How does the visual system recognize images of a novel object after a single observation despite possible variations in the viewpoint of that object relative to the observer? One possibility is comparing the image with a prototype for invariance over a relevant transformation set. However, invariance over rotations has proven difficult to analyze, because it applies to some objects but not others. We propose that the invariant transformations of an object are learned by incorporating prior expectations with real-world evidence. We (...) test this proposal by developing an ideal learner model for learning invariance that predicts better learning of orientation dependence when prior expectations about orientation are weak. This prediction was supported in two behavioral experiments, where participants learned the orientation dependence of novel images using feedback from solving arithmetic problems. (shrink)

The most important contribution which professional philosophers could make to the debate concerning abortion would be to produce a detailed conceptual analysis of the sorts of situations in which abortion is typically contemplated and/or performed and a set of moral considerations and/or principles which would be applicable to any such case. I argue that the sorts of hypothetical cases and fanciful analogies typically used by philosophers in their discussions of abortion can be either appropriate or inappropriate for this purpose, and (...) attempt to illustrate this difference by considering several possible interpretations of some of the scenarios diacussed in J.J. Thomson’s classic paper “A Defense of Abortion” together with some of my own. (shrink)

Using the scientific investigation of the Shroud of Turin as an extended example, it is argued that miracles are best understood not as violations of natural law, but as scientifically inexplicable events. It is then argued that even though we can imagine circumstances in which science itself might provide us with good grounds for believing that an event is scientifically inexplicable, these grounds would at best provide us with circumstantial evidence that the event was miraculous, and would in any case (...) be inconclusive. (shrink)

It is an undeniable empirical fact that a human fetus is a member of the species homo sapiens from the moment of conception. There is thus an important sense in which it is a human being in itself, and not simply part of a pregnant woman’s body, despite what defenders of abortion on demand might want us to think. It is also reasonable to suppose that all human beings, and thus human fetuses, are persons, with all that entails, but this (...) is a metaphysical presupposition as opposed to an empirical fact, and is thus contentious. It is argued, however, that this should be of little comfort to the defenders of abortion, because the mere fact that human fetuses have an inherent tendency to become persons is sufficient reason to confer a moral status upon them, which renders abortion morally problematic at best. (shrink)

It cannot be reasonable to beIieve in the resurrection unless we can overcome certain a priori objections. It is argued that these objections can in fact be overcome. It is further argued that, whether or not it is reasonabIe for us to believe in the resurrection, it couId have been not onIy reasonabIe for the discipIes to believe that it had, but unreasonabIe for them not to believe this.

It cannot be reasonable to beIieve in the resurrection unless we can overcome certain a priori objections. It is argued that these objections can in fact be overcome. It is further argued that, whether or not it is reasonabIe for us to believe in the resurrection, it couId have been not onIy reasonabIe for the discipIes to believe that it had, but unreasonabIe for them not to believe this.

The most important contribution which professional philosophers could make to the debate concerning abortion would be to produce a detailed conceptual analysis of the sorts of situations in which abortion is typically contemplated and/or performed and a set of moral considerations and/or principles which would be applicable to any such case. I argue that the sorts of hypothetical cases and fanciful analogies typically used by philosophers in their discussions of abortion can be either appropriate or inappropriate for this purpose, and (...) attempt to illustrate this difference by considering several possible interpretations of some of the scenarios diacussed in J.J. Thomson’s classic paper “A Defense of Abortion” together with some of my own. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This article outlines the policy context for teachers’ learning and continuing professional development in Scotland and considers this in relation to the perspectives of key informants gained through interview. The analysis draws on a triple-lens conceptual framework and points to some interesting contradictions between the policy text and the expressed aspirations of the interviewees. Current policy and the associated structural arrangements are viewed as broadly positive, but interviewees express concerns that an unintended emphasis on contractual arrangements might inhibit the more (...) transformative elements of professional learning. (shrink)

Arguing About Human Nature covers recent debates--arising from biology, philosophy, psychology, and physical anthropology--that together systematically examine what it means to be human. Thirty-five essays--several of them appearing here for the first time in print--were carefully selected to offer competing perspectives on 12 different topics related to human nature. The context and main threads of the debates are highlighted and explained by the editors in a short, clear introduction to each of the 12 topics. Authors include Louise Anthony, Patrick Bateson, (...) David Buller, John Dupre, Paul Griffiths, Sally Haslanger, Richard Lewontin, Ron Mallon, and E.O. Wilson. Contributors Rachel Cooper, Nancy Holmstrom, Kim Sterelny, and Elizabeth Cashdan provide brand new chapters in these debates. Suggested Reading lists offer curious readers new resources for exploring these debates further. A rguing About Human Nature is the first volume of its kind, designed to introduce to an interdisciplinary student audience some of the most important arguments on the subject generated by scientific research and philosophical reflection. (shrink)

Inferentialism claims that the rules for the use of an expression express its meaning without any need to invoke meanings or denotations for them. Logical inferentialism endorses inferentialism specically for the logical constants. Harmonic inferentialism, as the term is introduced here, usually but not necessarily a subbranch of logical inferentialism, follows Gentzen in proposing that it is the introduction-rules whch give expressions their meaning and the elimination-rules should accord harmoniously with the meaning so given. It is proposed here that the (...) logical expressions are those which can be given schematic rules that lie in a specific sort of harmony, general-elimination harmony, resulting from applying a certain operation, the ge-procedure, to produce ge-rules in accord with the meaning defined by the I-rules. Griffiths claims that identity cannot be given such rules, concluding that logical inferentialists are committed to ruling identity a non-logical expression. It is shown that the schematic rules for identity given in Read, slightly amended, are indeed ge-harmonious, so confirming that identity is a logical notion. (shrink)

The starting-point of this paper is one of the most disastrous pieces of advocacy in modern legal history. In October 1960, Penguin Books were prosecuted under Section 2 of the 1959 Obscene Publications Act for publishing an unexpurgated edition ofLady Chatterley's Lover.On the first day of the trial, Mr. Mervyn Griffith-Jones, Senior Treasury Counsel, did his best to wreck his case on the strength of one remark. He had previously tried to show that he was himself a man of (...) the world: ‘Let me emphasize this on behalf of the prosecution: do not approach this matter in any priggish, high-minded, super-correct, mid-Victorian manner’. He now proceeded to work this out in practice: ‘Would you approve of your young sons, young daughters—because girls can read as well as boys—reading this book? Is it a book that you would have lying around in your own house? Is it even a book that you would wish your wife or your servants to read?’. (shrink)

This valuable book will give educators solution-based methods and research-based resources to improve classroom culture, as well as enabling schools to elevate students' engagement and academic achievement.

Undergraduate students with no prior classroom instruction in mathematical logic will benefit from this evenhanded multipart text by one of the centuries greatest authorities on the subject. Part I offers an elementary but thorough overview of mathematical logic of first order. The treatment does not stop with a single method of formulating logic; students receive instruction in a variety of techniques, first learning model theory (truth tables), then Hilbert-type proof theory, and proof theory handled through derived rules. Part II supplements (...) the material covered in Part I and introduces some of the newer ideas and the more profound results of logical research in the twentieth century. Subsequent chapters introduce the study of formal number theory, with surveys of the famous incompleteness and undecidability results of Godel, Church, Turing, and others. The emphasis in the final chapter reverts to logic, with examinations of Godel's completeness theorem, Gentzen's theorem, Skolem's paradox and nonstandard models of arithmetic, and other theorems. Unabridged republication of the edition published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, 1967. Preface. Bibliography. Theorem and Lemma Numbers: Pages. List of Postulates. Symbols and Notations. Index. (shrink)

In Return to Reason, Stephen Toulmin argues that the potential for reason to improve our lives has been hampered by a serious imbalance in our pursuit of ...

The Hedgehog, the Fox, and the Magister's Pox is a controversial discourse, rich with facts and observations gathered by one of the most erudite minds of our ...

It is unreasonable to assume that our pre-scientific emotion vocabulary embodies all and only those distinctions required for a scientific psychology of emotion. The psychoevolutionary approach to emotion yields an alternative classification of certain emotion phenomena. The new categories are based on a set of evolved adaptive responses, or affect-programs, which are found in all cultures. The triggering of these responses involves a modular system of stimulus appraisal, whose evoluations may conflict with those of higher-level cognitive processes. Whilst the structure (...) of the adaptive responses is innate, the contents of the system which triggers them are largely learnt. The circuits subserving the adaptive responses are probably located in the limbic system. This theory of emotion is directly applicable only to a small sub-domain of the traditional realm of emotion. It can be used, however, to explain the grouping of various other phenomena under the heading of emotion, and to explain various characteristic failings of the pre-scientific conception of emotion. (shrink)

Can a businessman be moral? What are the values implicit in a business deal? How can we think responsibly about economic decisions? An academic philosopher and a practical businessman together examine the fundamental principles of economic activity to discover how we can think responsibly about economic decisions. Ethics must play a part as business relations are only sustainable when the parties have some values in common, but significant divergences of interest can limit the importance of ethical considerations. The responsibilities of (...) business towards employees, employers, customers, competitors, the state, the environment and the third world are all discussed. (shrink)

Stephen Toulmin argues that the potential for reason to improve our lives has been hampered by a serious imbalance in our pursuit of knowledge. The centuries-old dominance of rationality has diminished the value of reasonableness. Toulmin issues a powerful call to redress the balance between rationality and reasonableness.

The development of evolutionary approaches to psychology from Classical Ethology through Sociobiology to Evolutionary Psychology is outlined and the main tenets of today's Evolutionary Psychology briefly examined: the heuristic value of evolutionary thinking for psychology, the massive modularity thesis and the monomorphic mind thesis.

"Biophilia" is the term coined by Edward O. Wilson to describe what he believes is humanity's innate affinity for the natural world. In his landmark book Biophilia, he examined how our tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes might be a biologically based need, integral to our development as individuals and as a species. That idea has caught the imagination of diverse thinkers. The Biophilia Hypothesis brings together the views of some of the most creative scientists of our time, (...) each attempting to amplify and refine the concept of biophilia. The variety of perspectives -- psychological, biological, cultural, symbolic, and aesthetic -- frame the theoretical issues by presenting empirical evidence that supports or refutes the hypothesis. Numerous examples illustrate the idea that biophilia and its converse, biophobia, have a genetic component: fear, and even full-blown phobias of snakes and spiders are quick to develop with very little negative reinforcement, while more threatening modern artifacts -- knives, guns, automobiles -- rarely elicit such a response people find trees that are climbable and have a broad, umbrella-like canopy more attractive than trees without these characteristics people would rather look at water, green vegetation, or flowers than built structures of glass and concrete The biophilia hypothesis, if substantiated, provides a powerful argument for the conservation of biological diversity. More important, it implies serious consequences for our well-being as society becomes further estranged from the natural world. Relentless environmental destruction could have a significant impact on our quality of life, not just materially but psychologically and even spiritually. (shrink)

What does it mean to think of philosophy in the condition of modernism, in which its relation to its past and future has become a relevant problem? This book argues that the writings of Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and Kierkegaard are best understood as responsive (each in their own way) to such questions. Through detailed analysis of these authors' most influential texts, Stephen Mulhall reorients our sense of the philosophical work each text aims to accomplish, engendering a critical dialogue between them (...) from which the elements of a new conception of philosophy might emerge. (shrink)

Transnational corporations have become actors with significant political power and authority which should entail responsibility and liability, specifically direct liability for complicity in human rights violations. Holding TNCs liable for human rights violations is complicated by the discontinuity between the fragmented legal/political structure of the TNC and its integrated strategic reality and the international state system which privileges sovereignty and non-intervention over the protection of individual rights. However, the post-Westphalian transition—the emergence of multiple authorities, increasing ambiguity of borders and jurisdiction (...) and blurring of the line between the public and private spheres—should facilitate imposing direct responsibility on transnational firms. Mechanisms for imposing direct responsibility on TNCs are considered including voluntary agreements and international law. However, I conclude that a hybrid public-private regime which relies on non-hierarchical compliance mechanisms is likely to be both more effective and consistent with the structure of the emerging transnational order. (shrink)

Developmental systems theory (DST) is a general theoretical perspective on development, heredity and evolution. It is intended to facilitate the study of interactions between the many factors that influence development without reviving `dichotomous' debates over nature or nurture, gene or environment, biology or culture. Several recent papers have addressed the relationship between DST and the thriving new discipline of evolutionary developmental biology (EDB). The contributions to this literature by evolutionary developmental biologists contain three important misunderstandings of DST.

In behavioral ecology some authors regard the innateness concept as irretrievably confused whilst others take it to refer to adaptations. In cognitive psychology, however, whether traits are 'innate' is regarded as a significant question and is often the subject of heated debate. Several philosophers have tried to define innateness with the intention of making sense of its use in cognitive psychology. In contrast, I argue that the concept is irretrievably confused. The vernacular innateness concept represents a key aspect of 'folkbiology', (...) namely, the explanatory strategy that psychologists and cognitive anthropologists have labeled 'folk essentialism'. Folk essentialism is inimical to Darwinism, and both Darwin and the founders of the modern synthesis struggled to overcome this way of thinking about living systems. Because the vernacular concept of innateness is part of folkbiology, attempts to define it more adequately are unlikely to succeed, making it preferable to introduce new, neutral terms for the various, related notions that are needed to understand cognitive development. (shrink)

Organizational aesthetics, both as a body of theory and a method of inquiry, is a rapidly expanding area of the organizational sciences. The Aesthetics of Organization accessibly draws key contributions delineating the emerging parameters of the field. It explains the significance of concepts devised by postmodern thinkers, through which emerge meaning and order in organizations. Methodological problems associated with investigations of the aesthetic are also highlighted so the reader can identify and understand the importance of recent ideas on vision, perspective (...) and periphery for learning in organizations. Through the contributions of leading international theorists, organizational aesthetics is defined in greater historical and theoretical depth, with a broad conceptual and practical range which academics will find invaluable. (shrink)

As far as consideration of man as phenomenon, as appearance, as an empirical self, is concerned, Kant appears to be a thoroughgoing psychological hedonist.

Hume's Enlightenment Tract is the first full study for forty years of David Hume's Enquiry concerning Human Understanding. The Enquiry has, contrary to its author's expressed wishes, long lived in the shadow of its predecessor, A Treatise of Human Nature. Stephen Buckle presents the Enquiry in a fresh light, and aims to raise it to its rightful position in Hume's work and in the history of philosophy.

A central theme throughout the impressive series of philosophical books and articles Stephen Toulmin has published since 1948 is the way in which assertions and opinions concerning all sorts of topics, brought up in everyday life or in academic research, can be rationally justified. Is there one universal system of norms, by which all sorts of arguments in all sorts of fields must be judged, or must each sort of argument be judged according to its own norms? In The (...) Uses of Argument Toulmin sets out his views on these questions for the first time. In spite of initial criticisms from logicians and fellow philosophers, The Uses of Argument has been an enduring source of inspiration and discussion to students of argumentation from all kinds of disciplinary background for more than forty years. (shrink)

This article discusses Heidegger’s interpretation of Parmenides given in his last public lecture ‘The Principle of Identity’ in 1957. The aim of the piece is to illustrate just how original and significant Heidegger’s reading of Parmenides and the principle of identity is, within the history of Philosophy. Thus the article will examine the traditional metaphysical interpretation of Parmenides and consider G.W.F. Hegel and William James’ account of the principle of identity in light of this. It will then consider Heidegger’s contribution, (...) his return to and re-interpretation of Parmenides in his last lecture. Heidegger will, through the Parmenidean claim that ‘Thinking and Being are one’ deconstruct the traditional metaphysical understanding of the principle of identity, and in its place offer a radically different conception of how our relationship, our ‘belonging together’ with Being can be understood. (shrink)

This volume offers a lively and accessible guide to some of the major issues current in French philosophy today and to some of the figures who are or have been influential in shaping its development. The collection is unusual and interesting in bringing together a range of contributors from both Britain and France, and is intended not only for professional philosophers but also for those with a more general interest in the French intellectual scene.

The original contributions to this Royal Institute of Philosophy collection are centrally concerned with ethics, but from a wide variety of perspectives. The essays, written by authors of great distinction, range from the analytic and theoretical to the applied, touching such topical and hotly-debated issues as what constitutes morality in political life, the relation between education and ethical standards, and whether morality can indeed be defined. The volume will provide stimulating reading for scholars and students alike.