler His enthusiasm brimming over with the rich set of ideas and problems he has discovered, Louis Charland's essay on identity, ethics, and the Internet should be grist for the philosophy of psychiatry mill for years. Indeed, a brief commentary cannot answer the many questions raised by his paper. (...) In response, I would like to focus on two general issues for this essay. Labels, Diagnoses, Reference, Experiences Many psychiatrists will take issue with Charland's use of the term label in reference to mental disorder concepts in this paper. I did not, but his relatively uncritical use of the labels and labeling terms in his essay prompts me to unpack some concepts that lurk behind the many other conceptual issues raised here. Psychiatric "labels" and "labeling" have a derogatory sense for many psychiatrists, because they are associated with a virulent antipsychiatry temperament dating back to the 1960s, at least in the United States (Sadler 2003). For many clinicians (as well as others) labeling implies that there is nothing more to psychiatric diagnosis and "mental illness" than the names given to various sorts of human diversity. This sort of psychiatric nominalism, the viewpoint goes, serves to pigeonhole people for the purposes, primarily, of political control or power. Charland's own viewpoint is more subtle than this, illustrated by his discussion of Hacking's "looping effects" and the related idea that social factors are influential in the manifestations, even causation, of mental disorders, but are not exhaustive in explaining mental disorders. However, because the whole matter of social construction of clinical phenomena is at the heart of Charland's discussion, further consideration of this metaphysical territory is warranted.The notion of a mental disorder concept as "label" betrays little about what, substantively, mental disorders are. A label on a can of peas tells us little, ultimately, about the nature of the contents; indeed, it is only a clue. When we shift labeling from a can of peas to a person—a self—then such a shallow clue to the "contents" of a person is an offensive simplification of a person's identity and selfhood. Hence the railing against psychiatric labeling in the 1960s through today.The general goals for psychiatric diagnosis and classification in systems like DSM-IV is are multiple, but at minimum, such denotations of clinical conditions are intended to advance the generation of knowledge about the conditions as well as provide a "shorthand" for clinicians in communicating about and understanding patients' conditions. How successful these diagnostic classification systems are for these and other purposes is a discussion for another time, but the [End Page 357] point here is that some sort of method of characterizing people's distresses is a precondition for understanding and explaining such distresses. The scientific processes of validation of psychiatric categories, at core, are to ensure that, as Gorenstein notes (1992), our clinical concepts are not empty, self-fulfilling prophecies, but rather refer to other, hopefully predictable, features of the patient's distress. Such validation of clinical "constructs" is the basis for developing and testing specific treatments, as well as understanding more richly and deeply the clinical phenomenon. To have a label, then, under this view, is to have an empty nominalization, which is offensive and scientifically vapid. To have a diagnostic construct—a disorder—is to have a concept which empirically refers to, as Paul Meehl put it, a "nomological network" of predictable, lawlike, implications (Sadler 2004a).However, as Charland, Hacking, and others have noted, the reflexivity of the human self and our ultimately crude ways of characterizing selves leads to a serious problem, even for the most rigorously validated psychological categories. That problem is the changeability of the self, the capacity of people to remake themselves according to their own ideas along with the sociocultural ether of ideas that surrounds us all. This means that our understanding of mental disorders, both as aggregates of features, and well as individual patients over time, are "moving targets," the... (shrink)

From the author of Quantum Mechanics and Experience, a hugely influential book that challenged key assertions by Niels Bohr and other founders of quantum mechanics, A Guess at the Riddle provides a major metaphysical overhaul of one of physics' most intractable problems-the quest to bridge quantum and classical physics in order to understand the nature of reality.

This is a collection of twelve original essays on Soviet social sciences, with an emphasis on changes since Stalin's death. The lot of the Russian social scientist and the Russian philosopher has never been very easy--any discussion affecting authority was always difficult under conditions of religious and political oppression as well as. To this tradition the Soviet era has added an integrated view of the world which the scholar must use as his mental set. Philosophical reasoning has particularly suffered under (...) these conditions. E. Kamenka's essay on "Soviet Philosophy 1917-1967" gives a detailed examination of the politicization of philosophy by Lenin and under Stalin. The author claims that since 1956 there has been an improvement in professional integrity, especially in fields such as the philosophy of science, logic, and history of philosophy. Unfortunately the author's treatment of this period is brief and sketchy. The absence of a native tradition is one of the reasons for the weakness of philosophy in the Soviet Union, and there seems to be a better future for the disciplines which can draw upon ideas of native predecessors, such as experimental psychology and psychotherapy. The book also includes an essay on the socialization function of education; a readable account of the "revolution" in Soviet economics; and attempts at a study of politics where rationality cannot be carried too far. The authors of the essays on sociology and anthropology believe that, although these disciplines have been an administrative arm for fact gathering and planning, they are achieving a status of their own. All the authors of the essays see important improvements, if sometimes qualified, in the development of the social sciences in the Soviet Union.--O. Z. (shrink)

This book is designed as an introduction to several basic philosophic problems for high school students and college freshmen. The discussion of the uses of language, meaning and reference, truth and verification are clear, simple, and brief. Their purpose is to stimulate questions and further research rather than to provide solutions. This purpose is admirably achieved.--T. D. Z.

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)

Reflection on religion inevitably involves consideration of its relation to morality. When great evil is done to human beings, we may feel that something absolute has been violated. Can that sense, which is related to gratitude for existence, be expressed without religious concepts? Can we express central religious concerns, such as losing the self, while abandoning any religious metaphysic? Is moral obligation itself dependent on divine commands if it is to be objective, or is morality not only independent of religion, (...) but its accuser if God is said to allow horrendous evils? In any case, what happens to the absolute claims of religion in what is, undeniably, a morally pluralistic world? These are the central questions discussed by philosophers of religion and moral philosophers in this collection. They do so in ways which bring new aspects to bear on these traditional issues. (shrink)

Five reasons are given for why Wittgensteinianism, though a major movement in philosophy of religion, has never been a dominant one. The remainder of the chapter is divided as follows: - I: The influence of Descartes’ Legacy. - II: Philosophy of Religion’s epistemological inheritance as seen in Reformed epistemology and the influence of Thomas Reid, and in neo-Kantianism. - III: The return from metaphysical reality in Wittgenstein. - IV: Difficulties in the metaphysical notion of God: as being itself or pure (...) consciousness. - V: The importance of ordinary certitudes in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty. - VI: The sense of God’s “otherness” from the world. - VII: Religion and contemplative philosophy. (shrink)

The counterintuitive implications of law necessitarianism pose a far more serious threat than its proponents recognize. Law necessitarians are committed to scientific essentialism, the thesis that there are metaphysically necessary truths which can be known only a posteriori. The most frequently cited arguments for this position rely on modal intuitions. Rejection of intuition thus threatens to undermine it. I consider ways in which law necessitarians might try to defend scientific essentialism without invoking intuition. I then consider ways in which law (...) necessitarians who accept the general reliability of intuition might try to explain away the intuitions which conflict with their theory. (shrink)

Can an empirisist theory of memory be identifi ed in Plato’s dialogues? Research in the dialogues and reconstructing the pertinent references convinced me that- along with the multi-discussed and generally accepted concept of memory within Plato’s metaphysical framework of the theory of knowledge- an empirisist version of memory is utilized by the Athenian philosopher in his argumentations, concerning mainly epistemological issues and problems; in fact, given the republished metaphysical concept of memory, one cannot fi nd, beyond the orthodox, old interpretation (...) related to metempsychosis, ies attributing to Plato such, perhaps heretic, parallel use of sensorymaterial and empiricist structures. Moreover, I contend that the empiricist version of memory is related, or, can be considered, as a precursor, to a great extent, to the so called empirical theory of memory; the theory where memory is a necessary and decsively functioning constituent to the new and modern theory of knowledge. (shrink)

One of the few serious attempts undertaken during the last decade to develop a logic of questions. Belnap's theory comprises three parts so far: a) an informal syntactical treatment of the question-answer relationship, aimed at determining the policies involved in setting up a formalization of questions and answers; b) such a formalization itself ; and c) a semantical analysis leading to explicit definitions of adjectives like "rhetorical," "interesting," "foolish" as applied to questions; "direct," "complete," "corrective," and again "foolish" as applied (...) to answers. This study is a remarkable contribution to a new and rather intricate field of logical inquiry.—A. Z. B. (shrink)

A challenger of traditions and boundaries A pivotal figure in 20th-century philosophy, Nelson Goodman has made seminal contributions to metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, and the philosophy of language, with surprising connections that cut across traditional boundaries. In the early 1950s, Goodman, Quine, and White published a series of papers that threatened to torpedo fundamental assumptions of traditional philosophy. They advocated repudiating analyticity, necessity, and prior assumptions. Some philosophers, realizing the seismic effects repudiation would cause, argued that philosophy should retain the (...) familiar framework. Others considered the arguments compelling, but despaired of doing philosophy without the framework. Goodman disagreed with both factions. Rather than regretting the loss of structure, he capitalized on the opportunities that arise when the strictures of tradition are loosened. (shrink)

This article attempts to assess Mario Bunge’s important but widely neglected criticisms of dialectics. It begins by providing a contextualized interpretation of Friedrich Engels’s metaphysics of the dialectics of nature before embarking on a detailed discussion of Leon Trotsky’s and contemporary “dialectical” scientists’ views on materialist dialectics. It argues that while some of Bunge’s criticisms are eminently sensible, the principles underlying the works of dialectical scientists are compatible with Bunge’s emergentist and systemic approach and can shed light on such (...) issues as the levels of organization, the diachronic and synchronic aspects of emergence, and the individualism-holism-systemism trilemma. This article also submits that dialectics is best interpreted as a guideline for a philosophy of change instead of a magical wand that liberates the investigator from study of facts. Understood as something that serves heuristic purposes, dialectics can be sensibly utilized by scientists to shore up or refine their methodological principles and thereby to facilitate empirical research. (shrink)

Whether one agrees with him or not, there is no avoiding the challenge of Hume for contemporary philosophy of religion. The symposia in this stimulating collection reveal why, whether the discussions concern Hume on metaphysics and religion, "true religion," religion and ethics, religion and superstition, or miracles. For some, Hume's criticisms of religion cannot withstand them, while others claim that Hume can be answered on his own terms. All responses to Hume determine the style and spirit in which one (...) pursues philosophy of religion today. (shrink)