Locates in Schelling a new understanding of our relation to nature in philosophy.

The book examines what advocates of the law of karma mean by the doctrine, various ways they interpret it, and how they see it operating. The study investigates and critically evaluates the law of karma's connections to significant philosophical concepts like causation, freedom, God, persons, the moral law, liberation, and immortality. For example, it explores in depth the implications of the doctrine for whether we are free or fatalistically determined, whether human suffering can be reconciled with cosmic justice, the nature (...) of the self, and the character of moral experience. (shrink)

The second edition of The Great Psychotherapy Debate has been updated and revised to include a history of healing practices, medicine, and psychotherapy, an expanded theoretical presentation of the contextual model, an examination of therapist effects, and a thorough review of the research on common factors such as the alliance, expectations, and empathy.

Over the course of his work, Graham Oppy developed numerous important criticisms of versions of the cosmological argument. Here I am not concerned with his specific criticisms of cosmological arguments but rather with his claim that cosmological arguments per se are not good arguments, for they provide no persuasive reason for believing the conclusion that God exists and are embedded in theories that already affirm the conclusion. I explore what he believes makes an argument good, contend that cosmological arguments can (...) have functions within worldviews other than persuasion, and consider his recent modifications of the discussion that address competing worldviews. (shrink)

In this book the author examines the stubborn philosophical belief in moral responsibility, surveying the philosophical arguments for it, but focusing on the system that supports these arguments: powerful social and psychological factors that hold the belief in moral responsibility firmly in place.--Publisher's description.

One of America's foremost philosophers reflects on the discipline and its relation to everyday life.

Why do states who are committed to the principle of civilian immunity and the protection of non-combatants end up killing and injuring large numbers of civilians during their military operations? Bugsplat explains this paradox through an in-depth examination of five conflicts fought by Western powers since 1989.

« Ce guide offre aux étudiants en formation initiale à l'enseignement, au personnel enseignant en poste, à leurs formateurs et aux directions d'établissement scolaire les ressources nécessaires pour se frayer un chemin à travers les cadres éthiques et légaux complexes qui réglementent le quotidien de la pratique enseignante. ».

The most successful theory in all of science--and the basis of one third of our economy--says the strangest things about the world and about us. Can you believe that physical reality is created by our observation of it? Physicists were forced to this conclusion, the quantum enigma, by what they observed in their laboratories. Trying to understand the atom, physicists built quantum mechanics and found, to their embarrassment, that their theory intimately connects consciousness with the physical world. Quantum Enigma explores (...) what that implies and why some founders of the theory became the foremost objectors to it. Schrodinger showed that it "absurdly" allowed a cat to be in a "superposition" simultaneously dead and alive. Einstein derided the theory's "spooky interactions." With Bell's Theorem, we now know Schrodinger's superpositions and Einstein's spooky interactions indeed exist. Authors Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner explain all of this in non-technical terms with help from some fanciful stories and bits about the theory's developers. They present the quantum mystery honestly, with an emphasis on what is and what is not speculation. Physics' encounter with consciousness is its skeleton in the closet. Because the authors open the closet and examine the skeleton, theirs is a controversial book. Quantum Enigma's description of the experimental quantum facts, and the quantum theory explaining them, is undisputed. Interpreting what it all means, however, is controversial. Every interpretation of quantum physics encounters consciousness. Rosenblum and Kuttner therefore turn to exploring consciousness itself--and encounter quantum physics. Free will and anthropic principles become crucial issues, and the connection of consciousness with the cosmos suggested by some leading quantum cosmologists is mind-blowing. Readers are brought to a boundary where the particular expertise of physicists is no longer a sure guide. They will find, instead, the facts and hints provided by quantum mechanics and the ability to speculate for themselves. (shrink)

Since the introduction of mathematical population genetics, its machinery has shaped our fundamental understanding of natural selection. Selection is taken to occur when differential fitnesses produce differential rates of reproductive success, where fitnesses are understood as parameters in a population genetics model. To understand selection is to understand what these parameter values measure and how differences in them lead to frequency changes. I argue that this traditional view is mistaken. The descriptions of natural selection rendered by population genetics models are (...) in general neither predictive nor explanatory and introduce avoidable conceptual confusions. I conclude that a correct understanding of natural selection requires explicitly causal models of reproductive success. *Received May 2006; revised December 2006. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, Kansas State University, 201 Dickens Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506; e‐mail: [email protected] . (shrink)

Introduction -- Methodology and method -- Present educational ethics -- Archaeology and genealogy -- Power and subjectivity -- Educational ethics -- Implications and conclusion.

The idea that there are three types of argumentation, deduction, induction, and a third type variously called hypothesis, abduction, or retroduction, first appeared in an 1867 paper by Charles S. Peirce, “On the Natural Classification of Arguments”. According to Peirce’s tripartite division of argumentation, induction is not merely any form of argument that fails to be deductive, but argumentation that generalizes from a sample. In later writings Peirce broadened his notion to mean any testing of hypotheses through observation—as Peirce said, (...) “trying how things will act”. If we understand an observation to be a sample of experience, as Peirce did in 1901 (R L 409:3... (shrink)

This volume explores leadership as a form of loving one’s employees, centering on the biblical concepts of Agapao and Agape. It is organized into three parts: Part 1 examines biblical principles about Agapao and Agape; Part 2 employs Positive Organizational Scholarship (POS) to identify the role of love in organizational contexts; Part 3 offers case studies illustrating instances of love demonstrated by biblical figures in organizational and familial settings. Aligned with POS research, the book accentuates positive, life-giving, and conditions fostering (...) human flourishing within organizations. This scholarly endeavor contributes to advancing research in areas such as work relationships, workplace spirituality, meaningful work, and the role of leadership in improving organizational performance. (shrink)

In this article, we explore the relation between bodies and selves evident in the narratives surrounding aesthetic surgery. In much feminist work on aesthetic surgery, such narratives have been discussed in terms of the normalising consequences of the objectifying, homogenising, cosmetic gaze. These discussions stress the ways in which we model our bodies, under the gaze of others, in order to conform to social norms. Such an objectified body is contrasted with the subjective body; the body-for-the-self. In this article, however, (...) we wish to make sense of the narratives surrounding such surgery by invoking the expressive body, which fits on neither side of this binary. We wish to explore how the modification of the body’s anatomical features (physiology) is taken to be a modification of its expressive possibilities, and therefore a modification of possibilities for inter-subjective relations with others. It is such expressive possibilities that, we suggest, underlie decisions to undergo surgical procedures. The possibility of modification of the expressive possibilities of the body, by the modification of its anatomical features, rests on the social imaginaries attached to anatomical features. In the context of such imaginaries, individual decisions to undergo or promote surgery can be both intelligible and potentially empowering. However, the social consequences of such acts are an increasing normalisation of the ‘body under the knife’ and an intolerance of bodily difference. This, we suggest, can only be changed by a re-visioning of bodily imaginaries so that expressive possibilities can be experienced across bodies with a range of physiological features. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Context Patriotism Citizenship History Teaching History Teaching for Patriotic Citizenship Conclusion Notes References.

Cosmopolitanism, new and newer : Anthony Appiah -- Noam Chomsky's golden rule -- Blaming the system : Immanuel Wallerstein -- The sweatshop sublime -- Edward Said and effort -- Intellectuals in public, or elsewhere -- War without belief : Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club -- Comparative national blaming : W.G. Sebald and the bombing of Germany.

Volume 1: A-B -- Volume 2: C-E -- Volume 3: F-I -- Volume 4: J-O -- Volume 5: P-R -- Volume 6: S-X.

In Philosophy as Frustration: Happiness Found and Feigned from Greek Antiquity to Present Bruce Silver argues that traditional philosophical views of happiness, as well as recent psychological theories of happiness, are at odds with themselves and with important accounts of a truly happy life.

This book explores the view that normative behaviour is part of a complex of social mechanisms, processes and narratives that are constantly shifting. From this perspective, norms are not a kind of self-contained social object or fact, but rather an interplay of many things that we label as norms when we 'take a snapshot' of them at a particular instant. Further, this book pursues the hypothesis that considering the dynamic aspects of these phenomena sheds new light on them. The sort (...) of issues that this perspective opens to exploration include: Of what is this complex we call a "social norm" composed of? How do new social norms emerge and what kind of circumstances might facilitate such an appearance? How context-specific are the norms and patterns of normative behaviour that arise? How do the cognitive and the social aspects of norms interact over time? How do expectations, beliefs and individual rationality interact with social norm complexes to effect behaviour? How does our social embeddedness relate to social constraint upon behaviour? How might the socio-cognitive complexes that we call norms be usefully researched? (shrink)

This chapter examines the role of Soren Kierkegaard in the so-called Danish Golden Age from 1800 to 1850, which was marked by a remarkable outpouring of artistic, scientific, literary, philosophical, and theological productivity. It explains that Kierkegaard, together with Hans Christian Andersen, belongs to the third generation of this Golden Age. The chapter considers the major works of Kierkegaard and Andersen, who were the two most prominent figures of the Golden Age both in and outside Denmark.

Diving into the Gospel of John displays the rich and diverse arguments John presents for his thesis that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing, readers/listeners will find eternal life. John’s arguments are developed in four parts. The first two chapters develop the author’s literary techniques that are often based on ambiguity and his key symbols and concepts, the understanding of which are essential to fully appreciate the Gospel. Chapters three through six progressively portray the (...) author’s evidence for his thesis in the form of signs, testimony of those who encounter Jesus, Jesus’s self-identification, and Jesus’s relationships to others. Chapters seven and eight show how the author uses theatrically-patterned dialogues and triadic discourses to convey Jesus’s identity and mission. Finally, chapters nine through eleven provide important hints that the author gives for his thesis: Jesus’s appeals to time, the indirect use of seven as the number of completeness, and invocation of parentage in pointing to salvation. Through diving into the Gospel, readers will discover the richness of John’s argument, the Jesus he portrays, and the God Jesus reveals. The book aims to stimulate commitment, challenge mind and spirit, and encourage further study and conversation. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Alchemy is part of the cultural experience of early modern Europe and yet has had to overcome problems of demarcation to be considered relevant to the history of science. This essay considers historiographical and methodological issues that have affected the gradual demarginalization of alchemy among attempts to explain, and find things out about, nature. As an area of historical study, alchemy relates to the history of science as part of an ensemble of practices that explored the natural world through (...) natural philosophy and speculative traditions and by functioning as a nexus of social and intellectual life. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Alchemy is part of the cultural experience of early modern Europe and yet has had to overcome problems of demarcation to be considered relevant to the history of science. This essay considers historiographical and methodological issues that have affected the gradual demarginalization of alchemy among attempts to explain, and find things out about, nature. As an area of historical study, alchemy relates to the history of science as part of an ensemble of practices that explored the natural world through (...) natural philosophy and speculative traditions and by functioning as a nexus of social and intellectual life. (shrink)

An indispensable collection that re-examines what it means to belong in the world. "Where are you from?" The word cosmopolitan was first used as a way of evading exactly this question, when Diogenes the Cynic declared himself a “kosmo-polites,” or citizen of the world. Cosmopolitanism displays two impulses—on the one hand, a detachment from one’s place of origin, while on the other, an assertion of membership in some larger, more compelling collective. Cosmopolitanisms works from the premise that there is more (...) than one kind of cosmopolitanism, a plurality that insists cosmopolitanism can no longer stand as a single ideal against which all smaller loyalties and forms of belonging are judged. Rather, cosmopolitanism can be defined as one of many possible modes of life, thought, and sensibility that are produced when commitments and loyalties are multiple and overlapping. Featuring essays by major thinkers, including Homi Bhabha, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Thomas Bender, Leela Gandhi, Ato Quayson, and David Hollinger, among others, this collection asks what these plural cosmopolitanisms have in common, and how the cosmopolitanisms of the underprivileged might serve the ethical values and political causes that matter to their members. In addition to exploring the philosophy of Kant and the space of the city, this volume focuses on global justice, which asks what cosmopolitanism is good for, and on the global south, which has often been assumed to be an object of cosmopolitan scrutiny, not itself a source or origin of cosmopolitanism. This book gives a new meaning to belonging and its ground-breaking arguments call for deep and necessary discussion and discourse. (shrink)

Transcendentalism and the secular turn -- Transcendentalism in the postwar years -- Gender, reform, and ridicule -- Charles Ives : sound -- Joseph Cornell : things -- Truman Nelson : rage -- Beston, Oliver, Dillard, and fluid transcendentalism.

Hume, in the Enquiry Section X Part 1, claims that ’all probability supposes an opposition of experiments and observations, where one side is found to overbalance the other and to produce a degree of evidence proportioned to the superiority’. He concludes that in assessing miracle-claims one should weigh the historical testimony supporting the miracle against the testimony supporting the regularity to which it is an exception. I argue that both his premise and his conclusion are false.

No single concept has been more important in the contemporary development of bioethics, and the revival of medical ethics, than the concept of autonomy, and none better reflects both the philosophical and the political currents shaping the field. This article proposes to consider autonomy in three of its facets and functions: first, as a concept in ethical theory; second, as a concept in applied ethics; and finally, as what might be called an ideological concept — that is, one that both (...) draws from and reinforces non-philosophical interests at work in the profession of medicine, biomedical science and technology, and the broader liberal individualistic culture of Anglophone countries, particularly the United States, where a bioethical discourse centred on autonomy has flourished. (shrink)

Offers a compelling vision of how to achieve and conduct a liberal but democratic society through the ideal of Neutrality--between people and ideas of the good--and using the tool of Neutral dialogue.

Bruce L. Kinzer offers a rich examination of personal and political themes in the life of John Stuart Mill, one of the most influential liberal thinkers of the nineteenth century. By investigating young Mill's formative period and his relations with his father, Harriet Taylor, and Thomas Carlyle, Kinzer casts light on the challenges Mill faced in understanding himself and what he wished to become. Kinzer's political explorations probe issues central to the appreciation of Mill as an engaged political thinker (...) and actor and offers an insightful portrait of a complex and towering figure."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

When Communism collapsed in Central and Eastern Europe women seemed to lose the control they had gained over their reproductive lives. Abortion rights became more limited as did access to childcare and maternity benefits. The authors argue that this picture conceals two key points. First, the effects of both Communism and post-Communism for women's reproductive lives need to be understood as byproducts of state initiatives geared towards the fulfilment of quite different political goals – and not attempts to intervene in (...) women's health and well-being per se. Second, these effects are very varied and cannot be attributed to a single cause. ‘Central and Eastern Europe’ comprises a whole range of political, ethnic and religious groupings, the result being that women's reproductive lives have been shaped within a diversity of political processes. Some women have faced pressures from the state to reproduce, some have lost the conditions necessary for them to continue paid work after childbirth, others have lost abortion rights. To understand these very different outcomes of post-Communism, this article looks beyond women's issues per se to unravel their role as symbolic resources which have been drawn upon in power struggles taking place in political arenas which exclude the majority of women. This argument is elaborated through empirical evidence from Poland, Serbia and East Germany. (shrink)