ABSTRACTThis paper investigates the relationship between Helmholtz's formulation of the principle of the conservation of force and the two principles well known in rational mechanics as the principle of vis viva and the principle of the conservation of vis viva. An examination of the relevant literature from Leibniz to Duhamel reveals both Helmholtz's indebtedness to that tradition and his creative refashioning of it as he endeavoured to craft an argument that would both prohibit the construction of a perpetuum mobile and (...) the efficacy of a supposed vital force and demonstrate the necessity of an ontology of mass points subject to attractive and repulsive central forces depending solely on distance. (shrink)

In this chapter, we defend an explanationist version of proper functionalism. After explaining proper functionalism’s initial appeal, we note two major objections to proper functionalism: creatures with no design plan who appear to have knowledge (Swampman) and creatures with malfunctions that increase reliability. We then note how proper functionalism needs to be clarified because there are cases of what we call warrant-compatible malfunction. We then formulate our own view: explanationist proper functionalism, which explains the warrant-compatible malfunction cases and helps to (...) block the above objections. We also advance a positive argument for explanationist proper functionalism. (shrink)

According to commonsense, some collections of objects compose wholes, and others do not. However, philosophers have found serious difficulties with attempts to preserve this thesis, and especially with attempts to preserve the existence of just those composite objects recognized by commonsense. In this paper, I defend a classical solution to this problem: "it is the mind that maketh each thing to be one" (Berkeley, Siris, sect. 356). According to this view, which I call 'mereological idealism,' it is when a plurality (...) is united in thought under a concept that a unified whole comes to exist. After explaining the view in more detail, I show how it escapes three standard arguments against commonsense views of composition. (shrink)

Probes the nature of linguistic or symbolic action as it relates to specific novels, plays, and poems.

Alexander Pruss and I have proposed an analysis of omnipotence which makes no use of the problematic terms 'power' and 'ability'. However, this raises an obvious worry: if our analysis is not related to the notion of power, then how can it count as an analysis of omnipotence, the property of being all-powerful, at all? In this paper, I show how omnipotence can be understood as the possession of infinite power (general, universal, or unlimited power) rather than the possession of (...) particular powers. I then argue that the ordinary notions of particular powers or abilities can be understood as applying vague limitations to the notion of infinite power. The vagueness of these limitations is the source of the well-known difficulties in the analysis of ability. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION In an age of specialists, Kenneth Burke's writings offend those who are content with a partial view of human motivation. ...

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Hegel's Semantics of Singular Cognitive Reference Hegel's Justification of His Semantics of Singular Cognitive Reference in “Consciousness” “Self‐Consciousness,” Thought, and the Semantics of Singular Cognitive Reference Hegel's Interim Critique of the Ego‐Centric Predicament Conclusion References.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction The Co‐extensiveness of Understanding and Sensibility Identity and Predication Objective Purport and Kant's Transcendental Deduction Proving Mental Content Externalism Transcendentally Notes References.

“Buddhisms” captures the challenge inherent in the diverse practices and beliefs of this religion. In this book, grounding the analysis in the bodies of practitioners provides a new opportunity for coherence that reaches across vast expanses of time and space.

Five Groundbreaking Moments in Heidegger's Thinking presents a fresh interpretation of some of Heidegger's most difficult but important works, including his early Beiträge (Contributions) and engages with his theoretical concept of "the reading in thinking." In new translations of central texts, Kenneth Maly invites the reader to think along the way by reading, contemplating, and translating Heidegger's ideas into context. An introduction to the field of philosophy and more specifically to Heidegger's thought, Five Groundbreaking Moments in Heidegger's Thinking asks (...) the reader, in some manner, to actively do the philosophizing. (shrink)

This pioneering translation of Plato's Phaedrus, with detailed summary and full philological and exegetical notes taking into consideration all commentaries since Hermias, followed by a painstaking dialogical analysis of the text that shows what we must think at every moment in order to understand the thinking that brings the Greek text to life. In Kenneth Quandt's treatment, Plato's seminal work is allowed to create its own horizon and a new and profoundly unified interpretation emerges: Socrates's conversation with Phaedrus reaches (...) a vision of eros that explains the paradoxes of human nature, explodes the zero-sum game of master and slave, exposes the crabbed fetishism of the written word, and releases the mind to a life of contemplation fixed in a cloudless noon. (shrink)

This collection of essays, written between 1975 and 1987, covers topics including the doctrine of analogy, the Trinity, theological realism, the problims of evil and suffering, ecclesiology, and the so-called theistic proofs. The earlier writings relect the author's training as a philosopher in the Anglo-Aamerican analytic tradition. Later essays have a more explicitly theological focus, and they attempt to deal with and move beyond the tradition through hermeneutics, and literary and social theory. This collection thus addresses a wider list of (...) topics than is usual in works of philsophical theology, and is unique in its use of interdisciplinary methods and approaches. (shrink)

My purpose in this paper is to present a non-Marxist conception of exploitation. While this analysis of exploitation may share features with a Marxist conception, its acceptability is not dependent upon a prior agreement with that world view.

Histories of communication are still relatively rare birds, but this one is distinctive on several grounds. The two authors are/were undisputed giants in the field. Ken Cmiel, the originator of the book, still unfinished when he suddenly died in 2006, was a cultural historian of communication; his best friend, John Peters, is one of the world leaders in the intellectual history of communication. In completing that unfinished manuscript, Peters has performed astonishing prestidigitation here in creating an effective hybrid: he retains (...) the core of Cmiel's account, while creating a unique book that, courtesy of Peters, brilliantly spins out the solid Cmielian core and its material traces into gorgeous reflections on aspects of how we make our way through a world of images and information. Promiscuous Knowledge constructs a cultural and intellectual history of information, images, and conceptions of knowledge since the 17th century, with an emphasis on the American context since the 19th century. Cmiel/Peters sketch the way in which various containers for information-knowledge, expertise, abridgment, books, digests, encyclopedias, museums, etc.-have variably organized gluts of information, and how these containers have eroded since the 1970s. A parallel throughline traces social attitudes and practices around images and key media for circulating and experiencing them. Cmiel envisioned the largest contour of the book as a contribution to the history of truth and truth-making. His protagonists are pictures and facts, images and information. They enact a process of gradual dismantling, erosion, or collapse of the mass culture system from last century into the present. Promiscuous knowledge has a new face, courtesy of the online universe full of filter bubbles, echo chambers, and fake news. Google offers a single portal to a churning mass of confusion; it lacks a principle of inclusion/inclusivity, it has no way of framing the whole. Peters has shaped what Cmiel started out with into a better Trump-era book than an Obama-era book. And he has retained its core: a brief history of how we left the world of fact for the world of information. (shrink)

Focuses on the theory and practice of presidentialism and constitutionalism.

“Imagination may be thought of as a ‘work-around.’ It is a resourceful tactic to ‘undo’ a rule by creating a path around it without necessarily defying it.... Transgression, on the other hand, is rule breaking. There is no pretense of reinterpretation; it is defiance pure and simple. Whether imagination or disobedience is the source, constraints need not constrain, ties need not bind.” So writes Kenneth A. Shepsle in his introduction to Rule Breaking and Political Imagination. Institutions are thought to (...) channel the choices of individual actors. But what about when they do not? Throughout history, leaders and politicians have used imagination and transgression to break with constraints upon their agency. Shepsle ranges from ancient Rome to the United States Senate, and from Lyndon B. Johnson to the British House of Commons. He also explores rule breaking in less formal contexts, such as vigilantism in the Old West and the CIA’s actions in the wake of 9/11. Entertaining and thought-provoking, Rule Breaking and Political Imagination will prompt a reassessment of the nature of institutions and remind us of the critical role of political mavericks. (shrink)

The 'Illuminating Modernity' series examines the great but lesser known thinkers in the 'Romantic Thomist' tradition such as Erich Przywara and Fernand Ulrich and shows how outstanding 20th century theologians like Ratzinger and von Balthasar have depended on classical Thomist thought, and how they radically reinterpreted this thought. The chapters in this volume are dedicated to the encounter between the presuppositions and claims of modern intellectual culture and the Christian confession that the crucified and resurrected Jesus is the power and (...) wisdom of God and is the lord of history and of his church. The scholars contributing to this discussion do not assume that Christianity and modernity are two discrete entities which can be readily defined, nor do they presume that Christian wisdom and modernity meet each other only in conflict or by coincidence. They engage with a variety of great figures – Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Rahner, Przywara, Guardini, Karl Barth, and Karol Wojtyla – to illustrate the connection between modernism and Christian wisdom. The volume concludes with a programmatic statement for the renewal of Christian philosophy that has been able to retain the cosmo-theological vision as outlined by Mezei in the final chapter. (shrink)

Recovering the substantive nature of landscape -- Landscape, place and the state of progress -- Choros, place and the spatialization of landscape -- Are islanders insular? : a personal view -- The case of the missing mask : performance, theater, aetherial space and the practice of landscape//architecture -- Performing on the landscape versus doing landscape : perambulatory practice, sight and the senses of belonging -- Heidegger, Latour and the reification of things : the inversion and spatial enclosure of the substantive (...) landscape the Lake District case -- Transcendent space, reactionary-modernism and the diabolic sublime : Walter Christaller, Edgar Kant, and the landscape origins of modern spatial science and planning -- Geese, elves, and the duplicitous, diabolical landscaped space and wild nature of reactionary modernism : Holgersson, Hägerstrand, and Lorenz. (shrink)

The author observes that Plato's Republic and Job have a common premise, namely the extremely unjust treatment of a just person to prove that the person is just, proceeding with a close comparative commentary on both works.