This article proposes for the figure or cipher of “essayism” three critical homologies: (a) as a name for the effect or intensity of “theory” in US literary-critical and scholarly research practice; (b) as the object of a sometimes sincere and sometimes malicious mourning, in pronouncements of theory’s death; (c) as a mark of the indiscipline of “creative writing,” understood as a space into which English studies and US literary studies have diverted the disruptively writerly energies of imported Continental thought.

A critical but sympathetic treatment of Pierre Bayle.

Probably the most celebrated controversy in all of the history of science was that between Newton and Leibniz over the invention of the calculus. The argument ranged far beyond a mere priority dispute and took on the character of a war between two different philosophies of nature. Newton was the first to devise the methods of the calculus, but Leibniz (who independently discovered virtually identical methods) was the first to publish, in 1684. Mutual toleration passed into suspicion and, at last, (...) denunciation of each by the other as a fraud and a plagiarist. The affair became a scandal, as British mathematicians asserted Newton's claims before the public while their Continental colleagues hotly defended Leibniz's priority. Professor Hall analyzes the situation out of which the dispute arose, the circumstances that caused it to become embittered, the dispositions of the chief actors, and the shifts in their opinions of each other. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.2 (2002) 225-237 [Access article in PDF] Did Bayle Read Saint-Evremond? Thomas M. Lennon Of course Bayle read Saint-Evremond—he quotes him. Moreover, he published one of Saint-Evremond's texts. But there is reading, and then there is reading. There is selective, inattentive perusal of excerpts or even secondary sources, with no attempt to penetrate beyond a superficial understanding; and then there is comprehensive, (...) close scrutiny of the best primary sources, with sensitivity to nuance, and attention to context. In short, there is a difference between skimming and studying. Did Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) skim or study the work of Saint-Evremond (ca.1614-1703)?This article argues that Bayle's first-hand knowledge of Saint-Evremond's work was superficial and dependent on a secondary source that gives that work a less than obvious, and hitherto unappreciated meaning for Bayle. This shift matters because it bears on the question of the status of Bayle's religious faith. With her classic Pierre Bayle (1963-64), Elizabeth Labrousse set aside the traditional view of Bayle as a religious skeptic whose professions of faith cannot be taken at face value. Such had been the view held by many in Bayle's own time, most notably by Pierre Jurieu, and near-universally from the Enlightenment into the twentieth century. Very recently, in a work that is no less impressive than hers on this and other topics in Bayle, Gianluca Mori has defended the traditional view, basing a part of his argument on Bayle's use of Saint-Evremond. 1 Thus the question above. Moreover, the matter of Bayle's religious belief is not a merely biographical one. First, there is the fact of his [End Page 225] influence, especially given his huge readership, although Bayle's influence may well be other than anything he intended. Secondly, in any case, the interpretation of Bayle's work as a whole depends on it, for virtually everything he wrote besides the Dictionnaire has a religious dimension.To appreciate the importance of the question, something must first be said about Charles de Marguetel de St. Denis, sieur de Saint-Evremond. He was known in his time, and still is, as a libertine. It is difficult, however, to define libertinage beyond a combination of hedonistic mores and dubious religious beliefs—Epicureanism in some loose and popular sense. 2 What is more important, in any case, is how Bayle might have thought the term applied to Saint-Evremond; and here it is clear that outright atheism may have been at issue. Bayle reports that it was publicly known that Saint-Evremond "ended his long life, just as he had lived it, en esprit fort." He seems certainly to have died without benefit of religion. When asked on his deathbed whether he wished to be reconciled, says Bayle, he answered yes, "with all my heart. I would like to be reconciled with my appetite. For my stomach is no longer functioning in its usual way." Bayle was often at pains to insist upon the ultimate inaccessibility of others' real beliefs (and of the inappropriateness of attempting to reach them). In this case, however, he was prepared to hold up Saint-Evremond as a counter-example to the widely-held belief that there were no speculative atheists, i.e., people who would sincerely deny the existence of God, but only practical atheists, i.e., people who live as if they did not believe in the existence of God, but who, try as they may, are at least occasionally aware of it. 3This view of Saint-Evremond is important because, when accused of irreligion himself, Bayle cited the libertine's work as indicative of his own beliefs. To understand how Bayle came to be accused, and the significance of this response to it, some of the historical background is first necessary. Bayle's Dictionnaire historique et critique sold better than any text in the eighteenth century, philosophical or otherwise; and it was a best-seller right from the publication of its first edition, in... (shrink)

The scope of this article is feminist philosophical engagement with the natural sciences. As a starting point we can view science as having the objective of “producing general propositions about nature, the physical ‘out there,’ that can be tested empirically where appropriate, and that are rational in character” but we also need to recognize the fluidity of the term “science”; for to term something “scientific” is honorific. It is signaled as something to be trusted and relied on, and there are (...) political as well as intellectual debates concerning what is to be dignified with this title. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.1 (2003) 128-129 [Access article in PDF] Robert Crocker, editor. Religion, Reason and Nature in Early Modern Europe. Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2001. Pp. xix + 228. Cloth, $77.00. By describing the early modern period as such, we thereby avow a continuity with it that ill squares with the following, insufficiently appreciated fact. The early modern counterparts of the largely atheistic American Philosophical Association, let's (...) say, were to an even greater degree theistic, and, moreover, theism affected their description and explanation of the world in a profound way—certainly more so than it does their few theistic descendents. This is true even of authors, like Hobbes and Spinoza, who might be read as leading to later atheism. The fact of early modern theism and its centrality in early modern philosophy and science are amply demonstrated in one after another of the eleven essays of this book.An emblematic figure is Robert Boyle, who figures as a main player in three of the essays, and is at least mentioned in five of the others. Lotte Mulligan, for example, investigates the role of "right reason" in Boyle's argument that religion is illuminated and made [End Page 128] plausible by metaphorically expressed analogies with natural philosophy, and conversely. The upshot is that only the "Christian Virtuoso," endowed with right reason whereby he is inspired to notice and express these analogies, was in a position to interpret the codes expressed both in the book of revelation and in the book of nature, one being incomplete without the other.Luisa Simonutti treats Boyle's engagement with the theological and scientific work of Spinoza through Spinoza's correspondence with Oldenburg. And G. A. J. Rogers deploys the work of Boyle, as well as of Locke, Newton, and the Cambridge Platonists, against the once-standard view (vide Butterfield) that "a major feature of the seventeenth-century was a secularization of knowledge." (Given just the other papers in this volume, this may seem like shooting fish in a barrel. Even so, perhaps one or two of the shots appear to miss. Newton seems proleptically to answer Hume's skepticism about induction by invoking, not divine simplicity, but an argument to the best explanation.)These papers overlap with two others, forming the core of the book. Sarah Hutton and Robert Crocker take on Cambridge Platonism. The former deals with Ralph Cudworth's rejection of Cartesian voluntarism in favor of an intellectualism of goodness and wisdom that grounds both the providential governance of the world and its intelligibility to human inquiry. The latter deals with Henry More's doctrine of the soul's pre-existence, a prima facie unlikely doctrine, but one that is less problematic, according to More, than the orthodox alternatives (creationism and traducianism).Three other papers fall outside this core, but their topics are no less relevant. Perhaps the most undeniable connection between the natural and the supernatural is to be found in Grotius, here studied by Jacqueline Lagree. Likely the most unexpected player will be the eccentric esprit fort, Cyrano de Bergerac. His work of nearly pure fantasy, in the Rabelaisian tradition, might well have made later, more serious heterodoxies possible. James E. Force provides a nice case study in Newton's reliance on what he took to be providentially guided comets as sources for the replenishment of otherwise declining celestial motion and matter (a line which, ironically, was picked up by Hume as a premise of an argument designed to undo the argument from design). Richard H. Popkin outlines three views of Judaism in the period. There is little connection with nature, but an important one with reason via a problem that exercised Cudworth and Newton: most peoples are polytheistic despite the clear monotheism of revelation. One theory had it that Judaism was the original, pure religion, which degenerated into various forms of paganism. But this degeneracy was soon read by the English deists such that originally there was a natural religion, of which Judaism and all others were a degeneration. Transmitted to the Enlightenment by Spinoza... (shrink)

According to the Rationality Constraint, our concept of belief imposes limits on how much irrationality is compatible with having beliefs at all. We argue that empirical evidence of human irrationality from the psychology of reasoning and the psychopathology of delusion undermines only the most demanding versions of the Rationality Constraint, which require perfect rationality as a condition for having beliefs. The empirical evidence poses no threat to more relaxed versions of the Rationality Constraint, which only require only minimal rationality. Nevertheless, (...) we raise problems for all versions of the Rationality Constraint by appealing to more extreme forms of irrationality that are continuous with actual cases of human irrationality. In particular, we argue that there are conceivable cases of “mad belief” in which populations of Lewisian madmen have beliefs that are not even minimally rational. This undermines Lewis’s claim that our ordinary concept of belief is a theoretical concept that is implicitly defined by its role in folk psychology. We argue that introspection gives us a phenomenal concept of belief that cannot be analyzed by applying Lewis’s semantics for theoretical terms. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Rejoinder to MoriThomas M. LennonGianluca Mori and I are broadly in agreement about everything in my paper except the answer to its main question, viz., how Bayle's use of Saint-Evremond is to be understood in the third Eclaircissement. Mori thinks that Bayle's use of Saint Evremond was one of his "provocations aimed at orthodox readers." It is an instance of his thesis that "Bayle's professions of Christian faith, (...) though frequent, are generally far from being above suspicion: indeed almost every one of them raises questions about their actual significance."1 On my view, one line of argument for not taking Bayle's use of Saint-Evremond "at face value in his profession of religious faith... is highly questionable."2 That is, as far as his use of Saint-Evremond is concerned, Bayle should be taken as the fideist that he, here and in many other places, in effect claimed to be.We are in agreement about the nature of the key text itself that Bayle cites from the Conversation. It is a "ridiculous" text, dripping with sarcasm, an ironic parody of the very views that Bayle claims to believe. Moreover, Bayle himself is in agreement with this view of the text, and expresses it in so many words. The knot of our disagreement consists in how Bayle could have used such a text to express fideist views. Mori thinks that the very use of the text itself is sufficient to call those views into doubt. "Bayle was fully aware that the text he presented as a 'clarification' of his fideism had very little right to be considered as Christian orthodoxy,... In a word, Bayle knew full well that his fideism would be regarded as insincere and destructive of faith."3The basis for my view begins with what Bayle says about this text in a statement that Mori has so far not acknowledged either in his book or in his reply to me. Says Bayle after citing Saint-Evremond, "Give this thought a more serious and proper tone and it will become reasonable." It is here that Bayle [End Page 335] acknowledges the inappropriateness of Saint-Evremond's text, but he does so to reject it as it stands. Bayle did not, as Mori claims, present the text "as a clarification of his fideism." Only when the text is given a "more serious and proper tone," that is, when it is stripped of its irony and sarcasm, does it cease to be a parody of his views and become an accurate expression of them. Bayle explicitly dissociates himself from the unamended text, introducing it with the comment that "this thought has been given a ridiculous sense, in the hands of a master."4 But Mori takes this text as it stands to convey Bayle's message, as if Bayle had not commented on it at all. It is as if, to repeat the text at the end of my paper, the Bible were to be cited as stating the claim that there is no God. It does so, of course, but only preceded by the disclaimer that only "the fool hath said in his heart there is no God" (Psalm 14: 1).According to Mori, Bayle's use of Saint-Evremond was provocative. Bayle's text is not provocative, however. Had he intended it to be, he would have directly cited Saint-Evremond, without comment. Instead, he is perfectly clear about whom he is quoting and how that source should be understood. To be sure, such a citation is dramatic, and no doubt designed for effect, but the effect is to show how unexceptional Bayle took his conception of the faith-reason relation to be. Bayle in the Eclaircissement is not trying to convert anyone but to explain his position in a way that makes it acceptable to the Consistory of the Walloon Church. To be sure, it is an irony that Saint-Evremond's text, slightly but importantly corrected, expresses Bayle's view, but it is not an irony in the sense of winking sarcasm.Mori insists that, as a matter of historical fact, Bayle's text was found to be provocative... (shrink)

Millum and Bromwich’s excellent article provides both conceptual and practical rationale for reexamining the fundamentals of the informed consent process for research and clinical interventi...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Bayle’s Anticipation of PopperThomas M. LennonA comprehensive history of skepticism might someday argue, what now perhaps seems prima facie implausible, that Karl Popper (1902–96) was anticipated by Pierre Bayle (1647–1706). Now, pointing out adumbrations, anticipations, or even outright earlier statements of later philosophical views is by itself of only antiquarian interest. Questions of priority may be of importance in the history of science but not in the history of (...) philosophy, in which the exercise must pay off in a better understanding of the connected authors.For example, in a paper called “Locke’s Anticipation of Kripke,” J. L. Mackie drew attention to passages in Locke where the so-called causal theory of reference recently advanced by Kripke and others is at least adumbrated. 1 The so-called traditional theory of reference has it that denotation is fixed by connotation—in the terminology of Locke, reference to a thing requires the idea of that thing. But Mackie discovered that Locke thought it possible, at least under certain circumstances, to refer to the real essence of gold, for example, even though we have no idea whatsoever of that essence. The causal theory is supposed to overthrow the traditional theory precisely in that it systematically allows such reference in ignorance of essence. Mackie’s discovery is ironic, for Locke is the author most often associated with the traditional theory.Mackie himself did nothing with the Locke-Kripke connection, which he seems to have regarded as a curiosity. In fact the anticipation, if startling, seems rather slight and circumscribed considering that, in the passages cited by Mackie, Locke sees such reference only when an instance of gold is present to be referred to. But there is at least this payoff, that the so-called traditional theory of [End Page 695] reference may not be quite traditional. Moreover, it may be, not just Locke, but the whole skeptical tradition that anticipates Kripke. 2There is a close analogy between the Locke-Kripke connection and a connection that will be drawn here between Bayle and Popper. In both cases the seventeenth-century anticipator specifically sets out but clearly rejects a view that is later central to the twentieth-century anticipated. That Kripke should be anticipated by the very author whose “traditional” view is most often held up as a foil to the causal theory obviously involves a certain irony, but any irony in Popper’s being anticipated by such a figure as Bayle will be dispelled by the more systematic connections between them. 3 Here, at the end, some indication of these systematic connections will be sketched, but the main purpose of this paper is only to provide a program for interpreting Bayle. The payoff of Bayle’s anticipation of Popper, then, is an optic that focuses for us this key figure of the early Enlightenment.Some brief indication of the systematic connections between Bayle and Popper will be useful at the outset, lest the main thrust of the paper be missed. After all, the specific anticipation of Popper by Bayle that is likened to Mackie’s Locke-Kripke connection is, like that connection, something of a curiosity—mildly interesting in its own right but without systematic significance by itself—for in both cases, the views are stated only to be rejected. In the case of Bayle and Popper, however, the negative connection leads one to further reflections that yield positive connections—rather as if Locke should be reread as Kripkean in other respects.This result is more interesting in the case of Bayle for two reasons. First, a rereading based on Popper is going to be far more comprehensive and programmatic than would anything based on Kripke. Second, readers of Bayle, far more than those of Locke, are in need of all the interpretive help they can get. Interpretations of Bayle notoriously vary with respect to every one of his views, and do so more widely than for any other figure in his period. Despite his universally acknowledged importance, 4 the literature has taken to referring to the actual views underlying that importance as “the Bayle enigma.” 5 [End Page 696]Here some of that enigma may be dispelled if... (shrink)

Feminist scholars advocate the adoption of distinctive values in research. While this constitutes a coherent alternative to the more frequently cited cognitive or scientific values, they cannot be taken to supplant those more orthodox values. Instead, each set might better be understood as a local epistemology guiding research answerable to different cognitive goals. Feminist scholars advocate the adoption of distinctive values in research. While this constitutes a coherent alternative to the more frequently cited cognitive or scientific values, they cannot be (...) taken to supplant those more orthodox values. Instead, each set might better be understood as a local epistemology guiding research answerable to different cognitive goals. (shrink)

Ismay Barwell, Kathleen Lennon; II*—The Principle of Sufficient Reason, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 83, Issue 1, 1 June 1983, Pages 19–34, h.

This engaging and thought-provoking introduction to philosophy of mind covers all the central questions regarding the mind. Taking a novel approach for an introductory text, authors Paul Gilbert, Kathleen Lennon, and Steve Burwood argue that the dominant theories are based on flawed Cartesian assumptions and presuppositions about the nature of mind and body. Beginning with an examination of the Cartesian roots of contemporary philosophy of mind and rationality, the authors show that, despite rejecting mind-body dualism in favour of materialism, (...) most recent philosophies of mind are still Cartesian -- they share a Cartesian conception of the body while adopting a reductionist approach to the mind. Providing a welcome alternative to texts such as Churchland's Matter and Consciousness, the authors develop an alternative position called "perspectivalism," which is based on a metaphysics of the body characterized intentionally and combines elements of both Anglo-American and Continental traditions. (shrink)

Ismay Barwell, Kathleen Lennon; II*—The Principle of Sufficient Reason, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 83, Issue 1, 1 June 1983, Pages 19–34, h.

O objetivo deste trabalho é apresentar a versão carrolliana de dois paradoxos clássicos e um original, acompanhadas da reconstrução e exame do tratamento lógico oferecido por Carroll e de como tais paradoxos foram tratados por outros autores.

An adequate theory of rights ought to forbid the harming of animals to promote trivial interests of humans, as is often done in the animal-user industries. But what should the rights view say about situations in which harming some animals is necessary to prevent intolerable injustices to other animals? I develop an account of respectful treatment on which, under certain conditions, it’s justified to intentionally harm some individuals to prevent serious harm to others. This can be compatible with recognizing the (...) inherent value of the ones who are harmed. My theory has important implications for contemporary moral issues in nonhuman animal ethics, such as the development of cultured meat and animal research. (shrink)

Value capture occurs when an agent’s values are rich and subtle; they enter a social environment that presents simplified — typically quantified — versions of those values; and those simplified articulations come to dominate their practical reasoning. Examples include becoming motivated by FitBit’s step counts, Twitter Likes and Re-tweets, citation rates, ranked lists of best schools, and Grade Point Averages. We are vulnerable to value capture because of the competitive advantage that such crisp and clear expressions of value have in (...) our private reasoning and our public justification. There is, however, a price. In value capture, we take a central component of our autonomy — our ongoing deliberation over the exact articulation of our values — and we outsource it. And the metrics to which we outsource usually engineered for the interests of some external force, like a large-scale institution’s interest in cross-contextual comprehensibility and quick aggregability. That outsourcing cuts off one of the key benefits to personal deliberation. In value capture, we no longer adjust our values and their articulations in light of own rich experience of the world. Our values should often be carefully tailored to our particular selves or our small-scale communities, but in value capture, we buy our values off the rack. In some cases – like decreasing CO2 emissions – the costs of non-tailored values are outweighed by the benefit of precise collective coordination. In other cases, like in our aesthetic lives, they are not. This suggests that we should want different values suited to different scales. We should want value federalism. Some values are perhaps best pursued at the largest-scale level, others at smaller scales. The problem occurs when we exhibit an excess preference for the largest-scale values – when we consistently let the universal metrics swamp our quieter interests. (shrink)

In The Case for Animal Rights, Tom Regan argues that although all subjects-of-a-life have equal inherent value, there are often differences in the value of lives. According to Regan, lives that have the highest value are lives which have more possible sources of satisfaction. Regan claims that the highest source of satisfaction, which is available to only rational beings, is the satisfaction associated with thinking impartially about moral choices. Since rational beings can bring impartial reasons to bear on decision making, (...) Regan maintains that they have an additional possible source of satisfaction that nonrational beings do not have and, consequently, the lives of rational beings turn out to have greater value.. (shrink)

The authors mark the twentieth anniversary of the classic study by Weitzman et al., which found considerable gender stereotyping in picture books for preschool children, by replicating and extending their study with an updated sample that includes books by Black illustrators. The authors find evidence that female characters and female relationships receive considerably more attention in recent books by both conventional illustrators and Black illustrators than they did in the late 1960s. They also find, consistent with the liberal feminist aims (...) of Weitzman et al., evidence that male and female characters are shown in a more egalitarian fashion than they were in the late 1960s in books by mainstream authors. Finally, they discover that, consistent with the aims of recent Black feminist theorists, Black illustrators are more apt than others to highlight women's involvement in an ethic of caring and an ethic of personal accountability. (shrink)

This paper treats a heretofore-unnoticed concept in the history of the philosophical discussion of human freedom, a kind of freedom that is not defined solely in terms of the causal power of the agent. Instead, the exercise of freedom essentially involves the non-occurrence of something. That being free involves the non-occurrence, that is, the absence, of an act may seem counterintuitive. With the exception of those specifically treated in this paper, philosophers tend to think of freedom as intimately involved with (...) volition, the judging or deciding activity of the will that votes in favor of or against a proposed action. However, there are two thinkers who endorse a view where not willing constitutes human freedom. Our analysis focuses on the views of Malebranche and Locke. Both invoke a notion dubbed here as ‘absential suspension.’ On this view, freedom is associated not with the power of volition, but rather with this kind of suspension. (shrink)

Анотація. У статті проаналізовані досягнення Соціального Вчительства Католицької Церкви, репрезентовані працями Лева ХІІІ, Пія ХІ, Пія ХІІ, Івана Павла ІІ, що розкривають змістовні характеристики поняття «принцип субсидіарності», його роль і значення в системі християнських цінностей. Принцип субсидіарності робить можливими такі взаємовідносини в соціальному житті, коли спільнота вищого порядку не втручається у внутрішнє життя спільноти нижчого порядку, перебираючи на себе належні тій функції; заради спільного добра, спільного блага вона надає їй у разі потреби підтримку й допомогу, узгоджуючи у такий спосіб її (...) взаємодію з іншими соціальними структурами. Принцип субсидіарності скеровує соціальну практику на утвердження спільного блага в людському співтоваристві. Поширення і застосування принципу субсидіарності протистоїть небезпеці «одержавлення» суспільства та найзагрозливіших проявів колективізму, обмежує абсолютизацію влади, бюрократизацію державних і соціокультурних структур, стає одним із гарантів дотримання прав і свобод громадян своєї країни. (shrink)

The Quietist affair at the end of the seventeenth century has much to teach us about theories of the will in the period. Although Bossuet and Fénelon are the names most famously associated with the debate over the Quietist conception of pure love, Malebranche and his erstwhile disciple Lamy were the ones who debated the deep philosophical issues involved. This paper sets the historical context of the debate, discusses the positions as well as the arguments for and against them, and (...) opens up investigation of important material that is all but ignored in the English literature and only incompletely addressed in the French. (shrink)

The sensory constraint on conscious thought says that if a thought is phenomenally conscious, its phenomenal properties must be reducible to some sensory phenomenal character. I argue that the burgeoning psychological literature on aphantasia, an impoverishment in the ability to generate mental imagery, provides a counterexample to the sensory constraint. The best explanation of aphantasics’ introspective reports, neuroimaging, and task performance is that some aphantasics have conscious thoughts without sensory mental imagery. This argument against the sensory constraint supports the existence (...) of a non-sensory phenomenology of thought. Moreover, this argument can be extended to show that this non-sensory phenomenology determines a thought content. Finally, it can potentially diagnose the disagreement over cognitive phenomenology in the philosophy of mind, as such disagreement may turn on interpersonal variation in mental imagery. (shrink)

In her BBC Reith Lectures on Trust, Onora O’Neill offers a short, but biting, criticism of transparency. People think that trust and transparency go together but in reality, says O'Neill, they are deeply opposed. Transparency forces people to conceal their actual reasons for action and invent different ones for public consumption. Transparency forces deception. I work out the details of her argument and worsen her conclusion. I focus on public transparency – that is, transparency to the public over expert domains. (...) I offer two versions of the criticism. First, the epistemic intrusion argument: The drive to transparency forces experts to explain their reasoning to non-experts. But expert reasons are, by their nature, often inaccessible to non-experts. So the demand for transparency can pressure experts to act only in those ways for which they can offer public justification. Second, the intimate reasons argument: In many cases of practical deliberation, the relevant reasons are intimate to a community and not easily explicable to those who lack a particular shared background. The demand for transparency, then, pressures community members to abandon the special understanding and sensitivity that arises from their particular experiences. Transparency, it turns out, is a form of surveillance. By forcing reasoning into the explicit and public sphere, transparency roots out corruption — but it also inhibits the full application of expert skill, sensitivity, and subtle shared understandings. The difficulty here arises from the basic fact that human knowledge vastly outstrips any individual’s capacities. We all depend on experts, which makes us vulnerable to their biases and corruption. But if we try to wholly secure our trust — if we leash groups of experts to pursuing only the goals and taking only the actions that can be justified to the non-expert public — then we will undermine their expertise. We need both trust and transparency, but they are in essential tension. This is a deep practical dilemma; it admits of no neat resolution, but only painful compromise. (shrink)

The expression “continental rationalism” refers to a set of views more or less shared by a number of philosophers active on the European continent during the latter two thirds of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the eighteenth. Rationalism is most often characterized as an epistemological position. On this view, to be a rationalist requires at least one of the following: (1) a privileging of reason and intuition over sensation and experience, (2) regarding all or most ideas as innate (...) rather than adventitious, (3) an emphasis on certain rather than merely probable knowledge as the goal of enquiry. While all of the continental rationalists meet one or more of these criteria, this is arguably the consequence of a deeper tie that binds them together—that is, a metaphysical commitment to the reality of substance, and, in particular, to substance as an underlying principle of unity. (shrink)

This bibliography consists of 936 numbered entries, with references to a far greater number of works. The first part covers works by Malebranche and consists of six sections on his collected works, selections from his works, his individual works, translations of his works, his correspondence, and the controversies into which he entered. The second part deals with works on Malebranche and consists of other bibliographical sources, biographical references, and studies. As a critical bibliography, this book contains not only references to (...) reviews but also a brief critical assessment for most entries. An extensive index is included and much of the material is cross-referenced. Entries note when a work has been superseded and refer the reader to the more recent work. (shrink)

Recent discussions in the just war literature suggest that soldiers have a duty to assume certain risks in order to protect the lives of all innocent civilians. I challenge this principle of risk by arguing that it is justified neither as a principle that guides the conduct of combat soldiers, nor as a principle that guides commanders in the US military. I demonstrate that the principle of risk fails on the first account because it requires soldiers both to violate their (...) strict duty of obedience and loyalty and to exceed their special obligations to protect their fellow comrades, the state, the state's constituents and other protected civilians. I then illustrate that the principle of risk fails on the second account since it conflicts with the commander's primary obligation to protect and promote the welfare and lives of his or her soldiers. I conclude by arguing that we cannot reasonably expect soldiers and commanders to adhere to the principle of risk until there is a radical, institutional-level transformation of militaristic goals, values, strategies, policies, warrior codes and expectations of service members in the US Armed Forces. (shrink)

Монографія "Функціональність релігії: український контекст".

This classic and controversial book examines the roots of the idea of virtue, diagnoses the reasons for its absence in modern life, and proposes a path for its recovery.

A dozen papers by internationally known scholars explore questions largely unthinkable without Richard Watson's classic Downfall of Cartesianism: Descartes in Holland, Descartes and Simon Foucher, and issues raised by Descartes for philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, translation and toleration.

By the mid-1600s, the commonsense, manifest picture of the world associated with Aristotle had been undermined by skeptical arguments on the one hand and by the rise of the New Science on the other. What would be the scientific image to succeed the Aristotelian model? Thomas Lennon argues here that the contest between the supporters of Descartes and the supporters of Gassendi to decide this issue was the most important philosophical debate of the latter half of the seventeenth century. (...) Descartes and Gassendi inspired their followers with radically opposed perspectives on space, the objects in it, and how these objects are known. Lennon maintains that differing concepts on these matters implied significant moral and political differences: the Descartes/Gassendi conflict was typical of Plato's perennial battle of the gods and giants, and the crux of that enduring philosophical struggle is the exercise of moral and political authority. Lennon demonstrates, in addition, that John Locke should be read as having taken up Gassendi's cause against Descartes. In Lennon's reinterpretation of the history of philosophy between the death dates of Gassendi and Malebranche, Locke's acknowledged opposition to Descartes on some issues is applied to the most important questions of Locke exegesis. Originally published in 1993. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)