Arguing for controversial readings of many of the canonical figures, the book also focuses on lesser-known writers such as Pierre-Sylvain Regis, Nicolas ...

The seventeenth century witnesses the demise of two core doctrines in the theory of perception: naive realism about color, sound, and other sensible qualities and the empirical theory, drawn from Alhacen and Roger Bacon, which underwrote it. This created a problem for seventeenth century philosophers: how is that we use qualities such as color, feel, and sound to locate objects in the world, even though these qualities are not real? -/- Ejecting such sensible qualities from the mind-independent world at once (...) makes for a cleaner ontology, since bodies can now be understood in purely geometrical terms, and spawns a variety of fascinating complications for the philosophy of perception. If sensible qualities are not part of the mind-independent world, just what are they, and what role, if any, do they play in our cognitive economy? We seemingly have to use color to visually experience objects. Do we do so by inferring size, shape, and motion from color? Or is it a purely automatic operation, accomplished by divine decree? -/- This volume traces the debate over perceptual experience in early modern France, covering such figures as Antoine Arnauld, Robert Desgabets, and Pierre-Sylvain Regis alongside their better-known countrymen Rene Descartes and Nicolas Malebranche. (shrink)

This book examines John Locke's claims about the nature and workings of language. Walter Ott proposes an interpretation of Locke's thesis in which words signify ideas in the mind of the speaker, and argues that rather than employing such notions as sense or reference, Locke relies on an ancient tradition that understands signification as reliable indication. He then uses this interpretation to explain crucial areas of Locke's metaphysics and epistemology, including essence, abstraction, knowledge and mental representation. His discussion challenges (...) many of the orthodox readings of Locke, and will be of interest to historians of philosophy and philosophers of language alike. (shrink)

What is the origin of the concept of a law of nature? How much does it owe to theology and metaphysics? To what extent do the laws of nature permit contingency? Are there exceptions to the laws of nature? Is it possible to give a reductive analysis of lawhood, or is it a primitive? -/- Twelve brand-new essays by an international team of leading philosophers take up these and other central questions on the laws of nature, whilst also examining some (...) of the most important intuitions and assumptions that have guided the debate over laws of nature since the concept's invention in the seventeenth century. -/- Laws of Nature spans the history of philosophy and of science, contemporary metaphysics, and contemporary philosophy of science. Contents: 1. Intuitions and Assumptions in the Debate over Laws of Nature, Walter Ott and Lydia Patton 2. Early Modern Roots of the Philosophical Concept of a Law of Nature, Helen Hattab 3. Laws of Nature and the Divine Order of Things: Descartes and Newton on Truth in Natural Philosophy, Mary Domski 4. Leges sive natura: Bacon, Spinoza, and a Forgotten Concept of Law, Walter Ott 5. Laws and Powers in the Frame of Nature, Stathis Psillos 6. Laws and Ideal Unity, Angela Breitenbach 7. Becoming Humean, John W. Carroll 8. A Perspectivalist Better Best System Account of Lawhood, Michela Massimi 9. Laws: An Invariance Based Account, James Woodward 10. How the Explanations of Natural Laws Make Some Reducible Physical Properties Natural and Explanatorily Powerful, Marc Lange 11. Laws and their Exceptions, Stephen Mumford 12. Are laws of nature consistent with contingency?, Nancy Cartwright and Pedro Merlussi. (shrink)

I claim that Berkeley's main argument against abstraction comes into focus only when we see Descartes as one of its targets. Berkeley does not deploy Winkler's impossibility argument but instead argues that what is impossible is inconceivable. Since Descartes conceives of extension as a determinable, and since determinables cannot exist as such, he falls within the scope of Berkeley's argument.

Pace much of the literature, I argue that Aristotle endorses what I call the ‘strong link thesis’: the claim that virtuous and vicious acts are voluntary just in case the character states from which they flow are voluntary. I trace the strong link thesis to Plato’s Laws, among other texts, and show how it functions in key arguments of both philosophers.

This paper addresses the following questions: (a) what did Locke mean when he said that ‘words signify ideas’? and (b) what is Locke’s argument for this thesis, and how successful is it? The paper argues that the two most prominent interpretations, those of Norman Kretzmann and E. J. Ashworth, attribute to Locke an argument for his semantic thesis that is fallacious, and that neither can make good sense of two key passages in book 3 of the Essay concerning Human Understanding. (...) An alternative understanding of signification, drawn from the works of Hobbes and the Port-Royal logicians, is explored and shown to provide both a satisfactory interpretation of these two passages and an understanding of Locke’s argument for the thesis that absolves him of fallacy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.2 (2001) 296-297 [Access article in PDF] Locke, John. The Reasonableness of Christianity. Edited by John C. Higgins-Biddle. The Clarendon Edition of the Works of John Locke. Oxford: Oxford University Press, The Clarendon Press, 1999. Pp. cxxxix + 261. Cloth, $95.00. John C. Higgins-Biddle's new edition of the work Locke published anonymously in 1695 is another fine entry in the Clarendon series. It (...) is the first critical edition and the only one to include the revisions Locke made in a personal copy. Higgins-Biddle provides a set of Locke's manuscripts related to the text (including manuscript indices), a table of Biblical references, and a bibliography. In his meticulously researched introduction, Higgins-Biddle sets out the background and main themes of The Reasonableness by considering the controversies that surrounded it, particularly the accusations of Deism, Socinianism, and Hobbism.Locke's title is apt to mislead contemporary readers by encouraging them to expect a rationalistic defense of religious belief. What we have instead is a treatise largely devoted to discovering the basic beliefs one must hold in order to be a Christian. Christianity is 'reasonable' according to Locke because its fundamental doctrines are perspicuous and accessible to all, not because it is in every respect rationally demonstrable. Locke argues that belief in two propositions, viz., that God exists and that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, is sufficient to make one a Christian. Early critics, as Higgins-Biddle shows, mistakenly took this to mean that other doctrines, especially that of the Trinity, formed no part of Locke's brand of Christianity. Instead, Locke suggests that although belief in the fundamental doctrines is sufficient to make one a Christian, one is subsequently obligated to receive "all the parts of Divine Revelation, with a docility and disposition prepared to imbrace" (169). Locke grants, however, that a Christian may be ignorant of or even disbelieve a large portion of scriptural truths. His failure to specify which particular 'truths' he had in mind seems to have led to the charge of Socinianism, which persists to the present day.It is not clear what this charge amounts to, and Higgins-Biddle does a fine job of sorting through the religious controversies of Locke's age. One core plank of Socinianism or Unitarianism seems to have been the denial of the Trinity. Nowhere in The Reasonableness does Locke so much as mention that doctrine; however, his position does make it a secondary one, since assent to it is not required of all Christians. What is most important here is the continuity between Locke's project in this work and his thoughts on toleration. The chief aim of those who, like Locke, advocated the 'way of fundamentals' was to achieve toleration for non-conformist religious sects and to make possible a more harmonious and unified Church of England.Locke is often regarded as a founding father of English Deism, a view Locke understood as entailing the denial of all religious claims except those supported by natural theology. But Locke himself saw The Reasonableness as partly directed against the temptation to reject the claims of revelation. Such claims can be objects of faith, accepted by virtue of Biblical authority. Opposition to Deism is particularly evident in Chapter XIV, where Locke argues for the necessity of Christ as saviour. Locke admits that we cannot know what 'transactions' there were between God and Christ, but claims [End Page 296] that it would be presumptuous to reject a doctrine simply because we cannot fully comprehend it.It is not for its role in these controversies alone that The Reasonableness is to be valued. Locke also has much to say that is relevant to his moral philosophy. In the Essay, Locke had claimed that ethics admits of demonstration, yet he never managed to produce such a demonstration, despite repeated requests. Locke defends his omission in the penultimate chapter of the present work by suggesting that scripture reveals the natural law, allowing us to forego the difficult work of demonstrating it. Furthermore, most people lack the leisure or... (shrink)

Video games are ideal platforms for the study of skill acquisition for a variety of reasons. However, our understanding of the development of skill and the cognitive representations that support skilled performance can be limited by a focus on game scores. We present an alternative approach to the study of skill acquisition in video games based on the tools of the Expert Performance Approach. Our investigation was motivated by a detailed analysis of the behaviors responsible for the superior performance of (...) one of the highest scoring players of the video game Space Fortress. This analysis revealed how certain behaviors contributed to his exceptional performance. In this study, we recruited a participant for a similar training regimen, but we collected concurrent and retrospective verbal protocol data throughout training. Protocol analysis revealed insights into strategies, errors, mental representations, and shifting game priorities. We argue that these insights into the developing representations that guided skilled performance could only easily have been derived from the tools of the Expert Performance Approach. We propose that the described approach could be applied to understand performance and skill acquisition in many different video games and help reveal mechanisms of transfer from gameplay to other measures of laboratory and real-world performance. (shrink)

Video games are ideal platforms for the study of skill acquisition for a variety of reasons. However, our understanding of the development of skill and the cognitive representations that support skilled performance can be limited by a focus on game scores. We present an alternative approach to the study of skill acquisition in video games based on the tools of the Expert Performance Approach. Our investigation was motivated by a detailed analysis of the behaviors responsible for the superior performance of (...) one of the highest scoring players of the video game Space Fortress. This analysis revealed how certain behaviors contributed to his exceptional performance. In this study, we recruited a participant for a similar training regimen, but we collected concurrent and retrospective verbal protocol data throughout training. Protocol analysis revealed insights into strategies, errors, mental representations, and shifting game priorities. We argue that these insights into the developing representations that guided skilled performance could only easily have been derived from the tools of the Expert Performance Approach. We propose that the described approach could be applied to understand performance and skill acquisition in many different video games and help reveal mechanisms of transfer from gameplay to other measures of laboratory and real-world performance. (shrink)

This essay argues that scientific discourse is amenable to interpretation and assessment from the perspective of the narrative paradigm and its attendant logic, narrative rationality. It also contends that this logic entails a revised conception of knowledge, one that permits the possibility of wisdom. The text analyzed is James D. Watson and Francis H. Crick's proposal of the double helix model of DNA.

In a recent article, Dr. A. F. Norman has attributed to Eunapius the authorship of a fragment in Suidas , which clearly relates to the siege of Maiozamalcha. His arguments are cogent and must, I think, be accepted. Some slight additional support for the attribution is provided by the fact that it contains the adverb of which, as Vollebregt pointed out, Eunapius was particularly fond. Norman compares this fragment with the relevant passages in Ammianus Marcellinus and Zosimus and points out (...) that if the attribution is correct, ‘now, and for the first time, we have a reference to the same incident of this campaign from the narratives of Ammianus, Eunapius, and Zosimus’. (shrink)

Eunapius makes it clear in his Lives of the Philosophers, published some time after A.D. 396, that he had already published the major part of his historical work, and that he was contemplating extending its scope. He refers to the Gothic invasion of Greece in 395, and states that he has already recorded some of the disasters which befell about that time, and that he hopes to relate others.

Ten narrative studies involving family histories of 262 children of gay fathers and lesbian mothers were evaluated statistically in response to Morrison's (2007) concerns about Cameron's (2006) research that had involved three narrative studies. Despite numerous attempts to bias the results in favour of the null hypothesis and allowing for up to 20 (of 63, 32%) coding errors, Cameron's (2006) hypothesis that gay and lesbian parents would be more likely to have gay, lesbian, bisexual or unsure (of sexual orientation) sons (...) and daughters was confirmed. Percentages of children of gay and lesbian parents who adopted non-heterosexual identities ranged between 16% and 57%, with odds ratios of 1.7 to 12.1, depending on the mix of child and parent genders. Daughters of lesbian mothers were most likely (33% to 57%; odds ratios from 4.5 to 12.1) to report non-heterosexual identities. Data from ethnographic sources and from previous studies on gay and lesbian parenting were re-examined and found to support the hypothesis that social and parental influences may influence the expression of non-heterosexual identities and/or behaviour. Thus, evidence is presented from three different sources, contrary to most previous scientific opinion, even most previous scientific consensus, that suggests intergenerational transfer of sexual orientation can occur at statistically significant and substantial rates, especially for female parents or female children. In some analyses for sons, intergenerational transfer was not significant. Further research is needed with respect to pathways by which intergenerational transfer of sexual orientation may occur. The results confirm an evolving tendency among scholars to cite the possibility of some degree of intergenerational crossover of sexual orientation. (shrink)

Historical Linguistics & Biblical Hebrew: Steps toward an Integrated Approach. By Robert Rezetko and Ian Young. Ancient Near East Monographs, vol. 9. Atlanta: SBL Press, 2014. Pp. xx + 699. $89.95.

The author answers the criticisms of mackie and pinkerton concerning his earlier account of counterfactuals. (staff).

This is an exploration of modernism and postmodernism in regard to knowledge: methods of inquiry, operations of the mind, the role of values, conceptions of self, and the problematic of reason.

How language works — its functions, mechanisms, and limitations — matters to the early moderns as much as it does to contemporary philosophers. Many of the moderns make reflection on language central to their philosophical projects, both as a tool for explaining human cognition and as a weapon to be used against competing views. Even in philosophers for whom language is less central, we can find important connections between their views on language and their other philosophical commitments.

In 1985, Swiss legal philosopher Walter Ott visited Herbert Hart in Oxford and made this record of their meeting, which casts novel light on some of Hart’s ideas. Ott engaged Hart in a fresh encounter with the legal philosophy of Gustav Radbruch, particularly Hart’s and Radbruch’s reasons for a minimum content of justice in law. They also discussed the grudge informer, state responsibility under laws of an earlier régime, and questions of the definition and falsifiability of legal theories. Hart (...) surprisingly reported Hans Kelsen as stating, when they had met at Berkeley in 1961, that Hume (and not Kant, and certainly not Wittgenstein) was the greatest philosopher who had ever lived. The translation is accompanied with annotations explaining references, assumptions and contexts. (shrink)