There are a bewildering variety of claims connecting Darwin to nineteenth-century philosophy of science—including to Herschel, Whewell, Lyell, German Romanticism, Comte, and others. I argue here that Herschel’s influence on Darwin is undeniable. The form of this influence, however, is often misunderstood. Darwin was not merely taking the concept of “analogy” from Herschel, nor was he combining such an analogy with a consilience as argued for by Whewell. On the contrary, Darwin’s Origin is written in precisely the manner that one (...) would expect were Darwin attempting to model his work on the precepts found in Herschel’s Preliminary Discourse on Natural Science. While Hodge has worked out a careful interpretation of both Darwin and Herschel, drawing similar conclusions, his interpretation misreads Herschel’s use of the vera causa principle and the verification of hypotheses. The new reading that I present here resolves this trouble, combining Hodge’s careful treatment of the structure of the Origin with a more cautious understanding of Herschel’s philosophy of science. This interpretation lets us understand why Darwin laid out the Origin in the way that he did and also why Herschel so strongly disagreed, including in Herschel’s heretofore unanalyzed marginalia in his copy of Darwin’s book. (shrink)

Here I both celebrate and critique the legacy of Charles W. Mills. I begin by offering some reflections on the trajectory of Mills’s career and intellectual development, focusing on his move from Marxist philosophy to the philosophy of race. I then attempt to undermine an argument in Mills’s final book, for why those interested in emancipation should choose liberalism over Marxism. By contrasting Mills with the late Italian Marxist philosopher of history Domenico Losurdo, with whom Mills shared a blistering (...) critique of ‘racial’ liberalism but whom I claim Mills misread, I seek to weaken key premises in Mills’s argument. (shrink)

There are two motivations commonly ascribed to historical actors for taking up statistics: to reduce complicated data to a mean value (e.g., Quetelet), and to take account of diversity (e.g., Galton). Different motivations will, it is assumed, lead to different methodological decisions in the practice of the statistical sciences. Karl Pearson and W. F. R. Weldon are generally seen as following directly in Galton’s footsteps. I argue for two related theses in light of this standard interpretation, based on a reading (...) of several sources in which Weldon, independently of Pearson, reflects on his own motivations. First, while Pearson does approach statistics from this "Galtonian" perspective, he is, consistent with his positivist philosophy of science, utilizing statistics to simplify the highly variable data of biology. Weldon, on the other hand, is brought to statistics by a rich empiricism and a desire to preserve the diversity of biological data. Secondly, we have here a counterexample to the claim that divergence in motivation will lead to a corresponding separation in methodology. Pearson and Weldon, despite embracing biometry for different reasons, settled on precisely the same set of statistical tools for the investigation of evolution. (shrink)

Drawing on the work of Charles W. Mills and considering the case of reparations to Black Americans, this article defends the “structural turn” in the philosophical reparations scholarship. In the Black American context, the structural turn highlights the structural and institutional operations of a White supremacist political system and a long chronology of state-sponsored injustice, as opposed to enslavement as a standalone historical episode. Here, the question whether distributive justice is more appropriate than reparative justice is particularly pressing, since (...) structural racial inequalities form part of the basis for reparations. Derrick Darby’s pragmatic argument for non-race-specific redistributive policies and Tommie Shelby’s principled defense of distributive justice are both considered, as well as the challenge to the structural turn that comes from Carlton Waterhouse’s argument for reparations for enslavement rather than “legacy of slavery” reparations. (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)

One claim found in the received historiography of the biometrical school (comprised primarily of Francis Galton, Karl Pearson, and W. F. R. Weldon) is that one of the biometricians' great flaws was their inability to look past their population-focused, statistical, gradualist understanding of evolutionary change – which led, in part, to their ignoring developments in cellular biology around 1900. I will argue, on the contrary, that the work of the biometricians was, from its earliest days, fundamentally concerned with connections between (...) statistical patterns of inheritance and the underlying cellular features that gave rise to them. Such work remained current with contemporary knowledge of chromosomes, cytology, and development; in this article, I explore the first case. The biometricians were thus well positioned to understand the relationship between the patterns of Mendelian inheritance and the statistical distributions with which they primarily occupied themselves. Ignorance of this connection, then, is not the reason why they rejected Mendelism. Further, both Galton and Weldon – though each in their own unique way – decided to turn to biological detail as a way to better justify the generality of their statistical approaches to heredity. Perhaps paradoxically, then, for these biometricians, detail offered an approach to theoretical generality. (shrink)

Charles Sanders Peirce famously claimed that ‘The opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate is what we mean by the truth’ (W3: 273). Christopher Hookway has argued for a highly distinctive interpretation of this claim in terms of speech-acts and the normative commitments we incur in performing them. So-construed, Peirce’s conception of truth is difficult to compare with standard theories of the concept, which tend to focus instead upon some property or feature that (...) is shared by all and only true propositions, and with whether or not that property is substantive or metaphysically significant. This paper examines Hookway’s interpretation of Peirce’s conception of truth in an effort to clarify its position in logical space. It then raises some difficulties for the way Hookway tries to accommodate Peirce’s remarks about the special status of assertion and belief in science. (shrink)

The legal, political, and social meaning of the work of Charles Darwin has been claimed as resident to conservative and liberal homes alike. Peter Singer’s unique admixture of personal liberal politics and what may look to be an extremely conservative philosophy of nature expose some over-simplicity in traditional ‘right’ and ‘left’ categories. In ‘‘Recovering the Left from Darwin in the 21st Century’’, Steve Fuller provides us with insightful historical and sociological contexts for Singer’s challenges. In this article, Kirk Junker (...) takes one aspect of the trajectory ‘the notion of natural rights’ and examines their social construction, linguistic maintenance, and legal ramifications. (shrink)

Most models of generational succession in sexually reproducing populations necessarily move back and forth between genic and genotypic spaces. We show that transitions between and within these spaces are usually hidden by unstated assumptions about processes in these spaces. We also examine a widely endorsed claim regarding the mathematical equivalence of kin-, group-, individual-, and allelic-selection models made by Lee Dugatkin and Kern Reeve. We show that the claimed mathematical equivalence of the models does not hold. *Received January 2007; revised (...) April 2008. †To contact the authors, please write to: Elisabeth Lloyd, Department of History and Philosophy of Science, 130 Goodbody Hall, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405; e-mail: [email protected]; Richard Lewontin, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138; Marcus Feldman, Department of Biological Sciences, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305; e-mail: marc@charles.stanford.edu. (shrink)

Bez wątpienia, Peirce nie oferuje w swoim pismach jasnego ujęcia koncepcji przekonania, a jego poglądy, ewoluujące w ciągu całego życia, nie wydają się prowadzić do wyraźnej konkluzji. Niemniej jednak pozostaje autorem inspirującym, który pozosta- wił trwałe osiągnięcia na gruncie logiki symbolicznej i semiotyki. Metoda hermeneutyczna, którą zastosowaliśmy w tej pracy, miała na celu, w zgodzie z jego własną wskazówką metodyczną, ukazanie koncepcji przekonania, którą można by uzgodnić z dostępnymi stwierdzeniami samego Peirce’a, jak również jego komentatorów.

Connections between J.L.Vives and C.S. Peirce are shown. Not only is reflec-tion on language and meaning central in both thinkers, but Peirce also knew Vives' thought especially through W. Hamilton and the Scottish common sense school. Peirce credited Vives with being a forerunner of the use of dia-grams in logic, and both share a critical view of late medieval nominalistic logicians and a social and hierarchical conception of knowledge.

Recent philosophical secondary literature on white ignorance – a concept most famously developed by the late philosopher Charles W. Mills – suggests that white ignorance is, one way or another, a non-structural phenomenon. I analyse two such readings, the agential view and the cognitivist view. I argue that they misinterpret Mills’ work by (among other things) committing a kind of structural erasure, and one which implies that Mills’ account cannot capture, for example, cases where white ignorance (and white racial (...) domination) involves historical erasure, especially when perpetrated by sociopolitical institutions. This is particularly salient in cases such as the recent movement against anti-racist education, now widely conflated with critical race theory, in the United States and United Kingdom, which I offer as a brief case study. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to show that global scientific promises aka “scientific world-conceptions” have an interesting history that should be taken into account also for contemporary debates. I argue that the prototypes of many contemporary philosophical positions concerning the role of science in society can already be found in the philosophy of science of the 1920s and 1930s. First to be mentioned in this respect is the Scientific World-Conception of the Vienna Circle (The Manifesto) that promised to contribute (...) to the realization of an enlightened, rational and science-oriented society and culture. The Manifesto was not the only „scientific world-conception“ that philosophers and scientists put forward in the 1920s. Also the scientific world-conception of the philosopher and physicist Moritz Schlick, and the Weltanschauung of Sigmund Freud deserve to be mentioned. Still other examples of are Carnap’s Scientific Humanism and the project of The International Encyclopedia of Unified Science which was related to American pragmatism as well, as is shown by Charles W. Morris and others. Forgotten for a long time, since the beginning of the 21rst century, at least some of the Viennese projects are reconsidered in a new wave of „socially engaged philosophy of science”. (shrink)

In the article I deal with some paradoxes and errors caused by improper usage of logical and philosophical terms appearing in the arguments for existence of god and other philosophical issues. I point at rst some paradoxes coming om improper usage of propositional calculus as an instrument for analysis of a natural language. this language is actually not using simple sentences but rather propositional functions, their logical connections, and some replacements for variables in them. We still have to deal with (...) so called paradox of material implication. the second paragraph provides formal and metatheoretical critics of Charles Sanders Peirce’s theory of deduction, induction and abduction. I argue that what Peirce and his followers call abduction is actually deduction or some reasoning unable to describe in terms of the logic used by them. Both syllogistic and inferential theory of abduction generate some paradoxes and contradictions. In the last paragraph also some paradoxes and contradictions resulting om the theory of causation by Jan Łukasiewicz are presented. the central issue of the article is erroneous usage of the implication: in logical paraphrases of a natural language, in description of the scienti c reasoning, and in description of causality. However, my objective is not to solve all problems mentioned above but rather to open a discussion over them. (shrink)

This article applies Charles W. Mills’ notion of the domination contract to develop a Kantian theory of justice. The concept of domination underlying the domination contract is best understood as structural domination, which unjustifiably authorizes institutions and labour practices to weaken vulnerable groups’ public standing as free, equal and independent citizens. Though Kant’s theory of justice captures why structural domination of any kind contradicts the requirements of justice, it neglects to condemn exploitive gender- and race-based labour relations. Because the (...) ideal of civic equality must position all persons as co-legislators of the terms of political rule, the state must dismantle exploitive race- and gender-based labour relations for all persons to command political power as civic equals. (shrink)

This article discusses the adequacy of Rawls’ theory of justice as a tool for racial justice. It is argued that critics like Charles W Mills fail to appreciate both the insights and limits of the Rawlsian framework. The article has two main parts spread out over several different sections. The first is concerned with whether the Rawlsian framework suffices to prevent racial injustice. It is argued that there are reasons to doubt whether it does. The second part is concerned (...) with whether a Rawlsian framework has the resources to rectify past racial injustice. It is argued that it has more resources to do this than Mills allows. This second part of the article centers on two Rawlsian ideas: ideal theory and the fair equality of opportunity principle. It is argued that ideal theory is essential for the kind of rectificatory work that Mills wants nonideal theory to do, and that where there is a socioeconomic legacy of past injustice, it is hard to see how FEO could be implemented if it did no rectificatory work, a result which means that there is less need to turn to nonideal theory at all. (shrink)

Genocide denialism is an understudied topic in the epistemic injustice scholarship; so are epistemic relations outside of the Euro-American context. This article proposes to bring the literature into contact with an underexplored topic in a ‘distant’ setting: Turkey. Here, I explore the ethical and epistemological implications of the Turkish denial of the Armenian genocide as a pervasive and systematic epistemic harm. Using an interdisciplinary methodology, I argue that a philosophical exploration of genocide denialism requires examining the role of institutions and (...) ideology in relation to the epistemic harm done by individual perpetrators. More specifically, I suggest that the individual, ideological, and institutional roots of genocide denialism constitute a regime of epistemic injustice in Turkey. (shrink)

There have been attempts to subsume Charles Darwin's theory of evolution under either one of two distinct intellectual traditions: early Victorian natural science and its descendants in political economy (as exemplified by Herschel, Lyell, or Malthus) and the romantic approach to art and science emanating from Germany (as exemplified by Humboldt and Goethe). In this paper, it will be shown how these traditions may have jointly contributed to the design of Darwin's theory. The hypothesis is that their encounter created (...) a particular tension in the conception of his theory which first opened up its characteristic field and mode of explanation. On the one hand, the domain of the explanandum was conceived of under a holistic and aesthetic view of nature that, in its combination with refined techniques of observation, was deeply indebted to Humboldt in particular. On the other hand, Darwin fashioned explanations for natural phenomena, so conceived, in order to identify their proper causes in a Herschelian spirit. The particular interaction between these two traditions in Darwin, it is concluded, paved the way for a transfer of the idea of causal laws to animate nature while salvaging the romantic idea of a complex, teleological and harmonious order of nature. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. (shrink)

HISTÓRIA DA SOCIOLOGIA: O DESENVOLVIMENTO DA SOCIOLOGIA I -/- A SOCIOLOGIA NOS ESTADOS UNIDOS -/- -/- HISTORY OF SOCIOLOGY: THE DEVELOPMENT OF SOCIOLOGY I -/- SOCIOLOGY IN UNITED STATES -/- -/- Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva – IFPE-BJ, CAP-UFPE e UFRPE. E-mails: [email protected] e [email protected] WhatsApp: (82)9.8143-8399. -/- -/- PREMISSA -/- A Sociologia nos Estados Unidos desenvolveu-se no contexto de dois grandes eventos que marcaram profundamente a história do país. -/- O primeiro foi a Guerra de Secessão (também conhecida como (...) Guerra Civil Americana), que ocorreu entre 1861 e 1865 e gerou ressentimentos e atritos entre a população do sul e a do norte dos Estados Unidos. -/- Em contrapartida, houve a urbanização das terras do oeste e das áreas centrais do país, o que contribuiu para o crescimento da economia e a expansão industrial. No norte, graças ao esforço de guerra, houve um grande crescimento, principalmente na metalurgia, no transporte ferroviário, na indústria de armamentos e na indústria naval. O comércio também se expandiu de maneira exponencial em todo o território estadunidense. -/- O padrão de cultura dos Estados Unidos passou a ser o ideal nortista de “trabalho duro, educação e liberdade econômica a todos”. Houve ainda um grande desenvolvimento de escolas e instituições de ensino superior. -/- O segundo grande evento que marcou a história estadunidense foi a chegada em massa de estrangeiros. Entre 1860 e 1900, os Estados Unidos passaram de país agrícola, com população em torno de 4 milhões, para país industrial, com uma das maiores economias do mundo e com 75 milhões de habitantes. -/- O incremento populacional e a industrialização redundaram em um processo de urbanização sem precedentes que continuou até a década de 1930. Para se ter uma ideia, em 1860 viviam em Chicago 102 260 pessoas; em 1900, a população da cidade passou a 1 698 575 e, em 1930, a 3 375 329. Em virtude desses fatores, consolidaram-se nos Estados Unidos uma burguesia industrial, comercial e financeira significativa, uma classe trabalhadora majoritariamente formada por imigrantes e uma classe média em ascensão. -/- As principais cidades passaram a ser um espaço de conflito e alvo de preocupações. Temas como imigração, aculturação, conflitos étnicos, comportamentos desviantes e políticas públicas foram importantes na Sociologia desenvolvida inicialmente no país. -/- Entre os principais fundadores da Sociologia nos Estados Unidos estão William Graham Sumner (1840 -1910), Lester Frank Ward (1841-1913), Albion Woodbury Small (1854-1926), Franklin Henry Giddings (1855-1931), Thorstein Bunde Veblen (1857-1929), William Isaac Thomas (1863-1947), Robert Ezra Park (1864-1944), Charles Horton Cooley (1864-1929) e George Herbert Mead (1863-1931). -/- A herança cultural desses fundadores é muito diversa: foram influenciados principalmente pela tradição religiosa protestante disseminada em quase todo o território, pelo liberalismo econômico clássico conservador, do tipo laissez-faire, pelo evolucionismo do inglês Charles Darwin (1809-1882) e pelo darwinismo social de Herbert Spencer (1820-1903). Acrescente-se a esse cadinho de concepções de mundo e ciência o pragmatismo do filósofo e psicólogo William James (1842-1910) e do filósofo Charles Pierce (1839-1914). -/- Essa herança permite compreender as duas grandes características da Sociologia nos Estados Unidos: -/- • multiplicidade de temas, problemas e propostas e diversidade teórica e metodológica; -/- • desenvolvimento desse campo do conhecimento em universidades, nas quais as atividades eram financiadas pelo Estado e pelo setor privado (Fundação Rockefeller, comitês e associações normalmente religiosas). -/- Por causa dessa segunda característica, optei por analisar o desenvolvimento da Sociologia nos Estados Unidos em três importantes universidades estadunidenses: a de Chicago, Harvard e Columbia. -/- 1. A Universidade de Chicago -/- A Universidade de Chicago foi fundada em 1890 pelo magnata do petróleo John D. Rockefeller e recebeu os primeiros alunos em 1892. Nela foi criado o primeiro departamento de Sociologia dos Estados Unidos, sob a direção de Albion Woodbury Small. -/- No início de seus trabalhos sociológicos, a Universidade de Chicago deu primazia à pesquisa empírica, procurando conhecer, por meio da observação direta, a dinâmica das relações sociais. Desenvolveu uma forte tendência pragmática e microssociológica, que viria a ser conhecida como a Escola de Chicago. A maior preocupação dos integrantes dessa Escola foi com os problemas das grandes cidades dos Estados Unidos, como a marginalidade social, o alcoolismo, as drogas, a segregação racial e a delinquência, estabelecendo uma relação entre a pesquisa sociológica e a intervenção dos organismos públicos na sociedade. -/- Os sociólogos de Chicago também se dedicaram ao que chamaram de ecologia humana, em oposição à ecologia animal e vegetal. -/- Em 1895, Albion Woodbury Small fundou o American Journal of Sociology e, em 1907, participou ativamente da fundação da Sociedade Americana de Sociologia. Ele publicou, com Georges Vincent, em 1894, talvez o primeiro manual de Sociologia para estudantes, intitulado Introdução ao estudo da sociedade. Tendo estudado na Alemanha, Small foi o principal divulgador do pensamento de Georg Simmel nos Estados Unidos. -/- Entre os integrantes da Escola de Chicago mais conhecidos no Brasil, podemos citar William I. Thomas (1863-1947) e Florian Znaniecki (1882-1958), cuja principal obra foi O camponês polonês na Europa e na América, editada em 1918. -/- Destacam-se ainda Robert E. Park (1864-1944) e Ernest W. Burgess (1886-1966), que escreveram, entre outras obras, Introdução à ciência da Sociologia, em 1921. -/- Os dois, com Roderick Mackenzie, escreveram o clássico A cidade, em 1925. Outro membro de destaque foi Louis Wirth (1897-1952), autor de O gueto, escrito em 1928, e de um artigo que se tornou famoso, “Urbanismo como modo de vida”, publicado em 1938, no American Journal of Sociology. -/- A Escola de Chicago congregou, ainda, sociólogos e antropólogos com ligação com a Psicologia Social, que desenvolveram uma abordagem sociológica das relações sociais conhecida como interacionismo simbólico. A principal figura dessa vertente foi George Herbert Mead (1863-1932), que trabalhou em diversas áreas, sobretudo como psicólogo social e como professor de várias gerações de antropólogos e sociólogos. Seus escritos foram sistematizados por seus alunos e publicados com o nome Mind, self and society (A mente, o eu e a sociedade), em 1934. -/- Além da tradição intelectual dos Estados Unidos, os integrantes da Escola de Chicago receberam a influência de Jean-Gabriel de Tarde, Émile Durkheim e Georg Simmel. Seus continuadores foram Herbert Blumer (1900-1987) e Everett C. Hughes (1897-1983). -/- 1.1 Erving Goffman (1922-1982) -/- O representante da Sociologia desenvolvida na Universidade de Chicago mais influente no Brasil é Erving Goffman, que nasceu em Manville, Alberta, no Canadá, em 1922, e faleceu nos Estados Unidos em 1982. Obteve o grau de bacharel pela Universidade de Toronto, em 1945, e concluiu mestrado (1949) e doutorado (1953) na Universidade de Chicago, onde estudou Sociologia e Antropologia Social. Em 1958, tornou-se professor da Universidade da Califórnia e, em 1968, ingressou na Universidade da Pensilvânia, onde foi professor de Antropologia e Sociologia. -/- Entre 1981 e 1982, Goffman foi presidente da Sociedade Americana de Sociologia e realizou pesquisas na linha da Sociologia interpretativa e cultural, iniciada por Max Weber, desenvolvendo a ideia de que o mundo é um teatro e cada um, individualmente ou em grupo, interpreta papéis de acordo com as circunstâncias em que se encontra. Essas circunstâncias são marcadas por rituais e posições distintivas em relação a outros indivíduos ou grupos. Para ele, é possível distinguir indivíduos, grupos e classes com base, por exemplo, em aspectos como as formas de vestir ou de se apresentar publicamente. -/- O sociólogo considera a interação social como um processo fundamental de identificação e de diferenciação dos indivíduos e grupos, analisando-a no cotidiano, especialmente em lugares públicos. Goffman estudou com especial atenção o que chamou de “instituições totais”, lugares onde o indivíduo é isolado da sociedade, como prisões e manicômios. -/- De acordo com o sociólogo brasileiro Édison Gastaldo: -/- O trabalho de Goffman trouxe à luz aspectos da vida cotidiana que não se julgavam “sociologicamente relevantes”. Seus insights sobre as interações ordinárias, sobre o deslocamento dos pedestres, sobre a ocupação social dos espaços públicos, sobre a atuação dos vigaristas, mendigos, loucos, espiões, jogadores e de todos aqueles que passam cotidianamente debaixo de nossos narizes sem que prestemos atenção modificaram o pensar sociológico no mundo. Sua descrição etnográfica de um hospital para doentes mentais colaborou decisivamente para deflagrar a luta antimanicomial no mundo inteiro. Vinte e dois anos depois de sua morte, os temas e os conceitos desenvolvidos por Goffman ainda estão em pleno uso e vitalidade (GASTALDO, 2004, p. 9/10). -/- Suas três obras mais conhecidas são: A representação do eu na vida cotidiana (1959), Manicômios, prisões e conventos (1961) e Estigma: notas sobre a manipulação da identidade (1963). -/- 2. A Universidade Harvard -/- A história de Harvard começa em 1636, quando foi fundada, na cidade de Cambridge, no estado de Massachusetts, uma instituição de ensino denominada New College. Em 1639, essa instituição recebeu o nome de Harvard College, em homenagem a John Harvard, seu principal mecenas. -/- A Sociologia desenvolvida na Universidade Harvard é marcada por uma preocupação teórica e tem dois sociólogos como expoentes: Pitirim Alexandrovich Sorokin (1889-1968) e Talcott Edgar Frederick Parsons (1902-1979). Este último influenciou muito o desenvolvimento da Sociologia no mundo e no Brasil. -/- 2.1 Talcott Parsons (1902-1979) -/- Talcott Parsons nasceu no Colorado, nos Estados Unidos. Em 1924, graduou-se em Biologia e Filosofia na Faculdade Amherst. Em 1925, pós-graduou-se em Ciências Sociais na Escola de Economia de Londres, na Inglaterra, e, em seguida, doutorou-se na Universidade de Heidelberg, na Alemanha. -/- Nos Estados Unidos, lecionou Economia e Sociologia na Universidade Harvard durante 45 anos (1927-1973). Em 1944, tornou-se presidente do Departamento de Sociologia, transformando-o, dois anos depois, no Departamento de Relações Sociais, a fim de unir a Sociologia a outras ciências sociais. -/- Assim como Sorokin, Parsons voltou-se para a Sociologia europeia, tendo por base as ideias de Max Weber, Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) e Émile Durkheim, além das do economista inglês Alfred Marshall (1842-1924). Fundamentado nesses autores, desenvolveu uma grande obra teórica, que dominaria a Sociologia estadunidense desde então. -/- Parsons é o sociólogo estadunidense mais conhecido no mundo. Em geral, seus críticos entenderam-no como um pensador conservador, preocupado basicamente com o bom ordenamento da sociedade. Seu interesse era determinar a função que os indivíduos desempenhavam na estrutura social. Entendia o indivíduo como expressão dessa estrutura, a qual devia ser mantida e preservada. Caso isso não ocorresse, deviam entrar em ação os mecanismos de controle social (moral, ética, sistema jurídico e penal etc.), como instrumentos preventivos ou corretivos. -/- Seu trabalho exerceu influência em diversos países e ambientes acadêmicos (particularmente nas décadas de 1950 a 1970), até mesmo na então União Soviética, onde, em 1964, ministrou aulas sobre a Sociologia estadunidense a convite da Academia de Ciências da União Soviética (URSS). -/- Suas principais obras foram: A estrutura da ação social (1937), O sistema social (1951), Economia e sociedade (1956, com N. Smelser), Estrutura e processo nas sociedades modernas (1960), Sociedades: perspectivas evolucionárias e comparativas (1966), Teoria sociológica e sociedade moderna (1968), Política e estrutura social (1969), Sistemas sociais e a evolução da teoria da ação (1977) e Teoria da ação e a condição humana (1978). -/- 3. A Universidade Columbia -/- A King’s College foi fundada em 1754, em Nova York, nos Estados Unidos. Quando as colônias inglesas se declararam independentes da Grã-Bretanha, a instituição passou a se chamar Universidade Columbia. A partir da última década do século XIX, essa universidade se destacaria por uma importante produção no campo da Sociologia, tendo como pioneiro Franklin Giddings (1855-1931), fundador da cadeira de Sociologia. Fortemente marcado pelo evolucionismo e pelo pragmatismo, foi um dos primeiros a usar métodos quantitativos e experi-mentais no estudo dos fenômenos sociais. -/- Dois sociólogos de Columbia merecem destaque, por serem muito conhecidos no Brasil: Robert K. Merton e Charles Wright Mills. -/- 3.1 Robert King Merton (1910-2003) -/- Merton nasceu na Filadélfia e faleceu em Nova York. Graduou-se em Sociologia na Universidade Temple e pós-graduou-se na Universidade Harvard, onde trabalhou com Pitirim Sorokin e Talcott Parsons até a defesa de seu doutorado, em 1936. -/- Em 1941 Merton transferiu-se para a Universidade Columbia, onde permaneceu durante 38 anos, até aposentar-se. Nessa universidade procurou integrar teoria à prática sociológica. Estudou o comportamento desviante e os processos de adaptação social, tendo por base pesquisas qualitativas e quantitativas do exercício profissional em ambiente de solidariedade e de conflito. Com Paul Lazarsfeld (1901-1976), desenvolveu o Departamento de Pesquisa Social Aplicada. -/- O nome de Merton está vinculado à proposta de criação de teorias de alcance médio, segundo a qual os sociólogos seriam mais úteis à sociedade se deixassem de lado as grandes teorias (criticando Parsons) e criassem outras de médio alcance. Essas teorias estariam situadas entre as hipóteses de trabalho rotineiras na pesquisa e as amplas especulações. Mediariam, dessa forma, as abstrações, generalizações e fundamentos empíricos da pesquisa. -/- Merton tinha uma visão humanista da função social da ciência, demonstrando influência clara de Max Weber. Concebia a ciência como um conjunto de conhecimentos compartilhados por todos os membros da sociedade, que deveriam julgar a credibilidade das postulações científicas de acordo com suas expectativas e valores morais. Mas as decisões acerca do fazer científico não caberiam à sociedade, e sim ao próprio cientista, sempre adequando seus valores aos da sociedade. -/- 3.2 Charles Wright Mills (1916-1962) -/- Charles Wright Mills (1916-1962) nasceu em Waco, no Texas, Estados Unidos. Mestre em Artes, Filosofia e Sociologia pela Universidade do Texas, concluiu, em 1942, seu doutorado em Sociologia e Antropologia pela Universidade de Wisconsin. Foi professor de Sociologia nas universidades de Maryland e Columbia, onde passou a lecionar em 1947 e permaneceu até a morte, em 1962. -/- Charles Mills representa uma tendência quase marginal na Sociologia dos Estados Unidos, por apresentar uma visão crítica e militante da sociedade estadunidense e da própria Sociologia. -/- Influenciado por Karl Marx e Max Weber, Mills procurou conciliar o conceito de classe social com o de status, visando esclarecer processos e mecanismos dos conflitos e das mudanças sociais. Por meio de pesquisas, tentou elucidar a complexidade de estruturas de poder, particularmente das elites (em lugar de classes dominantes), e de seu papel na mudança social, fugindo da ideia de revolução como única via para a transformação social. -/- Charles Wright Mills é conhecido principalmente por seu livro A imaginação sociológica, publicado originalmente nos Estados Unidos em 1959. Nele, o autor propõe que os sociólogos, ao exercer a profissão, não deixem a imaginação e a criatividade de lado em favor de uma pretensa objetividade e neutralidade do trabalho científico. Para Mills, os grandes intelectuais da história nunca abriram mão da reflexão e da criatividade e mantiveram uma postura crítica diante da realidade. -/- Atribuindo aos sociólogos a responsabilidade de agentes ativos na sociedade, cabendo-lhes tomar parte nos debates públicos de sua época, Mills defendia a ideia de que a Sociologia deveria ser compreensível para o grande público. Para ele, a ciência social era inseparável da vida pessoal do cientista: a intuição, a imaginação e o comprometimento com o tempo em que se vivia eram fundamentais para compreender cientificamente a sociedade. Suas obras foram publicadas em vários idiomas. Além da citada anteriormente, as mais importantes são: A nova classe média (1951), A elite do poder (1956), Sobre o artesanato intelectual (1959) e Os marxistas (1962). -/- Mills escreveu também artigos em revistas e dois livros que tiveram grande exposição na mídia dos Estados Unidos, por seu caráter polêmico: As causas da Terceira Guerra Mundial (1958), no qual discute a corrida nuclear, e A Revolução em Cuba (1960), em que analisa a fase inicial da Revolução Cubana. -/- Outros sociólogos que defendem uma postura crítica na Sociologia estadunidense, continuadores ou não de Charles Wright Mills, são Irving Louis Horowitz (1929-2012), Martin Nicolaus (1928-) e Alvin Gouldner (1920-1980). -/- REFERENCIAL TEÓRICO -/- BOTTOMORE, T.; et al. Dicionário do pensamento social do século XX. Trad. Eduardo Francisco Alves. Álvaro Cabral. Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 1996. -/- COULON, A. A Escola de Chicago. Trad. Tomás R. Bueno. 1ª ed. Campinas: Papirus, 1995. -/- CUIN, C. H.; GRESLE, F. História da Sociologia. Trad. Roberto Leal Ferreira. São Paulo: Ensaio, 1994. -/- DOMINGUES, J. M. A sociologia de Talcott Parsons. 1ª ed. São Paulo: Annablume, 2008. -/- GASTALDO, É. (org.); et al. Erving Goffman, desbravador do cotidiano. 1ª ed. Porto Alegre: Tomo Editorial, 2004. -/- NOVA, S. V. Introdução à Sociologia. 6ª ed. São Paulo: Atlas, 2004. -/- SILVA, A. et al. Sociologia em movimento. 2ª ed. São Paulo: Ática, 2016. -/- VALLADARES, L. do P. A Escola de Chicago: impacto de uma tradição no Brasil e na França. 1ª ed. Belo Horizonte: UFMG, 2005. -/- VÁRIOS, autores. O livro da sociologia. As grandes ideias de todos os tempos. Trad. Rafael Longo. 1ª ed. São Paulo: Globo, 2015. -/- SBS - Sociedade Brasileira de Sociologia PUCRS - PPG em Ciências Sociais Avenida Ipiranga, 6681 - Partenon CEP: 90619-900 - Porto Alegre, RS [email protected] Emanuel Isaque Cordeiro da Silva ©2019 -/- Estimule a criatividade. Respeite os direitos autorais. (shrink)

This article discusses anglophone readings of G. W. F. Hegel against the backdrop of German-language scholarship. The article starts by differentiating types of metaphysics (I). Following a taxonomy introduced by Paul Redding, I then discuss Charles Taylor’s Christian-mystical (II), the so-called »non-metaphysical« (III) and the »revised metaphysical« reading (IV). Terry Pinkard’s work serves as an example of (III) and Stephen Houlgate’s as an example of (IV). I highlight problematic aspects of each reading that concern: the meaning of »reason in (...) the world« (II), the anti-relativist clout of Hegel’s philosophy (III) and the difference between the development of logical concepts and the empirical origin of the world and human thinking (IV). The text ends (V) by pointing to the social implications of each type of reading. (shrink)

In the 1920s, David Hilbert proposed a research program with the aim of providing mathematics with a secure foundation. This was to be accomplished by first formalizing logic and mathematics in their entirety, and then showing---using only so-called finitistic principles---that these formalizations are free of contradictions. ;In the area of logic, the Hilbert school accomplished major advances both in introducing new systems of logic, and in developing central metalogical notions, such as completeness and decidability. The analysis of unpublished material presented (...) in Chapter 2 shows that a completeness proof for propositional logic was found by Hilbert and his assistant Paul Bernays already in 1917--18, and that Bernays's contribution was much greater than is commonly acknowledged. Aside from logic, the main technical contribution of Hilbert's Program are the development of formal mathematical theories and proof-theoretical investigations thereof, in particular, consistency proofs. In this respect Wilhelm Ackermann's 1924 dissertation is a milestone both in the development of the Program and in proof theory in general. Ackermann gives a consistency proof for a second-order version of primitive recursive arithmetic which, surprisingly, explicitly uses a finitistic version of transfinite induction up to www . He also gave a faulty consistency proof for a system of second-order arithmetic based on Hilbert's &egr;-substitution method. Detailed analyses of both proofs in Chapter 3 shed light on the development of finitism and proof theory in the 1920s as practiced in Hilbert's school. ;In a series of papers, Charles Parsons has attempted to map out a notion of mathematical intuition which he also brings to bear on Hilbert's finitism. According to him, mathematical intuition fails to be able to underwrite the kind of intuitive knowledge Hilbert thought was attainable by the finitist. It is argued in Chapter 4 that the extent of finitistic knowledge which intuition can provide is broader than Parsons supposes. According to another influential analysis of finitism due to W. W. Tait, finitist reasoning coincides with primitive recursive reasoning. The acceptance of non-primitive recursive methods in Ackermann's dissertation presented in Chapter 3, together with additional textual evidence presented in Chapter 4, shows that this identification is untenable as far as Hilbert's conception of finitism is concerned. Tait's conception, however, differs from Hilbert's in important respects, yet it is also open to criticisms leading to the conclusion that finitism encompasses more than just primitive recursive reasoning. (shrink)

This book presents Robert S. Hartman’s formal theory of value and critically examines many other twentieth century value theorists in its light, including A.J. Ayer, Kurt Baier, Brand Blanshard, Paul Edwards, Albert Einstein, William K. Frankena, R.M. Hare, Nicolai Hartmann, Martin Heidegger, G.E. Moore, P.H. Nowell-Smith, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Charles Stevenson, Paul W. Taylor, Stephen E. Toulmin, and J.O. Urmson.

Arthura Kaufmanna filozofia prawa wyrasta przede wszystkim z neokantyzmu aksjologicznego reprezentowanego przez „późnego” Gustava Radbrucha, którego uważał on za najważniejszego ze swych nauczycieli, oraz z hermeneutyki filozoficznej Hansa-Georga Gadamera. W późniejszym okresie znaczący wpływ na Kaufmanna wywarł Charles S. Peirce, którego pracami posiłkował się opracowując problematykę analogii (wiążąc ją z opracowanym przez Pierca zagadnieniem abdukcji) oraz ontologii relacji. Niektóre wątki poglądów Kaufmanna nawiązują do egzystencjalizmu Karla Jaspersa oraz antropologii Karla Löwitha. Obecne są także inspiracje tomistyczne i arystotelesowskie. Jest to (...) filozofia prawa o charakterze maksymalistycznym. Kaufmann wpisuje się w sięgającą starożytności tradycję uprawiania filozofii, w której stawia się pytania o całość; filozofia pyta o to, co to jest "byt w ogóle", byt "w całości"; filozofia prawa stawia pytania o to, co to jest prawo "w całości", prawo "w ogóle" . Podejmuje wprost fundamentalne zagadnienia należące do zasadniczych dziedzin filozoficznych – epistemologiczne, ontologiczne, etyczne, nie stroniąc także od zagadnień z zakresu logiki. Uprawiana przez niego filozofia ma charakter systemowy, co sprawia, że jej zrozumienie zakłada ujęcie całości propozycji. Sam Kaufmann uważa, że systemy filozofii prawa należą już do historii, jednak ta uwaga jest o tyle jedynie trafna w odniesieniu do niego samego, że jego filozofia prawa – w zgodzie z jego deklaracjami – nie zmierza do „gotowych rozwiązań” konkretnych kwestii prawnych, ale zmierza do ukształtowania pewnego sposobu refleksji nad prawem. Jego koncepcja jest ważnym głosem w sporze klasycznego pozytywizmu z koncepcjami niepozytywistycznymi. Za prawo w pełnym tego słowa znaczeniu uznaje konkretne rozstrzygnięcie, co niewątpliwie łączy jego podejście z amerykańskim realizmem prawnym. Rekonstruowana przez Kaufmanna struktura procesu „urzeczywistniania” prawa, dokonywana w kontekście i na użytek kultury prawnej typu kodeksowego, kontynentalnego, uwyraźnia obecność elementów typowych dla kultury prawa precedensowego –wnioskowanie od przypadku do przypadku. Jednocześnie za istotny problem każdego porządku normatywnego uznaje uogólnienie. Jest to znamienny teoretyczny wyraz narastającej świadomości współwystępowania obok siebie zasadniczych elementów każdego z tych typów kultur prawnych. Kaufmann trafnie dostrzega, że w konkretnym rozstrzygnięciu są obecne elementy normatywne wykraczające poza to, co jest zawarte w aktach normatywnych. Podobnie jak Ronald Dworkin, Kaufmann wskazuje, że dokonujący rozstrzygnięcia, czy tego chce, czy nie, „stosuje” szereg elementów normatywnych spoza aktów normatywnych. Analizy prowadzą do wniosku, że propozycja Kaufmanna zawodzi, gdy przechodzi on do ontologicznych uogólnień, przede wszystkim przez brak uwzględnienia w swych podstawach takich punktów odniesienia, które są zewnętrzne wobec badanego procesu „urzeczywistniania” prawa. To, czym jest osoba, determinowane jest systemem prawnym i kulturą, w której prawo funkcjonuje. Przy takim ujęciu Kaufmann nie osiąga jednego z ważnych celów, do którego zmierzał, nie wskazuje kryteriów pozwalających stwierdzić, czy stopniowa – dokonywana zgodnie z odkrytymi przez hermeneutykę filozoficzną wymaganiami poprawnego rozumienia – zmiana normatywnego sensu systemu prawnego zmierza ku „ustawowemu bezprawiu”, czy też nie. (shrink)

This book is a collection of articles dealing with criticisms of Robert S. Hartman’s theory of formal axiology. During his lifetime, Hartman wrote responses to many of his critics. Some of these were previously published but many are published here for the first time. In particular, published here are Hartman’s replies to such critics as Hector Neri Castañeda, Charles Hartshorne, Rem B. Edwards, Robert E. Carter, G. R. Grice, Nicholas Rescher, Robert W. Mueller, Gordon Welty, Pete Gunter, George Kimball (...) Plochmann, William Eckhardt, and Robert S. Brumbaugh. Crticial essays and responses to them developed by Rem B. Edwards, Frank G. Forrest, and Mark A. Moore after Hartman’s untimely death in 1973 are also included. (shrink)

Many philosophers have claimed that evidence for a theory is better when multiple independent tests yield the same result, i.e., when experimental results are robust. Little has been said about the grounds on which such a claim rests, however. The present essay presents an analysis of the evidential value of robustness that rests on the fallibility of assumptions about the reliability of testing procedures and a distinction between the strength of evidence and the security of an evidence claim. Robustness can (...) enhance the security of an evidence claim either by providing what I call second-order evidence, or by providing back-up evidence for a hypothesis. (shrink)

I propose a strategy for a metaphysical reduction of perceived color, that is, an identification of perceived color with properties characterizable in non-qualitative terms. According to this strategy, a description of visual experience of color, which incorporates a description of the appearance of color, is a reference-fixing description. This strategy both takes color appearance seriously in its primary epistemic role and avoids rendering color as metaphysically mysterious. I’ll also argue that given this strategy, a plausible account of perceived color claims (...) that colors are physical properties of physical objects. (shrink)

It is sometimes said that permitting, say, voluntary euthanasia would erode the motivations and inhibitions supporting other, legitimate prohibitions on killing to the point where widespread disregard for the moral law would result. this paper discusses the relevance of such "slippery slope" arguments for the rule-utilitarian who claims that we can assess moral rules by asking whether their acceptance would maximize utility. first it is argued that any normative theory of this type cannot recognize slope arguments as legitimate considerations in (...) this assessment. second, it is suggested that a theory based on the very different notion of choosing a moral code can permit slope arguments to weigh as relevant considerations. (shrink)

I draw upon the conceptual resources of the extended mind thesis to analyze empathy and interpersonal understanding. Against the dominant mentalistic paradigm, I argue that empathy is fundamentally an extended bodily activity and that much of our social understanding happens outside of the head. First, I look at how the two dominant models of interpersonal understanding, theory theory and simulation theory, portray the cognitive link between folk psychology and empathy. Next, I challenge their internalist orthodoxy and offer an alternative "extended" (...) characterization of empathy. In support of this characterization, I analyze some narratives of individuals with Moebius syndrome, a kind of expressive deficit resulting from bilateral facial paralysis. I conclude by discussing how a Zen Buddhist ethics of responsiveness is helpful for articulating the practical significance of an extended, body-based account of empathy. (shrink)

This introduction to the Journal of Business Research special issue on anti-consumption briefly defines and highlights the importance of anticonsumption research, provides an overview of the latest studies in the area, and suggests an agenda for future research on anti-consumption.

This paper introduces the Analects of Kongzi (better known to English-speakers as 'Confucius') to non-specialist readers, and discusses two major lines of interpretation. According to one group of interpretations, the key to understanding the Analects is passage 4.15, in which a disciple says that 'loyalty' and 'reciprocity' together make up the 'one thread' of the Master's teachings. More recently, some interpreters have emphasised passage 13.3, which discusses 'correcting names': bringing words and things into proper alignment. This paper argues that both (...) approaches are mistaken, based on interpolated and unrepresentative passages. The paper closes with a brief suggestion that the Analects reveals a thinker who emphasises cultivating virtues that allow for the appreciation of complex individual contexts, rather than one who seeks systematic generalisations. An afterword to the paper suggests that we should avoid both 'methodological dualism' (which posits a radical incommensurability between Western and Eastern philosophies) and 'the perennial philosophy' (which ignores differences in favour of similarities). (shrink)

Deliberate contextual vocabulary acquisition (CVA) is a reader’s ability to figure out a (not the) meaning for an unknown word from its “context”, without external sources of help such as dictionaries or people. The appropriate context for such CVA is the “belief-revised integration” of the reader’s prior knowledge with the reader’s “internalization” of the text. We discuss unwarranted assumptions behind some classic objections to CVA, and present and defend a computational theory of CVA that we have adapted to a new (...) classroom curriculum designed to help students use CVA to improve their reading comprehension. (shrink)

In this article I examine the consequences of the dominance of intuitive thinking in moral judging and deciding for the role of moral reasoning in moral education. I argue that evidence for the reliability of moral intuitions is lacking. We cannot determine when we can trust our intuitive moral judgements. Deliberate and critical reasoning is needed, but it cannot replace intuitive thinking. Following Robin Hogarth, I argue that intuitive judgements can be improved. The expertise model for moral development, proposed by (...) Hubert and Stuart Dreyfus, not only teaches us how we acquire intuitive moral judgements, it also shows the interconnectedness of intuitive thinking and deliberate reasoning. Analysing the expertise model in more detail, I show that it cannot do justice to the importance of reasoning skills. Reasoning skills are needed because we expect people to be able to argue for their standpoints. I conclude that moral education should not only aim at improving intuitive moral judgements, but also at acquiring reasoning skills. (shrink)

In this article, I attempt to bring some conceptual clarity to several key terms and foundational claims that make up Levinas's body-based conception of ethics. Additionally, I explore ways that Levinas's arguments about the somatic basis of subjectivity and ethical relatedness receive support from recent empirical research. The paper proceeds in this way: First, I clarify Levinas's use of the terms “sensibility”, “subjectivity”, and “proximity” in Otherwise than Being: or Beyond Essence . Next, I argue for an interpretation of Levinas's (...) thought that I suggest is buttressed by recent experimental work in both developmental psychology and neuroscience. I provide examples of research that I suggest opens up Levinas's phenomenological analysis in new and interesting ways. I also urge the importance of Levinas's phenomenological analysis in contextualizing the ethical significance of these empirical findings. (shrink)

This paper will attempt to assess the primary differences between what I take to be the two primary philosophical "traditions" in contemporary French philosophy, using Derrida (transcendence) and Deleuze (immanence) as exemplary representatives. The body of the paper will examine the use of these terms in three different areas of philosophy on which Derrida and Deleuze have both written: subjectivity, ontology, and epistemology. (1) In the field of subjectivity, the notion of the subject has been critiqued in two manners, either (...) by appealing either to the transcendence of the other (Levinas, Derrida) or to the immanent jlux of experience itself, in relation to which the Ego itself is trancendent (Deleuze, Foucault, Sartre, James). (2) In the field of ontology, a purely "immanent" ontology would be an ontology in which there is neither a "beyond" or an "otherwise" Being, nor "interruptions" in Being, both of which would require an appeal to a formal element of transcendence (Deleuze). Such a "transcendent" and aporetic structure, which can never appear or be present as such within Being, is what lies at the basis of the project of deconstruction, with its attendant aporias (Derrida). (3) This distinction, finally, finds parallels in Kant's epistemology, for whom the possible experience is conditioned by purely immanent criteria (Deleuze), whereas what goes beyond the limits of possible experience is transcendent (Derrida). Drawing on these three thread of analysis, the paper concludes with an assessment of what is at stake in the ethical differences between the two traditions. The question of "transcendence" is "What mast I do?", which is the question of morality (a duty or obligation that is beyond being, an "ought" beyond the "is"). The question of "immanence" is "What can I do?" (my power or capacity as an existing individual within being). For Levinas and Derrida, ethics precedes ontology because it is derived from an element of transcendence (the Other); for Deleuze, ethics is ontology because it is derived from the immanent relation of beings to Being at the level of their existence (Spinoza). (shrink)

Theodicy and Toleration Seem at first glance to be an unlikely pair of topics to treat in a single paper. Toleration usually means putting up with beliefs or actions with which one disagrees, and it is practiced because the beliefs or actions in question are not disagreeable enough to justify interference. It is usually taken to be a topic for moral and political philosophy. Theodicy, on the other hand, is the attempt to solve the problem of evil; that is, to (...) explain the origin of suffering and sin in a way that does not make God a moral cause of those evils.1 While theodicy concerns the notions of good and evil, and could therefore be considered a moral topic, historical and contemporary discussions of it have .. (shrink)

This chapter identifies and explores a series of challenges raised by the clinical concept of delusion for theories which conceive autonomy as an agency rather than a status concept. The first challenge is to address the autonomy-impairing nature of delusions consistently with their role as grounds for full legal and ethical excuse, on the one hand, and psychopathological significance as key symptoms of psychoses, on the other. The second challenge is to take into account the full logical range of delusions, (...) which may take the form of true or false factual beliefs, positive or negative evaluations, as well as the paradoxical delusion of mental illness. The third and final challenge is to make room for non-pathological or, autonomy-preserving delusions and to offer a credible way of distinguishing between these and pathological or, autonomy-impairing delusions. By setting out these challenges, we are able to, firstly, distinguish between two separate conceptions of objectivity that may be at work in existing accounts of delusions and, secondly, to put a spotlight on an elusive yet inescapable notion of agential success that underlies our thinking about autonomy as well as mental disorder. (shrink)

While a great deal of abuse has been directed at intelligent design theory (ID), its starting point is a fact about biological organisms that cries out for explanation, namely "specified complexity" (SC). Advocates of ID deploy three kind of argument from specified complexity to the existence of a designer: an eliminative argument, an inductive argument, and an inference to the best explanation. Only the first of these merits the abuse directed at it; the other two arguments are worthy of respect. (...) If they fail, it is only because we have a better explanation of SC, namely Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. (shrink)

In standard probability theory, probability zero is not the same as impossibility. But many have suggested that only impossible events should have probability zero. This can be arranged if we allow infinitesimal probabilities, but infinitesimals do not solve all of the problems. We will see that regular probabilities are not invariant over rigid transformations, even for simple, bounded, countable, constructive, and disjoint sets. Hence, regular chances cannot be determined by space-time invariant physical laws, and regular credences cannot satisfy seemingly reasonable (...) symmetry principles. Moreover, the examples here are immune to the objections against Williamson’s infinite coin flips. (shrink)

In this paper I uncover and critically analyze a methodological assumption in the literature on conscientious refusals in health care. The assumption is what I call the “Priority of Conscience Principle,” which says the following: to determine the moral status of any act of conscientious refusal, it is first necessary to determine the nature and value of conscience. I argue that it is not always necessary to discuss conscience in the debate on conscientious refusals, and that discussing conscience is even (...) problematic, since it can lead authors to beg the question. (shrink)

In the last two decades, the term “quality-of-life” has become popular in medicine and health care. There are, however, important differences in the meaning and the use of the term. The message of all quality-of-life talk is that medicine and health care are not valuable in themselves. They are valuable to the extent that they contribute to the quality of life of patients. The ultimate aims of medicine and health care are not health or prolongation of life as such, but (...) preservation or improvement of the quality of life. The primary aims of medicine and health care, such as the prolongation of life, can – but need not always – come into conflict with the ultimate ones: medical treatments do not always benefit a patient. In this article I will, first, summarize the results of my explorations of the use and the meaning of the term “quality-of-life.” The use and the meaning of the term turn out to depend on the contexts of medical decisionmaking in which it is used. I will show that there are at least three different concepts of quality-of-life. Second, I will argue that the different concepts of quality-of-life are not unrelated. They point to different components of and/or conditions for happiness. Third, I will analyze the relation between the three concepts of qualityof-life, health and happiness. (shrink)

I argue that rule consequentialism sometimes requires us to act in ways that we lack sufficient reason to act. And this presents a dilemma for Parfit. Either Parfit should concede that we should reject rule consequentialism (and, hence, Triple Theory, which implies it) despite the putatively strong reasons that he believes we have for accepting the view or he should deny that morality has the importance he attributes to it. For if morality is such that we sometimes have decisive reason (...) to act wrongly, then what we should be concerned with, practically speaking, is not with the morality of our actions, but with whether our actions are supported by sufficient reasons. We could, then, for all intents and purposes just ignore morality and focus on what we have sufficient reason to do, all things considered. So if my arguments are cogent, they show that Parfit’s Triple Theory is either false or relatively unimportant in that we can, for all intents and purposes, simply ignore its requirements and just do whatever it is that we have sufficient reason to do, all things considered. (shrink)

In What is Philosophy?, Deleuze and Guattari define philosophy, famously, as an activity that consists in forming, inventing, and fabricating concepts.” But this definition of philosophy implies a somewhat singular “analytic of the concept,” to borrow Kant’s phrase. One of the problems it poses is the fact that concepts, from a Deleuzian perspective, have no identity but only a becoming. This paper examines the nature of this problem, arguing that the aim of Deleuze analytic is to introduce the form of (...) time into concepts in terms of what he calls “continuous variation” or “pure variability.” The aim is not to rediscover the eternal or the universal, but to find the conditions under which something new is produced (creativeness). (shrink)

We initially characterize what we’ll call existence problems as problems where there is evidence that a putative entity exists and this evidence is not easily dismissed; however, the evidence is not adequate to justify the claim that the entity exists, and in particular the entity hasn’t been detected. The putative entity is elusive. We then offer a strategy for determining whether an existence problem is philosophical or scientific. According to this strategy (1) existence problems are characterized in terms of causal (...) roles, and (2) these problems are categorized as scientific or philosophical on the basis of the epistemic context of putative realizers. We argue that the first step of the strategy is necessary to avoid begging the question with regard to categorization of existence problems, and the second step categorizes existence problems on the basis of a distinction between two ways in which an entity can be elusive. This distinction between kinds of elusiveness takes as background a standard account of inference to the best explanation. Applying this strategy, we argue that the existence of a multiverse is a scientific problem. (shrink)

Within much contemporary social ontology there is a particular methodology at work. This methodology takes as a starting point two or more asocial or atomic individuals. These individuals are taken to be perfectly functional agents, though outside of all social relations. Following this, combinations of these individuals are considered, to deduce what constitutes a social group. Here I will argue that theories which rely on this methodology are always circular, so long as they purport to describe the formation of all (...) social groups, as they must always presuppose a pre-existing collectivity. Such methodology also produces various distortions in our theories, such as voluntarism. I focus on the workings of Plural Subject Theory as laid out by Margaret Gilbert in On Social Facts. I show that the formation of a plural subject always requires communication, and that communication always requires a pre-existing collectivity. i examine the elements within Plural Subject Theory which protect gilbert from these accusations of circularity, and argue against them. I finalise by suggesting that what Plural Subject Theory, and social ontology in general, requires as a theoretical starting point is not atomic individuals and their combinations, but rather combinations of already socialised or embedded individuals. (shrink)

Theistic evolutionists often suggest that one can reconcile evolutionary theory with biblical teaching. But in fact Christians have accepted Darwinian theory only after reinterpreting the opening chapters of Genesis. Is such a reinterpretation justified? Within Western Christian thought, there exists a hermeneutical tradition that dates back to St Augustine and which offers guidelines regarding apparent conflicts between biblical teaching and natural philosophy (or “science”). These state that the literal meaning of the text may be abandoned only if the natural-philosophical conclusions (...) are established beyond doubt. But no large-scale scientific theory, such as Darwin’s, can claim this degree of certainty. It follows that to justify their reinterpretation of Genesis 1–3, Christians must either argue that the literal sense of the biblical text can be maintained or accept that the Augustinian view of biblical authority is untenable. Three alternative views are discussed: a first that attempts to limit the scope of biblical authority, a second that distinguishes between the Bible and the Word of God, and a third that abandons the idea that religious faith offers certain knowledge. While the third view seems the most defensible, it comes at a cost: the recognition that, as John Locke put it, “reason must be our last judge and guide in everything.”. (shrink)