Online research in philosophy

“Closure occurs in science when a consensus emerges that the ‘truth’ has been winnowed from the various interpretations.”[1] More than once in library books I saw “sic” scribbled in the margin pointing to the scare quotation marks in this and similar texts. If the readers read on, they would discover that scare quotes around scientific truth, fact, reality, nature, technological progress, and similar terms are fashionable in postmodern literature and are spreading beyond it. Scientific results are “true.” Scientists arrive at the “fact.” What do the scare quotes mean? What are their effects?

. How does the doctrine of double effect apply to business decisions to sell products which may be harmful to consumers? Lawrence Masek believes that some authors have misapplied the doctrine to this type of decision and, as a consequence, have committed themselves to placing unwarranted constraints on businesses. Seeking to correct this mistake, Masek presents his account of how the doctrine applies here, an account which is rather permissive but which, he claims, nevertheless preserves the virtues of the doctrine. It will be seen, though, that his attempt to loosen these putatively unnecessary constraints by appealing to consumer autonomy and an intuition about the morality of producing harmful products leaves the doctrine of double effect irrelevant to this type of decision. His argument that the doctrine is less restrictive in this context than others suppose leads ultimately to the conclusion that the doctrine does not constrain this kind of business decision at all.

At the beginning of your paper you identify Dewey's concept of experience with "knowing how" to do something, skilled coping (pages 5 & 6). But as you discuss Dewey's concept in relation to Gibson's affordances, connectionist nets, and Schusterman's critique, it grows to encompass emotions, goals, and the felt quality of an experience. Still there is no full statement of how Dewey conceived of experience, much less, quotes from his work to match the many quotes from Sellars' work on sensation. Let me propose one from among the many he wrote.

The doctrine of double effect continues to be an important tool in bioethical casuistry. Its role within the Catholic moral tradition continues, and there is considerable interest in it by contemporary moral philosophers. But problems of justification and correct application remain. I argue that if the traditional Catholic conviction that there are exceptionless norms prohibiting inflicting some kinds of harms on people is correct, then double effect is justified and necessary. The objection that double effect is superfluous is a rejection of that normative conviction, not a refutation of double effect itself. This justification suggests the correct way of applying double effect to controversial cases. But versions of double effect which dispense with the absolutism of the Catholic tradition lack justification and fall to the objection that double effect is an unnecessary complication. Keywords: double effect, intention, side effect CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this?

What role, if any, does formal logic play in characterizing epistemically rational belief? Traditionally, belief is seen in a binary way - either one believes a proposition, or one doesn't. Given this picture, it is attractive to impose certain deductive constraints on rational belief: that one's beliefs be logically consistent, and that one believe the logical consequences of one's beliefs. A less popular picture sees belief as a graded phenomenon.

Scare Quotes from Shakespeare argues that moments of allusion to the supernatural in Shakespeare are occasions where Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes register the perseverance of haunted structures in modern culture. This 'reenchantment', at the heart of modernity and of literary and political works central to our understanding of modernity, is the focus of this book. The author shows that allusion to supernatural moments in Shakespeare ('scare quotes') allows writers to both acknowledge and distance themselves from the supernatural phenomena that challenge their disenchanted understanding of the social world. He also uses these modern appropriations of Shakespeare as provocations to re-read some of his works, notably Hamlet and Macbeth.

responsible for any mistakes. Also note that this work is not complete. It will be some time before I find and extract all the desired book quotes. Enjoy!

(2) quotes Alice by mentioning the words she uttered. This is direct quotation. (3) quotes her, but could be true even if Alice never uttered any word in (3). This is indirect quotation. (4) quotes Alice by reporting what she said, but attributes to her only an utterance of `is difficult to understand'. Call this..