What is the cognitive significance of talking to ourselves? I criticize two interpretations of this function , and offer a third: I argue that inner speech is a genuine dialogue, not a monologue; that the partners in this dialogue represent the independent interests of experienced meaning and logical articulation; that the former is either silent or capable only of abbreviated speech; that articulation is a logical, not a social demand; and that neither partner is a full-time subordinate of the other. (...) I examine the views of Plato, Arendt, Gadamer, Ryle, Piaget and Vygotsky on the nature of inner speech, and the views of Gazzaniga and Dennett on the role of inner speech in the constitution of human consciousness. (shrink)

What is the cognitive significance of talking to ourselves? I criticize two interpretations of this function , and offer a third: I argue that inner speech is a genuine dialogue, not a monologue; that the partners in this dialogue represent the independent interests of experienced meaning and logical articulation; that the former is either silent or capable only of abbreviated speech; that articulation is a logical, not a social demand; and that neither partner is a full-time subordinate of the other. (...) I examine the views of Plato, Arendt, Gadamer, Ryle, Piaget and Vygotsky on the nature of inner speech, and the views of Gazzaniga and Dennett on the role of inner speech in the constitution of human consciousness. (shrink)

Metaphysics, for Collingwood, is an historical science. Accordingly, nature and the science of nature did not occupy a prominent position within his general scheme. To appreciate this fact and to consider how this deficiency might be overcome requires that we first attend to the disconnected nature of the doctrines that loosely comprise that scheme. More specifically, we must examine the problematical relationship between Collingwood’s familiar theory of presuppositions and his less frequently discussed doctrine of the scale of forms presented in (...) An Essay on Philosophical Method. This latter task will serve as a focus both for an analysis of the general difficulties that beset Collingwood’s particular formulation of a dialectical method, as well as for an exploration of a possible resolution of these difficulties —a resolution along lines which, admittedly, Collingwood himself did not explicitly follow. A few general comments on the tension between dialectical and idealist elements in his metaphysics will conclude the discussion. (shrink)

Philosophers of science have used various formulations of the "random mutation--natural selection" scheme to explain the development of scientific knowledge. But the uncritical acceptance of this evolutionary model has led to substantive problems concerning the relation between fact and theory. The primary difficulty lies in the fact that those who adopt this model (Popper and Kuhn, for example) are led to claim that theories arise chiefly through the processes of relatively random change. Systems theory constitutes a general criticism of this (...) model insofar as it demonstrates the necessity of supplementing this mechanism with the non-random influences exercised by the internal organization of a system on its own development. (shrink)

An inference to a new explanation may be both logically non-ampliative and epistemically ampliative. Included among the premises of the latter form is the explanadum--a unique premise which is capable of embodying what we do not know about the matter in question, as well as legitimate aspects of what we do know. This double status points to a resolution of the Meno paradox. Ampliative inference of this sort, it is argued, has much in common with Nickles' idea of discoverability and, (...) together with the mapping and correction procedures (briefly summarized) required for such inference, may suggest a broadening of the concept of justification which would incorporate much of what has been defended in theories of discovery. (shrink)

This paper examines, from the point of view of a philosopher of science, what it is that introductory science textbooks say and do not say about 'scientific method'. Seventy introductory texts in a variety of natural and social sciences provided the material for this study. The inadequacy of these textbook accounts is apparent in three general areas: (a) the simple empiricist view of science that tends to predominate; (b) the demarcation between scientific and non-scientific inquiry and (c) the avoidance of (...) controversy-in part the consequence of the tendency toward textbook standardization. Most importantly, this study provides some evidence of the gulf that separates philosophy of science from science instruction, and examines some important aspects of the demarcation between science and non-science-an important issue for philosophers, scientists, and science educators. (shrink)

Proposes a new way of understanding the nature of metaphysics, focusing on nonreductionist emergence theory, both in ancient and modern philosophy, as well as in contemporary philosophy of science.

In recent years, there have been some attempts to defend the legitimacy of a non-inductive generative logic of discovery whose strategy is to analyze a variety of constraints on the actual generation of explanatory hypotheses. These proposed new theories, however, are only weakly generative (relying on sophisticated processes of elimination) rather than strongly generative (embodying processes of correction).This paper develops a strongly generative theory which holds that we can come to know something new only as a variant of what we (...) already know — and that the novelty of this variant is not thereby eliminated nor beyond our powers of characterization, a double requirement that is vital for resolving the Meno paradox. In this light, the discovery of a new hypothesis is taken as the correction of an antecedent hypothesis in response to the discrepancies between the predictions generated by that antecedent hypothesis and the desired result (e.g. the actual data to be explained). This process comprises two parallel operations: the first, which demonstrates the positive role of the facts in generating new explanations, involves a mapping between multiple hypotheses and sets of predictions generated from those hypotheses, for the purpose of taking the actual data as a determinable variant of neighboring sets of predictions. This mapping permits the facts to indicate how corrective adjustments in the working hypothesis should be made; the second operation, which demonstrates the positive role of explanations in generating new facts, involves a mapping between differently construed versions of the actual data and the conceptualizations derived from those perceptual versions, for the purpose of taking the working hypothesis as a determinable variant of these neighboring conceptualizations. This mapping permits a given hypothesis to generate predictions increasingly closer to the actual facts. (shrink)

In this paper, I analyze the particular conception of reciprocal justification proposed by Nelson Goodman and incorporated by John Rawls into what he called reflective equilibrium. I propose a way of avoiding the twin dangers which threaten to push this idea to either of two extremes: the reliance on epistemically privileged observation reports (or moral judgments in Rawls version), which tends to disrupt the balance struck between the two sides of the equilibrium and to re-establish a foundationalism; and the denial (...) of any privileged status to such reports (or judgments), which makes the equilibrium into a theoretical monolith. (shrink)

If a metaphysics identifies transcendental principles with formal principles, the inevitable result will be a reductionist collapse, that is, a theory of the nature of reality that will exclude as inessential significant differences among existing things. To avoid this result, we must take some such material differences (those, for example, that distinguish physical, biological and mental phenomena from one another) as transcendental in nature. This produces a metaphysics in which the concept of ontological emergence is central—a metaphysics that will depend (...) essentially on the material content of the natural sciences. While both Aristotle and Hegel provided such a metaphysics, they did not, I argue, accept one of its most important consequences—that it must be as incomplete as our scientific knowledge of these material differences. I examine this failure and suggest some areas in which contemporary scientific conceptions may contribute to a more contemporary metaphysics. (shrink)

It is a common experience of mental life that we come to articulate meanings which we had initially grasped in only a sketchy way. In this paper, I consider how this idea of an initially unarticulated meaning may fit in a general theory of mental representation. I propose to identify unarticulated meanings with what I callspecific concepts, which are quite similar to Rosch's categories of basic objects and are distinct both from images and generic concepts (which come to articulate meanings). (...) I argue that unarticulated meaning is non-representational in an important respect, a claim which relies on a distinction amonglevels of representation. (shrink)

Abstract In Peirce's and Hanson's characterization of abductive inference, the abducted hypothesis (but not others) is present in the premises, so that the inference can hardly be taken as ampliative. Abduction has consequently been treated as part of the process whereby already generated hypotheses are judged in terms of their plausibility, simplicity, etc. I propose an interpretation of abduction which supports an ampliative view. It relies on a distinction between two logical stages in the generation of hypotheses, one ?factual? and (...) one ?explanatory?. I also indicate how we may reconstruct Peirce's and Hanson's original inference in an ampliative form. (shrink)

I develop a variant of the constraint interpretation of the emergence of purely physical (non-biological) entities, focusing on the principle of the non-derivability of actual physical states from possible physical states (physical laws) alone. While this is a necessary condition for any account of emergence, it is not sufficient, for it becomes trivial if not extended to types of constraint that specifically constitute physical entities, namely, those that individuate and differentiate them. Because physical organizations with these features are in fact (...) interdependent sets of such constraints, and because such constraints on physical laws cannot themselves be derived from physical laws, physical organization is emergent. These two complementary types of constraint are components of a complete non-reductive physicalism, comprising a non-reductive materialism and a non-reductive formalism. (shrink)

This book provides a framework that encompasses both physics and cognitive science – integrating them into a ‘theory of everything’ to establish a basis for both our scientific and humanistic endeavours. It explores the implications of brain laterality for understanding the emergence of mind and its relation to the physical world – arguing that the analytic vs. holistic cognitive differences of the left and right human cerebral hemispheres are key to understanding not only human self-consciousness and language, but also sociocultural (...) phenomena ranging from the emergence of the scientific method and axes of political orientation to the direction of development of conceptions of God and the fundamental differences between polarizing philosophical traditions. In a further step, the book draws on the Darwinian principle that our cognitive apparatus is shaped by the environment in which it evolved to argue that human bilaterality mirrors the fundamental hylomorphic relation between formal organization and material components that constitutes physical nature itself. The logical division between holistic and analytic categories thereby offers a principled basis for a metaphilosophy. (shrink)

“Logics of discovery” and “dialectical logics:” two theories of inference occupying quite distant corners of the philosophical world. The former have been advanced by a substantial minority tradition within Anglo-American philosophy of science, while the latter are associated almost exclusively with the Hegelian-Marxist tradition. Given these disparate home bases, it is little wonder that these theories hardly share a common language. I shall argue, however, that despite such significant differences in ancestry, they may actually be intended as answers to the (...) same general epistemological problem. (shrink)

Abstract Evolutionary epistemologists from Popper to Campbell have appropriated the Darwinian principle to explain the apparent fit between the world and our knowledge of it. I argue that this strategy suffers from the lack of any principled distinction among various types of elimination. I offer such a distinction and show that there is a species of elimination that is really corrective, that is, which violates the Darwinian principle as Popper understands it.

In this paper I propose a cognitive interpretation of the emergence of monotheism. I first distinguish between two fundamentally different conceptions of representation: one intuitive, which favors an analog model of rational cognition, and one discursive, which favors a digital model. While both Hellenism and Judaism may have been instrumental in setting civilization on the path to reason and law, it is the discursive or digital conception of God as a single universal Judge, I argue, that provides the foundational axiom (...) of the moral logic of the Hebrew Scriptures. That is, in monotheism, God came to be represented differently. (shrink)

First published over thirty years ago, "Classic Philosophical Questions" has presented decades of students with the most compelling classic and contemporary readings on the most enduring and abiding questions in philosophy. The anthology, topically arranged, uses debate and argument as vehicles to teach students the fundamentals of philosophy while also demonstrating that philosophy is a discourse spanning centuries. "James A. Gould" and "Robert J. Mulvaney" continue to provide students with interesting, intriguing essays from major philosophers in a distinctive presentation, (...) often involving a pro/con format, to ensure that both the apparent and subtle points of argument are both meaningful and clear. Features of this new edition: Sections on epistemology and metaphysics introduced earlier in this edition New readings from Martha Nussbaum and Martin Luther King, Jr. Concise, student-friendly introductions to each philosopher and reading Helpful study and reflection questions focus students' reading and improve comprehension. (shrink)

The practice of paying research subjects for participating inclinical trials has yet to receive an adequate moral analysis.Dickert and Grady argue for a wage payment model in whichresearch subjects are paid an hourly wage based on that ofunskilled laborers. If we accept this approach, what follows?Norms for just working conditions emerge from workplacelegislation and political theory. All workers, includingpaid research subjects under Dickert and Grady''s analysis,have a right to at least minimum wage, a standard work week,extra pay for overtime hours, (...) a safe workplace, no faultcompensation for work-related injury, and union organization.If we accept that paid research subjects are wage earners likeany other, then the implications for changes to current practiceare substantial. (shrink)

For years, _Multicultural Education_ has served as an essential resource for education professionals, featuring scholarly articles written by industry leaders and topics, following current trends in education instruction today. The text helps educators understand the concepts, paradigms, and explanations necessary for becoming effective practitioners in the ever-evolving classroom environment, highlighting cultural, raocial and language-focused topics. Each chapter now incorporates new theoretical, conceptual, and research developments within the field, providing an adaptable approach to classroom techniques. With growing classroom diversity, the text (...) also features a chapter that focuses on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues. Statistical tables, figures and charts have been updated to present the most current information. (shrink)

In this work, McGilvray explains Noam Chomsky's rationalist view of human nature.

A detailed account of certain traits of intellectual character—the epistemic virtues—and of their relation to the responsibility for one's beliefs.

Abstract:This paper is an analysis of Plato's use of the embassy to Achilles in Homer's Iliad book 9 as a literary template for Crito's mission to persuade Socrates to escape from prison in Athens. Plato's purpose is to elevate the nature of a hero by contrasting the impulsive, impetuous, mercurial temper of Achilles with the steady, thoughtful, deliberative, calmly rational argument of Socrates. Plato shows, in a volley fired at the poet, how the philosopher is more meaningfully heroic than the (...) warrior, for where the warrior aims selfishly at securing his own honor, the philosopher aims at political virtue. (shrink)

Despite Plato's various warnings not to do so, his dialogues have been studied as systematic philosophy since antiquity. In this innovative and controversial reassessment, James Arieti argues that they should be read primarily as works of drama rather than philosophical discourse. Analyses of 18 of the 28 dialogues allow the reader to see them as integrated dramas, with all the ambiguities and uncertainties that literary works contain. As in plays generally, the arguments of particular characters cannot be seen as (...) the opinions of the author, whose views emerge only from examining each work as a whole. This literary reading shows how much of the debate about Plato's meaning has been misplaced. Instead of demonstrating that an argument is fallacious or valid, we need to ask why Plato has the particular character make the argument. Interpreting Plato achieves what no other work on Plato has attempted: to see the philosophical arguments as serving a dramatic purpose. (shrink)

What big questions and large‐scale narratives give coherence to the history of science? From the late 1970s onward, the field has been transformed through a stress on practice and fresh perspectives from gender studies, the sociology of knowledge, and work on a greatly expanded range of practitioners and cultures. Yet these developments, although long overdue and clearly beneficial, have been accompanied by fragmentation and loss of direction. This essay suggests that the narrative frameworks used by historians of science need to (...) come to terms with diversity by understanding science as a form of communication. The centrality of processes of movement, translation, and transmission is already emerging in studies of topics ranging from ethnographic encounters to the history of reading. Not only does this approach offer opportunities for crossing boundaries of nation, period, and discipline that are all too easily taken for granted; it also has the potential for creating a more effective dialogue with other historians and the wider public. (shrink)

What big questions and large‐scale narratives give coherence to the history of science? From the late 1970s onward, the field has been transformed through a stress on practice and fresh perspectives from gender studies, the sociology of knowledge, and work on a greatly expanded range of practitioners and cultures. Yet these developments, although long overdue and clearly beneficial, have been accompanied by fragmentation and loss of direction. This essay suggests that the narrative frameworks used by historians of science need to (...) come to terms with diversity by understanding science as a form of communication. The centrality of processes of movement, translation, and transmission is already emerging in studies of topics ranging from ethnographic encounters to the history of reading. Not only does this approach offer opportunities for crossing boundaries of nation, period, and discipline that are all too easily taken for granted; it also has the potential for creating a more effective dialogue with other historians and the wider public. (shrink)

Since its introduction in 1987, Benjamin Freedman’s principle of clinical equipoise has enjoyed widespread uptake in bioethics discourse. Recent years, however, have witnessed a growing consensus that the principle is fundamentally flawed. One of the most vocal critics has undoubtedly been Franklin Miller. In a 2008 paper, Steven Joffe and Miller build on this critical work, offering a new conception of clinical research ethics based on science, taking what they call a “scientific orientation” toward the ethics of clinical research. Though (...) there is much to recommend Joffe and Miller’s scientifically oriented conception of clinical research ethics, I believe that both the critical and constructive projects suffer from the same basic mistake: inattention to context. The internal norms of science cannot be fully specified, let alone satisfied, independently of contextual (external) factors that only come into view when we are attentive to the particular context of that form of inquiry. (shrink)

(1) Substituting (as Solms does) forebrain for brainstem in the search for a dream “controller” is counterproductive, since a distributed system need have no single controller. (2) Evidence against episodic memory consolidation does not show that REM sleep has no role in other types of memory, contra Vertes & Eastman. (3) A generalization of Revonsuo's “threat simulation” model in reverse is more plausible and is empirically testable. [Hobson et al.; Solms; Revonsuo; Vertes & Eastman].

As an essential companion to Plato's Apology and Crito, Socrates Against Athens provides valuable historical and cultural context to our understanding of the trial.

Competing perspectives on the nature of emotion are illustrated with latent and emergent variable models. Latent variable models draw from classical test theory, assuming that the measured indicators of emotion covary by virtue of some common executive, organizing neural circuit or network in the brain. By contrast, emergent variable models draw from a theory-driven, operational definition tradition, positing that emotions do not cause, but rather are caused by, the measured indicators of emotion, assuming no executive neural circuit or network, and (...) requiring no covariation among indicators. I suggest that the emergent variable model may be more compatible with the extant literature on the nature of emotion, especially in the age of affective neuroscience. (shrink)

This book explores how the Hebraic and classical traditions forming our Western heritage combined from about 300 BCE to 300 CE. James Arieti investigates the principal causes of the merger in the common model of God that developed in the Greek philosophical schools, along with its ethical implications, and the shared portrayal in biblical, rabbinic, and postclassical literature of the compassionate warm character that we recognize as a mentsh.

Thomas S. Kuhn Thomas Samuel Kuhn, although trained as a physicist at Harvard University, became an historian and philosopher of science through the support of Harvard’s president, James Conant. In 1962, Kuhn’s renowned The Structure of Scientific Revolutions helped to inaugurate a revolution—the 1960s historiographic revolution—by providing a new image of science. For … Continue reading Kuhn, Thomas S. →.

Despite their crucial role in the translation of pre-clinical research into new clinical applications, phase 1 trials involving patients continue to prompt ethical debate. At the heart of the controversy is the question of whether risks of administering experimental drugs are therapeutically justified. We suggest that prior attempts to address this question have been muddled, in part because it cannot be answered adequately without first attending to the way labor is divided in managing risk in clinical trials. In what follows, (...) we approach the question of therapeutic justification for phase 1 trials from the viewpoint of five different stakeholders: the drug regulatory authority, the IRB, the clinical investigator, the referring physician, and the patient. Our analysis shows that the question of therapeutic justification actually raises multiple questions corresponding to the roles and responsibilities of the different stakeholders involved. By attending to these contextual differences, we provide more coherent guidance for the ethical negotiation of risk in phase 1 trials involving patients. We close by discussing the implications of our argument for various perennial controversies in phase 1 trial practice. (shrink)

As scholars have observed and analyzed Herodotus's sophistication, the father of history has been recognized as a complex and profound moral historian. How would Herodotus's contemporaries have responded to his recounting of the past? And what enduring lessons does Herodotus have for us? James A. Arieti attempts to discover, as far as possible, Herodotus's purpose in writing, and reveals how in the History of the Persian Wars Herodotus shapes his narrative in order to advise the troubled Greek world of (...) his day. Arieti's reading is an interpretive study, exploring the philosophical, literary, and historical richness of the history--in short, examining why it is a classic. Discourses on the First Book of Herodotus is an important work for historians, classicists, and philosophers. (shrink)

Papers presented at a conference held at the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, in Apr. 2006.

In 427 B.c. the Athenian assembly passed a decree bearing on the recently suppressed revolt on the island of Lesbos. All citizens in Mytilene, the city which had led the revolt, were to be executed and their women and children sold into slavery. A trireme was swiftly dispatched to Paches with instructions to execute the decree. But the Athenians had arrived at their decision in a fit of anger; and when presently their ργ subsided, they experienced grave misgivings over an (...) action which now seemed in their own estimation cruel and excessive. They earnestly sought to reconsider the matter, and so within the space of a day they convened once more to debate Mytilene. (shrink)

This is an English translation of Plato’s dialogue of Socrates seeking the true definition of rhetoric, with an attempt to show the flaws of the sophistic orators. Includes speeches from Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian Wars that reflect Plato’s themes. Focus Philosophical Library translations are close to and are non-interpretative of the original text, with the notes and a glossary intending to provide the reader with some sense of the terms and the concepts as they were understood by Plato’s immediate (...) audience. (shrink)

Philosophy in the Ancient World: An Introduction—an intellectual history of the ancient world from the eighth century B.C.E. to the fifth century C.E., from Homer to Boethius—describes and evaluates ancient thought in its cultural setting, showing how it affected and was affected by that setting. The greatest philosophers and cultural figures and a number of lesser ones receive careful description and evaluation. Philosophy in the Ancient World is ideally suited as a supplement for undergraduate courses in Ancient Philosophy and the (...) History of Philosophy in the West. (shrink)

Arieti and Barrus' new edition of Plato's Protagoras provides a rigorously clear and accurate translation that communicates Plato's puns, metaphors, figures of speech, and other verbal techniques naturally, allowing scholars to feel the full scope of Plato's rhetoric. This new edition confronts and discusses the critical linguistic choices made in rendering difficult or obscure terms into an easily readable and understandable rendition. The commentary, introduction, glossary, and appendices elucidate the dialogue's many issues, especially those concerning rhetoric, education, and literary interpretation.