Online research in philosophy

“My thinking starts,” John McDowell has written, “from a central element in Wilfrid Sellars’s attack on the Myth of the Given”; namely, that nothing “given in experience independently of acquired conceptual capacities . . . . could stand in a justificatory relation to beliefs or a world view” (McDowell 1998a, 365). The Sellarsian assault on the Myth of the Given has itself attained something like mythic status. Various writings by McDowell, Richard Rorty, Robert Brandom, and others invoke Sellars’s assault on the Myth as having revealed the Given as nothing more than a myth.

Abstract. The topic of the March 2011 symposium in Zygon is “The Mythic Reality of the Autonomous Individual.” Yet few of the contributors even discuss “mythic reality.” Of the ones who do, most cavalierly use “myth” dismissively, as simply a false belief. Rather than reconciling myth with reality, they oppose myth to reality. Their view of myth is by no means unfamiliar or unwarranted, but they need to recognize other views of myth and to defend their own. Above all, they need to appreciate the grip that any belief aptly labelled myth has—a grip that holds at least as much for a false belief as for a true one.

This book provides a detailed overview of the approach by two of the leading philosophical theorists of myth.

The other within : encountering myth -- The elf-king's closet : types of myth -- The view from outside : theories of myth -- Singing the world : myths of creation -- The hero's journey : the warrior -- The hero's journey : the Savior -- The end of days and the life everlasting : eschatological myths -- Shadowside : myths of evil, the trickster, and the flood -- Our people : nationalistic myths -- The wizard's prism : psychology of myth -- The thinkers : notable scholars and philosophers of myth -- Absence and light-sabers : modern myth.

Britain's foremost living philosopher argues that myth, far from being in opposition to, is actually part and parcel of science. According to Midgley, myths are neither lies nor stories, but a network of powerful symbols that suggest particular ways of interpreting the world. In this interpretation she demolishes three of our most potent myths: the myth of the social contract, the myth of progress, and the myth of science.

New research tools such as PET can produce dramatic results. But they can also produce dramatic artifacts. Why is PET to be trusted? We examine both the rationale that justifies interpreting PET as measuring brain activity and the strategies for interpreting PET results functionally. We show that functional ascriptions with PET make important assumptions and depend critically on relating PET results to those secured through other research techniques.