While many recognise that rigid historical and compositional goals are inadequate in a world where climate and other global systems are undergoing unprecedented changes, others contend that promoting ecosystem services and functions encourages practices that can ultimately lower the bar of ecological management. These worries are foregrounded in discussions about 'novel ecosystems' (NEs), where some researchers and conservationists claim that NEs provide a license to trash nature as long as certain ecosystem services are provided. This criticism arises from what we (...) call the 'anything goes problem' created by the release of historical conditions. After explaining the notion of NEs, we identify numerous substantive motivations for worrying about the 'anything goes problem' and then go on to show that the problem can be solved by correcting two mistaken assumptions. In short, we argue that the problem is a product of adopting an overly sparse functional perspective that assumes an unrealistically high degree of convergence in the trajectories of natural processes; our analysis illuminates why such assumptions are unwarranted. Further, we argue that adopting an appropriate ethical framework is essential to overcoming the 'anything goes problem', and suggest that a certain virtue-ethics conception of ecological management provides useful resources for framing and resolving the problem. (shrink)

Offering an engaging and accessible portrait of the current state of the field, Philosophy of Science: A New Introduction shows students how to think philosophically about science and why it is both essential and fascinating to do so. Gillian Barker and Philip Kitcher reconsider the core questions in philosophy of science in light of the multitude of changes that have taken place in the decades since the publication of C.G. Hempel's classic work, Philosophy of Natural Science —both in (...) the field and also in history and sociology of science and the sciences themselves. They explore how philosophical questions are connected to vigorous current debates—including climate change, science and religion, race, intellectual property rights, and medical research priorities—showing how these questions, and philosophers' attempts to answer them, matter in the real world. Featuring numerous illustrative examples and extensive further reading lists, Philosophy of Science: A New Introduction is ideal for courses in philosophy of science, history and philosophy of science, and epistemology/theory of knowledge. It is also compelling and illuminating reading for scientists, science students, and anyone interested in the natural sciences and in their place in global society today. (shrink)

While many recognize that rigid historical and compositional goals are inadequate in a world where climate and other global systems are undergoing unprecedented changes, others contend that promoting ecosystem services and functions encourages practices that can ultimately lower the bar of ecological management. These worries are foregrounded in discussions about Novel Ecosystems (NEs); where some researchers and conservationists claim that NEs provide a license to trash nature as long as some ecosystem services are provided. This criticism arises from what we (...) call the " anything goes " problem created by the release of historical conditions. After explaining the notion of NE, we identify numerous substantive motivations for worrying about the anything-goes-problem and then go on to show the problem can be solved by correcting two mistaken assumptions. In short, we argue that the problem is a product of adopting an overly sparse functional perspective and one that assumes an unrealistically high degree of convergence in the trajectories of natural processes. Our analysis illuminates why such assumptions are unwarranted. Finally, we further argue that adopting an appropriate ethical framework is essential to overcoming the anything-goes-problem and suggest that a certain virtue ethics conception of ecological management provides useful resources for framing and resolving the problem. (shrink)

Despite the burgeoning interest in new and more complex accounts of the organism-environment dyad by biologists and philosophers, little attention has been paid in the resulting discussions to the history of these ideas and to their deployment in disciplines outside biology—especially in the social sciences. Even in biology and philosophy, there is a lack of detailed conceptual models of the organism-environment relationship. This volume is designed to fill these lacunae by providing the first multidisciplinary discussion of the topic of organism-environment (...) interaction. It brings together scholars from history, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, medicine, and biology to discuss the common focus of their work: entangled life, or the complex interaction of organisms and environments. (shrink)

Two critiques of simple adaptationism are distinguished: anti-adaptationism and extended adaptationism. Adaptationists and anti-adaptationists share the presumption that an evolutionary explanation should identify the dominant simple cause of the evolutionary outcome to be explained. A consideration of extended-adaptationist models such as coevolution, niche construction and extended phenotypes reveals the inappropriateness of this presumption in explaining the evolution of certain important kinds of features—those that play particular roles in the regulation of organic processes, especially behavior. These biological or behavioral ‘levers’ are (...) distinctively available for adaptation and exaptation by their possessors and for co-optation by other organisms. As a result they are likely to result from a distinctive and complex type of evolutionary process that conforms neither to simple adaptationist nor to anti-adaptationist styles of explanation. Many of the human features whose evolutionary explanation is most controversial belong to this category, including the female orgasm. (shrink)

Phenomenologists recognize the insights to be gained from looking at cognitive development. But our understanding of development, in turn, can be illuminated by ideas from ecology. Developmental studies in psychology and biology share with ecosystem ecology a concern with stability—with how things stay the same despite changes in the surrounding conditions, and how processes of change lead reliably to similar outcomes despite environmental variability. Recently, both ecologists and psychologists have reconsidered their earlier assumptions about the sources of stability, and explored (...) new conceptions of resilience: a system’s ability to “bounce back” from a disturbance, to absorb change without harm, or to overcome obstacles to achieve good adaptive functioning. Developmental biologists, meanwhile, have explored related issues through conceptions of developmental plasticity and canalization. Distinct theoretical frameworks for resilience have emerged in these different fields, yet the phenomena that they treat are closely intertwined. Ecological work on resilience focuses on relationships between resilience, chaotic change, and adaptive function across multiple scales of nested systems, and implications for intervention or management. With some assistance from developmental biology, this body of work offers rich theoretical resources and important lessons for related thinking about cognitive development. (shrink)

Despite its diminished importance amongst philosophers, the deductive-nomological framework is still important to contemporary behavioral scientists. Behavioral theorists operating within this framework must be careful to distinguish between nesting and chaining. Explanations are chained when the explanandum sentence of one explanation is one of the antecedent conditions of another. They are nested when one of the antecedent conditions or the explanandum sentence of one explanation is one of the covering laws of another. Confusion between nesting and chaining leads to explanation (...) nests that cannot be nomologically entrenched. They cannot, even in principle, be logically connected to laws arising from other sciences. This hazard should be particularly important for evolutionary psychologists to avoid, since many evolutionary psychologists tend to see themselves as dedicated to both nomological entrenchment and cognitive functionalist models. The hazard can be avoided if the intentional constructs of the behavioral sciences are construed not as ineffable and inaccessible antecedent conditions, but as complex, law-like patterns in behavior. (shrink)

Functional diversity holds the promise of understanding ecosystems in ways unattainable by taxonomic diversity studies. Underlying this promise is the intuition that investigating the diversity of what organisms actually do—i.e. their functional traits—within ecosystems will generate more reliable insights into the ways these ecosystems behave, compared to considering only species diversity. But this promise also rests on several conceptual and methodological—i.e. epistemic—assumptions that cut across various theories and domains of ecology. These assumptions should be clearly addressed, notably for the sake (...) of an effective comparison and integration across domains, and for assessing whether or not to use functional diversity approaches for developing ecological management strategies. The objective of this contribution is to identify and critically analyze the most salient of these assumptions. To this aim, we provide an “epistemic roadmap” that pinpoints these assumptions along a set of historical, conceptual, empirical, theoretical, and normative dimensions. (shrink)

Philosophy of science is a rapidly evolving and increasingly inclusive academic field. It is one of the most dynamic branches of philosophy. However, for the most part, philosophy of science has been taught historically by recounting and tracing through discussions and debates from the early to late twentieth century. Great texts of positivism, instrumentalism, demarcation, falsification, paradigm shifts, realism, observation and so on are handed out to students and critically assessed. There is something rather puzzling about this way of teaching (...) philosophy of science, since contemporary philosophy of science has moved on significantly and is arguably distinct from the historical subject, just as current science has many features different from the science of Kuhn’s and Popper’s day. Such philosophical work, however, often only seems to make a late appearance in such courses. It often seems that we teach philosophy of science solely as an exercise in point and refutation, leaving stu .. (shrink)

Some writers object to logical pluralism on the grounds that logic is normative. The rough idea is that the relation of logical consequence has consequences for what we ought to think and h...

Judaism and Modernity: Philosophical Essays challenges the philosophical presentation of Judaism as the sublime 'other' of modernity. Here, Gillian Rose develops a philosophical alternative to deconstruction and post-modernism by critically re-engaging the social and political issues at stake in every reconstruction.

Nancy Cartwright's 1983 book How the Laws of Physics Lie argued that theories of physics often make use of idealisations, and that as a result many of these theories were not true. The present paper looks at idealisation in logic and argues that, at least sometimes, the laws of logic fail to be true. That might be taken as a kind of skepticism, but I argue rather that idealisation is a legitimate tool in logic, just as in physics, and recognising (...) this frees logicians up to use false laws where these are helpful. (shrink)

A radical new assessment of Hegel revealing the problems and limitations of sociological method.

A survey of contemporary work on logical pluralism.

Between Feminism and Materialism is a bold attempt to make sense of the relationship between feminist theory and capitalism. Addressing a number of philosophical problems that have engaged feminists over the last few decades - universals and reason, nature and essentialism, identity and non-identity, sex and gender, power and patriarchy, local and global - this innovative book breaks through feminist waves and explains the paradoxes of feminist theory by demonstrating the on-going relevance of dialectics and the concepts of exploitation, ideology, (...) and reification. Drawing on first, second and third 'waves' of feminist theory, this exciting combination of existentialism, phenomenology and critical theory delivers a problem-based, micro-political and coalitional feminism ready to respond to the challenges presented by our thoroughly modern times. (shrink)

Anti-exceptionalists about formal logic think that logic is continuous with the sciences. Many philosophers of science think that there is feminist science. Putting these together: can anti-exceptionalism make space for feminist logic? The answer depends on the details of the ways logic is like science and the ways science can be feminist. This paper wades into these details, examines five different approaches, and ultimately argues that anti-exceptionalism makes space for feminist logic in several different ways.

A critical survey of Quine's arguments against the analytic/synthetic distinction.

Tragedy and Citizenship provides a wide-ranging exploration of attitudes toward tragedy and their implications for politics. Derek W. M. Barker reads the history of political thought as a contest between the tragic view of politics that accepts conflict and uncertainty, and an optimistic perspective that sees conflict as self-dissolving. Drawing on Aristotle's political thought, alongside a novel reading of the Antigone that centers on Haemon, its most neglected character, Barker provides contemporary democratic theory with a theory of tragedy. (...) He sees Hegel's philosophy of reconciliation as a critical turning point that results in the elimination of citizenship. By linking Hegel's failure to address the tragic dimensions of politics to Richard Rorty, John Rawls, and Judith Butler, Barkeroffers a major reassessment of contemporary political theory and a fresh perspective on the most urgent challenges facing democratic politics. Derek W. M. Barker is a program officer at the Kettering Foundation. (shrink)

The view that it is better for life to be created free of disability is pervasive in both common sense and philosophy. We cast doubt on this view by focusing on an influential line of thinking that manifests it. That thinking begins with a widely-discussed principle, Procreative Beneficence, and draws conclusions about parental choice and disability. After reconstructing two versions of this argument, we critique the first by exploring the relationship between different understandings of well-being and disability, and the second (...) by more briefly focusing on the idea of a significant reason. By placing these results against the broader historical and ongoing contexts in which the lives of those with disabilities have been deemed of inferior quality, we conclude with a call for greater humility about disability and well-being in thought and practice. (shrink)

A barrier to entailment exists if you can't get conclusions of a certain kind from premises of another. One of the most famous barriers in philosophy is Hume's Law, which says that you can't get normative conclusions from descriptive premises, or in slogan form: you can't get an ought from an is. This barrier is highly controversial, and many famous counterexamples were proposed in the last century. But there are other barriers which function almost as philosophical platitudes: no Universal conclusions (...) from Particular premises, no Future conclusions from premises about the Past, and no claims that attribute Necessity from premises that merely tell us how things happen to be in the Actual world. Barriers to Entailment proposes a unified logical account of five barriers that have played important roles in philosophy, in the process showing how to diagnose proposed counterexamples and arguing that the case for Hume's Law is as strong as that for the platitudinous barriers. -/- The first two parts of the book employ techniques from formal logic, but present them in an accessible way, suitable for any reader with some background in first-order model theory (of the kind that might be taught in a first class in logic). Gillian Russell introduces tense, modal, indexical, and deontic formal logics, but always avoids unneeded complexity. Each barrier is connected to broader philosophical topics: universality, time, necessity, context-sensitivity, and normativity. Russell brings out under-recognised connections between the domains and lays the groundwork for further work at the intersections. -/- The last part of the book transposes the formal work to informal barrier theses in the philosophy of language, in the process doing new work on the concept of logical consequence, and providing new responses to proposed informal counterexamples to Hume's Law which employ hard-to-formalise tools from natural language, such as speech acts and thick normative expressions. (shrink)

This paper examines beliefs about four aspects of ethical leadership – Character/Integrity, Altruism, Collective Motivation and Encouragement – in Germany and the United States using data from Project GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) and a supplemental analysis. Within the context of a push toward convergence driven by the demands of globalization and the pull toward divergence underpinned by different cultural values and philosophies in the two countries, we focus on two questions: Do middle managers from the United States (...) and Germany differ in their beliefs about ethical leadership? And, do individuals from these two countries attribute different characteristics to ethical leaders? Results provide evidence that while German and US middle managers, on average, differed in the degree of endorsement for each aspect, they each endorsed Character/Integrity, Collective Motivation and Encouragement as important for effective leadership and had a more neutral view of the importance of Altruism . The findings are reviewed within the social-cultural context of each country. (shrink)

This paper examines beliefs about four aspects of ethical leadership –Character/Integrity, Altruism, Collective Motivation and Encouragement– in Germany and the United States using data from Project GLOBE (Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness) and a supplemental analysis. Within the context of a push toward convergence driven by the demands of globalization and the pull toward divergence underpinned by different cultural values and philosophies in the two countries, we focus on two questions: Do middle managers from the United States and Germany (...) differ in their beliefs about ethical leadership? And, do individuals from these two countries attribute different characteristics to ethical leaders? Results provide evidence that while German and US middle managers, on average, differed in the degree of endorsement for each aspect, they each endorsed Character/Integrity, Collective Motivation and Encouragement as important for effective leadership and had a more neutral view of the importance of Altruism. The findings are reviewed within the social-cultural context of each country. (shrink)

As global business operations expand, managers need more knowledge of foreign cultures, in particular, information on the ethics of doing business across borders. The purpose of this paper is twofold: to share the Islamic perspective on business ethics, little known in the west, which may stimulate further thinking and debate on the relationships between ethics and business, and to provide some knowledge of Islamic philosophy in order to help managers do business in Muslim cultures. The case of Egypt illustrates some (...) divergence between Islamic philosophy and practice in economic life. The paper concludes with managerial implications and suggestions for further research. (shrink)

Are the sculpture and the mass of gold which permanently makes it up one object or two? In this article, we argue that the monist, who answers ‘one object’, cannot accommodate the asymmetry of material constitution. To say ‘the mass of gold materially constitutes the sculpture, whereas the sculpture does not materially constitute the mass of gold’, the monist must treat ‘materially constitutes’ as an Abelardian predicate, whose denotation is sensitive to the linguistic context in which it appears. We motivate (...) this approach in terms of modal analyses of material constitution, but argue that ultimately it fails. The monist must instead accept a deflationary, symmetrical use of ‘materially constitutes’. We argue that this is a serious cost for her approach. (shrink)

Socioeconomic differences in behaviour are pervasive and well documented, but their causes are not yet well understood. Here, we make the case that a cluster of behaviours is associated with lower socioeconomic status, which we call “the behavioural constellation of deprivation.” We propose that the relatively limited control associated with lower SES curtails the extent to which people can expect to realise deferred rewards, leading to more present-oriented behaviour in a range of domains. We illustrate this idea using the specific (...) factor of extrinsic mortality risk, an important factor in evolutionary theoretical models. We emphasise the idea that the present-oriented behaviours of the constellation are a contextually appropriate response to structural and ecological factors rather than a pathology or a failure of willpower. We highlight some principles from evolutionary theoretical models that can deepen our understanding of how socioeconomic inequalities can become amplified and embedded. These principles are that small initial disparities can lead to larger eventual inequalities, feedback loops can embed early-life circumstances, constraints can breed further constraints, and feedback loops can operate over generations. We discuss some of the mechanisms by which SES may influence behaviour. We then review how the contextually appropriate response perspective that we have outlined fits with other findings about control and temporal discounting. Finally, we discuss the implications of this interpretation for research and policy. (shrink)

Teaching morally and teaching morality are understood as mutually dependent processes necessary for providing moral education, or the communication of messages and lessons on what is right, good and virtuous in a student's character. This comprehensive and contextualized volume offers anecdotes and experiences on how an elementary schoolteacher envisions, enacts, and reflects on the ethical teaching and learning of her students. By employing a personally developed form of moral education that is not defined by any particular philosophical or theoretical orientation, (...) this volume relates that classroom-based moral education can, therefore, be conceived of and promoted as moral agency. Accentuated by the teacher's voice to offer the experience of being in the classroom, this volume enables others to transfer relevant practices to their own teaching contexts. (shrink)

The Sublime Today considers contemporary applications of aesthetic philosophy and earlier theories of the sublime from Longinus, Boileau, Burke, Kant, and Hegel to current literary and cultural contexts. Today, aesthetic experience itself seems to be changing, given the rise of new media and new conditions for the viewing and the reception of works of art. How might the rhetoric of the sublime be used to both describe our current situation and help formulate constructive responses to it? The Sublime Today collects (...) the work of scholars in literature, film, art, and media studies and provides a forum for investigating the contemporary relevance of the sublime, both as it has been understood historically and as it has been formulated by more recent theorists such as Jameson, Lyotard, Kristeva, and others. The volume includes essays on literary readings of the sublime in Coetze, Eggers, Lahiri, and Auster; essays on film and the visual arts in the work of François Ozon and in recent participatory art; and essays on how new technologies and media, as in media representations of 9/11, re-frame our relationship to the aesthetics of the sublime, especially as they intersect with questions of gender, the postcolonial, and the uneasy politics of terror. (shrink)

We argue that in contemporary business organizations, in which fundamental purpose is construed to be increased value—especially in ‘participative’ organizations, in which non–hierarchal interaction (for example, work teams) is the norm; and in ‘adaptive’ organizations, in which unpredictable change is the rule—a process of values covenanting will be much more valueable than just espoused values or even values covenants. We propose such a process model for organizational values covenanting and argue that such covenanting reflects an anthropomorphism of the human character (...) development process, validated in terms of the theory of viable systems. (shrink)

Living things are often plastic during their early development and are moulded by the environment. Many human fetuses have to adapt to a limited supply of nutrients, and in doing so they permanently change their physiology and metabolism. These programmed changes may be the origins of a number of diseases in later life, including coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes and hypertension.

The prevalence of academic dishonesty is a matter of considerable concern for institutions of higher education everywhere. We explored students’ perceptions of academic dishonesty using Q methodology, which provides insights that are different from those obtained through surveys or interviews. South African students ranked 48 statements, giving reasons why students cheat, on an 11-column grid, anchored by strongly agree and strongly disagree. Q factor analysis was used to identify groups of individuals who share the same perspective. The three perspectives that (...) emerged viewed academic dishonesty as moral transgressions, pressure transgressions, or confused transgressions. These suggest different approaches to addressing the issue. (shrink)

The analytic/synthetic distinction looks simple. It is a distinction between two different kinds of sentence. Synthetic sentences are true in part because of the way the world is, and in part because of what they mean. Analytic sentences - like all bachelors are unmarried and triangles have three sides - are different. They are true in virtue of meaning, so no matter what the world is like, as long as the sentence means what it does, it will be true. -/- (...) This distinction seems powerful because analytic sentences seem to be knowable in a special way. One can know that all bachelors are unmarried, for example, just by thinking about what it means. But many twentieth-century philosophers, with Quine in the lead, argued that there were no analytic sentences, that the idea of analyticity didn't even make sense, and that the analytic/synthetic distinction was therefore an illusion. Others couldn't see how there could fail to be a distinction, however ingenious the arguments of Quine and his supporters. -/- But since the heyday of the debate, things have changed in the philosophy of language. Tools have been refined, confusions cleared up, and most significantly, many philosophers now accept a view of language - semantic externalism - on which it is possible to see how the distinction could fail. One might be tempted to think that ultimately the distinction has fallen for reasons other than those proposed in the original debate. -/- In Truth in Virtue of Meaning, Gillian Russell argues that it hasn't. Using the tools of contemporary philosophy of language, she outlines a view of analytic sentences which is compatible with semantic externalism and defends that view against the old Quinean arguments. She then goes on to draw out the surprising epistemological consequences of her approach. (shrink)

Logical monists and pluralists disagree about how many correct logics there are; the monists say there is just one, the pluralists that there are more. Could it turn out that both are wrong, and that there is no logic at all?

Melusine the Serpent Goddess in Myth and Literature examines how women were once worshipped as the life force, but later suppressed with the introduction of monotheism and a changing attitude regarding the sexes. It connects the literary conception of the Melusine story to myths and legends of the snake or dragon goddess, from ancient to contemporary times.

Some time ago, the editors of Monthly Review invited me to submit a short review of two recent books by Ellen Wood: The Pristine Culture of Capitalism, and Democracy Against Capitalism. I found myself, in the course of re-reading these books, filled with admiration for most of what the author said, and indeed, for the manner in which she presented her case. At various points, however, I found myself not fully satisfied. But a short review was not the place to (...) develop my concerns. (shrink)

Given the increasing need for solid organ and tissue transplants and the decreasing supply of suitable allographic organs and tissue to meet this need, it is understandable that the hope for successful xenotransplantation has resurfaced in recent years. The biomedical obstacles to xenotransplantation encountered in previous attempts could be mitigated or overcome by developments in immunosuppression and especially by genetic manipulation of organ source animals. In this essay we consider the history of xenotransplantation, discuss the biomedical obstacles to success, explore (...) recent developments in transgenic sourcing of organs and tissues, and analyze the problem of infectious disease resulting from xenotransplantation (xenosis). We then apply a model of risk analysis to these risks. The conclusions of this risk analysis are used in an ethical evaluation of informed consent in xenotransplantation, with an ethical foundation in Kantian autonomy and Levinasian heteronomic alterity. Our conclusion is that individual and collective informed consent to the infectious disease risks of xenotransplantation requires an open, participatory and dialogical public policy process not yet seen in the United States and Europe. Until that process is created, we propose caution in xenotransplantation in general and a postponement of solid organ xenotransplants in particular. (shrink)

Dans plusieurs publications récentes, on peut trouver mention du soi-disant mausolée de Galla Placidia de Ravenne. Puisqu'il est certain, d'après les caractéristiques architecturales, qu'il s'agit d'une chapelle funéraire, le soi-disant se rapporte à l'impératrice. Or, les éléments iconographiques de la chapelle sont étroitement liés à la vie et l'histoire de Galla Placidia. L'auteur revient donc sur la question suivante : qui est inhumé dans cette chapelle et, s'il n'y a personne, qui devait être l'occupant du tombeau ?

Egypt, a less affluent, predominantly Muslim country, suffers from numerous forms of environmental pollution, some severe. This study investigates pro-environmental behaviors of citizens in Cairo, Egypt’s largest metropolis, and studies the relationship between pro-environmental behavior and demographic variables, beliefs, values, and religiosity. Analysis shows that three types of pro-environmental behavior are present: Public Sphere, Private Sphere, and Activist Behavior, with the latter occurring less frequently. Importantly, the study identifies an ecocentric value among respondents which is correlated with Public Sphere Behavior. (...) It also confirms earlier research that characterized Egyptians’ perceptions of the environment as being set in the context of health and cleanliness. Religious teachings and religiosity are shown to be associated with pro-environmental behavior, thus lending support to the presence of an Islamic environmental ethic. (shrink)

Take a correct sequent of formal logic, perhaps a simple logical truth, like the law of excluded middle, or something with premises, like disjunctive syllogism, but basically a claim of the form \.Γ can be empty. If you don’t like my examples, feel free to choose your own, everything I have to say should apply to those as well. Such a sequent attributes the properties of logical truth or logical consequence to a schematic sentence or argument. This paper aims to (...) answer the question of how beliefs in such attributions are justified, on both its descriptive and normative interpretations; I aim to say when we generally take ourselves to be justified in forming such beliefs, and to make it plausible that beliefs formed this way really are justified.We can ask such questions about many domains but there are special difficulties for answering them in logic. Some of the difficulties stem from the fact that logic is thought t.. (shrink)