Fichte-Studien, volume 49 (Leiden: Brill/Rodopi Publishers, 8 April 2021), edited by David W. Wood, 471pp. -/- Presenting new critical perspectives on J.G. Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre, this volume of articles in English by an international group of scholars addresses the topic of first principles in Fichte’s writings. Especially discussed are the central text of his Jena period, the 1794/95 Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre, as well as later versions like the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo (1796-99) and the presentations of 1804 and 1805. (...) Also included are new studies on the first principles of the particular sub-disciplines of Fichte’s system, such as the doctrines of aesthetics, nature, right, ethics, and history. The volume also contains a number of miscellaneous essays on Fichte research, as well as several book reviews. (shrink)

The principal thesis in this review-essay is that the key linguistic terms in Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre especially have two main meanings that appear at first sight to be almost in contradiction or opposed to each other. The reader of Fichte therefore has to work hard to overcome any apparent conflicts in the “double sense” of his philosophical terminology. Accordingly, I argue that Fichte’s linguistic method and use of language should be seen as part of his chief philosophical method of synthesis, where (...) we have to carry out a similar procedure and attempt to reconcile opposites using the power of the imagination. This thesis is put forward by means of a number of practical examples and in the context of some critical reflections on the recently published Cambridge Companion to Fichte, eds. David James and Günter Zöller. Review essay published in Volume 15 (December, 2017) of the journal Revista de Estud(i)os sobre Fichte (ed. Emiliano Acosta). (shrink)

Editor's Preface to Fichte-Studien 49 (2021), "The Enigma of Fichte’s First Principles", (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2021): : IX-XIX. Also available on open-access. See the publisher's website.

"FICHTEANA Review of J.G. Fichte Research" is an online publication in English devoted to new scholarship on the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte. It publishes information and reviews of the latest Fichte editions, books, publications, conferences, and Calls for Papers. Originally founded by Daniel Breazeale in 1993, since issue 22 (2022), FICHTEANA has appeared in an expanded form with book reviews. It is co-edited by Daniel Breazeale and David W. Wood, with associate editor Kienhow Goh. -/- .

This issue 23 of FICHTEANA is dedicated to Daniel Breazeale, who passed away on 30 December 2023. -/- "FICHTEANA Review of J.G. Fichte Research" is an annual online publication in English devoted to new scholarship on the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte. It publishes information and reviews of the latest Fichte editions, books, publications, conferences, and Calls for Papers. Originally founded by Daniel Breazeale in 1993, since issue 22 (2022), FICHTEANA has appeared in an expanded form with book reviews. Editors: Daniel (...) Breazeale (†) and David W. Wood; with associate editors Kienhow Goh and Gesa Wellmann. -/- . (shrink)

Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805) is now regarded by many readers and scholars not simply as a poet, historian, or playwright, but as a genuine philosopher in his own right. -/- The following research articles in French and English are devoted to understanding the relationship between Schiller’s philosophy and German idealism, especially some of the chief figures associated with the inception and extended development of this movement: Kant, Reinhold, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Lotze. -/- In the last twenty years in particular, ground-breaking (...) edited collections have appeared on the content and legacy of Schiller’s thought. The present volume of articles, however, is one of the first to attempt a broader investigation of Schiller’s connection to German idealism, in which the contributions have above all been written by scholars of German idealism itself. -/- The aim of this volume is to furnish foundational material for better answering the question: To what extent should Friedrich Schiller be considered a German idealist? Naturally, the response to this question depends on one’s conception of German idealism, a point discussed below. This introduction provides a brief overview of earlier scholarship on this topic and summarizes the findings of our contributors. (shrink)

Les Cahiers philosophiques de Strasbourg 52 contains an Introduction and 9 new research articles in French & English on Friedrich Schiller's philosophy in relation to German Idealism. All fully available online on Open-Edition and as free e-book. -/- Edited and introduced by Henny Blomme, Laure Cahen-Maurel, & David W. Wood. With contributions by Frederick C. Beiser, María del Rosario Acosta López, Cody Staton, Jeremy D. Hovda, Laure Cahen-Maurel, Quentin Landenne, Katia Hay, Louis Carré, and Charlotte Morel. -/- SOMMAIRE (...) / CONTENTS -/- Introduction: Friedrich Schiller, a German Idealist? (Henny Blomme, Laure Cahen-Maurel & David W. Wood) -/- 1. Frederick C. Beiser. Schiller’s Humanism -/- 2. María del Rosario Acosta López. Une dimension esthétique de la critique : la temporalité du beau dans les lettres de Schiller Sur l’éducation esthétique -/- 3. Cody Staton. In Search of Play: Schiller’s Drive Theory as a Turn Away from Kant -/- 4. Jeremy D. Hovda. Bildung between Kant and Schiller -/- 5. Laure Cahen-Maurel. Fichte avec Schiller : La querelle des Heures à la lumière de Grâce et Dignité -/- 6. Quentin Landenne. La Bildung chez Schiller et Fichte, entre esthétique et politique -/- 7. Katia Hay. On the Tragic-Sublime and Tragic Freedom: Thinking with Schiller and Schelling -/- 8. Louis Carré. Vicissitudes de l’État organique : Kant, Hegel, Schiller -/- 9. Charlotte Morel. Conjoindre idéalisme et réalisme après Hegel : Les lectures de Schiller par Lotze et Lange -/- Résumés / Abstracts. (shrink)

DECODING THE MENO The truth the dialectic Meno attempts to search for is human excellence or virtue. Part of this process is defining exactly what each concept really means. In truth, however, Plato has given the reader the answer – the greatest human virtue or excellence is imagination. The answer is subtly weaved into the dialogue itself. Plato has subliminally communicated the pattern of excellence.

In her book Specifications Grading, Linda B. Nilson advocates for a grading regimen she claims will save faculty time, increase student motivation, and improve the quality and rigor of student work. If she is right, there is a strong case for many faculty to adopt some version of the system she recommends. In this paper, we argue that she is mostly right and recommend that faculty move away from traditional grading. We begin by rehearsing the central features of specifications grading (...) and providing two examples of how to implement it in philosophy classes. In light of the examples, we argue that specifications grading fulfills two of Nilson’s central desiderata but not the third. Since specifications grading generates two benefits that when combined increase student learning, without adding or increasing burdens, we conclude that student learning increases when courses are revised to include aspects of specifications grading. (shrink)

This paper argues that explicit reading instruction should be part of lower level undergraduate philosophy courses. Specifically, the paper makes the claim that it is necessary to provide the student with both the relevant background knowledge about a philosophical work and certain metacognitive skills (e.g. their ability to reflect on the learning process) that enrich the reading process and their ability to organize the content of a philosophical text with other aspects of knowledge. A “How to Read Philosophy” handout and (...) student reactions to the handout are provided. (shrink)

If we want to see justice done with regard to responsibility, then we must either (i) allow that people are never morally responsible, (iia) show that luck is not ubiquitous or at least that (iib) ubiquitous luck is not moral, or (iii) show that ascriptions of responsibility can retain justice despite the omnipresence of luck. This paper defends (iii); ascriptions of responsibility can be just even though luck is ubiquitous.

This paper explores the state of teacher training in philosophy graduate programs in the English-speaking world. Do philosophy graduate programs offer training regarding teaching? If so, what is the nature of the training that is offered? Who offers it? How valuable is it? We conclude that philosophers want more and better teaching training, and that collectively we know how to deliver and support it.

Through examples of embodied and learning-centered pedagogy, we discuss transformative learning of transgressive topics. We begin with a taxonomy of types of learning our students undergo as they resolve inconsistencies among their pre-existing beliefs and the material they confront in our course on feminist ethics and epistemology. We then discuss ways to help students maximize their learning while confronting internal inconsistencies. While we focus on feminist topics, our approach is broad enough to be relevant to anyone teaching a transgressive or (...) controversial topic. (shrink)

After describing some key features of life in an underground railroad and the nature of gray agency, Concepción illustrates how survivors of relationship slavery can stop levying misplaced blame on themselves without giving up the valuable practice of blaming. Concepción concludes that by choosing a relatively non-oppressive account of self-blame, some amount of internalized oppression can be overcome and the double bind of agency-denial and self-loathing associated with being an oppressively grafted agent can be reduced.

According to Schopenhauer’s compensation argument for pessimism, the non-existence of the world is preferable to its existence because no goods can ever compensate for the mere existence of evil. Standard interpretations take this argument to be based on Schopenhauer’s thesis that all goods are merely the negation of evils, from which they assume it follows that the apparent goods in life are in fact empty and without value. This article develops a non-standard variant of the standard interpretation, which accepts the (...) relevance of the negativity thesis but rejects that the argument assumes that life’s goods are all empty and valueless. Instead, it argues that whatever value negative goods might possess, they do not have the kind of value to compensate for positive evils. This involves additional development of the negativity thesis and a defence of it against objections from Byron Simmons (2021). (shrink)

Academic Placement Data and Analysis (APDA), a project funded by the American Philosophical Association (APA) and headed by Carolyn Dicey Jennings (UC Merced), aims “to make information on academic job placement useful to prospective graduate students in philosophy.” The project has just been updated to include new data, which Professor Jennings describes in a post at New APPS. She also announces a new interactive data tool with which one can sift through and sort information. (from Daily Nous).

There is growing interest in the use of technology to enhance the tracking and quality of clinical information available for patients in disaster settings. This paper describes the design and evaluation of the Wireless Internet Information System for Medical Response in Disasters (WIISARD).

A evidência textual primária confirma que Schopenhauer estava ciente da adoção generalizada do confinamento solitário no sistema penitenciário americano e alguns de seus efeitos prejudiciais. Ele entende sua perniciosidade no que diz respeito ao tédio, fenômeno pelo qual é conhecido por ter nele pensado e analisado extensivamente. Neste artigo, eu interpreto o relato de Schopenhauer sobre o tédio e sua relação com o confinamento solitário. Defendo Schopenhauer contra a objeção de que os casos de confinamento servem apenas para ilustrar a (...) inadequação geral de sua explicação do tédio como a falta de coisas para se querer. Esta defesa chega à conclusão de que, ao contrário, alguém pode muito bem sofrer da falta de coisas para querer como resultado direto de estar confinado; e que o tédio, entendido como a privação de vontade — fenômeno que sugiro poder ser chamado de privação conativa — faz uma contribuição esclarecedora para a nossa compreensão teórica da nocividade do confinamento solitário. (shrink)

This chapter examines the ethical matters that arise from Schopenhauer’s discussions of sexual love and sexual practices. It presents Schopenhauer's remarks on “pederasty”, among other “unnatural lusts”, and attempts to disentangle Schopenhauer’s judgements on these practices from the principles that guide them. It considers these practices in the light of Schopenhauer's ethics of asceticism and his ethics of compassion and concludes that Schopenhauer’s objections to them are not always moral in nature, strictly speaking, and where they are moral, they are (...) not always based on the “unnaturalness” of the practices, but rather the harm that he supposes they may cause. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Objectives There is little research on moral uncertainties and distress of palliative and hospice care providers (PHCPs) working in jurisdictions anticipating legalising voluntary assisted dying (VAD). This study examines the perception and anticipated concerns of PHCPs in providing VAD in the State of Queensland, Australia prior to legalisation of the practice in 2021. The findings help inform strategies to facilitate training and support the health and well-being of healthcare workers involved in VAD. Design The study used a qualitative approach (...) to examine and analyse the perception and anticipated concerns of PHCPs regarding challenges of providing assisted dying in Queensland. Fourteen PHCPs were recruited using a purposive sampling strategy to obtain a broad representation of perspectives including work roles, geographical locations and workplace characteristics. Data were collected via one in-depth interview per participant. The transcripts were coded for patterns and themes using an inductive analysis approach following the tradition of Grounded Theory. Setting The study was conducted in hospital, hospice, community and residential aged care settings in Queensland, Australia. These included public and private facilities, secular and faith-based facilities, and regional/rural and urban facilities. Participants Interviews were conducted with fourteen PHCPs: 10 nurses and 4 physicians; 11 female and 3 male. The median number of years of palliative care practice was 17, ranging from 2 to 36 years. For inclusion, participants had to be practising palliative and hospice care providers. Results PHCPs are divided on whether VAD should be considered part of palliative care. Expectations of moral distress and uncertainty about practising VAD were identified in five areas: handling requests, assessing patient capacity, arranging patient transfers and logistical issues, managing unsuccessful attempts, and dealing with team conflicts and stigma. Conclusions The possibility of having to practise VAD causes moral distress and uncertainty for some PHCPs. Procedural clarity can address some uncertainties; moral and psychological distress, however, remains a source of tension that needs support to ensure ongoing care of both patients and PHCPs. The introduction of VAD post-legalisation may present an occasion for further moral education and development of PHCPs. (shrink)

This chapter argues that Schopenhauer’s political philosophy, on the one hand, is conservative in character, while his moral philosophy, on the other, has progressive applications to social and political life. While this is not inconsistent in itself, it does confound Schopenhauer’s expectation that the norms of political justice converge on the same set of outwards behaviors as the norms of moral justice.

In this thesis I offer an interpretation of Arthur Schopenhauer’s pessimism. I argue against interpreting Schopenhauer’s pessimism as if it were merely a matter of temperament, and I resist the urge to find a single standard argument for pessimism in Schopenhauer’s work. Instead, I treat Schopenhauer’s pessimism as inherently variegated, composed of several distinct but interrelated pessimistic positions, each of which is supported by its own argument. I begin by examining Schopenhauer’s famous argument that willing necessitates suffering, which I defend (...) against the misrepresentative interpretation advocated by Ivan Soll. I also offer a metaphysical reading of Schopenhauer’s claim that no amount happiness can compensate for the mere fact of suffering, based upon his negative conception of happiness. I proceed by analysing Schopenhauer’s criticisms of two prominent optimists, Leibniz and Rousseau. I attempt to salvage something of Schopenhauer’s counterargument against Leibniz that this is the worse of all possible worlds, and I also examine Schopenhauer’s claim that the optimistic metaphysics of a priori rationalistic philosophy cannot cope with the evidence of meaningless suffering. In the case of Rousseau, I interpret Schopenhauer’s brief objection to Rousseau’s assumption of original goodness, by means of an examination of Schopenhauer’s conception of the contrary doctrine, original sin. Next I consider the metaphysics of Schopenhauer’s account of eternal justice. After defending it against a number of objections, I argue that the nature of his version of eternal justice, which he admits constitutes a justification for suffering, does not conflict with the fact that he so strongly condemns Leibniz’s and Rousseau’s optimistic justifications for suffering. Finally I assess whether and to what extent Schopenhauer’s ethics of salvation are either pessimistic or optimistic. I conclude that the mere fact that salvation is possible is not necessarily a cause for optimism, but that Schopenhauer’s doctrine of salvation is made partly optimistic by the higher form of cognition that he describes as part of it. I also argue that Schopenhauer’s views on the essentially mystical nature of the state of salvation ultimately commit him to being neither positively optimistic nor positively pessimistic about salvation. I conclude overall with some brief remarks about the meaning of Schopenhauer’s pessimism, and how in spite of its diverse nature, it is able to lay down a singular challenge to all future philosophers concerned with the question of suffering. (shrink)

This chapter is divided into three sections. In the first, I identify the mentions of Schopenhauer in À la recherche du temps perdu. I use an implicit reference to Schopenhauer by Swann to open a discussion of Schopenhauer’s theory of music. I attempt to downplay its identification, suggested by some commentators, with both the views about music expressed in the novel and the form of the novel itself. In the second section, I discuss Proust’s references to Schopenhauer in his essay (...) on reading. I confirm that Proust well understood Schopenhauer’s relationship with his own erudition and suggest that Schopenhauer’s influence on Proust may take the form of an incitement to think for oneself. In the third and final section, I consider several potential points of convergence between Proust and Schopenhauer concerning states of the will. However, in all cases I find, as I do throughout the chapter, that below the surface Proust and Schopenhauer often part ways. (shrink)

A summary of Schopenhauer's reception in British philosophy, culture, literature, and scholarship.

Issue number 4 of "SYMPHILOSOPHIE: International Journal of Philosophical Romanticism" is devoted to the Dutch philosopher François Hemsterhuis and 250th anniversary of the birth of the German romantics Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel. This fourth issue of the journal contains nearly 600 pages of new research articles, translations, review-essays, and book reviews. The main section on Hemsterhuis among the German Romantics was guest edited by Daniel Whistler (Royal Holloway, University of London).

This third 2021 issue of "SYMPHILOSOPHIE: International Journal of Philosophical Romanticism" contains a main dossier of new research articles guest edited by Leif Weatherby (New York University) and devoted to the topic of early German romanticism and science. In addition to the papers of this main section issue number 3 of SYMPHILOSOPHIE includes translations of primary sources and book reviews. All contents are freely available online.

An English translation of Leibniz's fragment "Horizon rerum humanarum... " in which he announces a plan to demonstrate "that the number of truths or falsehoods enunciable by humans as they are now is limited; and also that if the present condition of humanity persisted long enough, it would happen that the greatest part of what they would communicate in words, whether by talking or writing, would have to coincide with what others have already communicated in the past; and moreover that (...) new humans would lead an entire life that appears thoroughly the same to the senses as lives that others have already led." . (shrink)

There is a need recognized by the National Institute of Dental & Craniofacial Research and the National Cancer Institute to advance basic, translational and clinical saliva research. The goal of the Salivaomics Knowledge Base (SKB) is to create a data management system and web resource constructed to support human salivaomics research. To maximize the utility of the SKB for retrieval, integration and analysis of data, we have developed the Saliva Ontology and SDxMart. This article reviews the informatics advances in saliva (...) diagnostics made possible by the Saliva Ontology and SDxMart. (shrink)

Inspired by Rudolf Carnap's Der Logische Aufbau Der Welt, David J. Chalmers argues that the world can be constructed from a few basic elements. He develops a scrutability thesis saying that all truths about the world can be derived from basic truths and ideal reasoning. This thesis leads to many philosophical consequences: a broadly Fregean approach to meaning, an internalist approach to the contents of thought, and a reply to W. V. Quine's arguments against the analytic and the a (...) priori. Chalmers also uses scrutability to analyze the unity of science, to defend a conceptual approach to metaphysics, and to mount a structuralist response to skepticism. Based on the 2010 John Locke lectures, Constructing the World opens up debate on central philosophical issues involving language, consciousness, knowledge, and reality. This major work by a leading philosopher will appeal to philosophers in all areas. This entry contains uncorrected proofs of front matter, chapter 1, and first excursus. (shrink)

W. Matthews Grant's "Dual Sources Account" aims at explaining how God causes all creaturely actions while leaving them free in a robust libertarian sense. It includes an account of predestination that is supposed to allow for the possibility that some created persons ultimately spend eternity in hell. I argue here that the resources Grant provides for understanding why God might permit created persons to end up in hell are, for two different reasons, insufficient. I then provide possible solutions to these (...) two problems, compatible with Grant's account overall, that help show why God might allow hell. (shrink)

Applied ontologies have been used more and more frequently to enhance systems engineering. In this paper, we argue that adopting principles of ontological realism can increase the benefits that ontologies have already been shown to provide to the systems engineering process. Moreover, adopting Basic Formal Ontology (BFO), an ISO standard for top-level ontologies from which more domain specific ontologies are constructed, can lead to benefits in four distinct areas of systems engineering: (1) interoperability, (2) standardization, (3) testing, and (4) data (...) exploitation. Reaping these benefits in a model-based systems engineering (MBSE) context requires utilizing an ontology’s vocabulary when modeling systems and entities within those systems. If the chosen ontology abides by the principles of ontological realism, a semantic standard capable of uniting distinct domains, using BFO as a hub, can be leveraged to promote greater interoperability among systems. As interoperability and standardization increase, so does the ability to collect data during the testing and implementation of systems. These data can then be reasoned over by computational reasoners using the logical axioms within the ontology. This, in turn, generates new data that would have been impossible or too inefficient to generate without the aid of computational reasoners. (shrink)

Much recent discussion in the philosophy of mathematics has concerned the indispensability argument—an argument which aims to establish the existence of abstract mathematical objects through appealing to the role that mathematics plays in empirical science. The indispensability argument is standardly attributed to W. V. Quine and Hilary Putnam. In this paper, I show that this attribution is mistaken. Quine's argument for the existence of abstract mathematical objects differs from the argument which many philosophers of mathematics ascribe to him. Contrary to (...) appearances, Putnam did not argue for the existence of abstract mathematical objects at all. I close by suggesting that attention to Quine and Putnam's writings reveals some neglected arguments for platonism which may be superior to the indispensability argument. (shrink)

This paper is about the principle that success entails ability, which I call Success. I argue the status of Success is highly puzzling: when we focus on past instances of actually successful action, Success is very compelling; but it is in tension with the idea that true ability claims require an action be in the agent's control. I make the above tension precise by considering the logic of ability. I argue Success is appealing because it is classically equivalent to two (...) genuinely valid inferences, which I call Past Success and Can't-Entails-Won't; but also that Success itself has counterexamples. I show how to invalidate Success while validating Past Success and Can't-Entails-Won't by connecting the meaning of ‘can’ to facts about what is settled or open. I define an operator W with features attributed to ‘will’ in the literature on future contingents. I then give a conditional analysis of ability ascriptions stated with W-conditionals, where "S can A" says, roughly, there’s some action available to S such that if S does it, then W(S A). I show this semantics invalidates Success while still explaining its appeal. (shrink)

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately.” In order “to look again at the actual words of _Walden_, the main literary monument to the era’s eccentric etymological speculation” (Michael West), “deliberately” is the best place to start. This article aims to subject Walden’s most notable (instance of the) adverb to Thoreau’s hermeneutic methodology, “laboriously seeking [its] meaning” and minding the “perpetual suggestions and provocations” of etymology. In other words, it is an attempt to read the word (...) as deliberately as he, a Harvard-trained translator of the Classics and connoisseur of Enlightenment and Romantic philological theories, wrote it. This article focuses on wordplay stemming from the pseudo-etymological root “_liber_”—from freedom, through bark and leaves, to books. Throughout, the multi-layered ad-verb is shown to illustrate Thoreau’s idiosyncratic conception of ancient _askesis_. (shrink)

In virtue of what are later and an earlier group members of one and the numerically same tradition? Gallie was one of the few philosophers to have engaged with issues surrounding this question. My article is not a faithful exegesis of Gallie but develops a terminology in which to discuss issues surrounding the numerical identity of a tradition over time, based on some of his insights.

A new wave of evidentialist theorizing concedes that evidentialism may be extensionally incorrect as an account of all-things-considered rational belief. Nevertheless, these _newer evidentialists_ maintain that there is an importantly distinct type of epistemic rationality about which evidentialism may be the correct account. I argue that natural ways of developing the newer evidentialist position face opposite problems. One version, due to Christensen (Philos Phenomenol Res 103:501–517, 2021), may correctly describe what rationality requires, but does not entail the existence of a (...) distinctively epistemic type of rationality. Another version, due to Maguire and Woods (Philos Rev 129:211–249, 2020), characterizes a normative concept that is both distinct and epistemic, but struggles to explain why this concept should be classified as a type of rationality. I conclude that the newer evidentialist strategy of extensional compromise may be less favorable to evidentialism than previously supposed. (shrink)

Joseph Butler was an Anglican priest and later a bishop who wrote about ethics, religion, and other philosophical themes. He is not well known today. During his lifetime and into the early part of the twentieth century he was better known especially for his major work the Analogy of Religion (1736). Today he is known mostly for his sermons which are interpreted as essays on ethics and for his essay on identity. Butler had a profound effect on J. H. Newman, (...) Matthew Arnold, and W. E. Gladstone and some effect on many other popular, academic, and professional readers. This book is as much about Butler’s sources and his reception as it is about the way he arranged and presented the evidence in the first half of the 18th century. He was a good man and is recognized by the Anglican church as a divine. We have no interest in taking a nostalgic look at a quaint figure in English church history. To those who claim Butler is unknown, that he was “blown out of the water” by John Wesley or Karl Barth, or Cornelius van Til, we can only say Butler is not as well known in the 20th and 21st centuries as in the 19th, but he is certainly not unknown to those who have taken any interest in philosophy, religion, or ethics. Today there has been a revival of interest in Bishop Butler. Our concern is to build and maintain a bridge that will help to keep this momentum. He offers an ethic that is universal and clearly Christian, yet it is based on the nature of man. Kant had a similar project, but in our opinion, Butler makes more compelling arguments. What is of interest to the Christian apologist is Butler’s work in this area. The purpose of this book is to present Butler’s ideas. We believe that his ethics have a universality that is applicable to people of all religious faiths and those that have none. It is common sense way of looking at ethics for everyday interaction. This book is a narrative argument presenting in detail how Butler’s creative arrangement of the evidence served as a bridge between the ancients as known in the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew originals, and the moderns, mostly Anglophone, who constituted Butler’s work environment and his reception in the latter day down to the present. We can hardly expect everyone to agree with Butler on all points, we certainly do not. The point at issue is rather whether he merits a seat at the present-day round table of deliberation on matters pertaining to philosophy, religion, and ethics. (shrink)

This article aims at clarifying some issues raised by a recent book of Daniel W. Graham about the Presocratic cosmology. It particularly intends to shed some light on the understanding of Anaxagoras’ universe by suggesting some reasons why, despite Graham’s opinion, it is still possible to think that the stars were flat according to him. Another goal is highlighting the importance of the comprehensive physical theory of Anaxagoras, based on a circular motion called perichoresis, which would explain diverse phenomena in (...) a consistent way by introducing simplicity in his cosmology. (shrink)

David Friedrich Strauss is best known for his mythical interpretation of the Gospel narratives. He opposed both the supernaturalists (who regarded the Gospel stories as reliable) and the rationalists (who offered natural explanations of purportedly supernatural events). His mythical interpretation suggests that many of the stories about Jesus were woven out of pre-existing messianic beliefs and expectations. Picking up this suggestion, I argue that the Gospel writers thought paradigmatically rather than historically. A paradigmatic explanation assimilates the event-to-be- explained to (...) what is thought to be a prototypical instance of divine action. It differs from a historical or scientific explanation insofar as it does not specify the conditions under which it should be applied. It is, therefore, a wonderfully flexible way to understand the present in the light of the past. (shrink)

W.E. Gladstone’s changing and inconsistent views on religious oaths and established churches present an intriguing puzzle. This article compares and contrasts his early and later stances on these topics with the purpose of evaluating the place of practical judgments in his arguments. This exploration reveals that the prevailing description of Gladstone’s views, which privileges the role practicality played in his later support for a more liberal set of policies governing church–state relations, does not explain the changes and inconsistencies in his (...) position as well as does a description that emphasizes the changes and continuities in his fundamental philosophy. In conclusion, connections are suggested between this explanation of Gladstone’s views and theoretical considerations regarding the development of liberal freedoms. (shrink)

One is occasionally reminded of Foucault's proclamation in a 1970 interview that "perhaps, one day this century will be known as Deleuzian." Less often is one compelled to update and restart with a supplementary counter-proclamation of the mathematician, David Lindley: "the twenty-first century would be a Bayesian era..." The verb tenses of both are conspicuous. // To critically attend to what is today often feared and demonized, but also revered, deployed, and commonly referred to as algorithm(s), one cannot avoid (...) the mathematical and philosophical legacies of probability. // But attending to these probabilistic or Bayesian legacies must include an undeniable theological legacy in which they remain entangled. // We are not, today, discovering quirky theological metaphors in contemporary technics. It's the other way around. The technologies are mere metaphors of past theologies. (shrink)

This papers assesses the possibility of an empiricism without dogmas. It advances an argument against Quine's conceptions regarding philosophy of language and tries to expand the Davidsonian semantics and epistemic program.

Searle may protest too much his anti-dualism. It may be that what needs reconsideration is not so much the traditional opposition between material and mental as the supposed opposition between property dualism and our contemporary scientific world view. Searle at one points notes that "[w]hen we come to the proposition that reality is physical, we come to what is perhaps the crux of the whole discussion." I agree.

I set up two axiomatic theories of inductive support within the framework of Kolmogorovian probability theory. I call these theories ‘Popperian theories of inductive support’ because I think that their specific axioms express the core meaning of the word ‘inductive support’ as used by Popper (and, presumably, by many others, including some inductivists). As is to be expected from Popperian theories of inductive support, the main theorem of each of them is an anti-induction theorem, the stronger one of them saying, (...) in fact, that the relation of inductive support is identical with the empty relation. It seems to me that an axiomatic treatment of the idea(s) of inductive support within orthodox probability theory could be worthwhile for at least three reasons. Firstly, an axiomatic treatment demands from the builder of a theory of inductive support to state clearly in the form of specific axioms what he means by ‘inductive support’. Perhaps the discussion of the new anti-induction proofs of Karl Popper and David Miller would have been more fruitful if they had given an explicit definition of what inductive support is or should be. Secondly, an axiomatic treatment of the idea(s) of inductive support within Kolmogorovian probability theory might be accommodating to those philosophers who do not completely trust Popperian probability theory for having theorems which orthodox Kolmogorovian probability theory lacks; a transparent derivation of anti-induction theorems within a Kolmogorovian frame might bring additional persuasive power to the original anti-induction proofs of Popper and Miller, developed within the framework of Popperian probability theory. Thirdly, one of the main advantages of the axiomatic method is that it facilitates criticism of its products: the axiomatic theories. On the one hand, it is much easier than usual to check whether those statements which have been distinguished as theorems really are theorems of the theory under examination. On the other hand, after we have convinced ourselves that these statements are indeed theorems, we can take a critical look at the axioms—especially if we have a negative attitude towards one of the theorems. Since anti-induction theorems are not popular at all, the adequacy of some of the axioms they are derived from will certainly be doubted. If doubt should lead to a search for alternative axioms, sheer negative attitudes might develop into constructive criticism and even lead to new discoveries. -/- I proceed as follows. In section 1, I start with a small but sufficiently strong axiomatic theory of deductive dependence, closely following Popper and Miller (1987). In section 2, I extend that starting theory to an elementary Kolmogorovian theory of unconditional probability, which I extend, in section 3, to an elementary Kolmogorovian theory of conditional probability, which in its turn gets extended, in section 4, to a standard theory of probabilistic dependence, which also gets extended, in section 5, to a standard theory of probabilistic support, the main theorem of which will be a theorem about the incompatibility of probabilistic support and deductive independence. In section 6, I extend the theory of probabilistic support to a weak Popperian theory of inductive support, which I extend, in section 7, to a strong Popperian theory of inductive support. In section 8, I reconsider Popper's anti-inductivist theses in the light of the anti-induction theorems. I conclude the paper with a short discussion of possible objections to our anti-induction theorems, paying special attention to the topic of deductive relevance, which has so far been neglected in the discussion of the anti-induction proofs of Popper and Miller. (shrink)

The Racial Contract pone la teoría clásica del contrato social occidental, sin ambages, al servicio de un uso radical extraordinario. Con una mirada arrolladora sobre el expansionismo y el racismo europeos de los últimos quinientos años, Charles W. Mills demuestra cómo este peculiar y no reconocido "contrato" ha dado forma a un sistema de dominación europea global: cómo da lugar a la existencia de "blancos" y "no blancos", personas de pleno derecho y subpersonas, cómo influye en la teoría moral y (...) la psicología moral de los blancos; y cómo este sistema se impone a los no blancos mediante el condicionamiento ideológico y la violencia. The Racial Contract sostiene que la sociedad en la que vivimos es un estado continuado de supremacía blanca. Levantando un espejo ante la filosofía dominante, este provocativo libro explica el esquema evolutivo del contrato racial desde la época de la conquista del Nuevo Mundo y el posterior colonialismo, pasando por el contrato escrito de la esclavitud, hasta el sistema de segregación "separados pero iguales" en los Estados Unidos del siglo XX. Según Mills, el contrato ha proporcionado la arquitectura teórica que justifica toda una historia de atrocidades europeas contra los no blancos, desde las afirmaciones de David Hume e Immanuel Kant de que los negros tenían un poder cognitivo inferior, pasando por el Holocausto, hasta el tipo de imperialismo en Asia que se demostró con la guerra de Vietnam. Mills sugiere que la guetización del trabajo filosófico sobre la raza no es accidental. Este trabajo desafía la suposición de que la teoría dominante carece en sí misma de raza. Al igual que la teoría feminista ha revelado el sesgo invisible de la filosofía política hacia los hombres blancos, la explicación de Mills del contrato racial expone sus fundamentos raciales. (shrink)

"Over three years of study and fellowship, sixteen Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars sought to answer one question: “Do our three scriptures unite or divide us?” They offer their answers in this book: sixteen essays on how certain ways of reading scripture may draw us apart and other ways may draw us, together, into the source that each tradition calls peace. Reading scriptural sources in the classical and medieval traditions, the authors examine how each tradition addresses the “other” within its (...) tradition and without, how all three traditions attend to poverty as a societal and spiritual condition, and what it means to read scripture while facing the challenges of modernity. Ochs and Johnson have assembled a unique approach to inter-religious scholarship and a rare look at scriptural study as a pathway to peace. “Scriptural reasoning, the growing practice of Jews, Christians, and Muslims reading their scriptures together, makes good academic and common sense in a time of crisis. This ground-breaking book, the outcome of an imaginative 3-year experiment by the Princeton Center of Theological Inquiry, shows scholars and thinkers of the Abrahamic traditions going deeper into the traditions and into their contemporary situation. The result is something new, wise, and relevant… full of promise for the future. Where else can one find testimonies to Jews, Christians, and Muslims coming together not only in study, thinking, and wisdom-seeking but also in play, joy, and friendship?”--David F. Ford, Regius Professor of Divinity, University of Cambridge and Director, Cambridge Inter-Faith Programme". (shrink)

REMARKS ON EVOLUTION AND TIME-SCALES, Graham Cairns-Smith; HODGSON'S BLACK BOX, Thomas Clark; DO HODGSON'S PROPOSITIONS UNIQUELY CHARACTERIZE FREE WILL?, Ravi Gomatam; WHAT SHOULD WE RETAIN FROM A PLAIN PERSON'S CONCEPT OF FREE WILL?, Gilberto Gomes; ISOLATING DISPARATE CHALLENGES TO HODGSON'S ACCOUNT OF FREE WILL, Liberty Jaswal; FREE AGENCY AND LAWS OF NATURE, Robert Kane; SCIENCE VERSUS REALIZATION OF VALUE, NOT DETERMINISM VERSUS CHOICE, Nicholas Maxwell; COMMENTS ON HODGSON, J.J.C. Smart; THE VIEW FROM WITHIN, Sean Spence; COMMENTARY ON HODGSON, Henry Stapp.