Etye Steinberg has recently raised a problem for Joseph Heath’s Market Failures Approach. In this paper we consider a response by Heath. We argue that Heath’s response not only leaves the original problem intact, but also raises a second one, analogous to stakeholder theory’s so-called “identification problem.”.

Works of literature that are too overtly instructive are commonly faulted for being didactic. For so-called literary cognitivists, who believe that instruction is an important literary value, this seems to pose a problem: if we value literature for the instruction it affords, why would we ever object to overt instruction? In this paper I propose the following answer: overt instruction can arouse suspicion of intellectual vices in the author, such as intellectual arrogance, dogmatism, and prejudice, which can make the lessons (...) the author seeks to convey less rationally acceptable. Overt instruction in a work of literature is sometimes a fault, therefore, precisely because it makes the work less valuable as a source of instruction. (shrink)

Many people claim that we can gain knowledge from reading novels and other forms of narrative fiction. In a trivial sense, this claim seems uncontroversial. There is no doubt that reading Pride and Prejudice can teach me, for example, what the novel is about or give me some insight into the character of Regency English. This is because a novel, like any other text, constitutes direct evidence for propositions about its own content and language. But it is widely questioned whether (...) such a work could ever give us knowledge of any of the general propositions it expresses about the world outside the text, for it is commonly held that fictional narratives do not have the resources to justify such propositions, however.. (shrink)

Coherence is a term of art in both epistemology and literary criticism, and in both contexts judgments of coherence carry evaluative significance. However, whereas the epistemic use of the term picks out a property of belief sets, the literary use can pick out properties of various elements of a literary work, including its plot, characters, and style. For this reason, some have claimed that literary critics are not concerned with the same concept of coherence as epistemologists. In this article I (...) argue against this claim. Although various nonepistemic notions of coherence figure in literary criticism, the epistemic concept has a mirror image in the literary–critical concept of thematic coherence. Moreover, evidence from literary criticism suggests that thematic coherence can be valuable from a literary-evaluative standpoint because it can be valuable from an epistemic standpoint, in particular by enhancing the credibility of a work's themes or author. My analysis of the notion of thematic coherence thus provides novel support for literary cognitivism, the view that a work's literary-aesthetic merits can depend on its epistemic merits. (shrink)

Professor Geoffrey Lewis Lewis was a pioneer in Turkish Studies in Britain and an internationally admired scholar in the field. In considering the body of his work as a whole, two consistent themes emerge, two driving forces behind it: first, a deep, continuing fascination with language, and now especially with Turkish; and second, a rooted and constantly developing love of Turkey and its people and a concomitant desire to bring its language, history, and culture to the attention of the English-speaking (...) world by a variety of means, all of them grounded in a thorough scholarly engagement with his subject. (shrink)

Questions about the meaning of life are widely assumed to be much older than the phrase itself. Many philosophers see nothing anachronistic, for instance, in talking about Aristotle's view on the meaning of life or looking to Ecclesiastes for evidence of what makes life meaningless, though neither Aristotle nor Ecclesiastes mentions meaning or meaninglessness as such. On this common way of thinking, nothing very philosophically important hangs on the fact that we now attach the term meaning to the idea. So, (...) it's no real surprise that the question of when and why meaning ever came to be used in this way has received little attention among philosophers. For those who think it deserves more, Steven Cassedy's new book What Do We Mean When We Talk About Meaning? will be welcome. Though it may not be obvious from the title, which to a philosopher is likely to signal a theory or conceptual analysis of meaning, the book is in fact an historical study of the word meaning (and close synonyms thereof) as used in connection with the term life (and close synonyms thereof). According to Cassedy, the book's aim is to explain how a word that ‘fundamentally has to do with signs, words, stories, and other things that, well, mean or signify something’ (p. 4) came to acquire its modern-day ‘metaphysical’ sense—i.e., that sense in which it is now used to gesture portentously toward something like the purpose or value of life. The book's focus on the language of meaning distinguishes it from the type of historical approach found, for example, in Michael Ruse's On Purpose, which tracks the history of some metaphysical idea associated with the term (teleology in Ruse's case) rather than the term itself. Indeed, in this respect, Cassedy's book may be the first of its kind. (shrink)

Volume 47, Issue 3, November 2018, Page 403-427.

The Christian philosopher Muto Kazuo contributed substantially to the predominantly Buddhist “Kyoto School of Philosophy.” Through critical exchange with its representatives, he opened up new perceptions of Christian faith, enabled mutual understanding between Buddhism and Christianity, and challenged the Western dialectical method.

Ensemble musicians play in synchrony despite expressively motivated irregularities in timing. We hypothesized that synchrony is achieved by each performer internally simulating the concurrent actions of other ensemble members, relying initially on how they would perform in their stead. Hence, musicians should be better at synchronizing with recordings of their own earlier performances than with others’ recordings. We required pianists to record one part from each of several piano duets, and later to play the complementary part in synchrony with their (...) own or others’ recordings. The pianists were also asked to identify their own recordings. The pianists were better at synchronizing with their own than with others’ performances, and they were able to recognize their own recordings. Furthermore, synchronization accuracy and recognition were correlated: Pianists who were relatively accurate at synchronizing with their own performances were also good at recognizing them. Thus, action simulation may underlie both synchronization and self-recognition. (shrink)

This article highlights two possible unnoticed acrostics in Ovid's Metamorphoses concerning the predictions of Calchas and Helenus.

Comment devient-on philosophe? Par quel sursaut un Aristoclès se fait-il Platon, jusqu'à s'imposer dans la liste des " auteurs philo " Il faut enquêter, non pas sur la vie privée, mais sur la vie intime : rumination intellectuelle, ton sur lequel on parle, motivations amoureuses... Ce qui fait un philosophe, c'est un immense travail sur soi, et la rencontre d'autres philosophes, vivants, de leurs problématiques. Mémoire sémantique + obsession métaphysique, voilà le code génétique du philosophe. Il débute par un attentat (...) religieux, puisqu'il commence sa carrière en niant tel ou tel sacré. Bien sûr, il vaut mieux être mâle, communiquer par les livres adopter la langue dominante, écrire quand on est célibataire. Comment gagner sa vie? Pas forcément en étant enseignant, comme c'est le cas aujourd'hui. Le profil du philosophe nous le révèle orphelin, vivant à l'étranger, souvent laid, jamais fou, et serial thinker, prêt à changer de philosophie pourvu qu'il reste, lui, à menacer le monde donnera ou donnera pas du sens à notre vie? Le philosophe est l'être inquiet qui pense inquiéter l'Être par deux trois mots bien aiguisés. (shrink)

While there are numerous doubts, controversies and lack of consensus on alternative definitions of human death, it is argued that it is more ethical to allow people to choose either cessation of cardio-respiratory function or loss of entire brain function as the definition of death based on their own views. This paper presents the law of organ transplantation in Japan, which allows people to decide whether brain death can be used to determine their death in agreement with their family. Arguably, (...) Japan could become a unique example of individual choice in the definition of death if the law is revised to allow individuals choose definition of death independently of their family. It suggests that such an approach is one of the reasonable policy options a country can adopt for legislation on issues related to the definition of death. (shrink)

Extraterrestrial Altruism examines a basic assumption of the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI): that extraterrestrials will be transmitting messages to us for our benefit. This question of whether extraterrestrials will be altruistic has become increasingly important in recent years as SETI scientists have begun contemplating transmissions from Earth to make contact. Technological civilizations that transmit signals for the benefit of others, but with no immediate gain for themselves, certainly seem to be altruistic. But does this make biological sense? Should we (...) expect altruism to evolve throughout the cosmos, or is this only wishful thinking? Is it dangerous to send messages to other worlds, as Stephen Hawking has suggested, or might humankind benefit from an exchange with intelligence elsewhere in the galaxy? Would extraterrestrial societies be based on different ethical principles, or would we see commonalities with Earthly notions of morality? Extraterrestrial Altruism explores these and related questions about the motivations of civilizations beyond Earth, providing new insights that are critical for SETI. Chapters are authored by leading scholars from diverse disciplines—anthropology, astronomy, biology, chemistry, computer science, cosmology, engineering, history of science, law, philosophy, psychology, public policy, and sociology. The book is carefully edited by Douglas Vakoch, Director of Interstellar Message Composition at the SETI Institute and professor of clinical psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies. The Foreword is by Frank Drake. This interdisciplinary book will benefit everybody trying to understand whether evolution and ethics are unique to Earth, or whether they are built into the fabric of the universe. (shrink)

How (Not) to Be Secular is what Jamie Smith calls "your hitchhiker's guide to the present" -- it is both a reading guide to Charles Taylor's monumental work A Secular Age and philosophical guidance on how we might learn to live in our times. Taylor's landmark book A Secular Age (2007) provides a monumental, incisive analysis of what it means to live in the post-Christian present -- a pluralist world of competing beliefs and growing unbelief. Jamie Smith's book is a (...) compact field guide to Taylor's insightful study of the secular, making that very significant but daunting work accessible to a wide array of readers. Even more, though, Smith's How (Not) to Be Secular is a practical philosophical guidebook, a kind of how-to manual on how to live in our secular age. It ultimately offers us an adventure in self-understanding and maps out a way to get our bearings in today's secular culture, no matter who "we" are -- whether believers or skeptics, devout or doubting, self-assured or puzzled and confused. This is a book for any thinking person to chew on. (shrink)

Introduction: Conversion and the practice of transformation -- The philosophical structure of Jonathan Edwards's religious affections -- Habit, habit change, and conversion in C.S. Peirce -- Reconstructing faith : religious overcoming in Dewey's pragmatism -- Transforming obligation in William James -- Dwelling in absence: the reflective origin of conversion -- Creative transformation : the work of conversion -- The evasion of conversion in recent American philosophy.

Background: The magnitude of bullying and harassment among psychiatrists is reportedly high, yet no peer-review published studies addressing this issue could be found. Therefore, it was decided to conduct a pilot study to assess the degree of the problem, the types of bullying/harassment and to provide some insights into the situation.Methods and Principal Findings: Following multiple focus group meetings, a yes/no response type questionnaire was developed to assess the degree and type of bullying and harassment experienced by psychiatrists. Over a (...) 3-month period the questionnaire was administered to a random sample of 60 psychiatrists. 57 out of the 60 psychiatrists reported harassment and bullying. Frequencies of the following response variables are presented in descending order: rumours 40% ; defamation 20% ; passing remarks 20% ; false accusations 15% ; threats 13.3% ; verbal abuse 13.3% ; unjustified complaints 13.3% ; promotion blocked 13.3% ; humiliation 13% ; bad reference given 10% ; credentials questioned 8.3% ; physical attacks 5% ; termination 5% ; derogatory remarks 1.7% and 1.7% were subjected to personal work. As a result of being subjected to harassment, 66.7% of the psychiatrists did not take any action, whereas 33.3% confronted the person they believed responsible. Asked whether the bullying and harassment caused distress, 18.3% of the psychiatrists did not report any effect, 30% reported mild distress, 40% moderate distress and severe distress was reported by 11.7%.Conclusions: It was concluded that the magnitude of bullying and harassment among psychiatrists may be quite high, as evidenced by this pilot study. There is a need for extensive systematic studies on this subject and to establish strategies to prevent and address this issue at a national and regulatory level. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was an extraordinarily original thinker, whose influence on twentieth-century thinking far outside the bounds of philosophy alone. In this engaging Introduction, A.C. Grayling makes Wittgenstein's thought accessible to the general reader by explaining the nature and impact of Wittgenstein's views. He describes both his early and later philosophy, the differences and connections between them, and gives a fresh assessment of Wittgenstein's continuing influence on contemporary thought.