Plato, in his dialog Charmides, presents the question of how society can determine whether a person who claims superior expertise in a particular field of knowledge does, in fact, possess superior expertise. In the modern era, society tends to answer this question by funding institutions (universities) that award credentials to certain individuals, asserting that those individuals possess a particular expertise; and then other institutions (the journalistic media and government) are expected to defer to the credentials. When, however, the sequential reasoning (...) and theorizing and conclusion-stating of generation after generation of credential-bearing experts (i.e., scientists) leads to the assertion of the truth of statements that large segments of society find to be in conflict with the statements of persons who have earned credentials of expertise bestowed by an alternative institutional structure (i.e., religious teachers), representatives of the people are put to a choice. And when the conflicting statements present substantial implications for the moral and sexual behavior of people in the society, addressing the conflict brings into play not only the highest intellectual speculations and analyses, but also the most animal emotions and motivations. This paper, taking the form of a dialog, presents a scientist (Avram Codosia) named after an ancient Jewish patriarch and makes him a supplicant to a U.S. Senator (Helen Astartian) named after a pagan goddess. The stakes turn out to be not merely financial and intellectual, but personal and moral, involving the scientist's son (Isaac), an art student, and the senator's niece (Halia), a philosophy student. In a four-phase encounter, the paper hopes to offer some innovative observations on age-old issues and to stimulate productive new thinking on questions that too often seem to be debated by means of repetitions of the same old points. (shrink)

The Washington National Cathedral, set on the highest hill in the capital city of the world's greatest economic and military power, is an iconic location for an examination of the intersection of immaterial faith, material power, and human conscious experience. It is a location made even more symbolic due to the fact that surrounding the Cathedral on three sides are three private schools -- an elementary school (Beauvoir) to the east, a boys' school (St. Albans) to the south, and a (...) girls' school (National Cathedral School) to the north. The students at these private schools include children of persons who wield the secular power headquartered in the City below the Cathedral Tower. Every day these students study and compete upon a hill giving them panoramic views over the great monuments and symbols of American power: the Capitol Dome, the Washington Monument, the entire City. And the Cathedral that marks their spot upon this globe is visible from all over the region, high above the City. These students are intelligent and informed, and thus for purposes of a dramatic-oriented form of exploration of interesting issues, provide a persuasive characterization for participants in a dialog of two iconic children, older teenagers, a boy and a girl, students at these schools and worshippers in the Cathedral, to develop an examination of themes of faith, power, and the experience of sentience in the material world, walking within and around the Washington National Cathedral, two of its affiliated schools, and the gardens and forests surrounding. The approach recalls the form of the dialogs of Plato, in which persons of elite educational and cultural status encounter each other within a specific building or location, and proceed to discuss such matters as are provoked to mind by the encounter of those minds in that place. The major character of the piece, Merian Validus, is, among other things, a bell-ringer of the Cathedral, a denizen of its highest tower -- as are in reality a group of the girls of NCS. She is an Esmeralda performing the role of Quasimodo. After reading this, think of that the next time you land at Reagan National Airport and catch your cab, looking right at the Cathedral as you speed north into the City. (shrink)

Claims about the economic motivations of population groups in the American past are a staple of contemporary political argument, as polemicists of one side seek to impeach the moral standing of the other side by impeaching the moral standing of the forebears of the people on the other side. Sometimes such polemics are presented to the public in the guise of nonpartisan works of popular history. This paper, applying the training of a litigator in preparing an "opposition" or "reply" brief, (...) examines and exposes the "spin" in the economic history offered by popular author Nathaniel Philbrick in his 207 book Mayflower, in the sections of the book addressing the bloody conflict in New England in 1675-76 known as "King Philip's War." The paper uses the facts Mr. Philbrick himself reports in his book to refute his conclusions, showing that the English colonists fought in legitimate self-defense and not out of greed or racism, against certain (not all) Indian tribes whose warriors, in the words of one of their own chiefs, were like "sticks laid on a heap, till by the multitude of them a great fire came to be kindled.". (shrink)

When the state buys and then provides to the citizens goods and services, the state may certainly choose to audit, independently and comprehensively, the quality of the goods and services so provided, particularly when citizens are reporting back that the goods or services are causing unwanted, deleterious effects. This principle applies to intellectual property -- information -- education -- as well as to other goods and services. In particular, it applies to the theory of evolution as taught by the state (...) in its schools, colleges, and universities. A substantial public has long expressed concern; and the state may properly respond to that concern. Naturally, the state would never allow the vendor of goods and services to dictate that only its employees, or others whom it effectively controls, may be allowed to conduct audits. Indeed, persons substantially subject to the control of the vendor are the last possible choices to serve as independent auditors. The conflict-of-interest is well-recognized regarding information and opinion services: a huge problem arose with the big national auditing firms when they also established management consulting divisions -- the auditors tended to report favorably about companies and projects on which their own management consultants were involved. Yet the science community quite bluntly and openly proclaims that only its members -- persons it controls -- may function as auditors of the quality of scientific statements and propositions. They do this by asserting that only scientists may declare what is, or is not, scientific. Now it may be true that within any company, only employees of that company may properly develop the products that the company sells, and only they may deliver the company's statements regarding the quality of its own products. But when a company sells its products outside of itself, to others, such as the government, it may not impose as a condition of sale that only its employees may continue to render opinions about the quality of the product. When the science community actively urges the government to take-up and re-distribute its product, it necessarily surrenders any claim to a monopoly over auditing the product. A difficulty of conducting truly independent audits of science product vended to the government for delivery to the people lies in the fact that to-date, there is no systematic program of developing and training people to serve as such independent auditors. The closest group of people to rely on for this would be lawyers who, in litigation, have developed the ability to cross-examine expert witnesses in cases such as patent cases, or product-liability cases, or other litigations that involve expert testimony in advanced academic fields. This paper outlines a program by which states can conduct appropriate independent audits of evolution as vended to the state by the science community. (shrink)

All civilian, government-sponsored spacecraft, despite ostensibly having the primary purpose of scientific data-collection, are, within the advanced cultures that produce them, primarily symbolic objects, created by the people as a means of indicating, both to themselves and to all the world, what is in their hearts: what they value. These craft are a statement that we value learning, exploration, adventure, difficult endeavors, teamwork, precision, self-discipline, and intelligence. All such spacecraft are, fundamentally, semiotic objects. The fact that they collect data, although (...) proffered as their primary function, is in fact secondary. In this paper I propose a thought-experiment, involving consideration of a spacecraft expressly intended for a symbolic, semiotic, psychological purpose: a kind of interstellar library, a Noah's Ark of Documents, the "Milky Way Messenger." By taking an idea that was originally merely a concept to be featured in a science-fiction story and exploring whether it might be feasible to accomplish it in the real world, the paper is intended to trigger thought and discussion concerning the conscious creation of such objects. The paper concludes with suggestions concerning the semiotic psychological function of certain government programs. (shrink)

How human beings came to exist in this physical world is a question that has preoccupied mankind for as long as history records; every religion offers an answer, and so too have philosophers of natural history from Aristotle and before. The year 2009 will see celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, progenitor of the theory - or fact, as its adherents see it - that gives the secular scientific world the "creation story" dominant today. Social (...) status in every society flows to the people who persuade the mass that they offer the true and accurate explanation of how we humans came to be; but the social and financial benefits that flow to the "truth pronouncers" of society produce sociological and psychological motivations that bias and impair the independent logical assessment of whether the data supports, or contradicts, the story whose wide acceptance produces so many tangible benefits. The discoveries of molecular biology and DNA over the years since 1950 raise, in the minds of a dissident minority of scientists, substantial possibilities that the theory of evolution cannot be considered complete without the operation of some force or element in the material world that we can only conceive of as being akin to the intelligence with which we ourselves address the world. In this paper, the author, holder of an MIT bachelor of science (in architecture) and the latest in a family of seven generations of physicians, scientists, and engineers, from the 1700s to the 2000s, relates lessons learned not only about evolution, molecular biology, and "intelligent design," but also about the accumulated "bad habits" that have developed and encrusted the conduct of science in the 130 years since the foundation of the research-oriented universities in the 1870s. (shrink)

Evidence suggests that humans might have neurological specializations for music processing, but a compelling adaptationist account of music and dance is lacking. The sexual selection hypothesis cannot easily account for the widespread performance of music and dance in groups (especially synchronized performances), and the social bonding hypothesis has severe theoretical difficulties. Humans are unique among the primates in their ability to form cooperative alliances between groups in the absence of consanguineal ties. We propose that this unique form of social organization (...) is predicated on music and dance. Music and dance may have evolved as a coalition signaling system that could, among other things, credibly communicate coalition quality, thus permitting meaningful cooperative relationships between groups. This capability may have evolved from coordinated territorial defense signals that are common in many social species, including chimpanzees. We present a study in which manipulation of music synchrony significantly altered subjects’ perceptions of music quality, and in which subjects’ perceptions of music quality were correlated with their perceptions of coalition quality, supporting our hypothesis. Our hypothesis also has implications for the evolution of psychological mechanisms underlying cultural production in other domains such as food preparation, clothing and body decoration, storytelling and ritual, and tools and other artifacts. (shrink)

The use of negative probabilities is discussed for certain problems in which a stochastic process approach is indicated. An extension of probability theory to include signed (negative and positive) probabilities is outlined and both philosophical and axiomatic examinations of negative probabilities are presented. Finally, a class of applications illustrates the use and implications of signed probability theory.

To begin with, there is a conceptual necessity implied in the very concept of cause itself, and in all concepts that have a causal element; and this definitional "must," far from being conventional or arbitrary, reflects the natural necessity of those physical systems which in fact constitute the nature of our universe. The conceptual necessity of the concept of cause can be pointed up in the following way. Assume that we have good reason for saying at to that f, g, (...) h, and i are jointly sufficient to E and hence C of E. What would we say at t1 if f, g, h, and i occurred but not E? We would clearly not say then, or ever, that while ordinarily these conditions are jointly sufficient for E, this time they were not; rather we would say that somehow we were mistaken in thinking that f, g, h, and i at t1 were identical with f, g, h, and i at t0. We might have been mistaken in either of two ways. We might have mis-identified one of the conditions at t1, erroneously thinking, say, that p was an f; or one or more of the conditions might have had its nature altered, losing some capacity or power it once had. In either case, we would withdraw the claim at t1 that C was the cause of E. Since we would withdraw the use of C at t1 and would never admit that f, g, h, and i at any t, if genuine instances of f, g, h, and i, would not produce E, we are clearly using C in such a way that actually producing E is part of its meaning. On the assumption that the conditions are genuinely the same, it follows, so to speak, from the principle of identity that they must produce the same effect. (shrink)

Implicit in the scottish tradition is a metaphilosophy of commonsense which deserves as much attention as that recently given to scottish presentative realism and agent causality. The author articulates this metaphilosophy by (a) sketching a systematic metaphilosophy of commonsense, (b) considering to what extent thomas reid fits this pattern, And (c) deciding to what extent asa mahan, One of the ablest of the american realists, Fits it. The result is a characterization of a coherent scottish metaphilosophy still worthy of consideration. (...) He also explores the question whether the metaphilosophy that emerges from (b) and (c) is part of an ongoing tradition. It has been suggested that there are important similarities between the scottish view and g e moore's concept of analysis. While he agrees that there are analogies he stresses the disanalogies as more enlightening about the nature of both. (shrink)

What do we learn about language from reading Wittgenstein'sPhilosophical Investigations? This question gains urgency from Wittgenstein's alleged animus against philosophical theorizing and his indirectness. Section 1 argues that Wittgenstein's goal is to prevent philosophical questioning about the foundations of language from the beginning. This conception of his aim is not in tension with Wittgenstein's use of the notion of community; community interpretations of his views betray a misguided commitment to the coherence of the idea that language might need grounding. Wittgenstein's (...) goal is not to enjoin us not to step outside of language-games, but to show that we have insufficiently clear grasp of the terms we try to use to express the limits of intelligibility. Section 2 suggests that appreciating Wittgenstein's moral concerning the relation between language and philosophizing about it involves allowing him to teach us how to read his book. What makes readingPhilosophical Investigations possible is openness to learning how not to forget our lives in language. (shrink)

Using a general model of corruption that explains and accounts for corruption across different corporate and professional activities, the paper will examine how certain practices in the media, especially in areas where journalism, advertising and public relations regularly intersect and converge, can be construed as instances of corruption. By applying this general model of corruption the paper will then offer a taxonomy of media corruption by identifying most if not all the major types of media corruption. It will be argued (...) that such corruption is regular and systematic. (shrink)

There are a standard number of replies to the riddle of induction, none of which has gained ascendency. It seems that a new approach is needed that concedes less to the Humean dialectic. Humeans, both traditional and contemporary, unwittingly play on the ambiguity of the phrase "change in the course of nature," and that is why `C· ∼ E' appears to be self-consistent, though in fact it is not. I provide an analysis of 'cause' and 'natural necessity' which gives inductive (...) inference that internal warrant we assume it to have in ordinary and scientific thinking and rebut in advance contemporary Humean objections based on the erroneous assumption that 'x is necessary' and 'x is a priori' are materially equivalent. (shrink)

HAMILTON WORRIED THAT THERE WERE REPRESENTATIVE ELEMENTS\nIN REID'S EPISTEMOLOGY, WHILE J S MILL FLATLY CHARACTERIZED\nTHE SCOT AS A REPRESENTATIVE REALIST. I ARGUE THAT HAMILTON\nAND MILL WERE MISTAKEN AND THAT THEIR MISTAKES AROSE FROM\nAN INSUFFICIENT UNDERSTANDING AND APPRECIATION OF THE\nNATIVISTIC ELEMENTS OF THE UNDERSTANDING INTRODUCED BY\nREID; AND TO INSUFFICIENT AWARENESS OF REID'S\nCHARACTERIZATION OF PERCEPTION AS ACTIVE IN CONTRAST TO\nBRITISH EMPIRICIST RELIANCE ON A PASSIVELY GIVEN EPISTEMIC\nBASE. REID REJECTED EVERY VARIETY OF THE "MESSENGER"\nTHEORY.

IN the recent past there has been a resurgence of interest in the work of Thomas Reid; several new editions of his work have appeared as well as a series of articles concerning various aspects of his systematic philosophy. Interest has generalized to the whole Scottish tradition, including numerous figures in the history of American philosophy who were deeply influenced by Reid and Dugald Stewart. In addition, several recent and contemporary philosophers have used Reid's epistemic views as a point of (...) departure in developing their own adverbial theories of sensing and appearing. Others have used Reid's theory of agency in formulating their own views on freedom and responsibility. (shrink)

The recent transnational wave of destruction that was caused by the earthquake-induced tsunamis in South East Asia has raised the issue of global justice in terms of the rights of victims to expect aid relief and the moral responsibility of the rest of the world to provide it. In this paper I will discuss the issue of global ethics in terms of positive rights that people have to assistance from others when they cannot provide such assistance themselves. The main object (...) of the paper is to demonstrate that positive rights are universal and global in scope and cannot therefore be restricted by any national, religious, cultural or other social boundaries. Such rights provide a rational and ethical foundation for global justice that is cosmopolitan. The argument for the position offered in the paper will be broadly based on the moral philosophy of Alan Gewirth.1. (shrink)

At Epistles 2.2.87–9 Horace introduces an argument against writing poetry based on the unpleasant mutual admiration required in poetic society with an anecdote about an orator and a jurisconsult: †frater erat Romae† consulti rhetor, ut alter alterius sermone meros audiret honores, Gracchus ut hic illi, foret huic ut Mucius ille.

At Epistles 2.2.87–9 Horace introduces an argument against writing poetry based on the unpleasant mutual admiration required in poetic society with an anecdote about an orator and a jurisconsult: †frater erat Romae† consulti rhetor, ut alter alterius sermone meros audiret honores, Gracchus ut hic illi, foret huic ut Mucius ille.

Probability and Frequency. Aristotle frequently used the concept of probability, but apparently he did not make any persistent effort to clarify or analyze it. His description of a fortiori argument in The Topics, e.g., depends upon “the more or less likely or probable,” but he does not explore this notion. In The Rhetoric, where he applies himself to a puzzle about probability which the Sophists had advanced, he comes closer to an analysis of probability. Aristotle quotes Agathon, One might perchance (...) say this was probable—That things improbable oft will hap to men, and elaborates thusly: “For what is improbable does happen [often], and therefore it is probable that improbable things will happen. Granted this, one might argue that ‘what is improbable is probable.’ “ Aristotle believes that one can avoid this imposture by distinguishing between “general” and “specific” probability, and apparently intends by the former the statistical sense of frequent occurrence; but he does not establish what he might mean by the probability of an individual event and so leaves the notion of “specific probability” unclear. (shrink)

Most philosophers of science nowadays hold a network or postulational view of the meaning of theoretical words. However, there are many nuances to this view, and after explicitly separating them, we show what we take to be wrong with each one. While we reject the postulational view we do not defend its traditional alternatives either; rather we show the pointlessness of insisting on a single source for the meaning of theoretical words. We also point out the shortcomings of Carnap's newest (...) meaning criterion which depends upon a network view. But, again, we suggest not only that this new rendition of the criterion is faulty but also that there is something misguided about any search at all for such a criterion. (shrink)