Climate change ethics is an emerging field of applied ethics that examines the ethical implications entailed in the various climate change effects on people around the world, future generations, an...

As one of the most important ethicists to emerge since the Second World War, Alan Gewirth continues to influence philosophical debates concerning morality. In this ground-breaking book, Gewirth's neo-Kantianism, and the communitarian problems discussed, form a dialogue on the foundation of moral theory. Themes of agent-centered constraints, the formal structure of theories, and the relationship between freedom and duty are examined along with such new perspectives as feminism, the Stoics, and Sartre. Gewirth offers a picture of the philosopher's theory and (...) its applications, providing a richer, more complete critical assessement than any which has occurred to date. (shrink)

Stewart's purpose is to show that Hume is not a political conservative, but is better understood as a liberal. The author is reacting against several recent works on Hume: David Miller's Philosophy and Ideology in Hume's Political Thought, Donald W. Livingston's Hume's Philosophy of Common Life, and Frederick G. Whelan's Order and Artifice in Hume's Political Philosophy. These "all share, with variations, the nineteenth-century view that Hume's epistemology led him to conservatism". Stewart acknowledges that the term "conservative" is used (...) in different ways by these authors, but not so differently that they cannot be collectively refuted by showing Hume to be a liberal, that is, one "who thought that major reforms were highly desirable in the United Kingdom in the late-eighteenth and early-nineteenth centuries". Stewart is referring here to substantial "economic and political reforms," but not to "socialist, Marxist, or neoliberal reforms.". (shrink)

Described as ‘the most original and innovative Latin American Marxist’ by Michael Löwy – a sentiment repeated by many others – the work of José Carlos Mariátegui remains a largely untapped resource in the Western Marxist tradition outside of specialist circles. This review essay considers the recent publication of a translation and anthology of Mariátegui’s work into English by Harry Vanden and Mark Becker as a first step towards correcting this trend. It highlights Mariátegui’s understanding of race, power, and (...) identity; the combined and uneven development of capital; and the role of myth and voluntarism in revolutionary struggle as key points in which the early-twentieth-century Peruvian contributes to contemporary debates in Marxist praxis in Latin America and beyond. (shrink)

Social revolutions--that is critical periods of decisive, qualitative change--are a commonly acknowledged historical fact. But can the idea of revolutionary upheaval be extended to the world of ideas and theoretical debate? The publication of Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions in 1962 led to an exciting discussion of revolutions in the natural sciences. A fascinating, but little known, off-shoot of this was a debate which began in the United States in the mid-1970's as to whether the concept of revolution could (...) be applied to mathematics as well as science. Michael Grove declared that revolutions never occur in mathematics, while Joseph Dauben argued that there have been mathematical revolutions and gave some examples. This book is the first comprehensive examination of the question. It reprints the original papers of Grove, Dauben, and Mehrtens, together with additional chapters giving their current views. To this are added new contributions from nine further experts in the history of mathematics, who each discuss an important episode and consider whether it was a revolution. The whole question of mathematical revolutions is thus examined comprehensively and from a variety of perspectives. This thought-provoking volume will interest mathematicians, philosophers, and historians alike. (shrink)

The editors, working with a team of 325 renowned authorities in the field of ethics, have revised, expanded, and updated this classic encyclopedia. Along with the addition of 150 new entries, all of the original articles have been newly peer-reviewed and revised, bibliographies have been updated throughout, and the overall design of the work has been enhanced for easier access to cross-references and other reference features. New entries include * Aristotelian Ethics * Avicenna * Bad Faith * Beneficence * Categorical (...) and Hypothetical Imperatives * Cheating * Civil Liberty * Conventions * Dirty hands * Evolution * Fiduciary Relationships * Gay ethics * Genetic Engineering * Holocaust * Journalism * Killing/Letting Die * Moral Imagination * Narrative Ethics * Political correctness * Population Ethics * Public and 0rivate Morality * Racism, concepts of * and many more. (shrink)

Willard Van Orman Quine's work revolutionized the fields of epistemology, semantics and ontology. At the heart of his philosophy are several interconnected doctrines: his rejection of conventionalism and of the linguistic doctrine of logical and mathematical truth, his rejection of the analytic/synthetic distinction, his thesis of the indeterminacy of translation and his thesis of the inscrutability of reference. In this book Edward Becker sets out to interpret and explain these doctrines. He offers detailed analyses of the relevant texts, discusses (...) Quine's views on meaning, reference and knowledge, and shows how Quine's views developed over the years. He also proposes a new version of the linguistic doctrine of logical truth, and a new way of rehabilitating analyticity. His rich exploration of Quine's thought will interest all those seeking to understand and evaluate the work of one of the most important philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century. (shrink)

This is a newly revised and updated edition of A History of Western Ethics, a coherent and accessible overview of the most important figures and influential ideas of the history of ethics in the Western philosophical tradition. Written by eleven distinguished scholars, and including a glossary of key terms, this book is an essential reference for students and general readers alike.

In the Treatise of Human Nature , Hume argues that, because we have adequate ideas of the smallest parts of space, we can infer that space itself must conform to our representations of it. The paper examines two challenges to this argument based on Descartes's and Locke's treatments of adequate ideas, ideas that fully capture the objects they represent. The first challenge, posed by Arnauld in his Objections to the Meditations , asks how we can know that an idea is (...) adequate. The second challenge, implicit in Locke's Essay , asks how an empiricist can characterize an idea as inadequate, as both picking out an object and yet failing to capture it fully. In showing how Hume responds to these challenges, his theory of perceptual representation is explained and his treatment of space is related to his scepticism. His conclusion is shown not to be a characterization of space as it exists wholly apart from our powers of conception. Instead, in an adumbration of Kant, his claim is restricted to space as it appears to us. (shrink)

What is the relation between a reason and an action when the reason explains the action by giving the agent's reason for doing what he did? We may call such explanations rationalizations, and say that the reason rationalizes the action. In this paper I want to defend the ancient - and common-sense - position that rationalization is a species of ordinary causal explanation. The defense no doubt requires some redeployment, but not more or less complete abandonment of the position, as (...) urged by many recent writers. (shrink)

In a recent study, Becker and Elliott [Becker, C., & Elliott, M. A.. Flicker induced color and form: Interdependencies and relation to stimulation frequency and phase. Consciousness & Cognition, 15, 175–196] described the appearance of subjective experiences of color and form induced by stimulation with intermittent light. While there have been electroencephalographic studies of similar hallucinatory forms, brain activity accompanying the appearance of hallucinatory colors was never measured. Using a priming procedure where observers were required to indicate the (...) presence of one of eight target colors we compared electrophysiological correlates of hallucinatory color with brain states associated with other visual phenomena. Different target colors were accompanied by different patterns of EEG activation. However, in general, we found that the appearance of hallucinatory colors is preceded by a power decrease in the lower alpha band alongside an increase in gamma band frequencies. We argue that decreasing activity in the lower alpha band acts as a gating mechanism, inducing a switch in perception between different colors. The increasing gamma activation may correlate with the formation of a coherent conscious percept. (shrink)

Arthur O. Lovejoy conceived of the history of ideas as an interdisciplinary study, encompassing a variety of fields, including literary history, comparative literature, the history of folklore and ethnography, the history of language and the history of religious beliefs. This volume gathers together some of the most significant articles concerning the theory and practice of intellectual history, by Lovejoy himself and other scholars. Contributors: DONALD R. KELLEY, ARTHUR O. LOVEJOY, FREDERICK J. TEGGART, LEO SPITZER, THEODORE SPENCER, ABRAHAM EDEL, PAUL (...) O. KRISTELLER, PHILIP P. WIENER, JOSEPH A. MAZZEO, LEONARD KRIEGER, DANIEL J. WILSON, EDWARD P. MAHONEY, FRANCIS OAKLEY,JOHANN HUIZINGA, JOSEPH KATZ, CALVIN G. RAND, NILS B. KVASTAD, LESTER G. CROCKER and PATRICK H. HUTTON. (shrink)

There is more than one way to say that composition is identity. Yi has distinguished the Weak Composition thesis from the Strong Composition thesis and attributed the former to David Lewis while noting that Lewis associates something like the latter with me. Weak Composition is the thesis that the relation between the parts collectively and their whole is closely analogous to identity. Strong Composition is the thesis that the relation between the parts collectively and their whole is identity. Yi is (...) right that Strong Composition does not fully reflect my view. We must recognize further what, borrowing Lewis's characterization, could be called the "stronger, and stranger" Composition thesis, or what I'll call the Stronger Composition thesis for short. On Strong Composition, it is only collectively that the parts are identical with the whole. On Stronger Composition, they are individually identical with it as well. I will explain and motivate this thesis. (shrink)

Biotechnology marks a new scientific revolution. It holds the promise of generating resources to meet our needs in the fight against hunger, disease and environmental disasters.

In der Antisemitismuskritik insbesondere nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg wird Fichte vielfach eine zentrale Rolle zugedacht: nämlich als dem Angelpunkt des Umschlags vom religiösen Antijudaismus zur politischen Judenfeindlichkeit. Diese Sicht, die sich im Wesentlichen auf eine Äußerung in einer Frühschrift des Philosophen von 1793 stützt, hat — so die These des Buches — dessen weitere Entwicklung, wenn überhaupt, dann nur völlig unzureichend zur Kenntnis genommen. Für überraschend viele jüdische Zeitgenossen, seine jüdischen Studenten voran, ist Fichte der wegweisende Philosoph der Epoche gewesen. (...) Die weitere, gerade jüdische Rezeptionsgeschichte seines Werkes belegt bis ins Dritte Reich hinein eine erstaunliche, bislang in diesem Umfang nicht zur Kenntnis genommene Affinität des Judentums zu Fichte. Dabei erweisen sich Fichtes Reden an die deutsche Nation — für viele sicherlich überraschend — gerade für den Zionismus als beispielhaft für jedes Volk im Werden und für das jüdische allemal. Auch die französische Fichte-Rezeption — ebenfals dort ist die jüdische prominent vertreten — hat, die Zeit des Grande Guerre ausgenommen, bis zu Beginn des Zweiten Weltkrieges in Fichte vor allem den Erben der Freiheitsversprechen von Aufklärung und Revolution in Frankreich gesehen. (shrink)

Each entry includes a brief listing of the subjects covered in the work. The volume also includes a full subject index and an author index.

The early essays in this volume proceed on the assumption that a compatability system can be fashioned that will not only bring religious knowledge claims into harmony with scientific claims, but will also show there to be a fundamental similarity of method in religious and scientific thinking. They are not, however, unambiguously successful. Consequently Wiebe sets out in the succeeding essays to seek an understanding of the religion/science relationship that does not assume they must be compatible. The examination, in the (...) final analysis, reveals a fundamental contradiction in the compatability system building programme which suggests that religious belief is beyond legitimation. (shrink)

In a recent study, Becker and Elliott [Becker, C., & Elliott, M. A. . Flicker induced color and form: Interdependencies and relation to stimulation frequency and phase. Consciousness & Cognition, 15, 175–196] described the appearance of subjective experiences of color and form induced by stimulation with intermittent light. While there have been electroencephalographic studies of similar hallucinatory forms, brain activity accompanying the appearance of hallucinatory colors was never measured. Using a priming procedure where observers were required to indicate (...) the presence of one of eight target colors we compared electrophysiological correlates of hallucinatory color with brain states associated with other visual phenomena. Different target colors were accompanied by different patterns of EEG activation. However, in general, we found that the appearance of hallucinatory colors is preceded by a power decrease in the lower alpha band alongside an increase in gamma band frequencies. We argue that decreasing activity in the lower alpha band acts as a gating mechanism, inducing a switch in perception between different colors. The increasing gamma activation may correlate with the formation of a coherent conscious percept. (shrink)

How is it possible for David Hume to be both withering skeptic and constructive theorist? I recommend an answer like the Pyrrhonian answer to the question how it is possible to suspend all judgment yet engage in active daily life. Sextus Empiricus distinguishes two kinds of assent: one suspended across the board and one involved with daily living. The first is an act of will based on appreciation of reasons; the second is a causal effect of appearances. Hume makes the (...) same distinction, only he extends the sort of assent involved in daily life to theoretical matters as well. He is a skeptic both in finding no reason to grant the first sort of assent and in being subject to the second. (shrink)