In recent decades, economists have played an active role in shaping public policy by publicly recommending the adoption of certain policies. These recommendations are often based on normative assumptions that are not the product of economic analysis; nor are they shared by the laypeople to whom these recommendations are made. Inducing people to adopt public policies for reasons that are neither the product of expertise, nor shared by the people, is a form of manipulation that violates the ideals of a (...) liberal democratic society. Thus, the economists’ recommendations constitute an abuse of their expertise. (shrink)

The classical view of the relationship between necessity and apriority, defended by Leibniz and Kant, is that all necessary truths are known a priori. The classical view is now almost universally rejected, ever since Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam discovered that there are necessary truths that are known only a posteriori. However, in recent years a new debate has emerged over the epistemology of these necessary a posteriori truths. According to one view – call it the neo-classical view – knowledge (...) of a necessary truth always depends on at least one item of a priori knowledge. According to the rival view – call it the neoempiricist view – our knowledge of necessity is sometimes broadly empirical. In this paper I present and defend an argument against the neo-empiricist view. I argue that knowledge of the necessity of a necessary truth could not be broadly empirical. (shrink)

Of course, as scholars have long known, this example has serious limitations. For one thing, a substantial form, as the scholastics understood it, is much more dynamic than a mere shape. For example, the substantial form of an oak tree somehow explains how and why an oak tree can do everything that it does. So the substantial form of an oak tree could not be something as simple or crude as its shape. Nevertheless, the example of the bronze statue does (...) have the virtue of illustrating one of the chief advantages of hylomorphism as a philosophy of the human person. Although we can talk about the bronze and the shape of the statue, respectively, it still seems correct to say that the statue is exactly one thing, not two things. Likewise, although we can talk about the matter and the form of a human being, the hylomorphist insists that a human being is exactly one thing, not two things accidentally conjoined. (shrink)

According to Eric Mack, the Wilt Chamberlain Argument makes two distinct points against all patterned and end-state theories of justice. First, the pattern theorist cannot explain how innocuous actions can give rise to an injustice. Second, the enforcement of a pattern theory requires constant redistribution of holdings, and that prevents people from forming legitimate expectations about their future holdings. This paper responds to both of these points. Mack’s first point denies or disregards the relevance of harmful consequences to the justice (...) or injustice of a distribution. The second point is based on a requirement that is either too demanding to be plausible, or too permissive to undermine pattern theories. The failure of Mack’s arguments illustrates the difficulty of resolving substantive political debates with a priori arguments alone. When faced with objections, the only possible defense of the Wilt Chamberlain argument resorts to empirical claims, which stand in need of empirical evidence. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article:M DePaul (ed), Resurrecting Old–Fashioned Foundationalism.

Christian orthodoxy essentially involves the acceptance of the New Testament as authoritative in matters of faith and conduct. However, the New Testament instructs slaves and women to accept a subordinate status that denies their equality with other human beings. To accept such a status is to have the vice of servility, which involves denying the equality of all human beings. Therefore the New Testament asserts that slaves and women should deny their equality with other human beings. This is false. Moreover, (...) these same passages in the New Testament implicitly assert that slavery and the subordination of women are morally permissible. This isalso false. Therefore orthodox Christianity is false. (shrink)

Christopher Hill and Joseph Levine have argued that the conceivabilities involved in anti-materialist arguments are defeated as evidence of possibility. Their strategy assumes the following principle: the conceivability of a state of affairs S constitutes evidence for the possibility of S only if the possibility of S is the best explanation of the conceivability of S. So if there is a better explanation of the conceivability of S than its possibility, then the conceivability of S is thereby defeated as evidence (...) of possibility. Hill and Levine proceed to offer alternative explanations of these conceivabilities, concluding that these conceivabilities are thereby defeated as evidence. However, this strategy fails because their explanations generalize to all conceivability judgments concerning phenomenal states. Consequently, one could defend absolutely any theory of phenomenal states against conceivability arguments in just this way. This result conflicts with too many of our common sense beliefs about the evidential value of conceivability with respect to phenomenal states. The general moral is that the application of such principles of explanatory defeat is neither simple nor straightforward. (shrink)

In a recent address to the American Catholic Philosophical Association, Alfred Freddoso has claimed that dualism is both religiously and morally pernicious. He contends that dualism runs afoul of the Catholic teaching that the soul is the form of the body, and that dualism leaves the body with nothing more than instrumental moral worth. On the contrary, I argue that dualism per se is neither religiously nor morally pernicious. Dualism is compatible with a rich teleology of embodiment that will underwrite (...) all of the same moral insights about the body that traditional hylomorphism supports. (shrink)

_How Do You Know?_ explores problems of knowledge that arise in everyday life. If you are not an expert, how can you know that another person is an expert? If experts are politically biased should you still trust them? More generally, how should you approach the testimony of other people: treat it all as "innocent until proven guilty," or is that too simple? Does the internet make us better knowers, or is it just a minefield of misinformation? Is it always (...) irrational to believe a conspiracy theory? Suppose someone just as intelligent and well-informed as you are disagrees with you about something, how should that affect your belief? Can we have knowledge of what is right and wrong? _How Do You Know?_ approaches these issues through the lens of social epistemology and via the preeminently social genre of philosophical dialogue. Its characters think and speak like real people in the world today, discussing and debating issues that are current, practically relevant, and even controversial—while equipping readers with tools and concepts to see more clearly for themselves. (shrink)

The subject of this dissertation is the entitlement to modal beliefs, such as the belief that a proposition is necessarily true, or the belief that a proposition is possibly true. My thesis is that the entitlement to modal beliefs has two dimensions, one active and one passive. In the active dimension, someone is entitled to a modal belief just in case he has conducted the appropriate thought experiments. In the passive dimension, someone is entitled to a modal belief just in (...) case the belief fits his evidence, which is constituted by the conceivability or inconceivability of the proposition in question. Thus, my principal contention is that conducting thought experiments, and taking conceivability as evidence of possibility, is both necessary and sufficient for entitled modal belief. Insofar as these methods are a priori, this implies that our entitlement to our modal beliefs is always partially a priori. ;I begin by clarifying the fundamental concepts of entitlement, modality, and apriority. Then I proceed to state and defend a two-dimensional account of the necessary a posteriori. According to such an account, our entitlement to every necessary a posteriori truth is achieved by an a priori deduction from two or more claims, at least one of which is a priori. The a priori dimension of this entitlement involves the very same methods and sources of entitlement as other modal beliefs---thought experiments and states of conceivability or inconceivability. I go on to defend thought experiments and conceivability against skeptical attacks. Much of the criticism of thought experiments turns on a refusal to countenance the relevant sort of modality. However, I defend this sort of modality in an opening chapter of the dissertation. Much skepticism about the epistemic value of conceivability is founded on an illicit demand for a noncircular demonstration of its reliability. However, if universally accepted, this demand would undercut the evidence of the senses as well. Other objections to conceivability are also considered and found wanting. In conclusion, I argue against conventionalism about modality, and defend a form of rationalism in modal epistemology. (shrink)

In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in property dualism—the view that some mental properties are neither identical with, nor strongly supervenient on, physical properties. One of the principal objections to this view is that, according to natural science, the physical world is a causally closed system. So if mental properties are really distinct from physical properties, then it would seem that mental properties never really cause anything that happens in the physical world. Thus, dualism threatens to (...) lead inexorably to epiphenomenalism. In this paper, I will argue that the only way for a property dualist to avoid epiphenomenalism is to deny that the human body is strictly identical with the sum of its microphysical parts. I will go on to argue that the only way to sustain such anti-reductionism about the human body is to embrace some sort of substance-hylomorphism. (shrink)

Knowledge can be transmitted by a valid deductive inference. If I know that p, and I know that if p then q, then I can infer that q, and I can thereby come to know that q. What feature of a valid deductive inference enables it to transmit knowledge? In some cases, it is a proof of validity that grounds the transmission of knowledge. If the subject can prove that her inference follows a valid rule, then her inference transmits knowledge. (...) However, this only pushes the question back to the inference that was made in this proof. What feature of that inference enables it to transmit knowledge? A vicious regress looms here. Every proof requires a valid inference, and every valid inference must follow at least one rule of inference. So every proof must follow at least one rule of inference. Therefore not every valid inference that transmits knowledge can acquire this power through a proof, on pain of vicious infinite regress. So it must be possible to transmit knowledge by making an inference that follows an underived rule. A deductive inference that follows an underived rule is what I will call a basic deductive inference. It must be possible to transmit knowledge by making a basic deductive inference. But how is this possible? What feature of a basic deductive inference gives it this power to transmit knowledge? (shrink)

Trenton Merricks argues that we need propositions to serve as the premises and conclusions of modally valid arguments (Merricks 2015). A modally valid argument is an argument in which, necessarily, if the premises are true, then the conclusion is also true. According to Mer- ricks, the premises and conclusions of modally valid arguments have their truth conditions essentially, and they exist necessarily. Sentences do not satisfy these conditions. Thus, we need propositions. Merricks’ argument adds a new chapter to the longstanding (...) debate over the exis- tence of propositions. However, I argue that Merricks’ argument does not quite succeed. Merricks has overlooked one viable alternative to pos- tulating propositions. However, this alternative employs the relation of being true-at-a-world, which is difficult to analyze. Thus, the soundness of Merricks’ argument ultimately depends on the comparative merits of accepting propositions as abstract entities, versus accepting truth-at-a- world as an unanalyzed relation between sentences and possible worlds. (shrink)

Nurses die by suicide at a higher rate than the general population. Previous studies have observed mental health problems, including substance use, as a prominent antecedent before death. The purpose of this study was to explore the characteristics of nurses who died by suicide documented in the death investigation narratives from the National Violent Death Reporting System from 2003 to 2017 using thematic analysis and natural language processing. One thousand three hundred and fifty‐eight subjects met these inclusion criteria. Narratives from (...) 601 subjects were thematically analyzed and 2544 individual narratives were analyzed using natural language processing. The analyses revealed five themes: “mental health treatment,” “poor general health and chronic pain,” “substance use,” “worsening mental health after bereavement,” and “repeating a family member's suicide.” Mental health/substance use, chronic illness, and chronic pain were seen to coexist in a complex, interdependent manner that appeared to be entangled in the nurses' narratives before death. These findings echo the need for reducing the stigmatization of mental health problems in nursing and removing barriers to help‐seeking behaviors as early preventative interventions. Future research is needed to determine if a comprehensive healthcare integration approach to address these entangled problems would reduce suicide vulnerability in nurses and improve their quality of life. (shrink)

Evidentialism about belief in God is the proposition that a person is justified in believing in God only if she has evidence for her belief. Alvin Plantinga has long argued that there is no good argument for evidentialism about belief in God. However, it does not follow that such evidentialism is unjustified, since it could be properly basic. In fact, there is no good argument against the proper basicality of evidentialism about belief in God. So an evidentialist about belief in (...) God can accept it as properly basic. (shrink)

The first horn of the Responsibilism Dilemma turns on the fact that the concept of responsibility is neutral between positive appraisal and negative appraisal. To say that someone is responsible is not ipso facto to say whether she is praiseworthy or blameworthy. Being responsible for something is simply a matter of having the appropriate sort of control over it, regardless of whether that control is exercised well or badly. So responsibility is, at most, a necessary, but not a sufficient condition (...) for positive appraisal. Now, the concept of epistemic justification obviously entails a positive appraisal. So if responsibility, as such, is neutral between positive and negative appraisal, whereas epistemic justification entails a positive appraisal, then obviously there is a conceptual gap between mere responsibility and epistemic justification. It seems obvious to me that Hetherington is right about this. However, it seems just as obvious that it is innocuous to the responsibilist to concede that responsibility is only a necessary, and not a sufficient condition for justification. That is because responsibility, thus understood, is simply a matter of having control, regardless of whether that control is exercised well or badly. Only control that is exercised properly could be sufficient for a positive epistemic status. All of this seems rather mundane. (shrink)

In recent years there has been a resurgence of interest in property dualism—the view that some mental properties are neither identical with, nor strongly supervenient on, physical properties. One of the principal objections to this view is that, according to natural science, the physical world is a causally closed system. So if mental properties are really distinct from physical properties, then it would seem that mental properties never really cause anything that happens in the physical world. Thus, dualism threatens to (...) lead inexorably to epiphenomenalism. In this paper, I will argue that the only way for a property dualist to avoid epiphenomenalism is to deny that the human body is strictly identical with the sum of its microphysical parts. I will go on to argue that the only way to sustain such anti-reductionism about the human body is to embrace some sort of substance-hylomorphism. (shrink)

In this paper we set out a view on which internalist proper basicality is secured by sensory experience.

Libertarians oppose coercion and champion a free-market society. Are these two commitments, as libertarians claim, wholly consistent with one another, or is there, by contrast, a tension between them? This paper defends the latter view. Replying to an article by Gordon Barnes, the paper casts doubts on the success of an argument aimed at establishing that, while coercion is justice-disrupting, all non-coercive but forced transactions that occur in a free market are justice-preserving.

Gordon P. Barnes has recently argued that presence by power is inadequate as an explanation of the way elements are present in complex bodies, and that it would be better to explain the elements’ presence by claiming that simpler substances—carbon atoms, for example—are actually and substantially present in living things. In order to address his arguments, this paper begins by briefly presenting St. Thomas’s understanding of presence by power, and then argues that Barnes’s proposal—that there is a (...) multiplicity of substantial forms in one matter—is unsatisfactory. First, the paper explains why the scientific facts do not require a plurality of substantial forms. Second, it shows how Barnes’s theory does not adequately explain living things. Third, it argues against Barnes’s claim that St. Thomas’s explanation is insufficient because it denies "the universal causality of nature.". (shrink)

If the world itself is metaphysically indeterminate in a specified respect, what follows? In this paper, we develop a theory of metaphysical indeterminacy answering this question.

This anthology looks at the early sages of Western philosophy and science who paved the way for Plato and Aristotle and their successors. Democritus's atomic theory of matter, Zeno's dazzling "proofs" that motion is impossible, Pythagorean insights into mathematics, Heraclitus's haunting and enigmatic epigrams-all form part of a revolution in human thought that relied on reasoning, forged the first scientific vocabulary, and laid the foundations of Western philosophy. Jonathan Barnes has painstakingly brought together the surviving Presocratic fragments in their (...) original contexts, utilizing the latest research and a major new papyrus of Empedocles. Translated and edited by Jonathan Barnes. (shrink)

This book is available either individually, or as part of the specially-priced Arguments of the Philosphers Collection.

The intellectual history of the last quarter of this century has been marked by the growing influence of Africana thought--an area of philosophy that focuses on issues raised by the struggle over ideas in African cultures and their hybrid forms in Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean. Existentia Africana is an engaging and highly readable introduction to the field of Africana philosophy and will help to define this rapidly growing field. Lewis R. Gordon clearly explains Africana existential thought to (...) a general audience, covering a wide range of both classic and contemporary thinkers--from Douglass and DuBois to Fanon, Davis and Zack. (shrink)

The Oxford Translation of Aristotle was originally published in 12 volumes between 1912 and 1954. It is universally recognized as the standard English version of Aristotle. This revised edition contains the substance of the original Translation, slightly emended in light of recent scholarship three of the original versions have been replaced by new translations and a new and enlarged selection of Fragments has been added. The aim of the translation remains the same: to make the surviving works of Aristotle readily (...) accessible to English speaking readers. (shrink)

We provide an overview of the life and work of Graham Barnes, who was strongly influenced by Gregory Bateson, and who collaborated with several other cyberneticians and constructivists, in particular, Gordon Pask and Heinz von Foerster. After having left the USA for Sweden, he commuted between Stockholm and Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana and Rijeka, where he taught his own integration of second-order cybernetics and psychotherapy.

Underpinning all the other branches of science, physics affects the way we live our lives, and ultimately how life itself functions. Recent scientific advances have led to dramatic reassessment of our understanding of the world around us, and made a significant impact on our lifestyle. In this book, leading international experts, including Nobel prize winners, explore the frontiers of modern physics, from the particles inside an atom to the stars that make up a galaxy, from nano-engineering and brain research to (...) high-speed data networks. Revealing how physics plays a vital role in what we see around us, this book will fascinate scientists of all disciplines, and anyone wanting to know more about the world of physics today. (shrink)

BL Features of the new edition: The translation has been completely rewritten, and the commentary thoroughly revised in the light of recent scholarship There is an additional glossary, and extended bibliography The Posterior Analytics contains some of Aristotle's most influential thoughts in logic, epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of science. The first book expounds and develops the notions of a demonstrative argument and of a formal, axiomatized science; the second discusses a cluster of problems raised by the axioms or principles (...) of such a science, and investigates in particular the theory of definition. (shrink)

Genocide in Rwanda, multiple murder at Denver or Dunblane, the gruesome activities of serial killers - what makes these great evils, and why do they occur? In addressing such questions this book, unusually, interconnects contemporary moral philosophy with recent work in New Testament scholarship. The conclusions to emerge are surprising. Gordon Graham argues that the inability of modernist thought to account satisfactorily for evil and its occurrence should not lead us to embrace an eclectic postmodernism, but to take seriously (...) some unfashionable pre-modern conceptions - Satan, demonic possession, spiritual powers, cosmic battles. Precisely because it strives to observe the high standards of clarity and rigour that are the hallmarks of philosophy in the analytical tradition, the book makes a powerful case for the rejection of humanism and naturalism, and for explaining the moral obligation to struggle against evil by reference to the New Testament's cosmic narrative. (shrink)

Disability is primarily a social phenomenon -- a way of being a minority, a way of facing social oppression, but not a way of being inherently or intrinsically worse off. This is how disability is understood in the Disability Rights and Disability Pride movements; but there is a massive disconnect with the way disability is typically viewed within analytic philosophy. The idea that disability is not inherently bad or sub-optimal is one that many philosophers treat with open skepticism, and sometimes (...) even with scorn. The goal of this book is to articulate and defend a version of the view of disability that is common in the Disability Rights movement. To be physically disabled is not to have a defective body, but simply to have a minority body. (shrink)

One of the most basic questions an ontology can address is: How many things, or substances, are there? A monist will say, ‘just one’. But there are different stripes of monism, and where the borders between these different views lie rests on the question, ‘To what does this “oneness” apply?’ Some monists apply ‘oneness’ to existence. Others apply ‘oneness’ to types. Determining whether a philosopher is a monist and deciphering what this is supposed to mean is no easy task, especially (...) when it comes to those writing in the early modern period because many philosophers of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries include God in their ontologies. InThe Principles,Anne Finch Conway offers an ontology that is often described as being both ‘vitalist’ and ‘monist’. I take this to mean that, for Conway, all that exists is in some way alive and that if asked ‘How many things, or substances, are there?’ Conway would say, ‘Just one’. But to what does this ‘oneness’ apply? And where does the point of disagreement between Conway and her interlocutors, Hobbes, Spinoza, More, and Descartes lie? In this paper, I argue that determining the answer to this first question turns out to be quite difficult. Nevertheless, we can still make sense of the second. (shrink)

William Barnes' reputation as one of the pre-eminent British "dialect" poets, the equal of Robert Burns and John Clare, is being increasingly recognized. The range of his writings is extraordinary as evidenced by the contents of this collection, which includes works on etymology, philology, topography, mathematics, ancient history and economics. This collection displays the full diversity of Barnes' considerable intellect. Included are major and lesser-known works, biographical pieces by Thomas Hardy, and the biography by his daughter, Lucy Baxter.

In order to make sense of Scotus’s claim that rationality is perfected only by the will, a Scotistic doctrine of truth is developed in a speculative way. It is claimed that synthetic a priori truths are truths of the will, which are existential truths. This insight holds profound theological implications and is used on the one hand to criticize Kant's conception of existence, and on the other hand, to offer another explanation of the sense according to which the existence of (...) things is grasped. (shrink)