Arguments about the supersession of historic injustice often use the dispossession of Indigenous lands as an example of the sort of injustice in the past that can be superseded in certain circumstances. This article aims not to directly challenge the content of such arguments but to place them into a different context, wherein they are seen playing a role in ongoing efforts to remove Indigenous understandings of law, justice, and morals from discussions about state-Indigenous histories and interactions. The normative narrowness (...) of these arguments is explored alongside developments within Canadian law that purport to respond to the historic denial of substantive Indigenous interests in lands by colonial and Canadian authorities. While the analysis predominantly takes a bird’s-eye view of the interaction of varied normative systems, the conclusion advances a normatively charged argument, as I speculate about why courts – and academics writing about the passage of time – seem intent on developing arguments that displace Indigenous understandings. (shrink)

In contrast to the most common view, I argue that one can consistently affirm that fundamental moral principles are objective and invariable, and yet are dependent on God. I explore and reject appealing to divine simplicity as a basis for affirming this conjunction. Rather, I develop the thesis that God is identical to the Good (the Identity View or IV) and argue that the IV does not fall to the criticisms of simplicity. I then consider a divine will theory (DWT) (...) that claims moral principles are grounded in God’s will. When the IV is conjoined with a DWT, there is reason to affirm an objective, theistically based ethics. The IV and DWT proposed here are models and while I attempt to increase their plausibility, I do not argue for their truth. The IV conjoined with a moral theory such as DWT explains the dependence of moral principles on God, while allowing for objectivity since morality is rooted in the eternal unchanging standard of the Good. (shrink)

In her latest book _Spying Through a Glass Darkly: The Ethics of Espionage and Counter-Intelligence_, Cécile Fabre suggests that the deception of third parties during an infiltration operation can be justified as a foreseen but unintended side effect. In this essay, I criticize this view. Such deception, I argue, is better justified paternalistically as a means of preventing third parties from becoming wrongful threats. In the second part of the article, I show that Fabre ignores an important moral complication in (...) deception operations where agents intentionally allow others to be harmed as a means of protecting a secret. I argue that intentionally allowing harm to others as a means is a particularly problematic mode of agency which must be addressed in a normative account of espionage. (shrink)

In this undergraduate textbook Lewis R. Gordon offers the first comprehensive treatment of Africana philosophy, beginning with the emergence of an Africana consciousness in the Afro-Arabic world of the Middle Ages. He argues that much of modern thought emerged out of early conflicts between Islam and Christianity that culminated in the expulsion of the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula, and from the subsequent expansion of racism, enslavement, and colonialism which in their turn stimulated reflections on reason, liberation, and the (...) meaning of being human. His book takes the student reader on a journey from Africa through Europe, North and South America, the Caribbean, and back to Africa, as he explores the challenges posed to our understanding of knowledge and freedom today, and the response to them which can be found within Africana philosophy. (shrink)

The intellectual history of the last quarter of this century has been marked by the growing influence of Africana thought--an area of philosophy that focuses on issues raised by the struggle over ideas in African cultures and their hybrid forms in Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean. Existentia Africana is an engaging and highly readable introduction to the field of Africana philosophy and will help to define this rapidly growing field. Lewis R. Gordon clearly explains Africana existential thought to (...) a general audience, covering a wide range of both classic and contemporary thinkers--from Douglass and DuBois to Fanon, Davis and Zack. (shrink)

Her Majesty's Children reveals not only a deeply personal account of the experience of racism but is also a revolutionary work that asks us to reconsider our ordinary practices and lives to recognize and resist the traces of a colonial age of racism that so many claim is only part of our past.

"Challenging myths about the power-filled life"--Cover.

While interest in Kant's philosophy has increased in recent years, very little of it has focused on his theory of science. This book gives a general account of that theory, of its motives and implications, and of the way it brought forth a new conception of the nature of philosophical thought. To reconstruct Kant's theory of science, the author identifies unifying themes of his philosophy of mathematics and philosophy of physics, both undergirded by his distinctive logical doctrines, and shows how (...) they come together to form a relatively consistent system of ideas. A new analysis of the structure of central arguments in the Critique of Pure Reason and the Prolegomena draws on recent developments in logic and the philosophy of science. Professor Brittan's unified account of the philosophies of mathematics and physics explores the nature of Kant's commitment to Euclidean geometry and Newtonian mechanics as well as providing an integrated reading of the Critique of Pure Reason and the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science. Contemporary ideas help both to illuminate Kant's position and to show how that position, in turn, illuminates contemporary problems in the philosophy of science. Originally published in 1978. 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)

This collection of chapters, from an international group of theologians and scripture scholars, engages the hermeneutical insights of Bernard Lonergan and those influenced by him to both advance theoretical discussions concerning the interpretation of Christian Scripture and to demonstrate the usefulness of such hermeneutical insights through applied readings of specific biblical texts.

Kant's Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason was written late in his career. It presents a theory of 'radical evil' in human nature, touches on the issue of divine grace, develops a Christology, and takes a seemingly strong interest in the issue of scriptural interpretation. The essays in this Critical Guide explore the reasons why this is so, and offer careful and illuminating interpretations of the themes of the work. The relationship of Kant's Religion to his other writings is (...) discussed in ways that underscore the importance of this work for the entire critical philosophy, and provide a broad perspective on his moral thought; connections are also drawn between religion, history, and politics in Kant's later thinking. Together the essays offer a rich exploration of the work which will be of great interest to those involved in Kant studies and the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

What if you're not who you think you are? What if you don't really know the people closest to you? And what if your most deeply-held beliefs turn out to be. wrong? In Stop Being Reasonable, philosopher Eleanor Gordon-Smith tells gripping true stories that show the limits of human reason. Susie realises her husband harbours a terrible secret, Dylan leaves the cult he's been raised in since birth, Alex discovers he can no longer return to his former identity after (...) impersonating someone else on reality TV. All of them radically alter their beliefs about the things that matter most. What makes them change course? What does this say about our own beliefs? And, in an increasingly divided world, what does it teach us about how we might change the minds of others? Stop Being Reasonable is a mind-changing exploration of the murky place where philosophy and real life meet. (shrink)

Abstract: There is a long tradition of trying to analyze art either by providing a definition (essentialism) or by tracing its contours as an indefinable, open concept (anti-essentialism). Both art essentialists and art anti-essentialists share an implicit assumption of art concept monism. This article argues that this assumption is a mistake. Species concept pluralism—a well-explored position in philosophy of biology—provides a model for art concept pluralism. The article explores the conditions under which concept pluralism is appropriate, and argues that they (...) obtain for art. Art concept pluralism allows us to recognize that different art concepts are useful for different purposes, and what has been feuding definitions can be seen as characterizations of specific art concepts. (shrink)

This chapter is intended to provide the reader with a brief biographical overview of Adorno's life and thought, with an emphasis on the key turning points in his career. It discusses his childhood, his education in Frankfurt, his musical studies, his emigration first to Oxford and then to the United States, his return to Germany after World War Two, his tenure as professor at the Goethe Universität Frankfurt and his prominence as a public intellectual, and his confrontation with students. Together (...) with biographical details the chapter also offers a simple overview of Adorno's major concerns as a philosopher. (shrink)

This essay examines Adorno's notoriously puzzling concept of metaphysical experience with special attention to Adorno's remarks on the concept in his 1965 lecture‐course, “Metaphysics: Concepts and Problems.” The essay argues that the concept of metaphysical experience is best understood in the light of Adorno's philosophical critique of metaphysics in the traditional sense. It was Adorno's view that in the age of modern catastrophe, the category of traditional metaphysics (as theorized chiefly by Aristotle, Plato, and Empedocles) could no longer retain its (...) validity, and the notion of “experience” itself was withering away. Adorno concluded that metaphysics in the modern era would have to be reconceived as a category of loss that reflected the damage that had been done to human life. “Metaphysical experience” attached itself especially to special places or childhood memories, even while such privileged experiences also reflected the disappointment and imperfection that marks all experiences today. (shrink)

This chapter is intended to provide the reader with a brief biographical overview of Adorno's life and thought, with an emphasis on the key turning points in his career. It discusses his childhood, his education in Frankfurt, his musical studies, his emigration first to Oxford and then to the United States, his return to Germany after the Second World War, his tenure as professor at the Goethe Universität Frankfurt and his prominence as a public intellectual, and his confrontation with students. (...) Together with biographical details the chapter also offers a simple overview of Adorno's major concerns as a philosopher. (shrink)

Embryos start out as tiny globes, on which many important events occur, including cell divisions, shape changes and changes of neighbors, waves of contraction and expansion, motion of cell sheets, extension of filopodia, shearing of cell connections, and differentiation and morphogenesis of tissues such as skin and brain. I propose to build a robotic microscope that would enable a new way to look at embryos: Google Embryo. This is akin to sending a space probe to Jupiter and its moons, sending (...) back spectacular new visions of their complexity, activity, and beauty. (shrink)

This groundbreaking book is the first to provide a critical overview of the relationship between contemporary ceramics and curatorial practice in museum culture. Ceramic objects form a major part of museum collections, with connections to anthropology, archaeology and other disciplines that engage with the cultural and social history of humankind. In recent years museums have provided the impetus for cutting-edge artistic practice, either as a response to particular collections, or as part of exhibitions. But the question of how museums have (...) staged contemporary ceramics and how ceramic artists respond to museum collections has not been the subject of published research to date. This book examines how ceramic artists have, over the last decade, begun to animate museum collections in new ways, and reflects on the impact that these new initiatives have had in the broad context of visual culture. Ceramics in the Expanded Field is the culmination of a three-year AHRC funded project, and reflects its major findings. It brings together leading international voices in the field of ceramics, research undertaken throughout the project and papers delivered at the concluding conference. By examining the benefits and constraints of interventions and the dialogue between ceramics and museological practice, this book will bring focus to an area of museology that has not yet been theorized, and will contribute to policy debates and art practice. (shrink)

The notion of economic violence has long been recognized in the work of Johan Galtung and others. The work of Thomas Pogge and the field of global justice have addressed the impact of economic disparities between the Global North and the Global South, and their impact on human well-being, and social and economic development more broadly. Patents, publication in scholarly journals, academic collaborations, access to academic journals, and so forth do not on their face seem to be closely tied to (...) indicators of human well-being. However, disparities in knowledge production, including access to academic resources and publication venues, are tied directly or indirectly to infrastructure, food security, health and mortality rates, employment, and gender equity. (shrink)

This paper explores how the phenomenon of Joint Attention (JA) drives certain core features of team sport and how sport illuminates the nature of JA. In JA, two or more agents focus on the same object in mutual awareness that the content of their experience is thus shared. JA is essential to joint sporting actions. The sporting context is particularly useful for illustrating the phenomenon of JA and provides a valuable lens through which to examine rival theoretical accounts of its (...) workings. This paper draws novel connections between the respective philosophical literatures on JA and sport, suggesting prospects for mutually advantageous cross-pollination. I contend that the workings of JA within joint sporting action are misconstrued on intellectualistic and individualistic theories which posit reductive explanations in terms of the contents of individual minds. The best evidence and strongest philosophical arguments support ‘relational’ accounts whereby joint sporting actions exceed the sum of their parts. I reject the ‘extensionalist’ contention, associated with ‘lean’ versions of the relationalist approach, that objects of JA are individuated in terms of causal properties not sensitive to how they are perceived. Siding instead with ‘rich’ versions of the view, I argue that team collaboration depends on convergence in terms of the ‘aspectual shape’ of the objects of JA. Finally, a further possible application for these ideas is suggested: that JA plays a central role in the constitution of sport-specific kinds. On this proposal, JA facilitates collective perceptual recognition of particular objects and situations as embodying the general types described in the rulebook, playing an important role in creating and sustaining the public ‘social space’ of sporting competition. (shrink)

A critical note on Christopher Bartel and Jack M. C. Kwong, ‘Pluralism, Eliminativism, and the Definition of Art’, Estetika 58 (2021): 100–113. Art pluralism is the view that there is no single, correct account of what art is. Instead, art is understood through a plurality of art concepts and with considerations that are different for particular arts. Although avowed pluralists have retained the word ‘art’ in their discussions, it is natural to ask whether the considerations that motivate pluralism should lead (...) us to abandon art talk altogether; that is, should pluralism lead to eliminativism? This paper addresses arguments both for and against this move. We ultimately argue that pluralism allows one to retain the word ‘art’, if one wants it, but only in a loose, conversational sense. The upshot of pluralism is that talk of art in general cannot be asked to do theoretical and philosophical work. (shrink)

In the article ‘Equality and Desert,’ Shelly Kagan rejects the principle of equality as an arbiter of distributive justice. He claims instead that all of our intuitions about distributive justice that are thought to support some principle of equality can be captured under the principle of desert. I argue that Kagan's claim fails because, in cashing out his notion of desert, Kagan makes tacit appeal to the principle of equality.

Cultures of Uneven and Combined Development seeks to explore and develop Leon Trotsky's concept of uneven and combined development. In particular, it aims to adapt the political and historical analysis which originated in Trotsky's Russia for use within the contemporary field of world literature. As such, it draws together the work of scholars from both the field of international relations and the field of literature and the arts. This collection will therefore be of particular interest to anyone who is interested (...) in new ways of understanding world literary texts, or interested in new ways of applying Trotsky's revolutionary politics to the contemporary world order. (shrink)

RésuméPlusieurs pensent qu'on devrait comprendre la personne qui fait le mal plutôt que la condamner. Le present article suggère que les écrits de Sartre seraient en désaccord avec une telle approche. Lorsqu'on combat le mal, selon ce qu'indiquent ces écrits, il n'y a aucun besoin, si l'on sait qu'une personne fait le mal, d'essayer de la comprendre. La distinction de Sartre entre comprendre une personne et savoir quelque chose est présentée en détail, à partir surtout de ses écrits de fiction (...) et de sa biographie de Gustave Flaubert. En exploitant cette distinction, on arrive à la conclusion qu'il est superflu d'essayer de comprendre la personne quifait le mal. Lorsque nous savons qu'une personne fait le mal, nous devons la combattre, directement et avec force. (shrink)

Beginning with Sir William Hamilton's revitalisation of philosophy in Scotland in the 1830s, Gordon Graham takes up the theme of George Davie's The Democratic Intellect and explores a century of debates surrounding the identity and continuity of the Scottish philosophical tradition. Gordon Graham identifies a host of once-prominent but now neglected thinkers - such as Alexander Bain, J. F. Ferrier, Thomas Carlyle, Alexander Campbell Fraser, John Tulloch, Henry Jones, Henry Calderwood, David Ritchie and Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison - whose (...) reactions to Hume and Reid stimulated new currents of ideas. Graham concludes by considering the relation between the Scottish philosophical tradition and the 20th-century philosopher John Macmurray. (shrink)

Science and the humanities share the same kit of working tools, called the world's literature. While the author of this article deals mainly with the scientific and mathematical literature, the reader probably gravitates towards some other branches, but such distinctions were hardly made in the Middle Ages. The American philosopher, Wallace Stevens, in his book The Necessary Angel remarks that at the time of Aristotle, the Greek language had no word to signify literature. The reason is surely that literature had (...) long since been too universal an element in Greece to require a name. We have no name for the smell of air. This all-pervading power of literature is apparent already two generations before Aristotle, when Socrates made his defence against leading the youth of Athens towards atheism. Plato's Apology tells us how Socrates taunted his accuser: “Have you such a low opinion of the judges, that you fancy them so illiterate as not to know these doctrines are found in the books of Anaxagoras which are full of them? And so, my word, the youth are said to be taught them by Socrates, when they can be bought in the book-market for one drachma at most…” (a coin today worth 1.4 pence!). (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The School in the Garden Prehistory and the Rise of Cities The Locus Amoenus and the Origins of Agriculture Diogenes of Oinoanda and the Future Epicurean Golden Age Notes.

The edited volume _Future Law, Ethics, and Smart Technologies_ is a comprehensive interdisciplinary textbook for students, particularly law students, who want to become familiar with the complex issues at the intersection of law, ethics, and smart technologies.

The authors examine the internal and external motivating factors behind the actions of the House Committee on Ethics members by looking at the procedural efficiency of the Committee on Ethics (or lack thereof), as a natural consequence of the committee members' implicit public policy actions.