Richard Tieszen presents an analysis, development, and defense of a number of central ideas in Kurt Gödel's writings on the philosophy and foundations of mathematics and logic. Tieszen structures the argument around Gödel's three philosophical heroes - Plato, Leibniz, and Husserl - and his engagement with Kant, and supplements close readings of Gödel's texts on foundations with materials from Gödel's Nachlass and from Hao Wang's discussions with Gödel. He provides discussions of Gödel's views, and develops a new type of (...) platonic rationalism that requires rational intuition, called 'constituted platonism'. (shrink)

We propose a framework for including information‐processing bounds in rational analyses. It is an application of bounded optimality (Russell & Subramanian, 1995) to the challenges of developing theories of mechanism and behavior. The framework is based on the idea that behaviors are generated by cognitive mechanisms that are adapted to the structure of not only the environment but also the mind and brain itself. We call the framework computational rationality to emphasize the incorporation of computational mechanism into the definition (...) of rational action. Theories are specified as optimal program problems, defined by an adaptation environment, a bounded machine, and a utility function. Such theories yield different classes of explanation, depending on the extent to which they emphasize adaptation to bounds, and adaptation to some ecology that differs from the immediate local environment. We illustrate this variation with examples from three domains: visual attention in a linguistic task, manual response ordering, and reasoning. We explore the relation of this framework to existing “levels” approaches to explanation, and to other optimality‐based modeling approaches. (shrink)

Gödel's relation to the work of Plato, Leibniz, Kant, and Husserl is examined, and a new type of platonic rationalism that requires rational intuition, called ...

In Being after Rousseau, Richard L. Velkley presents Jean-Jacques Rousseau as the founder of a modern European tradition of reflection on the relation of philosophy to culture—a reflection that calls both into question.

Nature, God and Humanity clarifies the task of forming an ethics of nature, thereby empowering readers to develop their own critical, faith-based ethics. Calling on original, thought-provoking analyses and arguments, Richard L. Fern frames a philosophical ethics of nature, assesses it scientifically, finds support for it in traditional biblical theism, and situates it culturally. Though defending the moral value of beliefs affirming the radical Otherness of God and human uniqueness, this book aims not to compel the adoption of any (...) particular ethic but rather illumine the contribution diverse forms of inquiry make to an ethics of nature. How does philosophy clarify moral conviction? What does science tell us about nature? Why does religious faith matter? Rejecting the illusion of a single, rationally-compelling ethics, Fern answers these questions in a way that fosters both agreement and disagreement, allowing those holding conflicting ethics of nature to work together for the common good. (shrink)

Peirce uses the covering term Semiotic to include his major divisions of thought and communication process: Speculative Grammar, or the study of beliefs independent of the structure of language ; Exact Logic, or the study of assertion in relation to reality ; and Speculative Rhetoric, or the study of the general conditions under which a problem presents itself for solution . This division previews Peirce’s famous triadic models of analysis. Peirce goes on to make the phenomenological distinction between communication and (...) signification . Signification or the doctrine of Synechism is the analysis of possibilities where codes contain messages. Peirce is noted for his philosophic Realism, or the belief that probability and possibility are linked to the actual existence of things or that which can become actual. Hence, people inherit the association of Pragmatism with a test of real-world application that Peirce called the doctrine of Fallibilism, derived from the qualitative logic of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenology that combines apposition with apperception. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Many people argue that disagreements and inconsistencies between Research Ethics Committees are morally problematic and there has been much effort to ‘harmonise’ their judgements. Some inconsistencies are bad because they are due to irrationality, or carelessness, or the operation of conflicting interests, and so should be reduced or removed. Other inconsistencies, we argue, are not bad and should be left or even encouraged. In this paper we examine three arguments to reject the view that we should strive for complete (...) consistency between committees. The first argument is that differences in judgement are not necessarily incompatible with ideas of justice for patients who are potential participants of research reviewed by different committees. We call this ‘the justice argument.’ The second argument is that such committees do not have access to a single moral truth, to which their judgement is supposed to correspond. We call this the ‘moral pluralism argument.’ The third argument is that the process of ethics committee review is also morally relevant and not solely the outcome. We call this the ‘due process argument.’ While we fall short of establishing exactly how much variation and on what substantive issues would be ethically permissible, we show that it is largely inevitable and that a certain amount of variation could be seen as a desirable part of the institution of medical research. (shrink)

The promise of personalized medicine and the quest for a greater understanding of the genetic basis of disease has transformed the research enterprise. The Director of the National Institutes of Health, Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., recently predicted “that comprehensive, genomics- based health care will become the norm, with individualized preventive medicine and early detection of illnesses.” This excitement about the potential scientific and clinical advances that may come from genomics- based research has led several NIH institutions to launch initiatives for (...) genome-wide association studies, calling on researchers and institutions to utilize the new DNA analysis technologies to study the genetic variation between individuals with a particular illness and healthy controls. (shrink)

The promise of personalized medicine and the quest for a greater understanding of the genetic basis of disease has transformed the research enterprise. The Director of the National Institutes of Health, Elias A. Zerhouni, M.D., recently predicted “that comprehensive, genomics- based health care will become the norm, with individualized preventive medicine and early detection of illnesses.” This excitement about the potential scientific and clinical advances that may come from genomics- based research has led several NIH institutions to launch initiatives for (...) genome-wide association studies, calling on researchers and institutions to utilize the new DNA analysis technologies to study the genetic variation between individuals with a particular illness and healthy controls. (shrink)

Disorders of consciousness (DOC) are a family of related neurological syndromes characterized by deficits of varying degrees of wakefulness (e.g., sleep–wake cycles and arousal) or awareness (e.g., reacting to stimuli, interacting with the environment). Although coma rarely persists for more than a few weeks, some patients remain in a subsequent vegetative state or a minimally conscious state for months or years. Caring for patients with DOC raises ethical questions, but the perspectives of healthcare providers on these questions remain poorly documented. (...) We conducted a qualitative study involving healthcare providers with different backgrounds. Semistructured interviews were used to explore attitudes toward ethical issues. We found that contextual (e.g., time, resource allocation) and relational aspects (e.g., communication process, families) shaped how ethical challenges surfaced and were managed. We call for greater awareness of contextual, institutional and social aspects and focus on these issues in training programs. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to present the theoretical and philosophical assumptions of the Nursing Manifesto, written by three activist scholars whose objective was to promote emancipatory nursing research, practice, and education within the dialogue and praxis of social justice. Inspired by discussions with a number of nurse philosophers at the 2008 Knowledge Conference in Boston, two of the original Manifesto authors and two colleagues discussed the need to explicate emancipatory knowing as it emerged from the Manifesto. Our analysis (...) yielded an epistemological framework based on liberation principles to advance praxis in the discipline of nursing. This paper adds to what is already known on this topic, as there is not an explicit contribution to the literature of this specific Manifesto, its significance, and utility for the discipline. While each of us have written on emancipatory knowing and social justice in a variety of works, it is in this article that we identify, as a unit of knowledge production and as a direction towards praxis, a set of critical values that arose from the emancipatory conscience-ness and intention seen in the framework of the Nursing Manifesto. (shrink)

In an attempt to learn from COVID-19, this essay features six responses to the question: what did COVID-19 teach us, expose in us, or purge out of us when it comes to spiritual formation in Christ? Each response was written independently of the others by one of the coauthors. Diane J. Chandler focuses in on how COVID-19 exposed grievous inequities for ethnic groups in the American church and broader society. Kelly M. Kapic reminds us of the goodness of human finitude (...) and how COVID restrictions have forced many of us to embrace our limitations. Siang-Yang Tan reflects on eight lessons he has learned during this pandemic year in his role shepherding a local church. James C. Wilhoit calls us to consider the structures that are needed for local church leadership to make wise and godly decisions in times of crisis. Richard Peace draws our attention to what might be learned from the forced monasticism brought about by COVID-19 quarantines. Finally, Ruth Haley Barton pauses to consider the interdependence of human life that has been dramatically illustrated by this pandemic. While these six responses certainly do not exhaust all there is for the church to learn from COVID, we present them in the spirit of “O Lord, teach us what we do not see” and hope they will inspire your own reflections. (shrink)

Nursing policy and healthcare reform are focusing on two, interconnected areas: person‐centred care and fundamental care. Each initiative emphasises a positive nurse–patient relationship. For these initiatives to work, nurses require guidance for how they can best develop and maintain relationships with their patients in practice. Although empirical evidence on the nurse–patient relationship is increasing, findings derived from this research are not readily or easily transferable to the complexities and diversities of nursing practice. This study describes a novel methodological approach, called (...) holistic interpretive synthesis (HIS), for interpreting empirical research findings to create practice‐relevant recommendations for nurses. Using HIS, umbrella review findings on the nurse–patient relationship are interpreted through the lens of the Fundamentals of Care Framework. The recommendations for the nurse–patient relationship created through this approach can be used by nurses to establish, maintain and evaluate therapeutic relationships with patients to deliver person‐centred fundamental care. Future research should evaluate the validity and impact of these recommendations and test the feasibility of using HIS for other areas of nursing practice and further refine the approach. (shrink)

to appear in Lambert, E. and J. Schwenkler (eds.) Transformative Experience (OUP) -/- L. A. Paul (2014, 2015) argues that the possibility of epistemically transformative experiences poses serious and novel problems for the orthodox theory of rational choice, namely, expected utility theory — I call her argument the Utility Ignorance Objection. In a pair of earlier papers, I responded to Paul’s challenge (Pettigrew 2015, 2016), and a number of other philosophers have responded in similar ways (Dougherty, et al. 2015, (...) Harman 2015) — I call our argument the Fine-Graining Response. Paul has her own reply to this response, which we might call the Authenticity Reply. But Sarah Moss has recently offered an alternative reply to the Fine-Graining Response on Paul’s behalf (Moss 2017) — we’ll call it the No Knowledge Reply. This appeals to the knowledge norm of action, together with Moss’ novel and intriguing account of probabilistic knowledge. In this paper, I consider Moss’ reply and argue that it fails. I argue first that it fails as a reply made on Paul’s behalf, since it forces us to abandon many of the features of Paul’s challenge that make it distinctive and with which Paul herself is particularly concerned. Then I argue that it fails as a reply independent of its fidelity to Paul’s intentions. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty acknowledges several levels of ‘expression’ running from the most basic forms of sensation to painting, poetry and philosophy. This essay concentrates on his notion of ‘diacritical perception’ as key to this expressive continuum. It shows how Merleau-Ponty makes the radical move of bringing together phenomenological description with structural linguistics to reveal how perception is fundamentally structured like language. It also suggests that this move is part of his overall pursuit of an ‘indirect ontology’. Expression operates by an ‘indirect method’ (...) of gaps, elisions, folds, latencies, absences, hollows, silences, lacunas – or what Merleau-Ponty calls ‘negativities that are not nothing’: nothing but the non-being which reveals being. The radical implications of ‘diacritical perception’ are powerfully explored in Merleau-Ponty’s Collège de France seminar Le monde sensible et le monde de l’expression and in his late essay ‘Indirect Language and the Voices of Silence’. To perceive diacritically is to read and write the flesh. (shrink)

Personalistic Bayesian decision theory provides a simple, roomy framework for hypothesis-testing and choice under uncertainty. Call the theory Bayesianism, for short. It’s the line that L. J. Savage made respectable among statisticians and economists. It’s the same thing as the expected utility hypothesis, in this form: preference does or should go by personal probabilistic expectation of utility. The question of whether to say “does” or “should” is the question of whether the theory is meant to be normative or descriptive.

Merleau-Ponty acknowledges several levels of ‘expression’ running from the most basic forms of sensation to painting, poetry and philosophy. This essay concentrates on his notion of ‘diacritical perception’ as key to this expressive continuum. It shows how Merleau-Ponty makes the radical move of bringing together phenomenological description with structural linguistics to reveal how perception is fundamentally structured like language. It also suggests that this move is part of his overall pursuit of an ‘indirect ontology’. Expression operates by an ‘indirect method’ (...) of gaps, elisions, folds, latencies, absences, hollows, silences, lacunas – or what Merleau-Ponty calls ‘negativities that are not nothing’: nothing but the non-being which reveals being. The radical implications of ‘diacritical perception’ are powerfully explored in Merleau-Ponty’s Collège de France seminar Le monde sensible et le monde de l’expression and in his late essay ‘Indirect Language and the Voices of Silence’. To perceive diacritically is to read and write the flesh. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.3 (2004) 297-326 [Access article in PDF] Wittgenstein, German Organicism, Chaos, and the Center of Life Richard Mcdonough No supposition seems to me more natural than that there is no process in the brain correlated with associating or with thinking; so that it would be impossible to read off thought processes from brain processes. I mean this: if I talk or write, (...) there is, I assume, a system of impulses going out from my brain and correlated with my spoken or written thoughts. But why should the system continue further in the direction of the center. Why should this order not proceed, so to speak, out of chaos? The case would be like the following-certain kinds of plants multiply by seed, so that a seed always produces a plant of the same kind as that from which it was produced—but nothing in the seed corresponds to the plant which comes out of it—this can only be done from the history of the seed. So an organism might come into being out of something quite amorphous, as it were, causelessly; and there is no reason why this should not really hold for our thoughts, and hence for our talking and writing. L. Wittgenstein, Zettel §608 Paragraph 608 of Zettel is one of the most remarkable passages in Wittgenstein, for it presents a more metaphysical view than one would associate with his later philosophy.1 [End Page 297] Despite Wittgenstein's well known opposition to metaphysics,2 Z §608 clearly endorses a doctrine of emergence, the view, that the order in our language and thought "arises" out of "chaos" or "nothing." The general idea in emergentism is that certain kinds of wholes, notably, organisms, are "greater than the sum of their parts."3 Although emergentism has suffered from neglect and abuse for a half century, it has recently become a live issue.4Klee, Kim, and McLaughlin emphasize the kind of emergence which involves "downward causation," the view that the emergent whole causally influences the behavior of its own parts.5 Such emergentism asserts that there is an "explanatory gap" between an organism's characteristics and its mechanical structure,6 where this gap is a matter of ontology rather than mere ignorance of the causes. The present paper argues that Wittgenstein's doctrine of emergence is central to his later philosophies of language and mind. The common view that Wittgenstein's later philosophy is primarily negative has proved a liability for Wittgenstein.7 Cognitive scientists respond that even if there are serious problems with their views, [End Page 298] "Remotely plausible theories are better than no theories at all."8 But Wittgenstein's remark at PI §109 that philosophy should not offer theories has been misunderstood. For Wittgenstein, the paradigm of a theory is mechanics (LAC28-29), and it is not the job of philosophy to explain the phenomena by adverting to hidden mechanisms (PI §435). But philosophy may offer a different kind of positive account, the kind of descriptive account appropriate to emergent organic phenomena.9 According to Z §608, this is a description of the phenomena as it emerges in a history. In order to appreciate Wittgenstein's emergentism, it is necessary to have the correct interpretation of the words "center" and "chaos" in Z §608. Many commentators take it as obvious that by "the center," Wittgenstein means the neural center.10 For in modern neuroscience, it is natural to view the brain as the control center of the organism. Wooldridge, Armstrong, Popper, Rose, Fodor, Dennett, Gillett, Greenfield, and Clark, all use "center" in this way.11Given the modern view, called "central state materialism" as background,12 Z §608 seems to claim, first, that the order of our thought and language cannot be [End Page 299] traced to the neural center, and, second, that intelligence must arise out of neural "chaos." Thus, McGinn thinks Wittgenstein is suggesting that the brain might turn out to be oatmeal.13 But careful attention to... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:212 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY with Gassendi and his studies on atomism. Yet Papi gives us very little which is not already generally known. There is but a mere hint of how atomistic philosophy was handled by the Aristotelians and to what extent they actually absorbed some of that tradition themselves. Nothing in detail is said of the process whereby atomistic and Platonic motives became coupled, not only by Bruno, (...) but by Ficino before and by Cudworth afterwards. On the credit side, however, the author does call attention to the commentary and paraphrase of Lucretius by Girolamo Frachetta of Rovigo (printed 1589), a work of some interest, which has been but little studied. Such rays of light are all too infrequent in this section and Papi is usually content to follow the conventional beaten path. For one to write a book on Bruno which breaks new ground is now difficult, for the field has been so thoroughly worked over. This one takes up a number of interesting themes found in Bruno's writings and sheds some light on them, but it seldom if ever says anything very different from the well-established tradition of Bruno scholarship in Italy which has produced so many mediocre books over the years. The specialist on Bruno and the sixteenth century will find little to detain him; the more casual reader could be ~rected to a number of superior treatments of various aspects of the Nolan's thought. In short, this study adds but little to what is already known. CHAm~V_SB. ScH~rrr University of Leeds Sir Walter Ralegh dcrivain, l'~uvre et les iddes. By Pierre Lefranc. (Qutbec: Les Presses de l'Universit~ Laval, 1968. Pp. 733. $19.50) This excellent study, the fruit of more than a dozen years of research, throws much light on Ralegh's thought and literary achievement. Lefranc has examined the manuscript sources, and unearthed quite a few new ones, and has patiently, carefully, and with much detective work, established what is no doubt the best available hypothesis of what is authentic among Ralegh's purported prose and poetic writings, and the date and circumstances of their composition. He has analyzed them in the context of Ralegh's carver, and has developed an exciting and rich interpretation of his political, philosophical and religious ideas. Ralegh's role in intellectual history derives mainly from his reputation as a Machiavellian, as an atheist, and from his mammoth, "pious," much-read providential History of the World (written during his years as a prisoner in the Tower of London). Lefranc deftly sorts and weighs the evidence for the various views and attitudes attributed to Ralegh in his own day and by interpreters ever since, and emerges from this examination with a fresh and striking picture of one of the liveliest bridge figures between the Elizabethan Renaissance and the modern world. The establishment of the canon leads to discarding as not by Ralegh many writings that have previously been used in interpreting the courtier's views. Three philosophical works which have played a role in twentieth-century interpretation, "A Treatise of the Soule," "The Prince, or Maxims of State" and "The Sceptick" are shown to be doubtful to a greater or lesser degree. "The Sceptick," which Strathmann (Sir Walter Ralegh,,4 Study in Elizabethan Skepticism, New York, 1951) had used to interpret Ralegh as a sceptical-Christian fideist, had been questioned earlier by Lefranc, Sprott, and myself. It is just a translation of portions of Book I of Sextus F_znpiricus' Outlinea of Pyrrhonism, and contains no connection with Ralegh, except that it was BOOK REVIEWS 213 published in his literary remains in 1651. Lefranc now, examining the evidence of the four manuscripts that have been discovered, concludes that it was a part of Ralegh's documentation when he was doing his research, but that 'Tattribution de 'The Sceptick' Ralegh lui-m~me ne repose sur rien" (p. 67). With the canon shorn of the dubious items, Lefranc proceeds to unfold a picture of Ralegh's intellectual world. As a practical statesman, buccaneer and explorer, Ralegh had a view of the role England should play vis-,'t-vis Spain and the New World that contained... (shrink)

Genetic epistemology analyzes the growth of knowledge both in the individual person (genetic psychology) and in the socio-historical realm (the history of science). But what the relationship is between the history of science and genetic psychology remains unclear. The biogenetic law that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny is inadequate as a characterization of the relation. A critical examination of Piaget's Introduction à l'Épistémologie Généntique indicates these are several examples of what I call stage laws common to both areas. Furthermore, there is (...) at least one example of a paradoxical inverse relation between the two — geometry. Both similarities and differences between the two domains require an explanation, a developmental explanation. Although such an explanation seems to be psychological in nature, it is not merely empirical but also normative (since psychology is both factual and normative according to Piaget). Hence genetic epistemology need not be reduced to psychology (narrowly conceived), but rather should be seen as being both empirical and normative and thus similar to certain types of contemporary philosophy of science. (shrink)

One of the more serious criticisms of the B-theory is that by denying the passage of time or maintaining that passage is a mind-dependent illusion or appearance, the B-theory gives rise to a static, block universe and thereby removes what is most distinctively timelike about time. The aim of this paper is to discuss the R-theory of time, after Russell, who Richard Gale calls “the father of the B-theory,” and explain how the R-theory can respond to the criticisms just (...) raised, and others. In the course of my discussion I shall clarify differences between versions of the A-, B- and R-theories of time, and argue that McTaggart’s conception of the B-series and more specifically, the B-relations that generate it, has been instrumental in misconstruing the A-/B-theory debate resulting in criticisms of the B-theory that can be seen to be fallacious when applied to the R-theory. (shrink)

Theories of Truth provides a clear, critical introduction to one of the most difficult areas of philosophy. It surveys all of the major philosophical theories of truth, presenting the crux of the issues involved at a level accessible to nonexperts yet in a manner sufficiently detailed and original to be of value to professional scholars. Kirkham's systematic treatment and meticulous explanations of terminology ensure that readers will come away from this book with a comprehensive general understanding of one of philosophy's (...) thorniest set of topics. -/- Included are discussions of the correspondence, coherence, pragmatic, semantic, performative, redundancy, appraisal, and truth-as-justification theories. There are also chapters or sections of chapters on the liar paradox, three-valued logic, Field's critique of Tarski, Davidson's program, Dummett's theory of linguistic competence, satisfaction, recursion, the extension/intension distinction, and an explanation of how theories of justification, properly understood, differ from theories of truth. -/- A persistent theme is that philosophers have too often failed to recognize that not all theories of truth are intended to answer the same question. When the various questions are made distinct, it is apparent that many of the "debates" in this field are really cases of philosophers talking past one another. There is much less disagreement within the field than has commonly been thought. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:264 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY right at hand, without getting in the way. If it had been printed in as readable type and as elegant form as Steinmann's edition, it might be the ideal easily accessible version to familiarize us with the Pens~es as they were actually written and classified by Pascal himself. RICHARD H. POPKIN University of California, San Diego Pascal. Quinta edizione riveduta e aumentata. By Michele (...) Federico Sciacca. (Milano: Carlo Marzorati Editore, 1962. Pp. 250. 2000 L.) This Pascal by Sciacca consists of three parts. The first gives and considers the Life of Pascal (1623-1662) in connection with his complex and restless century (pp. 13--72). The second part (pp. 75-112) analyzes the relationship of Pascal with Jansenism. Pascal is both dependent on and independent of it. The Jansenists discussed while Pascal felt. Jansenism could not find a stable equilibrium between nature and grace which Jansenism either contrasted or confused while Pascal well distinguishes these two orders. They are for him heterogeneous but the lower order leads to the higher. Without God, man is misery and darkness. With God, man can do all things (p. 118). The third part (pp. 115-219) is entitled The Christian Philosopher. It shows that man is made for the infinite. The true call of humanity is religious (p. 206). The final conclusion is that Pascal can still teach us to exist (p. 216). PAUL Y. FUHRMANN Columbia Theological Seminary Louis Thomassin (1619-95), ~tude bio-bibliographique avec vingt lettres et deux textes in~dits. By Pierre Clair. (Vol. I of the series Le mouvement des idles au XVH" si~cle, Collection dirig~e par Andr~ Robinet.) (Paris: 1964. Pp. 160. NF 12.) This small volume is the first in a new series devoted to bringing to light various figures and aspects of seventeenth-century thought that have either been set aside, forgotten, or are only dimly known. Louis Thomassin (as well as Bernard Lamy who is the subject of the second volume that has appeared in this series) certainly falls in these categories. Although his name often turns up in discussions of Cartesianlsm, Jansenism, Malebranchism, etc., very little consideration is ever given to him as a fairly important personage of the time, or to his ideas and the role they played. This volume by Dr. Clair will be of much use to seventeenth-century scholars in providing the basic data about his life, his connections with several of the vital movements of the period, the fundamental bibliographical materials, as well as publishing two texts and twenty letters not before available. The biographical section (pp. 1-84) traces (a bit too episodically) Thomassin's education, his career among the Oratorians as a professor of humanities, philosophy, and theology, his possible involvements with the Jansenists, his difficulties as a result of his first published work, Dissertations sur les Conciles (1667) (suppressed the same year), his later successes for his many other works in theology, philosophy, history, and pedagogy, and his relations with various major and minor figures of the mid- and late seventeenth century, like Arnauld, Malebranche, Richard Simon, Bayle, Huet, etc. Section II (pp. 85-99) gives a detailed bibliography of Thomassin's published works, plus a list of his manuscripts located in various French libraries. This is followed by twenty letters of Thomassin, an intriguing and interesting discourse on the difference between history and science, and one on the nature of chronology, plus three letters by Thomassin's secretary, Nicolas Barat. In a brief BOOK REVIEWS 265 concluding chapter (pp. 150-52), Dr. Clair deals with "Comment lire l'oeuvre du P. Thomassin," providing much guidance to anyone who wishes to avail himself of the rich resources in Thomassin's writings. From the point of view of the history of philosophy, the most interesting aspects of Thomassin's thought seem to be (1) his "Cartesianism," that is, the extent to which he early imbibed Descartes' new ideas, and played a role in the fusion of the views of Augustine, B6rulle, and Descartes that developed in the Oratory, (2) his attempt to find a viable theory of the nature of Grace somewhere between Arnauld and Malebranche, and (3) his... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:An I for an I: Projection, Subjection, and Christian Antisemitism in The Service for RepresentingAdam1 Richard J. Prystowsky Irvine Valley College You know well enough how to look in a mirror: Now look at this hand for me, and tell If my heart is sick or healthy. The Servicefor Representing Adam Far from experience producing his idea of the Jew, it was the latter which explained his experience. (...) If the Jew did not exist, the anti-Semite would invent him. Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew These wretched Jews, my own kindred, /... have more to be unhappy about than other peoples. The Holy Resurrection No modern theorist has done more to help us understand the nature of inter- and intra-personal and communal violence than has René Girard. Perhaps his most important insight into the workings of such violence, an insight grounding his other provocative discoveries concerning human conflict, is that the antagonistic participants in acts ofinter- and intra-personal and communal violence are "doubles" of each other. By demonstrating that 1 In their hyphenated forms, the terms "anti-Semite," "anti-Semitism," and "anti-Semitic" have sometimes proved more problematic than helpful. In order to avoid "fosterfing] the false impression that there is a wider ethnic entity against which 'anti-Semitism' is leveled" (Telushkin 467), and in light of the importance of the concept of antisemitism to the history of Jewhating, throughout this essay I follow the lead of those scholars who do not hyphenate the words "antisemite," "antisemitism," or "antisemitic." For more information concerning this issue, see Telushkin. 140Richard J. Prystowsky people fight not because they are different, but because they are the same, Girard has shown us how "violence is a great leveler of men" and has helped us to understand the serious consequences that either follow or can follow from mimetic rivalry (Violence 79). For example, he has helped us see how the internal violence occurring in a community in which differentiation has broken down finds its outlet in scapegoating, that mechanism by means of which a community in conflict with itself attempts to save itselfby sacrificing an expendable, arbitrary victim (who lacks a champion but whose real guilt or innocence is irrelevant) onto whom the collective victimizers have projected their own guilt, their own mimetically-oriented self-hatred—their own "sins," we might say. Among other things, Girard's critique of the mimetic rivalry characteristic of what we might call "the conflicted communal Self" also sheds light on the nature of the violence and victimization that we find in the history of Christian persecution of Jews. Without referring to Girard's ideas, the eminent historian Léon Poliakov nevertheless captures a Girardian view of this tragic history when he writes that "to massacre first, and then, from fear of revenge, to accuse afterward; to attribute to the victims one's own aggressive intentions; to impute to them one's own cruelty: from country to country and from century to century, under various disguises, this is the device we find" (106-7). In the present essay, I will attempt to show that such vengeance-laden acts of Christian persecution of Jews, of the Jew-as-Other, derive from antisemitic Christians' mimetic rivalry with Jews—an "I" for an "I," as this essay's title would suggest—and that underlying this rivalry is the introjection ofreal or imagined Jewish self-hatred.2 1 hope to demonstrate that this projected intra-victimization is marked, in part, by Christians' mimetic appropriations of fantasized or real acts of Jewish self-incrimination, punishment, or more generalized suffering. Ultimately, I will try to provide support for the idea that, despite its obvious promise and appeal of love, peace, and brotherhood, Christianity cannot wrest itself entirely from its moorings in real or fantasized Jewish self-hatred, that is, in an appropriation of enacted or imagined Judaism against itself. If my contentions prove even partially legitimate, then an overwhelming question for good-faith Christians is whether or not the peculiar brand of antisemitism discussed above is endemic to Christianity and, if it is, whether 2Sander L. Oilman's Jewish Self-Hatredremains the preeminent work on the relationship between Jewish self-hatred and antisemitism. Among... (shrink)

This book presents modern logic as the formalization of reasoning that needs and deserves a semantic foundation. Chapters on propositional logic; parsing propositions; and meaning, truth and reference give the reader a basis for establishing criteria that can be used to judge formalizations of ordinary language arguments. Over 120 worked examples illustrate the scope and limitations of modern logic, as analyzed in chapters on identity, quantifiers, descriptive names, and functions. The chapter on second-order logic shows how different conceptions of predicates (...) and propositions do not lead to a common basis for quantification over predicates, as they do for quantification over things. Notable for its clarity of presentation and supplemented by many exercises, this volume will be invaluable for philosophers, linguists, mathematicians, and computer scientists who wish to better understand the tools they use in formal reasoning. (shrink)

This dissertation examines the general problem of how to give a philosophical account of the nature of representation by looking at three specific philosophies of language and the philosophic treatment of fictional discourse. I argue that Edmund Husserl, Ludwig Wittgenstein, and J. L. Austin all try to give accounts of meaning by arguing for what I call a "closure of meaning" in language. The closure thesis is the claim that some set of criteria can exhaustively determine the ways in (...) which language can be meaningful. This thesis is implicit in Husserl's theory of expressive meaning in the Logical Investigations, in Wittgenstein's picture theory, and in J. L. Austin's pragmatic account of meaning in speech act theory. My general thesis is that the three philosophers in question do not successfully defend the closure thesis for linguistic representation. Since fictional discourse is a source of counterexamples to the closure thesis, I look specifically at two recent philosophical accounts of fiction by David Lewis and John Searle. I criticize these attempts to account for fictional discourse within referential and pragmatic theories of language. Since such attempts are usually part of a closure thesis, my discussion of fiction provides further reasons for doubting the general possibility of accounting for a closure of meaning in language. (shrink)

For more than a decade, American lawyers have bewailed the ethical crisis in their profession, wringing their hands about its bad image. But their response has been limited to spending money on public relations, mandating education, and endlessly revising ethical rules. In this book, Richard Abel will argue that these measures will do little or nothing to solve the problems illustrated by the six disciplinary case studies featured in this book unless the legal monopoly enjoyed by attorneys in the (...) U.S. is drastically contracted. Richard Abel examines some of the most common ethical complaints made about lawyers in Lawyers in the Dock. Using detailed records of disciplinary proceedings, he describes the actions surrounding certain cases based on three of the most common complaints: neglecting the client by failing to pursue cases diligently; overcharging of clients by mystifying billing practices; and betraying adversaries and courts out of excessive loyalty to clients or causes. In this book, Richard Abel will argue that these measures will do little or nothing to solve the problems exposed by his six disciplinary case studies unless structural changes are made to the legal monopoly in order to restore the public trust in lawyers. Lawyers in the Dock is essential reading for lawyers, law students, and potential clients who wish to restore trust and professional responsibility in the legal profession. (shrink)

"The University of Missouri's rich record of accomplishment and service to Missouri, the nation, and the world is captured in this collection of photographs of campus landmarks, people, events, and Tiger spirit. Includes a history of the campus and timeli.

The mere exposure phenomenon (repeated exposure to a stimulus is sufficient to improve attitudes toward that stimulus) is one of the most inspiring phenomena associated with Robert Zajonc’s long and productive career in social psychology. In the first part of this article, Richard Moreland (who was trained by Zajonc in graduate school) describes his own work on exposure and learning, and on the relationships among familiarity, similarity, and attraction in person perception. In the second part, Sascha Topolinski (a recent (...) graduate who never met Zajonc, but found his ideas inspirational) describes his own work concerning embodiment and fluency in the mere exposure effect. Also, several avenues for future research on the mere exposure phenomenon are identified, further demonstrating its continuing relevance to the field. (shrink)

The claim that visually masked, unidentifiable words are analyzed at the level of whole word meaning has been challenged by recent findings indicating that instead, analysis occurs mainly at the subword level. The present experiments examined possible limits on subword analysis. Experiment 1 obtained semantic priming from pleasant- and unpleasant-meaning subliminal words in which no individual letter contained diagnostic information about a word’s evaluative valence; thus analysis must operate on information more complex than that contained in individual letters. Experiments 2 (...) and 3 showed that analysis must operate on information more complex than that represented by individual bigrams or trigrams . These findings suggest that while subliminal priming is driven by subword analysis, the effective units of analysis are distributed widely across at least short words. (shrink)

Several theoretical perspectives have generated research on grandparental investment, notably socialization and evolutionary psychological perspectives. Using data collected from more than 200 older adults (mean age 67 years), we test three hypotheses derived from socialization and evolutionary perspectives about grandparents’ relationships with and investment in grandchildren. Results indicate that (1) emotional closeness with both children and children-in-law is positively related to reports of emotional closeness with grandchildren; (2) maternal grandmothers invest more in grandchildren than do other grandparents; and (3) grandparents (...) invest more in daughters’ children than in sons’ children. Discussion addresses limitations of self-report methodology in this context and situates the current findings within the body of research indicating the existence of psychological mechanisms designed to guide differential nepotism. (shrink)

I defend mereological nihilism, the view that there are no composite objects, against a challenge from ontological emergence, the view that some things have properties that are ‘something over and above’ the properties of their parts. As the nihilist does not believe in composite wholes, there is nothing in the nihilist's ontology to instantiate emergent properties – or so the challenge goes. However, I argue that some simples can collectively instantiate an emergent property, so the nihilist's ontology can in fact (...) accommodate emergent properties. Furthermore, I show that employing plural instantiation does not bloat the nihilist's ontology or ideology. (shrink)

After discussing the interests that ground theright to democratic political participation,arguments for the disenfranchisement of thosewho commit serious criminal offenses areexamined. The arguments are divided into twogroups. The first group consists of argumentsthat are relatively independent of thejustifying aims of punishment. It is concededthat two of these arguments establish thatsome, though by no means all, serious offendersshould lose the vote for a period of time thatdoes not necessarily overlap with the durationof the other sanctions visited upon them. Thesearguments also imply (...) that the state isjustified in attempting to exclude theoffenders in question from all forms ofpolitical participation, a position thatarguably runs afoul of moral limits onpunishment. The second group of arguments makesexplicit reference to the justifying aims ofpunishment. None supports the blanketdisenfranchisement of felons, though some mayjustify it in relation to some seriousoffenders for certain periods of time. All ofthe arguments supporting the disenfranchisementof serious offenders are most persuasive on theassumption that they live in reasonably justsocieties that are genuinely democratic. Ifthat assumption is false or questionable, thenit is argued that the force of such argumentsmay be weakened considerably. (shrink)

Contains 1,001 entries that explore issues of philosophy, psychology, and the physiology of the brain, touching on topics such as sleep, bilingualism, criminology, language, and the workings of the nervous system, and includes biographies of major authorities on the workings of the mind.

"Intuition" has perhaps been the least understood and the most abused term in philosophy. It is often the term used when one has no plausible explanation for the source of a given belief or opinion. According to some sceptics, it is understood only in terms of what it is not, and it is not any of the better understood means for acquiring knowledge. In mathematics the term has also unfortunately been used in this way. Thus, intuition is sometimes portrayed as (...) if it were the Third Eye, something only mathematical "mystics", like Ramanujan, possess. In mathematics the notion has also been used in a host of other senses: by "intuitive" one might mean informal, or non-rigourous, or visual, or holistic, or incomplete, or perhaps even convincing in spite of lack of proof. My aim in this book is to sweep all of this aside, to argue that there is a perfectly coherent, philosophically respectable notion of mathematical intuition according to which intuition is a condition necessary for mathemati cal knowledge. I shall argue that mathematical intuition is not any special or mysterious kind of faculty, and that it is possible to make progress in the philosophical analysis of this notion. This kind of undertaking has a precedent in the philosophy of Kant. While I shall be mostly developing ideas about intuition due to Edmund Husser! there will be a kind of Kantian argument underlying the entire book. (shrink)

The contributions in the book examine the historical and contemporary manifestations of organized crime, the symbiotic relationship between legitimate and ...

In a number of essays published over the last decade or so, W. V. Quine has made some interesting suggestions concerning the ontology of theories. If I understand him correctly, one of his principal objects has been to formulate a criterion by means of which one can correctly decide what are the ontological commitments of any given theory. My aim in this paper is to reveal what I think are inadequacies in Quine's criterion and to indicate the direction in which (...) a proper formulation lies. (shrink)