Several epistemologists (Levi, Harman, Pollock) have recently urged the adoption of what I call a “no-fault” approach to the justification of beliefs. I argue that these views fall prey to objections raised by Alvin Goldman against internalism, specifically: they assume an initial set of regulative principles. It is also suggested that the way to avoid Goldman’s objections is through a psychologistic account of initial warrant.

Several epistemologists (Levi, Harman, Pollock) have recently urged the adoption of what I call a “no-fault” approach to the justification of beliefs. I argue that these views fall prey to objections raised by Alvin Goldman against internalism, specifically: they assume an initial set of regulative principles. It is also suggested that the way to avoid Goldman’s objections is through a psychologistic account of initial warrant.

When one of this journal’s editors asked me to edit an issue and told me I would select the topic, the idea of dedicating papers to the question of individuals immediately came to mind. Pragmatism has such a social orientation in the current literature that it seems that individuals get left behind. But the question of the nature of individuals, and especially how much of the good life should be left to individual contemplation, has occupied pragmatists at least since Emerson. (...) I have selected and arranged the contributions so that, to me, they speak to each other. And I see no need to offer a traditional preface to the volume in which I tell readers what the authors will tell them in their own words better than I. Instead I offer my own thoughts on the nature of exemplary individuals and on why the question is important in contrasting Dewey and James on religious experience and questions of metaphysics. And although I do not spend any real time in the essay on Emerson and Thoreau, I would align them more with James than Dewey. I tried hard not to use the word ‘community’ in my essay. Why focus on James? Personally I have always wanted to write something dealing with the Varieties of Religious Experience. It was suggested to me by my favorite undergraduate teacher Robert O’Connell in 1969 and I got around to reading it in 1990. It’s an especially odd book, the most personal writing of an author inclined to honest expression. Even James expressed embarrassment at the amount of emotion it contained. Once again, thanks to the editors for allowing me to select and arrange these papers. And thanks to the contributors for allowing me to work with them. (shrink)

One way to make the logical elements in Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery more interesting to children is to get them to enjoy working with sentences beforehand. I have found that puzzles which illustrate logical principles can be used to build initial interest in working with sentences that carries over into the chapters in Harry. Puzzles can also be used as a reward. After a particularily good class, instead of homework the fifth grade students I work with are given a puzzle - (...) something to think about for next time. There are some themes in Harry which can be supplemented with logical riddles; and I will mention one and describe how to do this below. But before I get into a description of the mechanics of using logic puzzles with Harry, some comments about the psychological benefits of puzzles might be useful. (shrink)

This is a supplemental text for all philosophy courses that facilitates, invigorates, and enhances student learning by teaching students to read and write effectively.

This paper examines the phenomena of falling in love and of love using Baudelaire’s poem, “Which is the Real One,” as impetus. The author asks why love is often focused toward an individual and why an individual often makes such a monumental difference when love should be a more universal experience. The focus of the Romantic poets on the individual is criticized, and Taoist and anti-romantic conceptions of love are considered.

Using Daoism expressed by Chuang Tzu and the Confucianism in The Analects, The Great Learning, and the Mencius, this paper compares and contrasts Daoism and Confucianism as business ethics. In addition, it applies Daoism and Confucianism to several business cases.

What is the relationship between contemporary intellectual culture and the European Enlightenment it claims to reject? In Consequences of Enlightenment, Anthony Cascardi revisits the arguments advanced in Horkheimer and Adorno's seminal work Dialectic of Enlightenment. Cascardi argues against the view that postmodern culture has rejected Enlightenment beliefs and explores instead the continuities contemporary theory shares with Kant's failed ambition to bring the project of Enlightenment to completion. He explores the link between aesthetics and politics in thinkers as diverse as (...) Habermas, Derrida, Arendt, Nietzsche, Hegel, and Wittgenstein in order to reverse the tendency to see works of art simply in terms of the worldly practices among which they are situated. (shrink)

Aquinas needs no introduction as one of the greatest minds of the middle ages. Highly influential on the development of Christian doctrine, his ideas are still of fundamental philosophical importance. This new critique of his natural law theory discusses the theory's background in Aristotle and advances new interpretations of contemporary legal issues which hark back to Aquinas.

This chapter addresses Immanuel Kant and the potential impasse of any philosophical account of religious experience. Various attempts within phenomenology are explored to broaden the notion of givenness and evidence beyond the parameters of object-givenness. Then, the chapter deals with a phenomenology of religious experience as an irreducible sphere of human experience, and its unique style of evidence and modalisations. For Kant, experience is limited to one mode of givenness in which objects of knowledge are actively constituted with the direct (...) implication that one cannot meaningfully speak of a religious experience. The recognition of the different quality of givenness in religious experience implicated the significant matter of religious evidence. (shrink)

Anthony Parel affords a novel perspective on the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi. He explores how Gandhi connected the spiritual with the temporal. As Parel points out 'being more things than one' is a good description of Gandhi and, with these words in mind, he shows how Gandhi, drawing on the Indian time-honoured theory of the purusharthas or 'the aims of life', fitted his ethical, political, aesthetic and religious ideas together. In this way Gandhi challenged the notion which prevailed in (...) Indian society that a rift existed between the secular and the spiritual, the political and the contemplative life. Parel's revealing and insightful book shows how far-reaching were the effects of Gandhi's practical philosophy on Indian thought generally and how these have survived into the present. (shrink)

The significance of consciousness in modern science is discussed by leading authorities from a variety of disciplines. Presenting a wide-ranging survey of current thinking on this important topic, the contributors address such issues as the status of different aspects of consciousness; the criteria for using the concept of consciousness and identifying instances of it; the basis of consciousness in functional brain organization; the relationship between different levels of theoretical discourse; and the functions of consciousness.

Anthony Everett gives a philosophical defence of the common-sense view that there are no such things as fictional people, places, and things. He argues that our talk and thought about such fictional objects takes place within the scope of a pretense, and that we gain little but lose much by accepting fictional realism.

Both critique and an appropriation of a large and diverse body of work, Home and Beyond is a major contribution to contemporary Husserl scholarship.

The question of modernity has provoked a vigorous debate in the work of thinkers from Hegel to Habermas. Our own self-styled postmodern age has seen no end to this debate, which now receives a major and wide-ranging intervention from the theorist and critic Anthony J. Cascardi. Offering an historical account of the origins and transformations of the rational subject or self as it is represented in Descartes, Cervantes, Pascal, Hobbes and the Don Juan myth, he carries his argument across (...) the fields of epistemology, literature, political science, religion and psychology. The modern subject proves to be positioned within conflicting discourses, in a culture characterised by its 'detotalised totality'. Max Weber's concept of 'world disenchantment' enables Cascardi to make a searching critique of modernity's sense of its absoluteness, divorced from an archaic, 'enchanted' world. He advocates in its place a more fruitful relationship between historical analysis and theoretical speculation, offering constructive new alternatives to current orthodoxy regarding subjectivity and modernity. (shrink)

Moral Emotions builds upon the philosophical theory of persons begun in _Phenomenology and Mysticism _and marks a new stage of phenomenology. Author Anthony J. Steinbock finds personhood analyzing key emotions, called moral emotions. _Moral Emotions _offers a systematic account of the moral emotions, described here as pride, shame, and guilt as emotions of self-givenness; repentance, hope, and despair as emotions of possibility; and trusting, loving, and humility as emotions of otherness. The author argues these reveal basic structures of interpersonal (...) experience. By exhibiting their own kind of cognition and evidence, the moral emotions not only help to clarify the meaning of person, they reveal novel concepts of freedom, critique, and normativity. As such, they are able to engage our contemporary social imaginaries at the impasse of modernity and postmodernity. (shrink)

Anthony J. Lisska presents a new analysis of Thomas Aquinas's theory of perception. While much work has been undertaken on Aquinas's texts, little has been devoted principally to his theory of perception and less still on a discussion of inner sense. The thesis of intentionality serves as the philosophical backdrop of this analysis while incorporating insights from Brentano and from recent scholarship. The principal thrust is on the importance of inner sense, a much-overlooked area of Aquinas's philosophy of mind, (...) with special reference to the vis cogitativa. Approaching the texts of Aquinas from contemporary analytic philosophy, Lisska suggests a modest 'innate' or 'structured' interpretation for the role of this inner sense faculty. He argues that were it not for the vis cogitativa, Aquinas would be unable to account for an awareness of the principal ontological category in his metaphysics. (shrink)

Max Weber’s sociological theories of secularization have vastly influenced the study of Protestant belief. _Protestant Modernity_ offers a multifaceted understanding of secularization within the broader context of nineteenth-century liberal Protestantism. Anthony J. Carroll reconstructs Weber’s original writings to highlight Protestant motifs, reviews current secularization theories, and settles debates about contested meanings of secularization in this volume that will be essential reading for students and scholars of theology and the sociology of religion.

Exploring the first-person narratives of three figures from the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic mystical traditions—St. Teresa of Avila, Rabbi Dov Baer, and Rzbihn Baql—Anthony J. Steinbock provides a complete phenomenology of mysticism based in the Abrahamic religious traditions. He relates a broad range of religious experiences, or verticality, to philosophical problems of evidence, selfhood, and otherness. From this philosophical description of vertical experience, Steinbock develops a social and cultural critique in terms of idolatry—as pride, secularism, and fundamentalism—and suggests that (...) contemporary understandings of human experience must come from a fuller, more open view of religious experience. (shrink)

This paper has two motivations. First, I want to delineate structurally the dimensions of phenomenological method: not merely the static and genetic methods, but along with them I want to introduce the new ideas of generativity and generative method (Section 2). Second, because these dimensions cannot merely be treated structurally, I want to examine their dynamic interrelation, that is, the system of motivations obtaining between them. I will do this by elaborating the phenomenological concept of "leading clue" (Section 3). Finally, (...) I will conclude by addressing the relation of phenomenology to generativity (Section 4). (shrink)

Providing a definitive interpretation of many ideas in Aristotle’s moral and political works has proved to be a difficult task for his commentators, both ancient and modern. The relation between the individual human good and the communal good is a particularly complex problem, especially because of its association with complicated notions of human happiness, practical wisdom, and contemplative and political virtue. This chapter considers the question of the superiority of the common good over individual happiness in light of these accompanying (...) ideas. The many conflicting explanations of these doctrines are the result of Aristotle’s method of providing only general principles and a broad outline of moral concepts. That there may never be a consensus on the exact meaning of many of Aristotle’s ideas may not be a weakness in his work but rather a strength, which he himself had envisaged, since he allows the practically wise person to determine the best course of action in order to attain human goodness. (shrink)

Exploring the first-person narratives of three figures from the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic mystical traditions—St. Teresa of Avila, Rabbi Dov Baer, and Rzbihn Baql—Anthony J. Steinbock provides a complete phenomenology of mysticism based in the Abrahamic religious traditions. He relates a broad range of religious experiences, or verticality, to philosophical problems of evidence, selfhood, and otherness. From this philosophical description of vertical experience, Steinbock develops a social and cultural critique in terms of idolatry—as pride, secularism, and fundamentalism—and suggests that (...) contemporary understandings of human experience must come from a fuller, more open view of religious experience. (shrink)

This major new work by Anthony J. Steinbock, a leading authority in Phenomenology and Husserl Studies, explores an interrelated set of problems in Husserl's phenomenology and provides an excellent example of phenomenology in practice, demonstrating how its methods and resources shed light on philosophical problems.

The shift in corporate strategy, from vertical integration to strategic alliances, has developed hand in hand with the evolution of organizational structure, from the vertically integrated firm to the network organization. The result has been the elimination of boundaries, more flexible organizations, and a greater interaction among individuals and organizations. On the negative side, the specialization of firms on single areas of competence has resulted in the disaggregation of the value chain and in the disaggregation of ethical and legal responsibility. (...) To illustrate this point, the paper considers some cases, such as the case of the "beer girls" of Southeast Asia, who are used unethically by distributors to sell beer and liquor. To deal with the problem of the disaggregation of ethical responsibility, managers can use organizational culture and ethical values to control the performance of employees and of other organizations. Contemporary developments in business ethics also offer tools for dealing with the problem. For example, "global corporate citizenship," integrated social contracting theory, and stakeholder learning dialogues provide ways of integrating the interests of all stakeholders. The task is now to use these new approaches to create a governance process that incorporates the voices of all stakeholders, especially the voices of those stakeholders that have legitimate and urgent moral claims, but lack the power to establish those claims. (shrink)

Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics had a profound influence on generations of later philosophers, not only in the ancient era but also in the medieval period and beyond. In this book, Anthony Celano explores how medieval authors recast Aristotle's Ethics according to their own moral ideals. He argues that the moral standard for the Ethics is a human one, which is based upon the ethical tradition and the best practices of a given society. In the Middle Ages, this human standard was (...) replaced by one that is universally applicable, since its foundation is eternal immutable divine law. Celano resolves the conflicting accounts of happiness in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, demonstrates the importance of the virtue of phronesis, and shows how the medieval view of moral reasoning alters Aristotle's concept of moral wisdom. (shrink)

Addressing the matter of attention from a phenomenological perspective as it bears on the problem of becoming aware, I draw on Edmund Husserl''s analyses and distinctions that mark his genetic phenomenology. I describe several experiential levels of affective force and modes of attentiveness, ranging from what I call dispositional orientation and passive discernment to so-called higher levels of attentiveness in cognitive interest, judicative objectivation, and conceptualization. These modes of attentiveness can be understood as motivating a still more active mode of (...) reflective attention, i.e., philosophical attentiveness, and to this extent, even it would be subject to varying influences of affection. What role, if any, does affection play in a peculiar kind of reflective attention that is phenomenological? I conclude by briefly considering phenomenological reflective attentiveness and its relation to affection. (shrink)

I argue that, despite their extensive disagreements at the level of first-order ethics, there are equally extensive agreements between Sartre and Kant at the metaethical level. Following a brief exposition of the principal metaethical similarities, I offer a defense of Sartre’s general moral theory against the more rigid first-order consequences which Kant claims to be able to assert.

I argue that, despite their extensive disagreements at the level of first-order ethics, there are equally extensive agreements between Sartre and Kant at the metaethical level. Following a brief exposition of the principal metaethical similarities, I offer a defense of Sartre’s general moral theory against the more rigid first-order consequences which Kant claims to be able to assert.

It has been proposed that performance in the think – no think task represents a laboratory analogue of the voluntary form of memory repression. The central prediction of this repression hypothesis is that performance in the TNT task will be influenced by emotional characteristics of the material to be remembered. This prediction was tested in two experiments by asking participants to learn paired associates in which the first item was either emotionally positive or emotionally negative . The second word was (...) always emotionally neutral . Consistent with the repression hypothesis, significant memory suppression was observed in both experiments following ‘no think’ instructions for memories associated with emotionally negative material. No suppression was observed for memories associated with emotionally positive information. Implications of these findings for the relationship between performance in the TNT task and the controversial notion of memory repression are considered. (shrink)