This book explores a little-noticed tradition in the history of European political thought. From Plato to Aristotle to Tacitus and Machiavelli, and from Tocqueville to Max Weber and Hannah Arendt, political thinkers have examined the tyrannies of their times and have wondered how these tyrannies come about, how they work, and how they might be defeated. In examining this perennial problem of tyranny, Roger Boesche looks at how these thinkers borrowed from the past—thus entering into an established dialogue—to (...) analyze the present. Although obviously tyrannies are not identical over time, we can learn partial lessons from past thinkers that can help us to better understand twentieth-century tyrannies. (shrink)

The First Great Political Realist is a succinct and penetrating analysis of one of the ancient world's foremost political realists, Kautilya. Kautilya's treatise Arthashastra stands as one of the great political books of the ancient world, its ideas on the science of politics strikingly similar to those of Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Clausewitz, and even Sun Tsu. Roger Boesche's excellent commentary on Kautilya's voluminous text draws out the essential realist arguments for modern political analysis and demonstrates the continued relevance (...) of Kautilya's work to modern Indian strategic thinking and our understanding of the relationship between politics and economics. (shrink)

Max Weber was the first to see that the writings of Machiavelli, when contrasted with the brutal realism of other cultural and political traditions, were not so extreme as they appear to some critics. "Truly radical 'Machiavellianism,' in the popular sense of that word,"Weber said in his famous lecture "Politics as a Vocation," "is classically expressed in Indian literature in the Arthashastra of Kautilya (written long before the birth of Christ, ostensibly in the time of Chandragupta [Maurya]): compared to it, (...) Machiavelli's The Prince is harmless." In this article, I contrast Machiavelli's writings to those of Kautilya (c. 300 B.C.E.) and question why Machiavelli omitted the harsher aspects of political domination such as spies, assassination of enemies, and torture. Could it be that he was afraid to tell a prince about the harsher characteristics of tyrannical rule? If so, why? (shrink)

Fairness is undoubtedly an essential normative concept in humans and promotes cooperation in human societies. The fact that fairness exists is puzzling, however, because it works against the short-term interest of individuals. Theories of genetic evolution, cultural evolution, and gene-culture coevolution identify plausible mechanisms for the evolution of fairness in humans. Such mechanisms include kin selection, the support of group-beneficial moral norms through ethnic markers, free partner choice with equal outside options, and free partner choice with reputation as well as (...) spite in small populations. Here, we present the results of a common-pool resource game experiment on sharing. Based on data from 37 multiethnic villages in a subsistence agricultural population in Foutah Djallon, Guinea, we show that fair behavior in our experiment increased with increasing ethnic homogeneity and market integration. Group size and kinship had the opposite effect. Overall, fair behavior was not conditional on reputation. Instead, the ability of the different village populations to support individuals’ fairness in situations lacking the opportunity to build a positive reputation varied significantly. Our results suggest that evolutionary theory provides a useful framework for the analysis of fairness in humans. (shrink)

Writing only decades apart, Han Feizi (ca. 250 BCE) and Kautilya (ca. 300 BCE) were two great political thinkers who argued for strong leaders, king or emperor, to unify warring states and bring peace, who tried to show how a ruler controls his ministers as well as the populace, defended the need for spies and violence, and developed the key ideas needed to support the bureaucracies of the emerging and unified states of China and India respectively. Whereas both thinkers disliked (...) the new merchants, Han Feizi seems content with a traditional feudal economy, whereas Kautilya wanted to use the state to increase production and the wealth in the king's treasury. Kautilya also had much more extensive discussions of war and diplomacy. (shrink)

This book introduces student to the three major figures of modern philosophy known as the rationalists. It is not for complete beginners, but it is an accessible account of their thought. By concerning itself with metaphysics, and in particular substance, the book relates an important historical debate largely neglected by the contemporary debates in the once again popular area of traditional metaphysics. in philosophy. (Do Not USE).

This volume provides a philosophical introduction to and analysis of the study of metaphor. By proceeding from the concrete analysis of complex metaphors, White is able to identify a range of features which are incompatible with standard accounts of the way words function in metaphor.

The article constitutes a detailed overview of the most important background literature on the topic of scientific representation. It gives a detailed outline of many of the important philosophical accounts of scientific representation. The primary division is between substantive accounts and deflationary/pragmatic accounts. Objections to each type of account are considered. Insights from the literature on modelling are discussed along with an overview of some of the insights from the sociology of science.

Introduction -- The mathematical roots of the concept of analogy -- Aristotle : the uses of analogy -- Aristotle : analogy and language -- Thomas Aquinas -- Immanuel Kant -- Karl Barth -- Final reflections.

Synaesthesia is considered a rare perceptual capacity, and one that is not capable of cultivation. However, meditators report the experience quite commonly, and in questionnaire surveys, respondents claimed to experience synaesthesia in 35% of meditation retreatants, in 63% of a group of regular meditators, and in 86% of advanced teachers. These rates were significantly higher than in nonmeditator controls, and displayed significant correlations with measures of amount of meditation experience. A review of ancient texts found reports suggestive of synaesthesia in (...) advanced meditators from India and China. These findings suggest that synaesthesia may be cultivated by meditation, and that laboratory studies of meditators could be rewarding. (shrink)

Callender and Cohen argue that there is no need for a special account of the constitution of scientific representation. I argue that scientific representation is communal and therefore deeply tied to the practice in which it is embedded. The communal nature is accounted for by licensing, the activities of scientific practice by which scientists establish a representation. A case study of the Lotka-Volterra model reveals how licensure is a constitutive element of the representational relationship. Thus, any account of the constitution (...) of scientific representation must account for licensing, meaning that there is a special problem of scientific representation. (shrink)

All known chimpanzee populations have been observed to hunt small mammals for meat. Detailed observations have shown, however, that hunting strategies differ considerably between populations, with some merely collecting prey that happens to pass by while others hunt in coordinated groups to chase fast-moving prey. Of all known populations, Taï chimpanzees exhibit the highest level of cooperation when hunting. Some of the group hunting roles require elaborate coordination with other hunters as well as precise anticipation of the movements of the (...) prey. The meat-sharing rules observed in this community guarantee the largest share of the meat to hunters who perform the most important roles leading to a capture. The learning time of such hunting roles is sometimes especially long. Taï chimpanzee males begin hunting monkeys at about age 10. The hunters’ progress in learning the more sophisticated hunting roles is clearly correlated with age; only after 20 years of practice are they able to perform them reliably. This lengthy learning period has also been shown in some hunter-gatherer societies and confirms the special challenge that hunting represents. (shrink)

Ignoring most published evidence on wild chimpanzees, Tomasello et al.'s claim that shared goals and intentions are uniquely human amounts to a faith statement. A brief survey of chimpanzee hunting tactics shows that group hunts are compatible with a shared goals and intentions hypothesis. The disdain of observational data in experimental psychology leads some to ignore the reality of animal cognitive achievements.

In this essay, I examine the role of dissimilarity in scientific representation. After briefly reviewing some of the philosophical literature which places a strong emphasis on the role of similarity, I turn to examine some work from Carroll and Borges which demonstrates that perfect similarity is not valuable in the representational use of maps. Expanding on this insight, I go on to argue that this shows that dissimilarity is an important part of the representational use of maps—a point I then (...) extend to the case of scientific representation. Relying on some work from Latour, I argue that dissimilarity plays an essential role in representational practice, by providing novel forms of manipulation and use which affords the achievement of various epistemic and nonepistemic aims. After showing how this point connects to some other literature on scientific representation, I discuss some examples of the value of dissimilarity in the use of representational vehicles. Overall, I argue that to understand scientific representation, we will need to consider more than just similarity. We will need to explore dissimilarities as well. (shrink)

While many recent accounts of scientific representation have given a central role to the agency and intentions of scientists in explaining representation, they have left these agential concepts unanalyzed. An account of scientific, representational actions will be a useful piece in offering a more complete account of the practice of representation in science. Drawing on an Anscombean approach to the nature of intentional actions, the Means-End Account of Scientific, Representational Actions describes three features of scientific, representational actions: the final description (...) in the means-end ordering of descriptions is some scientific aim; that interaction with a vehicle distinct from its target stands as an earlier description which is ordered toward the final description as means to end; and the means-end structure is licensed by scientific practice. After describing each of the components of the Means-End Account in greater detail through the example of the representational use of a mathematical model, I explain how it can demarcate scientific, representational actions from other sorts of actions. I close by describing some payoffs of the account, showing how it contributes to a more thorough understanding of the practice of representation in science and how it can be of use in understanding the close connection between representation and other forms of scientific activity. (shrink)

Can we justify our most basic beliefs about morality, religion and the nature of the world? Can there be a rational and objective way of choosing between alternative societies, modes of life or world-views? Dr Trigg shows how philosophical analysis is relevant to these questions and criticizes the tendency to emphasize notions of commitment and convention at the expense of truth and reason. He draws parallels between issues that are often too isolated from each other and identifies a cluster of (...) related ideas, all of which stress the notion of self-contained conceptual systems that define their own standards of rationality. First published in 1973, this book will interest professional philosophers as a vigorous and distinctive exposition of several fundamental philosophical problems and more especially it can be used as an introduction for students to a wide range of philosophical problems. (shrink)

While many recent accounts of scientific representation have given a central role to the agency and intentions of scientists in explaining representation, they have left these agential concepts unanalyzed. An account of scientific, representational actions will be a useful piece in offering a more complete account of the practice of representation in science. Drawing on an Anscombean approach to the nature of intentional actions, the Means-End Account of Scientific, Representational Actions describes three features of scientific, representational actions: (I) the final (...) description in the means-end ordering of descriptions is some scientific aim; (II) that interaction with a vehicle distinct from its target stands as an earlier description which is ordered toward the final description as means to end; and (III) the means-end structure is licensed by scientific practice. After describing each of the components of the Means-End Account in greater detail through the example of the representational use of a mathematical model, I explain how it can demarcate scientific, representational actions from other sorts of actions. I close by describing some payoffs of the account, showing how it contributes to a more thorough understanding of the practice of representation in science and how it can be of use in understanding the close connection between representation and other forms of scientific activity. (shrink)

This paper argues for two theses: that degrees of belief are context sensitive; that outright belief is belief to degree 1. The latter thesis is rejected quickly in most discussions of the relationship between credence and belief, but the former thesis undermines the usual reasons for doing so. Furthermore, identifying belief with credence 1 allows nice solutions to a number of problems for the most widely-held view of the relationship between credence and belief, the threshold view. I provide a sketch (...) of a formal framework on which both theses are true. This is a modified Bayesian framework; I argue that despite making credences context-sensitive, the framework lets Bayesians hold on to their signature explanatory successes. The sort of context-sensitivity claimed for credences here mirrors the sort of context-sensitivity I have elsewhere claimed for outright belief: one's credences depend, in part, on the space of alternative possibilities one takes seriously in a context. (shrink)

DeMarco and colleagues present a compelling method of dealing with medical risks for which there is equipoise which might be implicated in a given research protocol. This commentary examines how the proposed model should inform the disclosure of other, non-medical risks. Since equipoise is a fairly unclear notion for non-medical risks (since there is little sense of professional uncertainty regarding these risks), this could lead to the inclusion of nearly unlimited non-medical risks. To account for these risks more reasonably, I (...) will argue that a strong participant-researcher relationship is vital to determine if there are any particular non-medical risks that might be uncertainly implicated in a given research program. (shrink)