The political philosophy of health care has been characterized by considerable conceptual inflation in recent years. First, the concept of health that lies at its core has come to encompass ever-increasing aspects of individuals’ existences. And second, the emergence of the public health perspective has increased the range of resources relevant to health equity. This expansion has not been without cost. The decision to include more rather than less within the ambit of "health" is ultimately a moral/political rather than an (...) ontological or metaphysical one, and there are several ethical reasons to define the scope of theories of distributive justice in health narrowly. (shrink)

This article provides an introduction to the articles in this theme issue. This collection examines epistemological, ontological, moral and political questions in medicine in light of the philosophical ideas of Charles Taylor. A synthesis of Taylor's relevant work is presented. Taylor has argued for a conception of the human sciences that regards human life as meaningful–deriving meaning from surrounding horizons of significance. An overview of the interdisciplinary articles in this issue is presented. This collection advances our thinking in the philosophy (...) of medicine as well as the philosophy of Charles Taylor. (shrink)

RÉSUMÉ: Je maintiens dans cet essai que l'argument développé par Thomas Hurka sur la base de son perfectionnisme aristotélicien en faveur d'une forme modérée de perfectionnisme d'État échoue. Je tente de démontrer que son perfectionnisme sousdétermine les types d'activités que l'État aurait à promouvoir afin de réaliser les valeurs perfectionnistes qu'il défend. Je soutiens également que Hurka opère avec une conception caricaturale de la doctrine de la neutralité libérale. Selon lui, l'État libéral serait réduit à l'inaction par cette notion. Je (...) démontre que l'État libéral peut promouvoir les biens et les activités qui font partie d'une «conception libérale du bien» tout en respectant l'exigence de neutralité. Ces biens et ces activités sont ceux que recoupent déjà les conceptions raisonnables de la vie bonne, ainsi que ceux qui sont présupposés, que cela soit pour des raisons empiriques ou conceptuelles, par de telles conceptions raisonnables. (shrink)

Spanning a wide range of texts, figures, and traditions from the ancient Mediterranean world, this volume gathers far-reaching, interdisciplinary papers on Greek philosophy from an international group of scholars. The book's sixteen chapters address an array of topics and themes, extending from the formation of philosophy from its first stirrings in archaic Greek as well as Egyptian, Persian, Mesopotamian, and Indian sources, through central concepts in ancient Greek philosophy and literatures of the classical period and into the Hellenistic age. Studies (...) in Ancient Greek Philosophy offers both in-depth, rigorous, attentive investigations of canonical texts in western philosophy, such as Plato's Phaedo, Gorgias, Republic, Phaedrus, Protagoras and the Metaphysics, De Caelo, Nichomachean Ethics, Generation and Corruption of Aristotle's corpus, as well as inquiries that reach back into the rich archives of the Mediterranean Basin and forward into the traditions of classical philosophy beyond the ancient world. Studies in Ancient Greek Philosophy is of interest to students and scholars working on different aspects of ancient Greek philosophy, as well as ancient philosophy more broadly. (shrink)

Philosophy's Treason: Studies in Philosophy and Translation gathers contributions from an international group of scholars at different stages of their careers, bringing together diverse perspectives on translation and philosophy. The volume's six chapters primarily look towards translation from philosophic perspectives, often taking up issues central to Translation Studies and pursuing them along philosophic lines. By way of historical, logical, and personal reflection, several chapters address broad topics of translation, such as the entanglements of culture, ideology, politics, and history in the (...) translation of philosophic works, the position of Translation Studies within current academic humanities, untranslatability within philosophic texts, and the ways philosophic reflection can enrich thinking on translation. Two more narrowly focused chapters work closely on specific philosophers and their texts to identify important implications for translation in philosophy. In a final "critical postscript" the volume takes a reflexive turn as its own chapters provide starting points for thinking about philosophy and translation in terms of periperformativity. From philosophers critically engaged with translation this volume offers distinct perspectives on a growing field of research on the interdisciplinarity and relationality of Translation Studies and Philosophy. Ranging from historical reflections on the overlap of translation and philosophy to philosophic investigation of questions central to translation to close-readings of translation within important philosophic texts, Philosophy's Treason serves as a useful guide and model to educators in Translation Studies wishing to illustrate a variety of approaches to topics related to philosophy and translation. (shrink)

In this important study D. M. Armstrong offers a comprehensive system of analytical metaphysics that synthesises but also develops his thinking over the last twenty years. Armstrong's analysis, which acknowledges the 'logical atomism' of Russell and Wittgenstein, makes facts the fundamental constituents of the world, examining properties, relations, numbers, classes, possibility and necessity, dispositions, causes and laws. All these, it is argued, find their place and can be understood inside a scheme of states of affairs. This is a comprehensive and (...) rigorously this-worldly account of the most general features of reality, argued from a distinctive philosophical perspective, and it will appeal to a wide readership in analytical philosophy. (shrink)

This is a study of a crucial and controversial topic in metaphysics and the philosophy of science: the status of the laws of nature. D. M. Armstrong works out clearly and in comprehensive detail a largely original view that laws are relations between properties or universals. The theory is continuous with the views on universals and more generally with the scientific realism that Professor Armstrong has advanced in earlier publications. He begins here by mounting an attack on the orthodox and (...) sceptical view deriving from Hume that laws assert no more than a regularity of coincidence between instances of properties. In doing so he presents what may become the definitive statement of the case against this position. Professor Armstrong then goes on to establish his own theory in a systematic manner defending it against the most likely objections, and extending both it and the related theory of universals to cover functional and statistical laws. This treatment of the subject is refreshingly concise and vivid: it will both stimulate vigorous professional debate and make an excellent student text. (shrink)

The article develops and extends the theory of Glenn Kessler (Frege, Mill and the foundations of arithmetic, Journal of Philosophy 77, 1980) that a (cardinal) number is a relation between a heap and a unit-making property that structures the heap. For example, the relation between some swan body mass and "being a swan on the lake" could be 4.

The central insight of Darwin's Origin of Species is that evolution is an ecological phenomenon, arising from the activities of organisms in the 'struggle for life'. By contrast, the Modern Synthesis theory of evolution, which rose to prominence in the twentieth century, presents evolution as a fundamentally molecular phenomenon, occurring in populations of sub-organismal entities - genes. After nearly a century of success, the Modern Synthesis theory is now being challenged by empirical advances in the study of organismal development and (...) inheritance. In this important study, D. M. Walsh shows that the principal defect of the Modern Synthesis resides in its rejection of Darwin's organismal perspective, and argues for 'situated Darwinism': an alternative, organism-centred conception of evolution that prioritises organisms as adaptive agents. His book will be of interest to scholars and advanced students of evolutionary biology and the philosophy of biology. (shrink)

Truths are determined not by what we believe, but by the way the world is. Or so realists about truth believe. Philosophers call such theories correspondence theories of truth. Truthmaking theory, which now has many adherents among contemporary philosophers, is the most recent development of a realist theory of truth, and in this book D. M. Armstrong offers the first full-length study of this theory. He examines its applications to different sorts of truth, including contingent truths, modal truths, truths about (...) the past and the future, and mathematical truths. In a clear, even-handed and non-technical discussion he makes a compelling case for truthmaking and its importance in philosophy. His book marks a significant contribution to the debate and will be of interest to a wide range of readers working in analytical philosophy. (shrink)

_The purpose_ of the article is to comprehend the Husserlian model of constituting temporal modes through the ability of intentional "retentional-protentional" consciousness, as well as to clarify the possibility of interpreting its positions in the reconstruction of the concept of anthropic time. _Theoretical basis._ The theoretical framework of the research includes: 1) the interpretation of the phenomenological reflection of "time-consciousness" by E. Husserl in the context of solving the problem of phased-differentiation of this form of temporality; 2) the concept of (...) anthropic time (V. Khanzhy). _Originality._ For the first time in research literature, the possibilities of applying the ideas of Husserl to the reconstruction of the concept of anthropic time are considered through the interpretation of the phenomenological solution to the problem of temporality, proposed and specified in Husserl’s "time-consciousness" concept. _Conclusions._ The comprehension of the Husserlian model of intentionality of consciousness through the "grasping-from-now" and the constitution of phases of phenomenological time through the component of "exiting-from-now" showed that solving the problem of phased-differentiation of phenomenological time leads to the observation of the impossibility of isolating the modes of past, present, and future as self-sufficient and unconditional. More accurate indications, based on the constitutive intentionality of consciousness on the "grasping-from-now" phases of time (as conventional), are as follows: a) the abilities of retention and recollection are the foundation for the constitution of the past and its connections to the present; b) the perception establishes the basis for the phase of the present itself; c) the possibilities of protention and anticipation (as forms of imagination) constitute the future and its connections to the present. By the concept of retention, Husserl fixes a certain primary memory (the present "now" of a past interval), which enables retaining the past in the present. The category of recollection or secondary memory is used by the philosopher to refer to the self-sufficient reproduction of past experiences (without being joined to present perception). The fundamental difference between recollection and retention is that the former _re-_presents a temporal interval, grasping its content and reproducing it as it was in the past, while in the latter, the perceived duration is presented as a fragment of time that has just passed. According to the German philosopher, the "grasping" of the present phase is performed by perception. Through the constitutive intentionality of consciousness, perception synthesizes the results of primary-actual activity and retentional holding of duration. The second part of the article will present solutions to the following research tasks: 1) analysis of the possibilities of protention and anticipation in constituting the future and its connections with the present; 2) understanding the possibility of using interpreted forms of Husser’s ideas in reconstructing the concept of anthropic time. (shrink)

A wide-ranging study of the central concepts in epistemology - belief, truth and knowledge. Professor Armstrong offers a dispositional account of general beliefs and of knowledge of general propositions. Belief about particular matters of fact are described as structures in the mind of the believer which represent or 'map' reality, while general beliefs are dispositions to extend the 'map' or introduce casual relations between portions of the map according to general rules. 'Knowledge' denotes the reliability of such beliefs as representations (...) of reality. Within this framework Professor Armstrong offers a distinctive account of many of the main questions in general epistemology - the relations between beliefs and language, the notions of proposition, concept and idea, the analysis of truth, the varieties of knowledge, and the way in which beleifs and knowledge are supported by reasons. The book as a whole if offered as a contribution to a naturalistic account of man. (shrink)

According to historical theories of biological function, a trait's function is determined by natural selection in the past. I argue that, in addition to historical functions, ahistorical functions ought to be recognized. I propose a theory of biological function which accommodates both. The function of a trait is the way it contributes to fitness and fitness can only be determined relative to a selective regime. Therefore, the function of a trait can only be specified relative to a selective regime. Apart (...) from its desirable pluralism, only this view of relational function can support the function/accident and function/malfunction distinctions commonly thought to be part of the concept of function. Furthermore, only relational function correctly characterizes the explanatory consequences of function attributions in evolutionary biology. (shrink)

This is a collection of twenty-five papers and reviews by the leading analytic philosopher of our time. It adds to the papers on metaphysics and epistemology to be found in his previous two-volume collection published by Oxford University Press. One previously unpublished paper—“Why Conditionalize?”—is included. Australasian philosophers may note with some pride that eleven of the pieces were first published in the Australasian Journal of Philosophy.

The most compelling extant accounts of explanation casts all explanations as causal. Yet there are sciences, theoretical population biology in particular, that explain their phenomena by appeal to statistical, non-causal properties of ensembles. I develop a generalised account of explanation. An explanation serves two functions: metaphysical and cognitive. The metaphysical function is discharged by identifying a counterfactually robust invariance relation between explanans event and explanandum. The cognitive function is discharged by providing an appropriate description of this relation. I offer examples (...) of explanations from portfolio theory and population genetics that meet this characterisation. In each case the invariance relation holds between a statistical property of an ensemble and a change in structure of the ensemble. In neither case, however, does the statistical property cause the outcome it explains. There are genuine statistical, non-causal scientific explanations. (shrink)

Plotinus is the first Greek philosopher to hold a systematic theory of consciousness. The key feature of his theory is that it involves multiple layers of experience: different layers of consciousness occur in different levels of self. This layering of higher modes of consciousness on lower ones provides human beings with a rich experiential world, and enables human beings to draw on their own experience to investigate their true self and the nature of reality. This involves a robust notion of (...) subjectivity. However, it is a notion of subjectivity that is unique to Plotinus, and remarkably different from the Post-Cartesian tradition. Behind the plurality of terms Plotinus uses to express consciousness, and behind the plurality of entities to which Plotinus attributes consciousness, lies a theory of human consciousness. It is a Platonist theory shaped by engagement with rival schools of ancient thought. (shrink)

Dispositions are essential to our understanding of the world. IDispositions: A Debate is an extended dialogue between three distinguished philosophers - D.M. Armstrong, C.B. Martin and U.T. Place - on the many problems associated with dispositions, which reveals their own distinctive accounts of the nature of dispositions. These are then linked to other issues such as the nature of mind, matter, universals, existence, laws of nature and causation.

This paper provides equational semantics for Dung's argumentation networks. The network nodes get numerical values in [0,1], and are supposed to satisfy certain equations. The solutions to these equations correspond to the ?extensions? of the network. This approach is very general and includes the Caminada labelling as a special case, as well as many other so-called network extensions, support systems, higher level attacks, Boolean networks, dependence on time, and much more. The equational approach has its conceptual roots in the nineteenth (...) century following the algebraic equational approach to logic by George Boole, Louis Couturat, and Ernst Schroeder. (shrink)