Abstract: In Chapter 4 of his "Self-Deception Unmasked" (SDU), Al Mele considers several (attempted) empirical demonstrations of self-deception. These empirical demonstrations work under the conception of what Mele refers to as the 'dual-belief requirement', in which an agent simultaneously holds a belief p and a belief ~p. Toward the end of this chapter, Mele considers the argument of one biologist and anthropologist, Robert Trivers, who describes what he takes to be an evolutionary explanation for coming to form false beliefs. (...) Mele argues briefly that Trivers's account is no more explanatory than a similar one that does not include the dual-belief requirement. I present a case describing Trivers' analysis, show how Mele might reply to it. After briefly explaining Mele's sufficient conditions for entering self-deception from Chapter 3 of SDU, I'll consider what it means to hold the dual-belief. I'll then consider what I take to be a class of cases of self-deception which rely on genetic determinism, which I take to satisfy the dual-belief condition. (shrink)

In his celebrated work, A Theory of Justice (1971), John Rawls argues that, from behind the veil of ignorance, parties in the original position will employ the maximin decision rule to reason to his two principles of justice. In this journal, Olatunji Oyeshile offers a brief and concise outline of some of the historical criticisms of that argument. Oyeshile offers two important criticisms of Rawls' argument. Both, however, are somewhat misplaced, as I shall show. First, he claims that decision theory (...) offers parties in the original position other decision procedures. In fact, none of the alternatives are suitable, given the situation. And second, parties in the original position would first guarantee some minimum of libertarian goods, and then seek additional profits. This objection demonstrates a misunderstanding of the place of the maximin decision rule, as I shall show. -/- I believe that both criticisms stem from a close and careful reading of Buchanan's essay on Rawls. Unfortunately, Buchanan himself seemed to have misunderstood Rawls' original arguments. I rely on problems in Buchanan's original work to defend Rawls' theory against Oyeshile's criticisms. (shrink)

Game theory is a branch of economics that uses powerful mathematical models to predict what agents ought to do when interacting with other agents strategically. Bounded rationality is a sub-field of game theory that sets out to explain why, in some interesting cases, people don't act according their utility maximizing strategies, as described by game theory. Interactive Epistemology is formal tool used by Game Theorists and computer scientists to model interactive cases of knowledge. This interesting and useful tool has been (...) previously ignored by philosophers. I'd like to introduce philosophers to interactive epistemology. After doing so, I'll go on to describe the way I've used this powerful formal tool in my own research, by giving some arguments about Bounded Epistemology, which is an analogue of Bounded Rationality, and, if I'm right, is explainable according to many, but not all, of the same models. Doing so, however, requires first setting out and explaining many of these concepts more fully. (shrink)

The term “environmental justice” carries with it a sort of ambiguity. On the one hand, it refers to a movement of social activism in which those involved fight and argue for fairer, more equitable distribution of environmental goods and equal treatment of environmental duties. This movement is related to, and ideally informed by, the second use of the term, which refers to the academic discipline associated with legal regulations and theories of justice and ethics with regard to sustainability, the environment, (...) and ecology. It is this latter, more academic—though vast and interdisciplinary—use of the term that is the subject of this essay. However, activists who pay careful attention to the arguments offered with regard to the political, legal, social, and philosophical treatments of these issues are potentially in a stronger position with regard to their own social movement. In that way, the two uses of the term may progress hand in hand. More broadly, however, the foundational claim about which both grassroots activists and legal, ethical, and policy advocates can agree is that environmental burdens—climate change, pollution, and their associated health risks—are borne disproportionately by the poorest and most vulnerable populations, and tend to have the greatest impact on racial and ethnic minorities, no matter where they are in the world. This is what makes the empirical questions about the environment a normative question about justice. (shrink)

Tort law depends on three key concepts: causation, responsibility, and fault. However, I argue that the three key concepts are neither necessary, nor sufficient, for tort.

A common question asked among egalitarians involves the extent to which responsibility should play a deciding factor in assessing the acceptability of inequalities. So-called luck egalitarians agree that instances of genuine choice are decisive in attributing responsibility for disadvantage, and in justifying unequal distributions of social goods. In this exciting new contribution to this literature, the author explores the correct place to locate the cut between choice and chance. In doing so, he lays out a novel approach for identifying inequalities (...) for which it is fair to hold one responsible, and those for which it is not. The argument--which builds on a thread of intellectual history that runs through Marx and Mill into more contemporary thinkers like Cohen and Rawls--provides a compelling case for rejecting a highly influential theory of strong property rights that has been inherited from Locke, and which we find in contemporary defenses of strong entitlements such as Robert Nozick's. The result is an egalitarian position which treats responsibility seriously, while maintaining our liberal commitments to impartiality and non-arbitrariness in the distribution of rights and responsibilities in contemporary society. (shrink)

The thesis of this paper is that causation, when described and treated as a metaphor, increases in explanatory power, while diminishing the problems associated with standard analysis of it. I first present a description of the uses of metaphor in scientific and literary language. This is drawn primarily from Max Black's interaction view of metaphor, as well as the view forwarded by Donald Davidson in his What Metaphors Mean. I then outline some of the standard analyses in the field of (...) causation, followed by some of the standard replies to those analyses. Finally, I show how describing causation in terms of a metaphor will bypass many of these objections, while maintaining or increasing its explanatory power. (shrink)

Abstract: I argue that the solution to the Red Hat Problem, a puzzle derived from interactive epistemic logic, requires S5. Interactive epis- temic logic is set out in formal terms, and an attempt to solve the red hat puzzle is made in K, K, and K, each of which fails, showing that a stronger system, K is required.

The release of AlphaFold2 (AF2), a deep‐learning‐aided, open‐source protein structure prediction program, from DeepMind, opened a new era of molecular biology. The astonishing improvement in the accuracy of the structure predictions provides the opportunity to characterize protein systems from uncultured Asgard archaea, key organisms in evolutionary biology. Despite the accumulation in metagenomics‐derived Asgard archaea eukaryotic‐like protein sequences, limited structural and biochemical information have restricted the insight in their potential functions. In this review, we focus on profilin, an actin‐dynamics regulating protein, (...) which in eukaryotes, modulates actin polymerization through (1) direct actin interaction, (2) polyproline binding, and (3) phospholipid binding. We assess AF2‐predicted profilin structures in their potential abilities to participate in these activities. We demonstrate that AF2 is a powerful new tool for understanding the emergence of biological functional traits in evolution. (shrink)

Structural biology has experienced several transformative technological advances in recent years. These include: development of extremely bright X-ray sources and the use of electrons to extend protein crystallography to ever decreasing crystal sizes; and an increase in the resolution attainable by cryo-electron microscopy. Here we discuss the use of these techniques in general terms and highlight their application for biological filament systems, an area that is severely underrepresented in atomic resolution structures. We assemble a model of a capped tropomyosin-actin minifilament (...) to demonstrate the utility of combining structures determined by different techniques. Finally, we survey the methods that attempt to transform high resolution structural biology into more physiological environments, such as the cell. Together these techniques promise a compelling decade for structural biology and, more importantly, they will provide exciting discoveries in understanding the designs and purposes of biological machines. Structural biology is undergoing technological advancements that now reveal the structures of previously inaccessible biological machines. Microfocus synchrotron beamlines, X-ray free electron lasers, and MicroED cope with vanishingly small crystals, while cryo-electron microscopy targets single molecules at near atomic resolution. These advances promise an exciting decade for structural biology. (shrink)

It is shown that if A and C are sets of degrees uniformly recursive in 0' with $\mathbf{0} \nonin \mathscr{C}$ then there is a degree b with b' = 0', b ∪ c = 0' for every c ∈ C, and $\mathbf{a} \nleq \mathbf{b}$ for every a ∈ A ∼ {0}. The proof is given as an oracle construction recursive in 0'. It follows that any nonrecursive degree below 0' can be joined to 0' by a degree strictly below 0'. (...) Also, if $\mathbf{a ' and a" = 0" then there is a degree b such that a ∪ b = 0' and a ∩ b = 0. (shrink)

Alan Robinson This set of essays pays tribute to Bob Kowalski on his 60th birthday, an anniversary which gives his friends and colleagues an excuse to celebrate his career as an original thinker, a charismatic communicator, and a forceful intellectual leader. The logic programming community hereby and herein conveys its respect and thanks to him for his pivotal role in creating and fostering the conceptual paradigm which is its raison d’Œtre. The diversity of interests covered here reflects the variety (...) of Bob’s concerns. Read on. It is an intellectual feast. Before you begin, permit me to send him a brief personal, but public, message: Bob, how right you were, and how wrong I was. I should explain. When Bob arrived in Edinburgh in 1967 resolution was as yet fairly new, having taken several years to become at all widely known. Research groups to investigate various aspects of resolution sprang up at several institutions, the one organized by Bernard Meltzer at Edinburgh University being among the first. For the half-dozen years that Bob was a leading member of Bernard’s group, I was a frequent visitor to it, and I saw a lot of him. We had many discussions about logic, computation, and language. (shrink)

Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most popular and controversial philosophers of the last 150 years. Narcissistic, idiosyncratic, hyperbolic, irreverent--never has a philosopher been appropriated, deconstructed, and scrutinized by such a disparate array of groups, movements, and schools of thought. Adored by many for his passionate ideas and iconoclastic style, he is also vilified for his lack of rigor, apparent cruelty, and disdain for moral decency. In Living with Nietzsche, Solomon suggests that we read Nietzsche from a very different point (...) of view, as a provocative writer who means to transform the way we view our lives. This means taking Nietzsche personally. Rather than focus on the "true" Nietzsche or trying to determine "what Nietzsche really meant" by his seemingly random and often contradictory pronouncements about "the Big Questions" of philosophy, Solomon reminds us that Nietzsche is not a philosopher of abstract ideas but rather of the dazzling personal insight, the provocative challenge, the incisive personal probe. He does not try to reveal the eternal verities but he does powerfully affect his readers, goading them to see themselves in new and different ways. It is Nietzsche's compelling invitation to self-scrutiny that fascinates us, engages us, and guides us to a "rich inner life." Ultimately, Solomon argues, Nietzsche is an example as well as a promulgator of "passionate inwardness," a life distinguished by its rich passions, exquisite taste, and a sense of personal elegance and excellence. (shrink)

The Atlas of Reality: A Comprehensive Guide to Metaphysics presents an extensive examination of the key topics, concepts, and guiding principles of metaphysics. Represents the most comprehensive guide to metaphysics available today Offers authoritative coverage of the full range of topics that comprise the field of metaphysics in an accessible manner while considering competing views Explores key concepts such as space, time, powers, universals, and composition with clarity and depth Articulates coherent packages of metaphysical theses that include neo-Aristotelian, Quinean, Armstrongian, (...) and neo-Humean Carefully tracks the use of common assumptions and methodological principles in metaphysics. (shrink)

Philosophy is an exciting and accessible subject, and this engaging text acquaints students with the core problems of philosophy and the many ways in which they are and have been answered. Introducing Philosophy: A Text with Integrated Readings, Eighth Edition, insists both that philosophy is very much alive today and that it is deeply rooted in the past. Accordingly, it combines substantial original sources from significant works in the history of philosophy and current philosophy with detailed commentary and explanation that (...) help to clarify the readings. The selections range from the oldest known fragments to cutting-edge essays in feminism, multiculturalism, and cognitive science. At the end of each chapter is a summary, a list of review questions, a glossary, and a bibliography with suggestions for further reading. Important philosophical terms are carefully introduced in the text and also summarized at the end of each chapter, and brief biographies of the philosophers are provided at the end of the book. New to the Eighth Edition: Addressing the needs of a new generation of students, Robert C. Solomon has included for the first time more than 300 study and review questions. Appearing throughout the text and at the end of each chapter, these questions require immediate feedback from students. They encourage students to articulate the central ideas of what they have just read, instead of just "passing through" on the way to the next reading . New selections expand and update the chapters on religion, knowledge, mind and body, freedom, ethics, justice, and beauty. The selections include work by Charles Hartshorne, Cory Juhl, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Sextus Empiricus, Edmund L. Gettier, David Braddon-Mitchell and Frank Jackson, Colin McGinn, Daniel Dennett, Harry Frankfurt, Gilbert Harman, Emma Goldman, and Arthur C. Danto. A companion website at www.oup.com/us/solomon8e features 300 study and review questions (100 multiple-choice, 100 true-or-false, and 100 fill-in-the-blank), discussion questions, chapter overviews and summaries, topical links, suggestions for further reading, and PowerPoint lecture aids. (shrink)

I have been arguing, for almost thirty years now, that emotions have been unduly neglected in philosophy. Back in the seventies, it was an argument that attracted little sympathy. I have also been arguing that emotions are a ripe for philosophical analysis, a view that, as evidenced by the Manchester 2001 conference and a large number of excellent publications, has now become mainstream. My own analysis of emotion, first published in 1973, challenged the sharp divide between emotions and rationality, insisted (...) that we reject the established notion that the emotions are involuntary, and argued, in a brief slogan, that ‘emotions are judgments.’ Since then, although the specific term ‘judgment’ has come under considerable fire and my voluntarist thesis continues to attract incredulousness the general approach I took to emotions has been widely accepted in both philosophy and the social sciences. When Paul Griffiths took on what he misleadingly characterized as ‘propositional attitude’ theories of emotion as the enemy of all that was true and scientifically worthy, I knew that we had made it. Such ferocious abuse is surely a sign that we had shifted, in Kuhnian terms, from being revolutionary to becoming the ‘normal’ paradigm. The current counter-revolution of affect programmes and neuro-reductionism says a lot about who we are and how far we have come. (Progress in philosophy is moved more by this drama of one outrageous thesis after another—once called ‘dialectic’—than by cautious, careful argument.). (shrink)

This book is of vital interest to anyone who yearns to know how science, theology, ethics, art, and politics do really afford objective truths. Not only that, but how these truths in seemingly clashing areas are interrelated by common sense and rooted in our incontrovertible consciousness of Being itself. Being itself, as the basis for truth, is defended against truth-denying modern philosophers who, having headed in the wrong direction with tragic costs of murderous ideologies, have completely misunderstood the simple origin (...) of truth in the realist tradition of Aristotle, Aquinas, Étienne Gilson, and others. Their profoundness is not bamboozled by the covert and corrupting sophism of today’s teachings. Anyone interested in surmounting these teachings that include political correctness and a false divide of fact from value, which paralyze the very modern ethics that helped to create them, should read this book. The book reveals how ethics, art, and politics can be as true as the sciences that inform them. (shrink)

The abstract structure of inquiry - the process of acquiring and changing beliefs about the world - is the focus of this book which takes the position that the "pragmatic" rather than the "linguistic" approach better solves the philosophical problems about the nature of mental representation, and better accounts for the phenomena of thought and speech. It discusses propositions and propositional attitudes (the cluster of activities that constitute inquiry) in general and takes up the way beliefs change in response to (...) potential new information, suggesting that conditional propositions should be understood as projections of epistemic policies onto the world.Robert C. Stalnaker is a professor in the Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell University. A Bradford Book. (shrink)

Introducing Philosophy: A Text with Integrated Readings, Tenth Edition, is an exciting, accessible, and thorough introduction to the core problems of philosophy and the many ways in which they are, and have been, answered. The authors combine substantial selections from significant works in the history of philosophy with excerpts from current philosophy, clarifying the readings and providing context with their own detailed commentary and explanation. Spanning 2,500 years, the selections range from the oldest known fragments to cutting-edge contemporary essays. Organized (...) topically, the chapters present alternative perspectives--including analytic, continental, feminist, and non-Western viewpoints--alongside the historical works of major Western philosophers.PEDAGOGICAL FEATURES:* Discussion questions, a summary, and a bibliography with suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter* Questions at the end of each subsection* Marginal quotations from the featured readings* Key philosophical terms, boldfaced in the text and collected at the end of each chapter* A glossary at the end of the book. (shrink)

This chapter provides a gentle introduction to contextual emergence and its implications for the structure of the material world as well as implications for meaning in our world.

Introducing Philosophy: A Text with Integrated Readings, Eleventh Edition, is an exciting, accessible, and thorough introduction to the core questions of philosophy and the many ways in which they are, and have been, answered. The authors combine substantial selections from significant works in the history of philosophy with excerpts from current philosophy, clarifying the readings and providing context with their own detailed commentary and explanation. Spanning 2,500 years, the selections range from the oldest known fragments to cutting-edge contemporary essays. Organized (...) topically, the chapters present alternative perspectives--including analytic, continental, feminist, and non-Western viewpoints--alongside the historical works of major Western philosophers. (shrink)

Introducing Philosophy: A Text with integrated Readings, ninth edition, is an engaging introduction to the basic philosophical problems and their potential alternative solutions.

Morality in Sport Sport continues to make its presence known throughout the world as it prospers at all levels. Amazingly, there is no end in sight to the popularity and growth of sport. Essential to sport's continued prosperity, growth, and overall livelihood is the sustenance of a firm moral base. It is the goal and hope of the author that you find this textbook to be a useful guide in helping you maintain and build upon the foundation of moral good (...) that is required for sport to exist now and in the future. The need to make good moral decisions in sport is constant. And, although opportunities to make such decisions in sport are seemingly endless, what is "moral" can be somewhat unclear. Given the various perspectives on morality and the lack of clear-cut distinctions between moral and immoral actions, disagreements regarding moral behavior and sport are likely to always exist. However, having a blatant disregard for good moral behavior in sport is difficult to defend from most any position. (shrink)

Prime matter plays an indispensable role in Aristotle’s philosophy, enabling him to avoid the pitfalls of both naïve Platonism and nominalism. Prime matter is best thought of as a kind of infinitely divisible and atomless bare particularity, grounding the distinctness of distinct members of the same species. Such bare particularity is needed in symmetrical situations, like a world consisting of indistinguishable Max Black spheres. Bare particularity is especially important in modern physics, given the homogeneity and isotropy of space. With the (...) importance of fields in classical, relativistic, and quantum physics, we have good reason to prefer something like Aristotle’s continuous, infinitely divisible matter over indivisible particles. Mass and energy in relativistic physics also points in the direction of prime matter as the enduring substrate of these quantities. Recent work on Aristotelian interpretations of quantum mechanics, further underscores the contemporary relevance of prime matter. (shrink)

The Joy of Philosophy is a return to some of the perennial questions of philosophy--questions about the meaning of life; about death and tragedy; about the respective roles of rationality and passion in the good life; about love, compassion, and revenge; about honesty, deception, and betrayal; and about who we are and how we think about who we are. Recapturing the heart-felt confusion and excitement that originally brings us all to philosophy, internationally renowned teacher and lecturer Robert C. Solomon (...) offers both a critique of contemporary philosophy and an invitation to engage in philosophy in a different way. He attempts to save philosophy from itself and its self-imposed diet of thin arguments and logical analysis to recover the richness and complexity of life in thought. Solomon defends the passionate life in contrast to the life of thoughtful contemplation idealized by so many philosophers, attempting to recapture the kind of philosophy that Nietzsche celebrated as a "joyful wisdom.". (shrink)

The ancient legacy of philosophy -- Consciousness: what a concept! -- God, nature, and spirituality -- Rationality, truth, and the problem of knowledge -- Freedom and responsibility -- How should we live?: morality and ethics -- Philosophy, happiness, and the meaning of life -- Conclusion: why philosophy?

This chapter contains sections titled: Nietzsche on Freedom and Fatalism Fatalism, Determinism, Destiny Nietzsche's Classical Fatalism Nietzsche's Watchword, “Become Who You Are” Nietzsche on “Free Will” Nietzsche on Responsibility.

Science, philosophy of science, and metaphysics have long been concerned with the question of how novel things emerge. How can order come out of disorder? This book introduces a new account, contextual emergence, seeking to answer such questions."--Back cover.

In this article, I describe a multidisciplinary project at the interface of philosophy, science, and theology. The project is the product of an ongoing collaboration between the author and Christopher Southgate, to whom this special issue of Zygon is dedicated. At the philosophical core of the project is a development of C. S. Peirce's semiotics (theory of signs). The scientific branch of the project involves the application of semiotic theory to the problem of the origin of life, and to questions (...) about human evolution and human distinctiveness. The theological branch of the project involves the articulation of a semiotic approach to the Christian concepts of Incarnation and Trinity, and to the ideas of vestiges of the Trinity in creation and of participation in God's life. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the project in terms of Robert John Russell's model of ‘creative mutual interaction’ between science and theology. (shrink)

Einheit der Kirche und Einheit der Menschheit, by W. Pannenberg.--Die Menschheit, Israel und die Nationen in hebräischer Überlieferung, by M. Greenberg.--Die Einheit der Menschheit in biblischer Sicht, by C. Maurer.--Einheit und Entfremdung im Islam, by H. Askari.--Die Entdeckung Amerikas und das europäische Menschenbild, by L. González Rodríguez.--Der Einfluss des Kolonialismus auf das asiatische Verständnis vom Menschen, by J. G. Arapura.--Religiöser Pluralismus und die Suche nach menschlicher Gemeinschaft, by S. J. Samartha.--Vom konfuzianischen Edelmann zum neuen chinesischen "politischen Menschen", by D. A. (...) Robinson.--Die Revolution der Wissenschaft und die Einheit der Menschheit, by B. Towers.--Sprache und Kommunikation, by E. A. Nida.--Die Theologie der Tradition als Grundlage der Einheit, by N. A. Nissiotis. (shrink)