It is now medically possible for a baby to have two biological mothers. A fertilized ovum from one woman can be implanted into a second woman for gestation in her uterus. In fact, there have been several such cases. The ova donor is the mother in the genetic sense: her genetic material,along with that of the sperm donor,appears in the developing baby. The uterine hostess is the birth mother: she gestates the fetus and gives birth to it. In essence, the (...) two female reproductive functions, genetic and gestational, can be and have been divided from each other. Our current conception of biological maternity has lagged behind these technological marvels and still assumes that both functions will be performed by the same woman. At a time when two "biological mothers" can and do make claims for the same child,each on the ground that she is the "true mother", it is crucial to examine our concepts of biological maternity and their relation to our social policies about maternity in these cases. In this paper I will argue that the best social and legal policy would involve a prima facie preference for the claims of the gestational mother over the claims of the genetic mother for custody of the child in a contest (if there is no question of parental unfitness on either side). That is, in any dispute, presumption should be in favor of the gestational mother. This argument is made independent of considerations about pre-birth and pre-conception contracts, because the issues raised about the roles of gestational and genetic maternity are substantial in themselves and have obvious implications about the acceptability of such contracts.Rather, I argue that a revision of our concept of biological maternity which emphasizes the importance of gestation and which would prefer the claims of the gestational over the genetic mother would have positive benefits for both women and newborns. (shrink)

Recent philosophical treatment of conspiracy theories supposes them all to be explanatory, thus overlooking those conspiracy theories whose major purpose is the assertion of ‘hidden facts’ rather than explanation of accepted facts. I call this variety of non-explanatory conspiracy theories “counterfact theories”. In this paper, through the use of examples, including the Obama birth certificate conspiracy theory, I uncover the distinctive reasoning pattern and dialectical strategy of counterfact theories, highlighting their epistemic flaws.

In the last decade, some feminist epistemologists have suggested that the global scepticism which results from the Cartesian dream argument is the product of a self‐consciously masculine modern era, whose philosophy gave pride of place to the individual cognizer, disconnected from the object of knowledge, from other knowers, indeed from his own body. Lorraine Code claims that under a conception of a cognizer as an essentially social being, Cartesian scepticism would not arise. I argue that this is false: an argument (...) parallel in structure, and as well supported as the first‐person Cartesian dream argument, could arise in an epistemology which recognizes the social nature of human life and knowledge. Against Code, it is not the first‐personhood of Cartesianism which generates scepticism. A second‐person scepticism could emerge in a socially conscious epistemology. (shrink)

Karen Warren presents and defends the ecofeminist position that people are wrong in dominating nature as a whole or in part, for the same reason that subordinating women to the will and purposes of men is wrong. She claims that all feminists must object to both types of domination because both are expressions of the same "logic of domination." Yet, problems arise with her claim of twin dominations. The enlightenment tradition gave rise to influential versions of feminism and provided a (...) framework which explains the wrongness of the domination of women by men as a form of injustice. Yet on this account, the domination of nature cannot be assimilated to the domination of women. Worse, on the enlightenment framework, the claim that the domination of nature is wrong in the same way that the domination of women is wrong makes no sense, since domination can only be considered to be unjust when the object dominated has a will. While ecofeminism rejects the enlightenment view, it cannot simply write off enlightenment feminism as non-feminist. It must show that enlightenment feminism is either inauthentic or conceptually unstable. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the justification of proposals to conserve threatened languages, those in danger of dying out from the lack of primary speakers. These proposals presuppose that there is value in the continued existence of languages, and I explore the different kinds of value involved: instrumental, aesthetic, subjective, and cognitive, the last involving the ability of each language to express distinctive thoughts. The attempt to retain the cognitive value of a language underlies proposals to conserve a pool of (...) primary speakers of threatened languages. Analyzing cognitive value in terms of Rolston’s systemic value flags a dual problem for conservation proposals: attempts to conserve the cognitive value of a language may be futile and attempts to defeat the factors creating the futility are morally problematic. The other values of language may still justify morally permissible projects to conserve or preserve threatened languages. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 12 In his _Scepticism Comes Alive_, Bryan Frances contends that his “live skepticism” poses a genuine challenge to claims of knowledge in a way that classic “brain-in-a-vat” skepticism does not. This is mistaken. In this paper, I argue that Frances’s live skepticism dies on the horns of a dilemma: if we interpret a key premise in Frances’s skeptical argument template sociologically, then it undercuts itself, showing that there is no reason to accept it and the argument (...) fails. If we interpret that premise normatively, then the difference in the epistemic threat posed by live hypotheses compared to that of their moribund cousins evaporates, and with it, the purported distinctiveness of the live skeptical argument. (shrink)

Professor Allison provides a clear, unified, and compelling reading of the first Critique. He focuses on Kant’s transcendental idealism and defends this idealism as a cogent philosophical position. Allison’s main target is the “standard view,” represented most influentially by Strawson, which sees Kant as a skeptical subjective idealist, or phenomenalist. Kant is interpreted by this view as holding that objects of our experience are subjective ideas. Things in themselves are postulated as the unknowable grounds for our representations. Allison, however, takes (...) Kant’s professions of transcendental idealism and empirical realism seriously. This idealism, Allison insists, is epistemological. (shrink)

Carazan's dream : Kant's early theory of freedom -- Kant's archimedean moment : remarks in observation concerning the feeling of the beautiful and the sublime -- Rousseau, Count Verri, and the true economy of human nature : lectures on anthropology, 1772-1781 -- The paradox of autonomy -- Moral hesitation in religion within the boundaries of bare reason -- Kant's true politics : Völkerrecht in toward perpetual peace and the metaphysics of morals -- Kant as educator : conflict of the faculties, (...) part one -- Archimedes revisited : honor and history in the conflict of the faculties, part two -- Kant's Jewish problem. (shrink)

Antisthenes was famous in antiquity for his studies of Homer's poems, his affiliation with Gorgias and the sophistic movement, his pure Attic writing style, and his inspiration of Diogenes of Sinope, who founded the Cynic philosophical movement. Antisthenes stands at two of the greatest turning points in ancient intellectual history: from pre-Socraticism to Socraticism, and from classical Athens to the Hellenistic period. Antisthenes' works form the path to a better understanding of the intellectual culture of Athens that shaped Plato and (...) laid the foundations for Hellenistic philosophy and literature. Antisthenes of Athens keeps in mind the goals and polemics framing each philosophical and textual discussion. The volume considers the ancient traditions about Antisthenes' rejection of Plato's “Theory of Forms,” his assertion of the paradox, “It is impossible to gainsay,” and his denial that definition of essence is possible, as well as the plausible intentions of Antisthenes. In cases where these questions are not easily settled, and where modern interpretation has varied, Susan H. Prince identifies the roots of the disagreements. The goal and meaning of Antisthenes' other famous ancient paradox, “I would rather go mad than have pleasure,” is illuminated by comparison with other evidence showing that pleasure does have a place in his ideology. Evidence for his relationship to Diogenes of Sinope, and for his receptions by the Cynics, Stoics, Skeptics, Christians, and Neo-Pagans is examined for both its historical value and its distorting tendencies. (shrink)

The book is an investigation of the semantics of numericals, counting and measuring, and its connection to the mass/count distinction from a theoretical and crosslinguistic perspective. It reviews some recent major linguistic results in these topics, and presents the author's new research including in-depth case studies of a number of typologically unrelated languages.

According to transhumanists who urge the radical enhancement of human beings, humanity’s top priority should be engineering “posthumans,” whose features would include agelessness. Increasingly, transhumanism is critiqued on foundational grounds rather than based largely on anticipated results of its implementation, such as rising social inequality. This expansion is crucial but insufficient because, despite its radical aim, transhumanism reflects beliefs and attitudes that are evident in the broader culture. With a focus on the yearning to eliminate aging, I consider four of (...) these: a disproportionate reliance on science and technology to address major human challenges; the conceptualization of human beings in terms of binaries like “young-old”; a repudiation of vulnerability; and intensifying perfectionism. Illuminating these interlocked commitments both deepens an existing critique of transhumanism and draws our attention to deleterious cultural views that must be vigorously contested if our commitment to human flourishing is to be deep and unwavering. (shrink)

In this book, Susan Mendus seeks to address these important questions to assess whether this apparent tension between morality and politics is real and, if so, ...

According to the language of thought (or.

If you're woke, you're left. If you're left, you're woke. We blur the terms, assuming that if you're one you must be the other. That, Susan Neiman argues, is a dangerous mistake. The intellectual roots and resources of wokeism conflict with ideas that have guided the left for more than 200 years: a commitment to universalism, a firm distinction between justice and power, and a belief in the possibility of progress. Without these ideas, Neiman argues, they will continue to (...) undermine their own goals and drift, inexorably and unintentionally, towards the right. In the long run, they risk becoming what they despise. One of the world's leading philosophical voices, Neiman makes this case by tracing the malign influence of two titans of twentieth-century thought, Michel Foucault and Carl Schmitt, whose work undermined ideas of justice and progress and portrayed social life as an eternal struggle of us against them. A generation schooled with these voices in their heads, raised in a broader culture shaped by the ruthless ideas of neoliberalism and evolutionary psychology, has set about changing the world. It's time they thought again. (shrink)

A unique and interdisciplinary collection in which scholars from Philosophy join those from Film Studies, English, and Comparative Literature to explore the nature and limits of love through in-depth reflection on particular works of literature and film.

Machine generated contents note: -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction: Points of Departure -- Chapter 1: Instructions for Traveling -- Chapter 2: Reflections on Travel -- Chapter 3: Imagined Travelers -- Conclusion: Homecomings -- Notes -- Index.

Among the important themes in Roderick Chisholm's epistemology are his commitment to internalism, his defense of the independence of epistemology from empirical science, and his assumption that we do know most of what we initially think we know. In “Roderick Chisholm and the Shaping of American Epistemology” Hilary Kornblith argues that Chisholm's views lead to a radical divorce between the factors that justify beliefs and the factors that cause beliefs, that Chisholm's views have the consequence that there is no connection (...) between justification and truth, and that Chisholm's kind of epistemology is unable to give epistemic advice. I argue that Chisholm's views do not have these consequences. (shrink)

Debunks cherished theories of mainstream consensus and reveals the deeper mysteries of the science of the unseen.

Sustaining the Writing Spirit: Holistic Tools for School and Home, second edition is aimed at all educators, at school or home, seeking non-traditional ways to enliven the growth potential of the whole learner. Schiller urges educators to accept a holistic orientation for learning -- one that combines the physical, social, emotional, and spiritual, with the intellect, rather than primarily basing learning on the intellect. Included are details on background, historical development, and philosophical explanations of holistic education, including a timeline of (...) key people and ideas. This new edition also addresses sustainability and spirituality as the core of holistic learning, and the teaching activities provide context and processes for writing that encourage activating multiple intelligences. It also has a cross-disciplinary quality and could be used in a number of educational settings. (shrink)