_Bioethics, Public Moral Argument, and Social Responsibility_ explores the role of democratically oriented argument in promoting public understanding and discussion of the benefits and burdens of biotechnological progress. The contributors examine moral and policy controversies surrounding biomedical technologies and their place in American society, beginning with an examination of discourse and moral authority in democracy, and addressing a set of issues that include: dignity in health care; the social responsibilities of scientists, journalists, and scholars; and the language of genetics and (...) moral responsibility. (shrink)

Modes of rationality in nursing documentation: biology, biography, and the ‘voice of nursing’ This article is based on a discourse analysis of the complete nursing records of 45 patients, and concerns the modes of rationality that mediated text‐based accounts relating to patient care that nurses recorded. The analysis draws on the work of the critical theorist, Jürgen Habermas, who conceptualised rationality in the context of modernity according to two types: purposive rationality based on an instrumental logic, and value rationality based (...) on ethical considerations and moral reasoning. Our analysis revealed that purposive rationality dominated the content of nursing documentation, as evidenced by a particularly bio‐centric and modernist construction of the workings of the body within the texts. There was little reference in the documentation to central themes of contemporary nursing discourses, such as notions of partnership, autonomy, and self‐determination, which are associated with value rationality. Drawing on Habermas, we argue that this nursing documentation depicted the colonisation of the sociocultural lifeworld by the bio‐technocratic system. Where nurses recorded disagreements that patients had with medical regimes, the central struggle inherent in the project of modernity became transparent — the tension between the rational and instrumental control of people through scientific regulation and the autonomy of the subject. The article concludes by problematising communicative action within the context of nursing practice. (shrink)

Contemplating Suicide: The Language and Ethnics of Self Harm By Gavin J. Fairbairn Routledge, 1995. Pp. xxx. ISBN 415?10606. £12.95(pbk). Religious Transformation in Western Society. The End of Happiness By Harvie Ferguson, Routledge, 1992. Pp. xvi + 269. ISBN 0?415?02574?5. £XX.xx. Feminism and the Self: The Web of Identity By Morwenna Griffiths Routledge, 1995. Pp. 191. ISBN 0?415?09821?1. £12.99 (pbk). Faith, Scepticism and Personal Identity. A Festschrift for Terence Penelhum Edited by J.J. Macintosh and H. A. Meynell University of Calgary (...) Press, 1994. Pp. vii + 304. CAN$27.95. The Shape of Space (second edition) By Graham Nerlich Cambridge University Press, 1994. ISBN 0?521?45645?2. Logical Learning Theory: A Human Teleology and its Empirical Support By Joseph F. Rychlak University of Nebraska Press, 1994. Pp. 387. ISBN 0?8032?3904?1. £32.95 Philosophical Idealism and Christian Belief By Alan P.F. Sell University of Wales Press, 1995. Pp. x + 338. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes’s _Leviathan_ is the greatest work of political philosophy in English and the first great work of philosophy in English. Beginning with premises that were sometimes controversial, such as that every human action is caused by the agent’s desire for his own good, Hobbes derived shocking conclusions, such as that the civil government enjoys absolute control over its citizens and that the sovereign has the right to determine which religion is to be practiced in a commonwealth. Hobbes’s contemporaries recognized (...) the power of arguments in _Leviathan_ and many of them wrote responses to it; selections by John Bramhall, Robert Filmer, Edward Hyde, George Lawson, William Lucy, Samuel Pufendorf, and Thomas Tenison are included in this edition. This revised Broadview Edition of Hobbes’s classic work of political philosophy includes the full text of Part I (Of Man), Part II (Of Commonwealth), and the Review and Conclusion. The appendices, which set the work in its historical context, include a rich selection of contemporary responses to _Leviathan_. Also included are an introduction, explanatory notes, and a chronology of Hobbes’s life. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes’s _Leviathan_ is the greatest work of political philosophy in English and the first great work of philosophy in English. Beginning with premises that were sometimes controversial, such as that every human action is caused by the agent’s desire for his own good, Hobbes derived shocking conclusions, such as that the civil government enjoys absolute control over its citizens and that the sovereign has the right to determine which religion is to be practiced in a commonwealth. Hobbes’s contemporaries recognized (...) the power of arguments in _Leviathan_ and many of them wrote responses to it; selections by John Bramhall, Robert Filmer, Edward Hyde, George Lawson, William Lucy, Samuel Pufendorf, and Thomas Tenison are included in this edition. This revised Broadview Edition of Hobbes’s classic work of political philosophy includes the full text of Part I, Part II, and the Review and Conclusion. The appendices, which set the work in its historical context, include a rich selection of contemporary responses to _Leviathan_. Also included are an introduction, explanatory notes, and a chronology of Hobbes’s life. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes’s _Leviathan_ is the greatest work of political philosophy in English and the first great work of philosophy in English. Beginning with premises that were sometimes controversial, such as that every human action is caused by the agent’s desire for his own good, Hobbes derived shocking conclusions, such as that the civil government enjoys absolute control over its citizens and that the sovereign has the right to determine which religion is to be practiced in a commonwealth. Hobbes’s contemporaries recognized (...) the power of arguments in _Leviathan_ and many of them wrote responses to it; selections by John Bramhall, Robert Filmer, Edward Hyde, George Lawson, William Lucy, Samuel Pufendorf, and Thomas Tenison are included in this edition. _Leviathan _is divided into four parts: In the first part, Of Man, Hobbes presents a view of human beings and of the natural world in general that is materialistic and mechanistic. In the second part, Of Commonwealth, he defends the theory of absolute sovereignty, the view that the government has all the political power and has the right to control any aspect of life. In the third part, Of a Christian Commonwealth, he critiques concepts like revelation, prophets, and miracles in such a way that it becomes doubtful whether they can be rationally justified. In the fourth part, Of the Kingdom of Darkness, he explains various ways in which priestly religion has corrupted religion and transgressed the rights of the sovereign. (shrink)

Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century by Scott Soames reminds me of nothing so much as Lectures on Literature by Vladimir Nabokov. Both are works that arose immediately out of the needs of undergraduate teaching, yet each manages to say much of significance to knowledgeable professionals. Each indirectly provides an outline of the history of its field, through a presentation of selected major works, taken in chronological order and including items that are generally recognized as marking decisive turning points. Yet (...) neither Soames’s work nor Nabokov’s is a history in any conventional sense, both being immediately disqualified from that category by the general absence of coverage of minor and middling works and writers. The emphasis is pedagogical rather than historiographical: the emphasis is on introducing the student to the field through very close examination of the limited number of key texts selected for inclusion. The author’s distinctive personality is also apparent in both works. Each writer has a favorite theme he repeatedly sounds: for Soames, the danger of conflating the analytic, the a priori, and the necessary; for Nabokov, the philistinism of expecting an uplifting “message” from works of literary art. Each also includes some quirky, individual selections: The Right and the Good, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Few others would have taken R. L. Stevenson to be up there with Dickens, Flaubert, and Proust, or W. D. Ross with Russell, Wittgenstein, and Quine. Each also sets aside for separate treatment elsewhere a major body of work one might have expected to be covered. Nabokov reserves Russian literature for a companion volume, while Soames gives only slight coverage to what he describes as “work in logic, the foundations of logic, and the application of logical techniques to the study of language” — a category that in practice turns out to include the bulk of the relevant material (by such writers as Frege, Carnap, and Tarski) that published originally in German without simultaneous English translation.. (shrink)

Leon Kass's often-cited essay, “Death with Dignity and the Sanctity of Life,” provides the basis for a case study in the rhetorical function of definition in debates concerning bioethics. The study examines the way a particular definition of “human dignity” is used to maintain an advantage of power in the debate over the morality of physician-assisted suicide. It also considers sources of human dignity that are deflected from attention by the rhetoric of Kass's formulation.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Secret History of Emotion: From Aristotle's ‘Rhetoric’ to Modern Brain ScienceMichael J. HydeThe Secret History of Emotion: From Aristotle's ‘Rhetoric’ to Modern Brain Science. Daniel M. Gross. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Pp. x + 194. $35.00, Hardcover.The twofold goal of this book is clearly stated by its author: "to reconstitute by way of critical intellectual history a deeply nuanced, rhetorical understanding of emotion that prevailed (...) until the triumph of psychophysiology; second, to show by way of literary and philosophical example how this rhetorical perspective helps us read anew the emotional complex of modernity, whether early or late" (8). Gross' appreciation of the function of emotion emphasizes a phenomenological orientation that is inspired by Martin Heidegger's unpublished 1924 lecture course on Aristotle's Rhetoric. Gross recently co-edited with Ansgar Kemmann a book of original essays dedicated to a critical assessment of this lecture course (Gross and Kemmann 2006). In concluding her contribution to the book, the well-known Renaissance scholar Nancy S. Struever maintains that the course "remains, arguably, the best twentieth-century reading of Aristotle's Rhetoric" (Struever 2006: 127). Gross advances this reading with his creative and insightful assessment of his topic.This advance unfolds as Gross, abiding by phenomenology's well-known critique of the matter, takes issue with the reductive psychophysiology of emotion that Descartes first proposed and that informs latter-day sciences of the mind and the brain. Gross turns to the research program of the distinguished cognitive scientist Antonio Damasio as a way of arguing "how brain science of emotion goes awry when it blunders into social fact" (29). The reductionism of science, in other words, misses the forest for the trees. Admitting that Damasio is open to inquiries outside the boundaries of neurobiology, Gross nevertheless takes particular issue with Damasio's model for such a project: Edward O. Wilson's, Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. Indeed, Wilson never gives rhetoric a nod when he acknowledges the worth of the humanities in his book.This slight, coming from Wilson, Damasio, and other scientists, fuels Gross's enthusiasm for turning to Aristotle's analysis of the pathe in book two of the Rhetoric. With Aristotle's discussion of "anger" in mind, for example, Gross emphasizes how we live in "a contoured world of emotional investments, where some people have significantly more liabilities than others" (3). [End Page 326]The point warrants elaboration: "The contours of our emotional world have been shaped by institutions such as slavery and poverty that simply afford some people greater emotional range than others, as they are shaped by publicity that has nothing to do with the inherent values of each human life and everything to do with technologies of social recognition and blindness" (4). Gross links this Aristotelian based social-psychological insight with such early modern philosophers, psychologists, and cultural critics as Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, William Perfect, and then with such contemporary intellectuals as Judith Butler. Gross' discussion of this linkage enables him to argue a key point in his overall project: the constitutive power of emotions depends not on how the social passions originate in a moral sense equally shared by all, but rather on the "uneven distribution" of these passions in our social and political lives.Gross makes much of how the rhetoric of this uneven distribution is at work in such particular cases as Aristotle's apathetic slave, Seneca's angry tyrant, Hobbes's resentful preacher, Sarah Fielding's humble hero, and Adam Smith's compassionate spectator. Gross's intellectual acumen shines as he weaves together these cases and expands on their implications for developing a rhetorical understanding of emotion. For example, in chapter three ("Virtues of Passivity in the English Civil War"), Gross offers a critical assessment of Michael Walzer's classic The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics in order to show how the emotional makeup of passivity, too often "relegated to a diminished femininity" (87), not only informs the virtue of humility, but also helps it serve rhetorically "the most dramatic revolutionary ends" (110). Additional extended case studies emphasize the specific emotions of apathy, pride, pity... (shrink)

Reflection Principles are commonly thought to produce only strong axioms of infinity consistent with V = L. It would be desirable to have some notion of strong reflection to remedy this, and we have proposed Global Reflection Principles based on a somewhat Cantorian view of the universe. Such principles justify the kind of cardinals needed for, inter alia , Woodin’s Ω-Logic.

Richard Sylvan (né Routley) was one of Australasia's most prolific and systematic philosophers. Though known for his innovative work in logic and metaphysics, the astonishing breadth of his philosophical endeavours included almost all reaches of philosophy. Taking the view that very basic assumptions of mainstream philosophy were fundamentally mistaken, he sought radical change across a wide range of theories. However, his view of the centrality of logic and recognition of the possibilities opened up by logical innovation in the fundamental areas (...) of metaphysics resulted in his working primarily in these two, closely connected fields. It is this work in logic and metaphysics that is the main focus of what follows. (shrink)

Dr. Toynbee is the author of A Study of History in ten volumes, on which he spent twenty-five years, and which has received very high praise from competent critics as well as much criticism. Of the present two books the first is based on the Gifford Lectures delivered in the University of Edinburgh in 1952–3, the second on the Hewett Lectures given in the United States in the Fall of 1955. As the two treat almost identical topics, the first more (...) fully than the second, it is intended here to give a summary of the doctrine contained in the two—mostly in the author’s own words—and then to add a few criticisms. (shrink)

The article is a brief response to h putnam's brief response to my article, "empirical realism and other minds" ("philosophical investigations", Volume 2, 13-21, April 79). Putnam, In his response, Says that we might determine that an oddly behaving/talking person in an odd tribe was really in pain by discovering that he in fact has what (a further developed) science has determined he must have in order to be in pain. In my response I work out the imagined example with (...) a view to showing that logical difficulties associated with said working out, Strongly imply that "some" sort of logical relation between pain and behavior is unavoidable. (shrink)

This thought-provoking book initiates a dialogue among scholars in rhetoric and hermeneutics in many areas of the humanities. Twenty leading thinkers explore the ways these two powerful disciplines inform each other and influence a wide variety of intellectual fields. Walter Jost and Michael J. Hyde organize pivotal topics in rhetoric and hermeneutics with originality and coherence, dividing their book into four sections: Locating the Disciplines; Inventions and Applications; Arguments and Narratives; and Civic Discourse and Critical Theory. Contributors to this (...) volume include Hans-Georg Gadamer, Paul Ricoeur, Gerald L. Bruns, Charles Altieri, Richard E. Palmer, Calvin O. Schrag,.Victoria Kahn, Eugene Garver, Michael Leff, Nancy S. Streuver, Wendy Olmsted, David Tracy, Donald G. Marshall, Allen Scult, Rita Copeland, William Rehg, and Steven Mailloux. For readers across the humanities, the book demonstrates the usefulness of rhetorical and hermeneutic approaches in literary, philosophical, legal, religious, and political thinking. With its stimulating new perspectives on the revival and interrelation of both rhetoric and hermeneutics, this collection is sure to serve as a benchmark for years to come. (shrink)

Inleidend overzicht van de wijsgerige ethiek.

Scientific realists have suggested that changes in our scientific communities over the course of their history have rendered those communities progressively less vulnerable to the problem of unconcieved alternatives over time. I argue in response not only that the most fundamental historical transformations of the scientific enterprise have generated steadily mounting obstacles to revolutionary, transformative, or unorthodox scientific theorizing, but also that we have substantial independent evidence that the institutional apparatus of contemporary scientific inquiry fosters an exceedingly and increasingly theoretically (...) conservative form of that inquiry. I conclude that contemporary scientific communities are actually more vulnerable to the problem of unconceived alternatives than their historical predecessors, and I briefly suggest how we might seek to pursue scientific inquiry in a less theoretically conservative way. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature on age and the digital divide by examining the uses of and attitudes toward information and communication technologies by 26 politically senior citizens.Design/methodology/approachThe approach taken involved in‐depth face‐to‐face interviews.FindingsThe majority of the respondents are informed and balanced cyber‐enthusiasts who have embraced the opportunities afforded by ICTs to enhance their lives in general, including their political activities.Originality/valueThese findings destabilize the dominant image of older people and their attitudes to and experiences (...) of ICTs that appears in most of the literature on age and the digital divide. Those aged 65 and over represent the last cohort, in Western societies at least, for whom age as such is likely to be a decisive factor in their relationship to ICTs. It is therefore vital to get some insight into their views. (shrink)

(2013). Standards for Academic and Professional Instruction in Foundations of Education, Educational Studies, and Educational Policy Studies Third Edition, 2012, Draft Presented to the Educational Community by the American Educational Studies Association's Committee on Academic Standards and Accreditation. Educational Studies: Vol. 49, Critical, Interpretive, and Normative Perspectives of Educational Foundations: Contributions for the 21st Century, pp. 107-118.

The first book is the last volume of a scholarly standard work of reference, whose first volume appeared in 1921. The author died in 1952, and his widow saw the present volume through the press. The whole work is a monument of personal lifelong devotion, to which a widow is less blind than outsiders. It is built on assiduous reading, much travel in India to collect material from books and manuscripts, and a life of lecturing. Besides the difficulties of hard (...) work and travel, there was much ill-health to discourage him. “But he looked upon his work on Indian Philosophy as the sacred mission of his life.…Till the last day of his life he was working for this, and completed one full section just a few hours before his passing away, on 18 December, 1952.”. (shrink)

Hobbes' philosophy is one of the high points of a century of great philosophical achievement and Leviathan is recognized as one of the great classics of political theory. But the response from Hobbes's contemporaries to his secular analysis of society demonstrated the challenging nature of his ideas. This collection of many of the major contemporary responses to his thought by leading figures, mostly never republished, provides an outstanding source for assessing his immediate impact and the long-term importance of his work.