The Council of Europe’s 2008 White Paper on Intercultural Dialogue: ‘living together as equals in dignity’ points to the need for shared values upon which intercultural dialogue might rest. In order, however, to overcome the monologic separateness that threatens community, we must educate ourselves to recognize the dialogism of our humanity and to engage in deep encounters with others with a mature skepticism of all dogmatisms, including our own. In order to aid us in reaching the necessary insight, the author (...) calls upon Bakhtin’s ideas of the dialogism of every utterance and of the unity and heteroglossia of language, Gadamer’s hermeneutical experience that shakes us loose from what we think we know, and Levinas’s description of that transcendent ideal of a dialogue beyond reciprocity. These perspectives break open our certainty that tribalism and individualism are fundamental, placing them instead as secondary phenomena that, though powerful, pronounce neither the initial nor the final word on our life together. (shrink)

This paper consists of a conversation between a philosopher specialising in ethics and religion and an educational researcher with an interest in cultural studies and contemporary social theory. Dialogic in form, this paper employs an interdisciplinary response to an interdisciplinary project and offers the following components: a dialogic theorizing of the implications for education of a research project on spiritual capital; a continuation of the project of analyzing moral thinking in various cultural and societal settings; a continuation of the project (...) of analyzing political rhetoric (towards an understanding of the polemics of political rhetoric); a reaffirmation of the value of recognizing difference and ambiguity in the global moment. (shrink)

God is typically conceived as perfectly good and necessarily so, in two senses: in terms of always performing the best possible act and in terms of having maximal moral worth. Yet any being that freely performs the best act she can must be accorded greater moral worth for any such action than a being that does so necessarily. I conclude that any being that performs the best possible act of necessity cannot also have maximal moral worth, making the concept of (...) God’s perfect goodness incoherent. (shrink)

Notions of agency and of weakness of will clearly seem to be related to one another. This essay takes on a rather modest task in relation to current discussion of these topics; it seeks to establish the following claim: If A is a normal human agent, weakness of will is possible for A. The argument relies on demonstrating that certain necessary conditions for normal human agency are at least roughly equivalent to certain sufficient conditions for weakness of will. The connection (...) between agency and weakness of will is made through the use of an extended example that lays bare the links between the two. (shrink)

In her article, "Thinking and Moral Considerations," Hannah Arendt provides a provocative approach to the question of evil by suggesting that banal evil-the most common kind-may arise directly from thoughtlessness. If that is so, thinking may provide an antidote to evil. Learning to think would then offer the individual and society protection against the dangers of thoughtless evil. She further suggests that thinking may clear the way for a form of judging that "when the chips are down" may turn people (...) toward right rather than wrong, beauty rather than ugliness. In this essay I address her claim by noting an example of apparently thoughtless evil, the murder of Duncan by Macbeth, and by showing how this event clarifies Arendt's thesis, including both its weaknesses and its strengths. The use of Macbeth will amount to a sketch of certain features of the play particularly relevant to this ethical issue, followed by an analysis of ways Arendt's thesis connects with the murder of Duncan. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 28, Issue 2, pp 132 - 148 A striking feature of Thomas Hobbes’s account of political obligation is his discussion of the Fool, who thinks it reasonable to adopt a policy of selective, self-interested covenant breaking. Surprisingly, scholars have paid little attention to the potential of a psychological defense of Hobbes’s controversial claim that the Fool behaves irrationally. In this paper, I first describe Hobbes’s account of the Fool and argue that the kind of Fool most worth (...) considering is the covert, long-term Fool. Then I advance and critically assess two psychological arguments according to which the Fool’s policy of self-interested covenant breaking is prudentially irrational. The first argument holds that, taken together, the deep guilt from early-stage covenant breaking, the cumulative guilt from continued covenant breaking, and the high statistical risk of detection during high-volume covenant breaking render the Fool’s policy irrational. The second argument holds that the Fool’s policy is irrational because it puts him at risk of adopting a psychologically intolerable view of his fellow covenanters and, specifically, the extent to which they can be trusted. (shrink)

Surprisingly few articles have focused on Aquinas’s particular conception of necessary beings in the Third Way, and many scholars have espoused inaccurate or incomplete views of that conception. My aim in this paper is both to offer a corrective to some of those views and, more importantly, to provide compelling answers to the following two questions about the necessary beings of the Third Way. First, how exactly does Aquinas conceive of these necessary beings? Second, what does Aquinas seek to accomplish (...) in the third stage of the Third Way? In answering these questions, I challenge prominent contemporary understandings of the necessary beings of the Third Way. (shrink)

GREGORY McELWAIN | : This paper explores the intersection of animal and environmental ethics through the thought of Mary Midgley. Midgley’s work offers a shift away from liberal individualist animal ethics toward a relational value system involving interdependence, care, sympathy, and other components of morality that were often overlooked or marginalized in hyperrationalist ethics, though which are now more widely recognized. This is most exemplified in her concept of “the mixed community,” which gained special attention in J. Baird Callicott’s (...) effort to create a “unified environmental ethics.” In this, Callicott saw the potential in Midgley’s thought for bringing animal and environmental ethics “back together again.” However, this paper argues that he oversimplified and misapplied her complex concept. This is primarily due to his attempt to harmonize her approach with a rigid dichotomy between domestic and wild animals—as well as one between individuals and collectives—in his conception of the land ethic in the tradition of Aldo Leopold. Throughout, this paper also highlights Midgley’s value as an early contributor to the convergence of animal and environmental ethics. | : Cet article explore l’intersection entre l’éthique animale et l’éthique environnementale par le biais de la pensée de Mary Midgley. Le travail de Midgley prend ses distances d’une éthique animale libérale individualiste pour se rapprocher d’un système de valeurs relationnel qui implique l’interdépendance, le soin, la sympathie, et d’autres éléments de la morale qui ont souvent été négligés ou marginalisés dans le contexte de l’éthique hyperrationnaliste, bien qu’actuellement plus largement reconnus. Le meilleur exemple de cela se retrouve dans son concept de « la communauté mixte », lequel a bénéficié d’une attention particulière chez J. Baird Callicot et son effort pour créer une « éthique environnementale unifiée ». En cela, Callicot a vu le potentiel de la pensée de Midgley’s pour une « réunification » de l’éthique animale et l’éthique environnementale. Or, cet article soutient qu’il a simplifié et appliqué à tort le concept complexe de Midgley, en raison de sa tentative de concilier l’approche de cette dernière avec une stricte dichotomie entre animaux sauvages et domestiques – en plus d’une autre entre individus et collectivités – suivant sa conception de l’éthique de la terre dans la tradition d’Aldo Leopold. Tout au long du texte, cet article met en relief l’importance de Midgley comme l’une des premiers théoriciens à avoir contribué à la convergence de l’éthique animale et de l’éthique environnementale. (shrink)

What happens to the inner light of consciousness with the death of the individual body and brain? Reductive materialism assumes it simply fades to black. Others think of consciousness as indicating a continuation of self, a transformation, an awakening or even alternatives based on the quality of life experience. In this issue, speculation drawn from theoretic research are presented. -/- Table of Contents Epigraph: From “The Immortal”, Jorge Luis Borges iii Editor’s Introduction: I Killed a Squirrel the Other Day, (...) class='Hi'>Gregory M. Nixon iv-xi Research Essays The Tilde Fallacy and Reincarnation: Variations on a "Skeptical" Argument Teed Rockwell 862-881 Death, Consciousness, and Phenomenology, Steve Bindeman 882-899 The Idealist View of Consciousness After Death, Bernardo Kastrup 900-909 Consciousness, a Cosmic Phenomenon—A Hypothesis, Eva Déli 910-930 The Theory of a Natural Afterlife: A Newfound, Real Possibility for What Awaits Us at Death, Bryon K. Ehlmann 931-950 Near-Death Cases Desegregating Non-Locality/Disembodiment via Quantum Mediated Consciousness: An Extended Version of the Cell-Soul Pathway, Contzen Pereira & J Shashi Kiran Reddy 951-968 On the Possible Existence of Quantum Consciousness After Brain Death, Massimo Pregnolato & Alfredo Pereira Jr. 969-991 Science and Postmortem Survival, Edward F. Kelly 992-1011 Explorations ISS Theory: Cosmic Consciousness, Self, and Life Beyond Death in a Hyperdimensional Physics, Chris H. Hardy 1012-1035 Does the Consciousness End, Remain Awake, or Transform After Death? Radivoj Stankovich (with Micho Durdevich) 1036-1050 Big Bang Spirituality, Life, and Death, Ken Bausch 1051-1063 Death, Consciousness and the Quantum Paradigm, Ronald Peter Glasberg 1064-1077 Living With Limits: The Continuum of Consciousness, Donald Brackett 1078-1098 Mysticism, Consciousness, Death, Mike Sosteric 1099-1118 What Dies? Eternalism and the Afterlife in William James, Jonathan Bricklin 1119-1140 Theories of Consciousness and Death: Does Consciousness End, Continue, Awaken, or Transform When the Body Dies? Roger Cook 1141-1153 It’s the Other Way Around: Matter is a Form of Consciousness and Death is the End of the Illusion of Life in the World, James P. Kowall & Pradeep B. Deshpande 1154-1208 Statements A Feminine Vision for the World Consciousness, & a New Outrageous Ontology, Lorna Green 1209-1217 The Mask of Eternity: The Quest for Immortality and the Afterlife, Iona Miller 1218-1228 Are We Really “such stuff as dreams are made on”? Chris Nunn 1229-1225 Is the Afterlife a Non-Question? (Let's Hope Not), Deepak Chopra 1226-1230 Life After Death? An Improbable Essay, Stuart Kauffman 1231-1236. (shrink)

Vlastos, G. Introduction: the paradox of Socrates.--Lacey, A. R. Our knowledge of Socrates.--Dover, K. J. Socrates in the Clouds.--Robinson, R. Elenchus.--Robinson, R. Elenchus, direct and indirect.--Robinson, R. Socratic definition.--Nakhnikian, G. Elenctic definitions.--Cohen, S. M. Socrates on the definition of piety: Euthyphro 10A-11B.--Santas, G. Socrates at work on virtue and knowledge in Plato's Laches.--Burnyeat, M. F. Virtues in action.--Walsh, J. J. The Socratic denial of Akrasia.--Santas, G. Plato's Protagoras and explanations of weakness.--Woozley, A. D. Socrates on disobeying the law.--Allen, R. E. (...) Plato's earlier theory of forms. (shrink)

In the past four years, a small but intense debate has transpired on the margins of mainstream scholarship in the discipline of Philosophy, particularly within the sub-field of American pragmatism. While most philosophical pragmatists dedicate their attention to questions concerning how ideas improve experience (or the theory-practice continuum), those participating in this exchange have shown greater concern for an issue that is, at its core, a theoretical matter: Does the theory of experience espoused by the classic American philosopher John Dewey (...) succumb to what contemporary analytic philosophers—for instance, Wilfred Sellars, Donald Davidson and John McDowell—call the Myth of the Given? One commentator, Scott Aikin, claims that Dewey relied on non-inferential and non-conceptual content or givens as perceptual inputs for cognitive experience. The upshot of Aikin’s objection is that these experiential givens constitute a proxy epistemological foundation for the beliefs that flow from inquiry—a position clearly in conflict with Dewey’s commitment to anti-foundationalism. The objection assumes a slightly different form in the hands of another scholar of American pragmatism, Colin Koopman. Gregory Pappas and David Hildebrand respond to Koopman’s version of the objection. The goals of this essay are to clarify the objection, highlight the stakes in the debate, identify misunderstandings of Dewey’s experiential metaphysics on both sides, and determine why the experiential givenism objection merits serious philosophical scrutiny in the future. (shrink)

Dans 'Godel’s Way', trois éminents scientifiques discutent de questions telles que l’indécidabilité, l’incomplétude, le hasard, la calculabilité et la paraconsistence. J’aborde ces questions du point de vue de Wittgensteinian selon lesquelles il y a deux questions fondamentales qui ont des solutions complètement différentes. Il y a les questions scientifiques ou empiriques, qui sont des faits sur le monde qui doivent être étudiés de manière observationnelle et philosophique quant à la façon dont le langage peut être utilisé intelligiblement (qui incluent certaines (...) questions en mathématiques et en logique), qui doivent être décidés en regardant un comment nous utilisons réellement des mots dans des contextes particuliers. Lorsque nous obtenons clair sur le jeu de langue que nous jouons, ces sujets sont considérés comme des questions scientifiques et mathématiques ordinaires comme les autres. Les idées de Wittgenstein ont rarement été égalées et jamais dépassées et sont aussi pertinentes aujourd’hui qu’elles l’étaient il y a 80 ans lorsqu’il a dicté les Livres Bleus et Brown. Malgré ses défauts, vraiment une série de notes plutôt qu’un livre fini, c’est une source unique du travail de ces trois savants célèbres qui travaillent aux confins de la physique, des mathématiques et de la philosophie depuis plus d’un demi-siècle. Da Costa et Doria sont cités par Wolpert (voir ci-dessous ou mes articles sur Wolpert et mon examen de Yanofsky 'The Outer Limits of Reason') depuis qu’ils ont écrit sur le calcul universel, et parmi ses nombreuses réalisations, Da Costa est un pionnier dans la paraconsistence. -/- Ceux qui souhaitent un cadre complet à jour pour le comportement humain de la vue moderne de deux système peuvent consulter mon livre 'The Logical Structure of Philosophy, Psychology, Mind and Language in Ludwig Wittgenstein and John Searle' 2nd ed (2019). Ceux qui s’intéressent à plus de mes écrits peuvent voir «Talking Monkeys --Philosophie, Psychologie, Science, Religion et Politique sur une planète condamnée --Articles et revues 2006-2019 » 3e ed (2019) et Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century 4th ed (2019) et autres. (shrink)

Creativity pervades human life. It is the mark of individuality, the vehicle of self-expression, and the engine of progress in every human endeavor. It also raises a wealth of neglected and yet evocative philosophical questions: What is the role of consciousness in the creative process? How does the audience for a work for art influence its creation? How can creativity emerge through childhood pretending? Do great works of literature give us insight into human nature? Can a computer program really be (...) creative? How do we define creativity in the first place? Is it a virtue? What is the difference between creativity in science and art? Can creativity be taught? The new essays that comprise The Philosophy of Creativity take up these and other key questions and, in doing so, illustrate the value of interdisciplinary exchange. Written by leading philosophers and psychologists involved in studying creativity, the essays integrate philosophical insights with empirical research. CONTENTS I. Introduction Introducing The Philosophy of Creativity Elliot Samuel Paul and Scott Barry Kaufman II. The Concept of Creativity 1. An Experiential Account of Creativity Bence Nanay III. Aesthetics & Philosophy of Art 2. Creativity and Insight Gregory Currie 3. The Creative Audience: Some Ways in which Readers, Viewers and/or Listeners Use their Imaginations to Engage Fictional Artworks Noël Carroll 4. The Products of Musical Creativity Christopher Peacocke IV. Ethics & Value Theory 5. Performing Oneself Owen Flanagan 6. Creativity as a Virtue of Character Matthew Kieran V. Philosophy of Mind & Cognitive Science 7. Creativity and Not So Dumb Luck Simon Blackburn 8. The Role of Imagination in Creativity Dustin Stokes 9. Creativity, Consciousness, and Free Will: Evidence from Psychology Experiments Roy F. Baumeister, Brandon J. Schmeichel, and C. Nathan DeWall 10. The Origins of Creativity Elizabeth Picciuto and Peter Carruthers 11. Creativity and Artificial Intelligence: a Contradiction in Terms? Margaret Boden VI. Philosophy of Science 12. Hierarchies of Creative Domains: Disciplinary Constraints on Blind-Variation and Selective-Retention Dean Keith Simonton VII. Philosophy of Education (& Education of Philosophy) 13. Educating for Creativity Berys Gaut 14. Philosophical Heuristics Alan Hájek. (shrink)

In this Article, I propose a novel law and economics explanation of a deeply puzzling aspect of business organization in market economies. Why are virtually all firms organized as capital-managed and -owned (capitalist) enterprises rather than as labor-managed and -owned cooperatives? Over 150 years ago, J.S. Mill predicted that efficiency and other advantages would eventually make worker cooperatives predominant over capitalist firms. Mill was right about the advantages but wrong about the results. The standard explanation is that capitalist enterprise is (...) more efficient. Empirical research, however, overwhelmingly contradicts this. But employees almost never even attempt to organize worker cooperatives. I critique the explanations of the three leading analysts of the subject (N. Scott Arnold, Henry Hansmann, and Gregory Dow), all of whom offer are different transactions cost accounts, as logically defective and empirically inadequate. I then propose an explanation that has been oddly neglected in the literature, that the rarity of cooperatives is explained by the collective action problem identified by writers such as Mancur Olson. Labor management is a public good that generates the n-person prisoner’s dilemma which gives rational actors the incentive to create it in suboptimal (or no) amounts. I support this by reference to the empirical facts about the origin of existing cooperatives and show that this explanation requires no strong version of a questionable rational choice theory. This explanation is supplemented by the mere exposure or familiarity effect derived from social and cognitive psychology, which turns on the fact that labor managed firms are rare, in part because of the public goods problem, thus unfamiliar, which makes them less attractive and thus more likely to be rare. My account points advocates of labor management towards solutions such as institutional changes in incentives, which, however, themselves involve public goods issues. (shrink)

: The idea of enhancing our mental functions through medical means makes many people uncomfortable. People have a vague feeling that altering our brains tinkers with the core of our personalities and the core of ourselves. It changes who we are, and doing so seems wrong, even if the exact reasons for the unease are difficult to define. Many of the standard arguments against neuroenhancements—that they are unsafe, that they violate the distinction between therapy and enhancements, that they undermine equality, (...) and that they will be used coercively—fail to show why the use of any such technologies is wrong in principle. Two other objections—the arguments that such changes undermine our integrity and that they prevent us from living authentic lives—will condemn only a few of the uses that are proposed. The result is that very few uses of these drugs are morally suspect and that most uses are morally permissible. (shrink)

In the world according to Hume, people are complicated creatures, with convoluted, often contradictory characters. Consider, for example, Hume's controversial assessment of Charles I: "The character of this prince, as that of most men, if not of all men, was mixed .... To consider him in the most favourable light, it may be affirmed, that his dignity was free from pride, his humanity from weakness, his bravery from rashness, his temperance from austerity, his frugality from avarice .... To speak the (...) most harshly of him, we may affirm, that many of his good qualities were attended with some latent frailty, which, though seemingly inconsiderable, was able, when seconded by the extreme malevolence of his fortune, to disappoint them of all their influence: His beneficent disposition was clouded by a manner not very gracious; his virtue was tinctured with superstition; his good sense was disfigured by a deference to persons of a capacity inferior to his own; and his moderate temper exempted him not from hasty and precipitate resolutions." This sketch shows Charles in all his complexities, with his virtues, near virtues, and contradicting virtues. I have quoted it at length because it is hard to summarize without losing the subtleties that lie within it. Hume's moral theory is based fundamentally on judgments of character, 2 so those subtleties are important to his view. The character sketches that pervade the.. (shrink)

This paper examines two mistakes regarding David Lewis’ Principal Principle that have appeared in the recent literature. These particular mistakes are worth looking at for several reasons: The thoughts that lead to these mistakes are natural ones, the principles that result from these mistakes are untenable, and these mistakes have led to significant misconceptions regarding the role of admissibility and time. After correcting these mistakes, the paper discusses the correct roles of time and admissibility. With these results in hand, the (...) paper concludes by showing that one way of formulating the chance–credence relation has a distinct advantage over its rivals. (shrink)

This essay examines the role of non-existent objects in "epistemological ontology" — the study of the entities that make thinking possible. An earlier revision of Meinong's Theory of Objects is reviewed, Meinong's notions of Quasisein and Außersein are discussed, and a theory of Meinongian objects as "combinatorially possible" entities is presented.

Critical Review of Searle's Minds, Brains and Science.

Public health is concerned with increasing the health of the community at whole. Insofar as health is a ‘good’ and the community constitutes a ‘public’, public health by definition promotes a ‘public good’. But ‘public good’ has a particular and much more narrow meaning in the economics literature, and some commentators have tried to limit the scope of public health to this more narrow meaning of a ‘public good’. While such a move makes the content of public health less controversial, (...) it also strips important goals from the realm of public health, goals that traditionally have been, and morally should be, a part of it. Instead, I will argue, while public health should be defined by public goods, it should be defined by a broader conception of public goods that I shall call ‘normative public goods’, goods that ought to be treated as if they were public goods in the more narrow sense. (shrink)

David Hume is an ardent supporter of the practice of religions toleration. For Hume, toleration forms part of the background that makes progress in philosophy possible, and it accounts for the superiority of philosophical thought in England in the eighteenth century. As he puts it in the introduction to the Treatise: “the improvements in reason and philosophy can only be owing to a land of toleration and of liberty”. Similarly, the narrator of part 11 of the First Enquiry comments.

Clark and Chalmers (1998) defend the hypothesis of an ‘Extended Mind’, maintaining that beliefs and other paradigmatic mental states can be implemented outside the central nervous system or body. Aspects of the problem of ‘language acquisition’ are considered in the light of the extended mind hypothesis. Rather than ‘language’ as typically understood, the object of study is something called ‘utterance-activity’, a term of art intended to refer to the full range of kinetic and prosodic features of the on-line behaviour of (...) interacting humans. It is argued that utterance activity is plausibly regarded as jointly controlled by the embodied activity of interacting people, and that it contributes to the control of their behaviour. By means of specific examples it is suggested that this complex joint control facilitates easier learning of at least some features of language. This in turn suggests a striking form of the extended mind, in which infants’ cognitive powers are augmented by those of the people with whom they interact. (shrink)

The writings of Joseph Henry Woodger (1894–1981) are often taken to exemplify everything that was wrongheaded, misguided, and just plain wrong with early twentieth-century philosophy of biology. Over the years, commentators have said of Woodger: (a) that he was a fervent logical empiricist who tried to impose the explanatory gold standards of physics onto biology, (b) that his philosophical work was completely disconnected from biological science, (c) that he possessed no scientific or philosophical credentials, and (d) that his work was (...) disparaged – if not altogether ignored – by the biologists and philosophers of his era. In this paper, we provide the first systematic examination of Woodger’s oeuvre, and use it to demonstrate that the four preceding claims are false. We argue that Woodger’s ideas have exerted an important influence on biology and philosophy, and submit that the current consensus on his legacy stems from a highly selective reading of his works. By rehabilitating Woodger, we hope to show that there is no good reason to continue to disregard the numerous contributions to the philosophy of biology produced in the decades prior to the professionalization of the discipline. (shrink)

A number of cases involving self-locating beliefs have been discussed in the Bayesian literature. I suggest that many of these cases, such as the sleeping beauty case, are entangled with issues that are independent of self-locating beliefs per se. In light of this, I propose a division of labor: we should address each of these issues separately before we try to provide a comprehensive account of belief updating. By way of example, I sketch some ways of extending Bayesianism in order (...) to accommodate these issues. Then, putting these other issues aside, I sketch some ways of extending Bayesianism in order to accommodate self-locating beliefs. Finally, I propose a constraint on updating rules, the "Learning Principle", which rules out certain kinds of troubling belief changes, and I use this principle to assess some of the available options. (shrink)

advanced directivesend-of-life decisionsharming the deadposthumous reproductiontransplant ethics.

The phenomenon of ambivalence is an important one for any philosophy of action. Despite this importance, there is a lack of a fully satisfactory analysis of the phenomenon. Although many contemporary philosophers recognize the phenomenon, and address topics related to it, only Harry Frankfurt has given the phenomenon full treatment in the context of action theory - providing an analysis of how it relates to the structure and freedom of the will. In this paper, I develop objections to Frankfurt's account, (...) all revolving around the charge that his account contains a serious ambiguity between willing and identifying. With such objections in place, I then develop an analysis that avoids the difficulties and ambiguities that Frankfurt's analysis is prey to. I briefly distinguish ambivalence from other types of internal conflict. This paper aims to offer conceptual clarification on the phenomenon of ambivalence, which will then allow for discussions about the normative merits and demerits of ambivalence, the effects of ambivalence on autonomous action, and methods of resolution of ambivalence. (shrink)

Abstract: This study aims to identify the level of creativity in the University of Palestine from the point of view of the employees, as the researchers used the descriptive and analytical method, through a questionnaire distributed to a sample of employees at the University of Palestine, where the size of the study population is (234) employees, and the size of the sample (117) employees, of which (90) employees responded. The study reached a set of results, the most important of which (...) are: A high degree of creativity from the employees 'point of view, and the study confirmed that there were no differences in the level of creativity at the University of Palestine from the Employees point of view, according to demographic variables. The study presented a set of recommendations, the most important of which are: The need for universities to enhance creativity. (shrink)

Like most philosophers, Heidegger gave little attention to childhood, but his philosophical emphasis on pre-reflective practice and understanding seems uniquely qualified to help make sense of a child’s experience and development. Moreover, it seems to me that many central Heideggerian concepts are best defended, exemplified, and articulated by bringing child development into the discussion. A Heideggerain emphasis on pre-theoretical world-involvement opens up a rich array of phenomena for studying child development, which can improve upon standard theories that have over-emphasized exclusive (...) conditions or criteria. I begin by laying out some basic features of Heidegger’s conception of being-in-the-world as a preparation for understanding the world of the child. Then I will briefly discuss some of Heidegger’s remarks on childhood, followed by some reflections on language acquisition and the correlation of anxiety and meaning. (shrink)

Augustine′s conversion to Christianity in A.D. 386 is a pivotal moment not only in his own life, but in Christian and world history, for the theology of Augustine set the course of theological and cultural development in the western Christian church. But to what exactly was Augustine converted? Scholars have long debated whether he really converted to Christianity in 386, whether he was a Platonist, and, if he adhered to both Platonism and Christianity, which dominated his thought. The debate of (...) the last thirteen decades spans an immense body of literature in multiple languages. In this literature, four major views on Augustine′s conversion may be discerned. The first view is associated with Gaston Boissier and Adolph von Harnack, and was famously championed by Prosper Alfaric: that Augustine in 386 converted to neo-Platonism but not to Christianity. Second, there is the view recently promoted by Catherine Conybeare: that Augustine in 386 converted to Christianity and rejected neo-Platonism. Third, there is the view that he converted to Christianity and was also a neo-Platonist; the most famous adherents of this view are Robert J. O′Connell and Pierre Courcelle. Finally, there is the view recently promoted by Carol Harrison: that Augustine committed to Christianity in 386, yet did not utterly reject neo-Platonism; rather, he aimed to develop a Christian faith that was informed by neo-Platonic insight. In this article, I first explain and distinguish these four general views, and then I explain why I prefer the fourth view. -/- More Info: This is the pre-peer reviewed version of Boone, Mark, "The Role of Platonism in Augustine's 386 Conversion to Christianity," Religion Compass 9.5 (May 2015), 151-61. This article has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/rec3.12149/abstract. (shrink)

In this essay I take up Plato’s critique of poetry, which has little to do with epistemology and representational imitation, but rather the powerful effects that poeticperformances can have on audiences, enthralling them with vivid image-worlds and blocking the powers of critical reflection. By focusing on the perceived psychological dangers of poetry in performance and reception, I want to suggest that Plato’s critique was caught up in the larger story of momentous shifts in the Greek world, turning on the rise (...) of literacy and its far-reaching effects in modifying the original and persisting oral character of Greek culture. The story of Plato’s Republic in certain ways suggests something essential for comprehending the development of philosophy in Greece (and in any culture, I would add): that philosophy, as we understand it, would not have been possible apart from the skills and mental transformations stemming from education in reading and writing; and that primary features of oral language and practice were a significant barrier to the development of philosophical rationality (and also a worthy competitor for cultural status and authority). Accordingly, I go on to argue that the critique of writing in the Phaedrus is neither a defense or orality per se, nor a dismissal of writing, but rather a defense of a literate soul over against orality and the indiscriminate exposure of written texts to unworthy readers. (shrink)

Augustine and William James both argue that religious faith can be both practical and rational even in the absence of knowledge. Augustine argues that religious faith is trust and that trust is a normal, proper, and even necessary way of believing. Beginning with faith, we then work towards knowledge by means of philosophical contemplation. James’ “The Will to Believe” makes pragmatic arguments for the rationality of faith. Although we do not know (yet) whether God exists, faith is a choice between (...) the risk of believing something false and the risk of not believing something true, and in the absence of convincing evidence we may decide for ourselves which risk we prefer. We may be able to experience God in the future and thereby gain knowledge, yet this may be contingent on our willingness to believe. There are key differences, however. Augustine is a Christian with a neo-Platonic bent, James an empiricist defending the religion of your choice. These differences may be less significant than they first appear. After explaining Augustine and then James I draw out the major points of comparison and contrast and suggest a few reasons their insights might be at least partially synthesized. -/- This is the accepted version of the following article: Mark J. Boone, “Augustine and William James on the Rationality of Faith,” The Heythrop Journal (online edition December 2018), which has been published in final form at [See First URL]. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with the Wiley Self-Archiving Policy [See Second URL]. (shrink)

An analysis of the identity issues involved in facial allograft transplantation is provided in this paper. The identity issues involved in organ transplantation in general, under both theoretical accounts of personal identity and subjective accounts provided by organ recipients, are examined. It is argued that the identity issues involved in facial allograft transplantation are similar to those involved in organ transplantation in general, but much stronger because the face is so closely linked with personal identity. Recipients of facial allograft transplantation (...) have the potential to feel that their identity is a mix between their own and the donor’s, and the donor’s family is potentially likely to feel that their loved one ‘‘lives on’’. It is also argued that facial allograft transplantation allows the recipients to regain an identity, because they can now be seen in the social world. Moreover, they may regain expressivity, allowing for them to be seen even more by others, and to regain an identity to an even greater extent. Informing both recipients and donors about the role that identity plays in facial allograft transplantation could enhance the consent process for facial allograft transplantation and donation. (shrink)

In this paper it is argued that the conjunction of linguistic ersatzism, the ontologically deflationary view that possible worlds are maximal and consistent sets of sentences, and possible world semantics, the view that the meaning of a sentence is the set of possible worlds at which it is true, implies that no actual speaker can effectively use virtually any language to successfully communicate information. This result is based on complexity issues that relate to our finite computational ability to deal with (...) large bodies of information and a strong, but well motivated, assumption about the cognitive accessibility of meanings of sentences ersatzers seem to be implicitly committed to. It follows that linguistic ersatzism, possible world semantics, or both must be rejected. (shrink)

This is a book review of Peter van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman (eds.), Persons: Human and Divine (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2007).

Liberals often assume that once people see the costs of intolerance that they will come to embrace toleration and that once they can accept toleration as a modus vivendi, they will soon be able to see it as a good in its own right. But, I argue, that the logic that make in tolerance difficult to break also compel people to resist any attempts to make toleration more than a modus vivendi. True toleration will not be embraced unless the people (...) undergo a kind of conversion experience. (shrink)

Feminists of a philosophical sort, lovers of women and wisdom, political critics and witnesses! What unusual and important opportunities we face as we bring the lessons of the last few years to bear on complex theorizing, multi-issue praxis, and the work of twenty-first century democracy. We've been on the streets, in th classroom, and on the Internet, opposing war and occupation, protesting police brutality, demanding global peace and justice. We've helped organize teach-ins and lectures, meetings and potlucks, concerts and art (...) exhibitions. From the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan to New Yorkers Say No to War, from Women in Black to Code Pink, feminists were some of the first vocal opponents of the Bush rush to war. In February 2003 we helped create the greatest global protest for peace in human history, proclaiming "The World Says No to War" under banners of the swirling blue earth, cracking open the hegemony of you're-either-with-us-or-you're-with-the-terrorists, and activating a phenomenal range of new coalitions. (shrink)

In his early experimental work with Suppes, Davidson adopted rationality assumptions, not as necessary constraints on interpretation, but as practical conceits in addressing methodological problems faced by experimenters studying decision making under uncertainty. Although the content of their theory has since been undermined, their methodological approach—a Galilean form of methodological rationalism—lives on in contemporary psychological research. This article draws on Max Weber’s verstehen to articulate an account of Galilean methodological rationalism; explains how anomalies faced by Davidson’s early experimental work gave (...) rise to his later, canonical claims about rationality and interpretation; and reclaims this Galilean framework for use in contemporary psychological research. (shrink)

Although I agree with Sabine Muller’s conclusion that we should first seek to find alternatives to amputation for patients suffering from Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), I disagree with one of the major premises that she uses to argue for her claim. Muller argues that patients with BIID are likely not autonomous when they request that the limb be amputated. Muller’s argument that BIID suffers are not autonomous is flawed because she conflates philosophical conceptions of autonomy with the conception of (...) autonomy that is operative in the context of medicine. (shrink)

Benjamin Schnieder has argued that several traditional definitions of truth-functionality fail to capture a central intuition informal characterizations of the notion often capture. The intuition is that the truth-value of a sentence that employs a truth-functional operator depends upon the truth-values of the sentences upon which the operator operates. Schnieder proposes an alternative definition of truth-functionality that is designed to accommodate this intuition. We argue that one traditional definition of ‘truth-functionality’ is immune from the counterexamples that Schnieder proposes and is (...) preferable to Schnieder’s alternative. (shrink)

The general idea of strong foundationalism is that knowledge has a foundation in well warranted beliefs which do not derive any warrant from other beliefs and that all our other beliefs depend on these foundational ones for their warrant. Although inerrancy posits Scripture as a solid foundation for theology, the idea that the doctrine of biblical inerrancy involves a strong foundationalist epistemology is deeply problematic. In fact, inerrancy does not require any particular view of the structure of knowledge, and notable (...) sources on inerrancy tout it in ways inconsistent with most forms of strong foundationalism. (shrink)

Modern physics has cast doubt on Newton's idea of particles with definite properties. Do we have to go back to Aristotle for a new understanding of the ultimate nature of substance? If we ask, `what is the nature of substance?', we might be told that this substance is salt, that one is copper, or that the atomic nucleus is a mixture of protons and neutrons. But what are all these substances? What do they have in common which makes them substances? (...) We don't seem to think that such things as colours, numbers, or shapes are by themselves `substantial enough' to be substances in their own right. We therefore change our question to `what is it to be a substance?', or to `what is the ultimate nature of the simplest substances?'. (shrink)

Burke suggests that we should view society as a partnership between the past, the present, and the future. I defend this idea by outlining how we can understand the interests of the past and future people and the obligations that they have towards each other. I argue that we have forward-looking obligations to leave the world a decent place, and backward-looking obligations to respect the legacy of the past. The latter obligation requires an understanding of the role that traditions and (...) meta-traditions should (and should not) play in tying together societies—especially national societies—over time. (shrink)

At the heart of two recent theological traditions are hermeneutical principles which are not only consistent but are integrated in the hermeneutics of Augustine. According to the doctrine of biblical inerrancy as it has been recently articulated by Evangelicals, Scripture has an original meaning, and that meaning is not open to the possibility of error. According to some thinkers in postmodern theology, including Jean-Luc Marion, the meaning of Scripture transcends its original meaning. After examining postmodernism and inerrancy, I consider their (...) harmony in the writings of Augustine, who takes original meaning as a guide for understanding that biblical meaning which transcends it. An Augustinian hermeneutic consistent with inerrancy is thus an alternative to the more typical non-inerrantist postmodern theologies. (shrink)