The individual and society: Meerloo, J. A. M. Freedom--our mental backbone. Allport, G. Freedom. Marcuse, H. The new forms of control. Kerr, W. A. Psychology of the free competition of ideas. Eysenck, H. J. The technology of consent. Dewey, J. Toward a new individualism. Emerson, R. W. Self-reliance. Fromm, E. Freedom and democracy.--Religion and the inner man: St. Augustine. The freedom and the will. Mercier, L. J. A. Freedom of the will and psychology. Dostoyevsky, F. The grand inquisitor. Berdyaev, N. (...) Master, slave and free man. Buber, M. I and thou. Govinda, A. Time and space and the problem of free will. Prabhavananda, S. Control of the subconscious mind.--Philosophy and philosophical psychology: Bergson, H. Psychological determinism. James, W. The dilemma of determinism. Mill, J. S. The freedom of the will. Sartre, J. P. Being and doing: freedom. Wyschogrod, M. Sartre, freedom and the unconscious. May, R. Will, decision and responsibility: summary remarks. Knight, R. P. Determinism, "freedom," and psychotherapy. Royce, J. Meaning, value, and personality.--Selected bibliography (p. 393-408). (shrink)

In a brief but remarkable section of the Inquiry into the Human Mind, Thomas Reid argued that the visual field is governed by principles other than the familiar theorems of Euclid—theorems we would nowadays classify as Riemannian. On the strength of this section, he has been credited by Norman Daniels, R. B. Angell, and others with discovering non-Euclidean geometry over half a century before the mathematicians—sixty years before Lobachevsky and ninety years before Riemann. I believe that Reid does indeed (...) have a fair claim to have discovered a non-Euclidean geometry. However, the real basis of Reid’s geometry of visibles is subtle and easy to misidentify. My main aim in what follows is to make clear what the real basis is, separating it from several fallacious or irrelevant considerations on which Reid may seem to be relying. A secondary aim is to air the worry that Reid’s case for his geometry can succeed only at the cost of compromising the achievement for which Reid is best known—his direct realist theory of perception. (shrink)

In a brief but remarkable section of the Inquiry into the Human Mind, Thomas Reid argued that the visual field is governed by principles other than the familiar theorems of Euclid—theorems we would nowadays classify as Riemannian. On the strength of this section, he has been credited by Norman Daniels, R. B. Angell, and others with discovering non-Euclidean geometry over half a century before the mathematicians—sixty years before Lobachevsky and ninety years before Riemann. I believe that Reid does indeed (...) have a fair claim to have discovered a non-Euclidean geometry. However, the real basis of Reid’s geometry of visibles is subtle and easy to misidentify. My main aim in what follows is to make clear what the real basis is, separating it from several fallacious or irrelevant considerations on which Reid may seem to be relying. A secondary aim is to air the worry that Reid’s case for his geometry can succeed only at the cost of compromising the achievement for which Reid is best known—his direct realist theory of perception. (shrink)

Major disasters and public health emergencies constantly test the nation's resolve to rally and recover from tragedy. Public health crises stemming from prolonged threats like the 2009/2010 H1N1 influenza pandemic require sustained preparedness and response over many months. Even shorter-duration events, like tornados, earthquakes, or hurricanes, leave lasting impacts for which full recovery may take years. Telling examples include the displacement of thousands of persons across the Gulf Coast states following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and difficulties obtaining basic housing (...) and services that persisted in the Northeast months after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Whether the result of natural disasters, infectious disease outbreaks, bioterrorism, or other causes, these events can change the societal landscape in affected regions.Despite the challenges of recovery across populations stemming from national or regional emergencies, Americans have consistently supported those directly affected. (shrink)

Major disasters and public health emergencies constantly test the nation's resolve to rally and recover from tragedy. Public health crises stemming from prolonged threats like the 2009/2010 H1N1 influenza pandemic require sustained preparedness and response over many months. Even shorter-duration events, like tornados, earthquakes, or hurricanes, leave lasting impacts for which full recovery may take years. Telling examples include the displacement of thousands of persons across the Gulf Coast states following Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and difficulties obtaining basic housing (...) and services that persisted in the Northeast months after Hurricane Sandy in 2012. Whether the result of natural disasters, infectious disease outbreaks, bioterrorism, or other causes, these events can change the societal landscape in affected regions.Despite the challenges of recovery across populations stemming from national or regional emergencies, Americans have consistently supported those directly affected. (shrink)

Contemporary oncological research is predominantly characterised by genetic explanations, a situation which may be briefly denoted as the oncogene paradigm. This essay discusses why the new paradigm was perceived so attractive that it could take over the whole field of oncology within a time-span of less than two decades. It is argued that the revolutionary character of the oncogene paradigm stems from the fact that it transcends a dichotomy which has kept experimental cancer research divided for more than three (...) quarters of a century. This concerns the dichotomy between so-called exogenous and endogenous explanations of cancer causation. This essay mainly focuses on the role of the exogenous/endogenous dichotomy in the reception of research on oncogenic viruses, especially discussing the work of Nobel laureate Peyton Rous on cancer viruses at the Rockefeller Institute. Rous was severely criticised by James Ewing, director of the Memorial Hospital for Cancer and Allied Diseases in New York, who held the idea that the origin of cancer was based in the cell. The twentieth century controversy over oncogenic viruses is placed in the context of the intense discussion over causality in medicine during the first decades of the twentieth century in Germany. It is argued that the oncogene paradigm may be seen as revolutionary because it succeeded in uniting the exogenous and endogenous explanations of cancer in a single paradigm. (shrink)

[Eve] Sedgwick examines from an explicitly feminist, implicitly Marxist perspective the relation of homosexuality to more general social bonds between members of the same sex . She argues that the similarity between homosocial desire and homosexuality lies at the root of much homophobia. Moreover, she sees this tension as misogynist to the extent that battles fought over patriarchy within the homosocial world automatically exclude women from that patriarchal power. Thus she places homosexuality and its attendant homophobia within a wider (...) dynamic of social relationships.1Yet even as Sedgwick invents a more sophisticated definition of “homophobia,” she may permit misreading of a more elementary sort. Her use of vocabulary is troubling. In a slangy prose that regularly juxtaposes James Hogg and Louis Lepke, Tennyson and Howard Keel, references to the “campiness” of Thackeray’s “bitchy” bachelors or the “feminized” cuckolds of Wycherley’s The Country Wife seem tame enough. Yet there is a political difference between the jokes. One can burlesque fifties musicals or organized crime with impunity; to refer to sexually embattled men with feminine adjectives, however, is to reinforce a sexual stereotype that sees in the supposed effeminacy of homosexuals a sign of their deviance. Nor are women empowered when terms of female degradation like “bitch” are turned back against men: the ironic reversal does not challenge the terms’ validity but reaffirms it, showing they have an even wider range of applicability than had been thought. 1. Throughout my analysis, I use “homosexual” and “gay” exclusively in reference to male sexuality. I do so in part to echo Sedgwick’s emphasis and in part because the logic of my own argument does not empower me to speak on female homosexuality. David Van Leer is associate professor of English and American literature at the University of California, Davis. He is the author of Emerson’s Epistemology: The Argument of the Essays and articles on American literature and popular culture. (shrink)

James Van Cleve examines the main topics from Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, such as transcendental idealism, necessity and analyticity, space and time, substance and cause, noumena and things-in-themselves, problems of the self, and rational theology. He also discusses the relationship between Kant's thought and that of modern anti-realists, such as Putnam and Dummett. Because Van Cleve focuses upon specific problems rather than upon entire passages or sections of the Critique, he makes Kant's work more accessible to the serious (...) student and scholar. (shrink)

In een vruchteloos debat van een filosoof en een bisschop komen vele vragen aan de orde, die de zoekende mens vanaf de oudheid hebben beziggehouden, waaronder het wezen God, de rechtvaardiging van het kwaad in de wereld en hoe dit te rijmen is met de goddelijke liefde.

It has been argued in the conservation literature that giving conservation absolute priority over competing interests would best protect the environment. Attributing infinite value to the environment or claiming it is ‘priceless’ are two ways of ensuring this priority (e.g. Hargrove 1989; Bulte and van Kooten 2000; Ackerman and Heinzerling 2002; McCauley 2006; Halsing and Moore 2008). But such proposals would paralyse conservation efforts. We describe the serious problems with these proposals and what they mean for practical applications, and (...) we diagnose and resolve some conceptual confusions permeating the literature on this topic. (shrink)

William James was zo'n veelzijdig denker dat hij lezers met de meest uiteenlopende achtergronden wist te bereiken. Een opstel als ‘Is life worth living’ uit The Will to Believe spreekt waarschijnlijk andere lezers aan dan de discussies over het pragmatische waarheidsbegrip uit The meaning of truth. De auteur die fameuze passages leverde over ‘de theorie van de automaat’ is ook de schrijver die probeerde om bezwaren tegen een leven na de dood te pareren, en het is moeilijk (...) om je een hedendaagse lezer voor te stellen die beide thema's even serieus neemt. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Michael Devitt, Realism and Truth.

This chapter contains section titled: The Relativity of the Present The Relativity of Existence Conclusion.

This article offers a critique of the contemporary Contemplative Tradition’s view of spiritual transformation from the lens of the universally accepted letters of Paul. The article argues that contemporary contemplatives, especially Dallas Willard and Richard Foster, differ from Paul in three principle areas. Firstly, whereas Paul’s concept of transformation is based largely on objective realities, representatives of the Contemplative Tradition tend to focus on subjective realities. Secondly, contemporary contemplatives view transformation as coming as one imitates the life of Christ, his (...) daily disciplines and activities, whereas Paul’s view centres on the death of Christ as foundational to the Christian’s identity and thus vital to the way they live out their faith. Finally, the cornerstone of the contemporary Contemplative Tradition’s view of spiritual transformation is the belief that the essential means by which transformation takes place is engagement in the spiritual disciplines. It is argued that many of the activities that are denominated as ‘spiritual disciplines’ are not in fact ‘transformative’ activities, and thus do not fit the category of spiritual disciplines. Furthermore, this study insists that Paul seldom links the practice of the disciplines with the means of transformation, offering instead five examples of specific means of transformation that flow out of Paul’s accepted letters. (shrink)

This book is a systematic study of the uses of tropes in metaphysics. By a trope Bacon says he understands either a thing’s having a property or the property as localized to that thing. Bacon believes that entities belonging to the following ontological categories, among others, may all be constructed out of tropes: individuals, universals, states of affairs, and possible worlds. Evidently, if you have tropes, the other categories are all de trop. Bacon also uses trope theory to provide analyses (...) of time, causation, belief, and duty. (shrink)

This essay explores James Gustafson’s theocentric ethics for the work of constructing an adequate Protestant Christian ethic of the wild. Two critical questions arise in conversation with his ethics: When the category of natural evil is rendered incoherent, what are the significant consequences for piety in Christian ecological ethics? How does Gustafson’s theocentric ethics, which emphasizes experience, help us to refigure gratitude in ecological ethics? The essay explores these questions in the context of the debate over the reintroduction (...) and conservation of wolves in the American West. (shrink)

One way to determine the quality and pace of change in a science as it undergoes a major transition is to follow some feature of it which remains relatively stable throughout the process. Following the chosen item as it goes through reinterpretation permits conclusions to be drawn about the nature and scope of the broader change in question. In what follows, this device is applied to the change which took place in logic in the mid-nineteenth century. The feature chosen as (...) the focal point is the categorical syllogism. (shrink)

Do animals require rich internal representations, such as cognitive maps, to navigate complex environments? Some researchers believe so, as they argue that sensory information is “too poor” to account for animals’ wayfinding abilities. However, this assumption is debatable, as James J. Gibson showed. Gibson proposed that wayfinding involves detecting information about environmental structure over time and used the concepts of “vistas” and “transitions” to explain terrestrial navigation. While these concepts may not apply universally to animal navigation, they highlight (...) the importance of exploiting stable environmental structures for wayfinding. By searching for species-relative environmental structures, we may gain insight into the navigational abilities of different nonhuman animals, while recognizing the unique evolutionary histories and ecological contexts that have shaped these abilities. (shrink)

My agenda in this book is set mainly by Kant himself. I take up most of the main topics in the Critique of Pure Reason, more or less in the order in which Kant considered them. This summary gives only conclusions, not arguments, for which I refer the reader to the book itself.

On the first point, the issue dividing us is this: when Kant seeks to unfold the necessary conditions of experience, what sense of ‘experience’ does he have in mind? I think it is sometimes a thin sense in which nothing more is posited than the bare consciousness of representations. Ameriks thinks it is a thicker sense in which experience involves judgment, perhaps even true judgment, and perhaps even knowledge.

PROFILES AN INTERNATIONAL SERIES ON CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHERS AND LOGICIANS EDITORS RADU ... University of Warsaw J. VUILLEMIN, College de France VOLUME 5 ...

Much of everyday language is vague, even in situations where vagueness could have been avoided. Yet the benefits of vagueness for hearers and readers are proving to be elusive. We discuss a range of earlier controlled experiments with human participants, and we report on a new series of experiments that we ourselves have conducted in recent years. These experiments, which focus on vague expressions that are part of referential noun phrases, aim to separate the utility of vagueness from the utility (...) of other factors that tend to co-occur with vagueness. After presenting the evidence, we argue that it supports a view where the benefits that vague terms exert are due to other influences, and not to vagueness itself. (shrink)

In this time of increasingly critical scrutiny of the very point of the social sciences, those negatively inclined on the issue will find an unwitting ally in Brian Fay—unless, that is, one thinks that social science is best regarded as part of a postmodern wonderland in which science, now relativized to social and political setting, is regarded as being just one means among many of gaining knowledge. If that is how science should be regarded, Fay is on the cutting edge.

This article focuses on the recent work of James Pattison, who raises questions about the ethical justification of using private military forces in waging war. Objectivists argue that the State has a legal monopoly over the use of force; they reject privatization of military force as leading to anarchism or crony capitalism. However, this essay argues that Objectivism should accept the privatization of the military business and that Objectivism can overcome the profitmotive and right intention objections that Pattison (...) lays out. Privatization entails neither anarchism nor crony capitalism. (shrink)

The present study examined the costs and benefits of native language similarity for non-native vocabulary learning. Because learning a second language is difficult, many learners start with easy words that look like their native language to jumpstart their vocabulary. However, this approach may not be the most effective strategy in the long-term, compared to introducing difficult L2 vocabulary early on. We examined how L1 orthographic typicality affects pattern learning of novel vocabulary by teaching English monolinguals either Englishlike or Non-Englishlike pseudowords (...) that contained repeated orthographic patterns. We found that overall, the first words that individuals learned during initial acquisition influenced which words they acquired later. Specifically, learning a new word in one session made it easier to acquire an orthographically similar word in the next session. Similarity among non-native words interacted with native language similarity, so that words that looked more like English were easier to learn at first, but they were less effective at influencing later word learning. This demonstrates that although native language similarity has a beneficial effect early on, it may reduce learners' ability to benefit from non-native word patterns during continued acquisition. This surprising finding demonstrates that making learning easier may not be the most effective long-term strategy. Learning difficult vocabulary teaches the learner what makes non-native words unique, and this general wordform knowledge may be more valuable than the words themselves. We conclude that native language similarity modulates new vocabulary acquisition and that difficulties during learning are not always to be avoided, as additional effort early on can pay later dividends. (shrink)

My agenda in this book is set mainly by Kant himself. I take up most of the main topics in the Critique of Pure Reason, more or less in the order in which Kant considered them. This summary gives only conclusions, not arguments, for which I refer the reader to the book itself.

On the first point, the issue dividing us is this: when Kant seeks to unfold the necessary conditions of experience, what sense of ‘experience’ does he have in mind? I think it is sometimes a thin sense in which nothing more is posited than the bare consciousness of representations. Ameriks thinks it is a thicker sense in which experience involves judgment, perhaps even true judgment, and perhaps even knowledge.