This enterprising book, written in the spirit of William James, urges our appreciation of the intensely personal character of spiritual transcendence. Phil Oliver's work has important implications for specialists concerned with the Jamesian concept of "pure experience," and it illuminates significant interdisciplinary ties among philosophy, literature, and other intellectual domains.

Discussion of the Aristotelian syllogistic over the last sixty years has arguably centered on the question whether syllogisms are inferences or implications. But the significance of this debate at times has been taken to concern whether the syllogistic is a logic or a theory, and how it ought to be represented by modern systems. Largely missing from this discussion has been a study of the few passages in the Prior Analytics where Aristotle provides explicit guidance on how to individuate syllogisms. (...) I argue that syllogisms are individuated by unordered premise pairs and so may be fruitfully thought of as multi-succedent sequents. I conclude by drawing a few consequences for the representation of the syllogistic. (shrink)

Many research fields concerned with the processing of information contained in human faces would benefit from face stimulus sets in which specific facial characteristics are systematically varied while other important picture characteristics are kept constant. Specifically, a face database in which displayed expressions, gaze direction, and head orientation are parametrically varied in a complete factorial design would be highly useful in many research domains. Furthermore, these stimuli should be standardised in several important, technical aspects. The present article presents the freely (...) available Radboud Faces Database offering such a stimulus set, containing both Caucasian adult and children images. This face database is described both procedurally and in terms of content, and a validation study concerning its most important characteristics is presented. In the validation study, all frontal images were rated with respect to the shown facial expression, intensity of expression, clarity of expression, genuineness of expression, attractiveness, and valence. The results show very high recognition of the intended facial expressions. (shrink)

Causal pluralists hold that that there is not just one determinate kind of causation. Some causal pluralists hold that ‘cause’ is ambiguous among these different kinds. For example, Hall (2004) argues that ‘cause’ is ambiguous between two causal relations, which he labels dependence and production. The view that ‘cause’ is ambiguous, however, wrongly predicts zeugmatic conjunction reduction, and wrongly predicts the behaviour of ellipsis in causal discourse. So ‘cause’ is not ambiguous. If we are to disentangle causal pluralism from the (...) ambiguity claim, we need to consider what other linguistic approaches are available to the causal pluralist. I consider and reject proposals that ‘cause’ is a general term, that the term is an indexical, and that the term conveys different kinds of causation through implicature or presupposition. Finally, I argue that causal pluralism is better handled by treating ‘cause’ as a univocal term within a dynamic interpretation framework. (shrink)

This chapter argues that dual-use emerging technologies are distributing unprecedented offensive capabilities to nonstate actors. To counteract this trend, some scholars have proposed that states become a little “less liberal” by implementing large-scale surveillance policies to monitor the actions of citizens. This is problematic, though, because the distribution of offensive capabilities is also undermining states’ capacity to enforce the rule of law. I will suggest that the only plausible escape from this conundrum, at least from our present vantage point, is (...) the creation of a “supersingleton” run by a friendly superintelligence, founded upon a “post-singularity social contract.” In making this argument, the present chapter offers a novel reason for prioritizing the “control problem,” i.e., the problem of ensuring that a greaterthan-human-level AI will positively enhance human well-being. (shrink)

When Aristotle introduces the perfect moods, he refers back to the dictum de omni et nullo, a semantic condition for universal affirmations and negations. There recently has been renewed interest in the question whether the dictum validates the assertoric syllogistic. I rehearse evidence that Aristotle provides a mereological semantics for universal affirmations and negations, and note that this semantics entails a nonstandard reading of the dictum, under which the dictum, in the presence of a minimal logical apparatus, indeed validates the (...) assertoric syllogistic. I argue that this mereological validation offers advantages over recent discussions in Morison, Malink, Ebert and Vlasits. (shrink)

“Father” Zachary Hale Comstock is a self‐professed prophet, religious zealot, and racist, who has kept his “heir” under lock and key in the floating city of Columbia. Booker DeWitt is a washed‐up, disgraced ex‐Pinkerton agent haunted by his participation in the Wounded Knee Massacre. He enters Columbia to rescue Elizabeth in exchange for having his gambling debts settled. After much bloodshed, Booker saves Elizabeth and kills Comstock. In the past, Booker attended a baptism to assuage his guilt over Wounded Knee. (...) In some worlds he rejected the baptism, got married, had a daughter, Anna, and ended up as an indebted alcoholic ex‐Pinkerton agent. In the Comstock world, Anna is renamed Elizabeth in order to conceal her true origins. BioShock Infinite paints a metaphysical picture that treats the many‐worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics as reality. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy called ' proof by verbosity (PVB)'. PVB is a favorite device among conspiracy theorists who utilize it to obfuscate the weakness of their case. By supporting their theories with so much random information (and misinformation), it gives the impression that their position is superficially well researched and supported by an avalanche of evidence. Sometimes PVB takes the form of a proof by intimidation, especially when an argument is made (...) using sophisticated insider jargon, or when a complex and long‐winded argument is made by an eminent scholar in the field. In the spirit of overwhelming the opposition, a PVB can be committed by employing a litany of numbers and statistics. Articulating your arguments in a clear and concise fashion and substantiating the position with well‐founded and mutually intelligible premises is the key to avoiding a proof by verbosity. (shrink)

In this article we argue that nanotechnology represents an extraordinary opportunity to build in a robust role for the social sciences in a technology that remains at an early, and hence undetermined, stage of development. We examine policy dynamics in both the United States and United Kingdom aimed at both opening up, and closing down, the role of the social sciences in nanotechnologies. We then set out a prospective agenda for the social sciences and its potential in the future shaping (...) of nanotechnology research and innovation processes. The emergent, undetermined nature of nanotechnologies calls for an open, experimental, and interdisciplinary model of social science research. (shrink)

Diffeomorphism invariance is sometimes taken to be a criterion of background independence. This claim is commonly accompanied by a second, that the genuine physical magnitudes (the ``observables'') of background-independent theories and those of background-dependent (non-diffeomorphism-invariant) theories are essentially different in nature. I argue against both claims. Background-dependent theories can be formulated in a diffeomorphism-invariant manner. This suggests that the nature of the physical magnitudes of relevantly analogous theories (one background free, the other background dependent) is essentially the same. The temptation (...) to think otherwise stems from a misunderstanding of the meaning of spacetime coordinates in background-dependent theories. (shrink)

This book analyzes how the cost of 'small' wars drives the state to choose remote war and preemption in order to hide the conflict from its domestic populations. This is explained through understanding security mechanisms and how Clausewitzian war machine powers extend Liberalism into the periphery.

Why morality cannot be based on faith in God -- Isms -- Absence of evidence is evidence of absence -- The insidiousness of interpretation -- You will obey -- Sally, Butch, and Plato's dilemma -- The fundamentals of secular morality -- What it means to be moral -- Where do you get your morals? -- The secular seven -- Challenges to secular morality -- Accounting for immorality -- Genocidal century -- Secular solutions -- Moral relativism.

This book, published in 2000, is a clear account of causation based firmly in contemporary science. Dowe discusses in a systematic way, a positive account of causation: the conserved quantities account of causal processes which he has been developing over the last ten years. The book describes causal processes and interactions in terms of conserved quantities: a causal process is the worldline of an object which possesses a conserved quantity, and a causal interaction involves the exchange of conserved quantities. Further, (...) things that are properly called cause and effect are appropriately connected by a set of causal processes and interactions. The distinction between cause and effect is explained in terms of a version of the fork theory: the direction of a certain kind of ordered pattern of events in the world. This particular version has the virtue that it allows for the possibility of backwards causation, and therefore time travel. (shrink)

In “The Book of the Crown (_Kitāb al-Iklīl_) of pseudo-Rhazes” Oliver Kahl and Henrietta Sharp Cockrell offer a facsimile edition, with annotated English translation and introductory study, of a unique and highly unusual medieval Arabic medical text.

Teacher-administrator Philip Dow explores the implications of setting intellectual character (rather than intellectual content) at the heart of our educational programs. With ample stories and practical suggestions, Dow shows how intellectual virtues like tenacity, carefulness and curiosity are teachable traits that can produce good lives.

This essay focuses attention on Polanyi’s 1946 book Science, Faith and Society as an early constructive philosophical effort to rehabilitate belief and show that it is integral to science. Particularly important is the opening chapter “Science and Reality,” which is Polanyi’s inaugural gambit directly to address the question about the nature of science in metaphysical terms. Polanyi’s metaphysical account of science affirms that fundamental beliefs of scientists, although largely not articulable, guide their effort to discern Gestalten to which they are (...) committed as elements of reality. However, real entities remain partially hidden and later inquiry may reveal indeterminate future manifestations. My discussion in this essay reviews thematically akin publications preceding Science, Faith and Society and some of Polanyi’s later writing that re-works ideas in his early book. I also suggest that Polanyi’s ideas in Science, Faith and Society were likely influenced by his work with Dorothy Emmet. (shrink)

A bracing and ambitious work of practical philosophy, tightly argued and beautifully written.

The article seeks to stress the importance of two main innovations in Ernesto Laclau's recent work: what his theory of populism in On Populist Reason provides in terms of theoretical innovations is , a political theory of naming, and , a political theory of the heterogeneous. Furthermore, it is asked what it means to name, as Laclau himself does, the subject of the political "the people" and to define populism as the logic of all politics. It is argued against potential (...) criticism that these rather strong claims, far from being overstretched, in fact must be understood in the light of Laclau's new ideas on political naming and the heterogeneous, since his notions of populism and "the people" are the outcome of political nomination, that is, a political wager on Laclau's part , and the name of "the people," like every political name, will always cast a shadow on the heterogeneous as that which cannot be named. (shrink)

This article proposes a theological emphasis to the definition of προσλαμβάνω in Romans 14–15. Previous accounts have emphasised the domestic and social implication of Paul's imperative—‘welcome one another’ (Rom. 15:7a). The result has been that what Paul might have meant by God's and Christ's ‘welcome’ (Rom. 14:3 and 15:7b) has been governed by the ethical imperative. In order to investigate the ‘welcome’ of God and Christ, this article proposes a context of three important Septuagintal antecedents as yet unconsidered: 1 Samuel (...) 12, Psalm 18, and Psalm 65: In this context, God's and Christ's ‘welcome’ in Rom. 14–15 incorporates notions of justification, election, salvation, and unified worship. A theological reading of προσλαμβάνω, using these intertextual resources, therefore provides a stronger position from which to understand Paul's imperative—‘welcome one another’. (shrink)

Aristotle holds that individual substances are ontologically independent from nonsubstances and universal substances but that non-substances and universal substances are ontologically dependent on substances. There is then an asymmetry between individual substances and other kinds of beings with respect to ontological dependence. Under what could plausibly be called the standard interpretation, the ontological independence ascribed to individual substances and denied of non-substances and universal substances is a capacity for independent existence. There is, however, a tension between this interpretation and the (...) asymmetry between individual substances and the other kinds of entities with respect to ontological independence. I will propose an alternative interpretation: to weaken the relevant notion of ontological independence from a capacity for independent existence to the independent possession of a certain ontological status. (shrink)

English has plural terms as well as singular terms. But our standard formal languages, e.g., the predicate calculus, feature only singular terms. How can the plural idiom be formalized?‘Changing the subject’ is by far the most common plurals strategy among both philosophers and linguists: a plural term is replaced by a singular term standing for some complex object that ‘contains’ the individuals to which the plural term alludes. For example, one might simply replace ‘A, B imply C’ with ‘{A, B} (...) implies [singular] C’. We uncover a surprising variety of ways to change the subject, of ever‐increasing complexity and ingenuity. Our question is whether any can made to work. (shrink)

_Skepticism and Cognitivism_ addresses the fundamental question of epistemology: Is knowledge possible? It approaches this query with an evaluation of the skeptical tradition in Western philosophy, analyzing thinkers who have claimed that we can know nothing. After an introductory chapter lays out the central issues, chapter 2 focuses on the classical skeptics of the Academic and Pyrrhonistic schools and then on the skepticism of David Hume. Chapters 3 through 5 are devoted to contemporary defenders of skepticism—Keith Lehrer, Arne Næss, and (...) Peter Unger. In chapter 6, author Oliver A. Johnson dons the mantle of skeptic himself and develops and adds theories to the skeptical arsenal. He closes with an examination of the relationship between skepticism and cognitivism, reaching and defending conclusions on the nature and extent of possible human knowledge. (shrink)

Although arguments for and against competing theories of vagueness often appeal to claims about the use of vague predicates by ordinary speakers, such claims are rarely tested. An exception is Bonini et al. (1999), who report empirical results on the use of vague predicates by Italian speakers, and take the results to count in favor of epistemicism. Yet several methodological difficulties mar their experiments; we outline these problems and devise revised experiments that do not show the same results. We then (...) describe three additional empirical studies that investigate further claims in the literature on vagueness: the hypothesis that speakers confuse ‘P’ with ‘definitely P’, the relative persuasiveness of different formulations of the inductive premise of the Sorites, and the interaction of vague predicates with three different forms of negation. (shrink)

Provides an accessible account of the changing world of archaeological theory. It charts the emergence of the new emphasis on relations as well as engaging with current theoretical trends and the thinkers archaeologists regularly employ. This book will be an essential guide to cutting-edge theory for students and for professionals wishing to reacquaint themselves with this field. Oliver J.T. Harris is lecturer in archaeology in the School of Archaeology & Ancient History, University of Leicester. Craig N. Cipolla is lecturer (...) in historical archaeology in the School of Archaeology & Ancient History, University of Leicester"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Inspired by the vision of care in Vincent van Gogh's depiction of the parable of the Good Samaritan, this article offers a paradigm for inhabiting compassion. Compassion is understood in this article as a moral emotion that is also a pathocentric virtue. This definition creates a dynamic view of compassion as a desire to alleviate the suffering of others, the capacity to act on behalf of others and a commitment to sustain engagement with the suffering other. To weave this vision (...) of compassion as a habitus rather than a theoretical construct, the article develops three phases of compassion: seeing, companioning and sighing. This framework deepens and augments a pastoral theological paradigm of compassion with the aim of inculcating an inhabited compassion in caregivers and the communities in which they participate. (shrink)

Despite much discussion over the existence of moral facts, metaethicists have largely ignored the related question of their possibility. This paper addresses the issue from the moral error theorist’s perspective, and shows how the arguments that error theorists have produced against the existence of moral facts at this world, if sound, also show that moral facts are impossible, at least at worlds non-morally identical to our own and, on some versions of the error theory, at any world. So error theorists’ (...) arguments warrant a stronger conclusion than has previously been noticed. This may appear to make them vulnerable to counterarguments that take the possibility of moral facts as a premise. However, I show that any such arguments would be question-begging. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant is often considered to be the source of the contemporary idea of human dignity, but his conception of human dignity and its relation to human value and to the requirement to respect others have not been widely understood. Kant on Human Dignity offers the first in-depth study in English of this subject. Based on a comprehensive analysis of all the passages in which Kant uses the term ;dignity, as well as an analysis of the most prominent arguments for (...) a value of human beings in the Kant literature, the book carefully examines different ways of construing the relationship between dignity, value and respect for others. It takes seriously Kant s Copernican Revolution in moral philosophy: Kant argues that moral imperatives cannot be based on any values without yielding heteronomy. Instead it is imperatives of reason that determine what is valuable. The requirement to respect all human beings is one such imperative. Respect for human beings does not follow from human dignity for this would violate autonomy but is an unconditional command of reason. Following this train of thought yields a unified account of Kant s moral philosophy. (shrink)

The concept of mediation plays a central part in several positions of contemporary philosophy of technology. Especially Don Ihde and Peter-Paul Verbeek have served to establish mediation as one of the core concepts in the postphenomenologically rooted philosophical analysis of human-technology-world relations. While meditation theory provides many important conceptual and empirical contributions to our knowledge of how material artefacts shape our embodied being in the world, too little attention has arguably been given to the development of concepts that enable a (...) philosophical analysis of the symbolic aspect of technological artefacts. This paper aims to develop the notion of ‘symbolic mediation’ by drawing on inspiration from the tradition of philosophical anthropology, more specifically, the work of Ernst Cassirer and his Philosophy of Symbolic Forms (PSF). Drawing on empirical examples of human-robot interactions (HRI), I coin two types of symbolic mediation: 1) mythic mediation and 2) aesthetic mediation. (shrink)

This paper examines and analyzes five definitions of ‘existential risk.’ It tentatively adopts a pluralistic approach according to which the definition that scholars employ should depend upon the particular context of use. More specifically, the notion that existential risks are ‘risks of human extinction or civilizational collapse’ is best when communicating with the public, whereas equating existential risks with a ‘significant loss of expected value’ may be the most effective definition for establishing existential risk studies as a legitimate field of (...) scientific and philosophical inquiry. In making these arguments, the present paper hopes to provide a modicum of clarity to foundational issues relating to the central concept of arguably the most important discussion of our times. (shrink)