Episodic representations can be entertained either as “remembered” or “imagined”—as outcomes of experience or as simulations of such experience. Here, we argue that this feature is the product of a dedicated cognitive function: the metacognitive capacity to determine the mnemicity of mental event simulations. We argue that mnemicity attribution should be distinguished from other metacognitive operations (such as reality monitoring) and propose that this attribution is a “cognitive gadget”—a distinctively human ability made possible by cultural learning. Cultural learning is a (...) type of social learning in which traits are inherited through social interaction. In the case of mnemicity, one culturally learns to discriminate metacognitive “feelings of remembering” from other perceptual, emotional, action-related, and metacognitive feelings; to interpret feelings of remembering as indicators of memory rather than imagination; and to broadcast the interpreted feelings in culture- and context-specific ways, such as “I was there” or “I witnessed it myself.” We review evidence from the literature on memory development and scaffolding, metacognitive learning and teaching, as well as cross-cultural psychology in support of this view before pointing out various open questions about the nature and development of mnemicity highlighted by our account. (shrink)

The formerly established medically-based idea of disability, with its charity-based approach to treatment and services, is being replaced by a human rights-based approach in which people with impairments are no longer considered medical problems, totally dependent on the beneficence of non-impaired people in society, but have fundamental rights to support, inclusion, and participation. This interdisciplinary book examines the diverse concerns that people with impairments face in the context of human rights, provides insights into new developments on important issues relating human (...) rights to disability, and features new approaches and solutions to vital problems in the current debate. (shrink)

The essays in this book engage the original and controversial claims from Michael Boylan's A Just Society. Each essay discusses Boylan's claims from a particular chapter and offers a critical analysis of these claims. Boylan responds to the essays in his lengthy and philosophically rich reply.

The essays in this book, by a variety of leading Augustine scholars, examine not only Augustine's multifaceted philosophy and its relation to his epoch-making theology, but also his practice as a philosopher, as well as his relation to other philosophers both before and after him. Thus the collection shows that Augustine's philosophy remains an influence and a provocation in a wide variety of settings today.

Ludwig Wittgenstein crossed the second Styx, from living memory to history, during the years since the present century began. He is recognized today as one of the most original and powerful thinkers of the twentieth century, and his work belongs to the body of literature philosophers will read and interpret afresh in each generation, for as long as the European intellectual tradition survives. He wrote nothing in political philosophy or jurisprudence, very little in ethics, and the only sustained record of (...) his philosophical ideas about religion and art consists in notes taken by students at his lectures. The Tractatus was published in 1921. In this book, Wittgenstein argues that the logical form of a proposition is utterly different from its superficial grammatical form. The greatest obstacles to understanding Wittgenstein's philosophy are not any inherent obscurity in his ideas, but the aphoristic style in which he wrote and the introverted character of his thought. (shrink)

If God had looked into our minds he would not have been able to see there whom we were speaking of.

If God had looked into our minds he would not have been able to see there whom we were speaking of.

A collection of letters portraying the life and times of this great medieval scholar, the devoted secretary of Archbishop Theobald, and the faithful friend and counsellor of Becket. Volume 1 of his correspondence, 'The Early Letters,' long out of print, is available on microfiche.

The most comprehensive survey of Wittgenstein’s thought yet compiled, this volume of fifty newly commissioned essays by leading interpreters of his philosophy is a keynote addition to the Blackwell series on the world’s great philosophers, covering everything from Wittgenstein’s intellectual development to the latest interpretations of his hugely influential ideas. The lucid, engaging commentary also reviews Wittgenstein’s historical legacy and his continued impact on contemporary philosophical debate.

Research suggests that institutions affect the levels of corruption in a country. We take these arguments a step further and examine whether it is the presence of inclusive institutions and/or the credible and consistent implementation of institutions that matter, as regards corruption. We use a novel approach to theoretically conceptualise and empirically operationalise institutions along two analytically distinct dimensions: the nature of the institutions (the de jure dimension), and the extent to which they are credibly and consistently implemented over time (...) (the de facto dimension), using a panel dataset for 148 countries covering 2012 to 2018. We find that formal institutions are most effective in reducing corruption when the rules are credibly and consistently implemented. Furthermore, this effect appears to operate differently at different levels of national income. The nature of the formal institutions appears important across income levels, but particularly so at the upper middle income level, while the credible and consistent implementation of these institutions is primarily influential at upper middle income levels. We explain why this may be the case and elaborate on the policy implications. (shrink)

Designed as a textbook for use in courses on natural theology and used by Immanuel Kant as the basis for his Lectures on The Philosophical Doctrine of Religion, Johan August Eberhard's Preparation for Natural Theology (1781) is now available in English for the first time. -/- With a strong focus on the various intellectual debates and historically significant texts in late renaissance and early modern theology, Preparation for Natural Theology influenced the way Kant thought about practical cognition as well as (...) moral and religious concepts. Access to Eberhard's complete text makes it possible to distinguish where in the lectures Kant is making changes to what Eberhard has written and where he is articulating his own ideas. Identifying new unexplored lines of research, this translation provides a deeper understanding of Kant's explicitly religious doctrines and his central moral writings, such as the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals and the Critique of Practical Reason. -/- Accompanied by Kant's previously untranslated handwritten notes on Eberhard's text as well as the Danzig transcripts of Kant's course on rational theology, Preparation for Natural Theology features a dual English-German / German-English glossary, a concordance and an introduction situating the book in relation to 18th-century theology and philosophy. This is an essential contribution to twenty-first century Kantian studies. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Thirteen leading contributors offer new essays in honour of the eminent philosopher and Wittgenstein scholar Peter Hacker. They discuss issues in the interpretation of Wittgenstein, investigate central topics in the history of analytic philosophy, and explore and assess Wittgensteinian ideas about language, mind, action, ethics, and religion.

In this philosophically sophisticated and historically significant work, John H. Zammito reconstructs Kant's composition of The Critique of Judgment and reveals that it underwent three major transformations before publication. He shows that Kant not only made his "cognitive" turn, expanding the project from a "Critique of Taste" to a Critique of Judgment but he also made an "ethical" turn. This "ethical" turn was provoked by controversies in German philosophical and religious culture, in particular the writings of Johann Herder and (...) the Sturm und Drang movement in art and science, as well as the related pantheism controversy. Such topicality made the Third Critique pivotal in creating a "Kantian" movement in the 1790s, leading directly to German Idealism and Romanticism. The austerity and grandeur of Kant's philosophical writings sometimes make it hard to recognize them as the products of a historical individual situated in the particular constellation of his time and society. Here Kant emerges as a concrete historical figure struggling to preserve the achievements of cosmopolitan Aufkl-rung against challenges in natural science, religion, and politics in the late 1780s. More specifically Zammito suggests that Kant's Third Critique was animated throughout by a fierce personal rivalry with Herder and by a strong commitment to traditional Christian ideas of God and human moral freedom. "A work of extraordinary erudition. Zammito's study is both comprehensive and novel, connecting Kant's work with the aesthetic and religious controversies of the late eighteenth century. He seems to have read everything. I know of no comparable historical study of Kant's Third Critique."-Arnulf Zweig, translator and editor of Kant's ;IPhilosophical Correspondence, 1759-1799;X "An intricate, subtle, and exciting explanation of how Kant's thinking developed and adjusted to new challenges over the decade from the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason to the appearance of the Critique of Judgment. "--John W. Burbidge, Review of Metaphysics "There has been for a long time a serious gap in English commentary on Kant's Critique of Judgment Zammito's book finally fills it. All students and scholars of Kant will want to consult it."--Frederick Beiser, Times Literary Supplement. (shrink)

Ensuring that countries have adequate research capacities is essential for an effective and efficient response to infectious disease outbreaks. The need for ethical principles and values embodied in international research ethics guidelines to be upheld during public health emergencies is widely recognized. Public health officials, researchers and other concerned stakeholders also have to carefully balance time and resources allocated to immediate treatment and control activities, with an approach that integrates research as part of the outbreak response. Under such circumstances, research (...) “ethics preparedness” constitutes an important foundation for an effective response to infectious disease outbreaks and other health emergencies. A two-day workshop was convened in March 2018 by the World Health Organisation Global Health Ethics Team and the African coaLition for Epidemic Research, Response and Training, with representatives of National Ethics Committees, to identify practical processes and procedures related to ethics review preparedness. The workshop considered five areas where work might be undertaken to facilitate rapid and sound ethics review: preparing national ethics committees for outbreak response; pre-review of protocols; multi-country review; coordination between national ethics committees and other key stakeholders; data and benefit sharing; and export of samples to third countries. In this paper, we present the recommendations that resulted from the workshop. In particular, the participants recommended that Ethics Committees would develop a formal national standard operating procedure for emergency response ethical review; that there is a need to clarify the terminology and expectations of pre-review of generic protocols and agree upon specific terminology; that there is a need to explore mechanisms for multi-country emergency ethical consultation, and to establish procedures for communication between national ethics committees and other oversight bodies and public health authorities. In addition, it was suggested that ethics committees should request from researchers, at a minimum, a preliminary data sharing and sample sharing plan that outlines the benefit to the population from which data and samples are to be drawn. This should be followed in due time by a full plan. It is hoped that the national ethics committees, supported by the WHO, relevant collaborative research consortia and external funding agencies, will work towards bringing these recommendations into practice, for supporting the conduct of effective research during outbreaks. (shrink)

Peer review is a widely accepted instrument for raising the quality of science. Peer review limits the enormous unstructured influx of information and the sheer amount of dubious data, which in its absence would plunge science into chaos. In particular, peer review offers the benefit of eliminating papers that suffer from poor craftsmanship or methodological shortcomings, especially in the experimental sciences. However, we believe that peer review is not always appropriate for the evaluation of controversial hypothetical science. We argue that (...) the process of peer review can be prone to bias towards ideas that affirm the prior convictions of reviewers and against innovation and radical new ideas. Innovative hypotheses are thus highly vulnerable to being “filtered out” or made to accord with conventional wisdom by the peer review process. Consequently, having introduced peer review, the Elsevier journal Medical Hypotheses may be unable to continue its tradition as a radical journal allowing discussion of improbable or unconventional ideas. Hence we conclude by asking the publisher to consider re-introducing the system of editorial review to Medical Hypotheses. (shrink)

The aim of this study was to investigate the impact of different coping styles on situational coping in everyday life situations and gender differences. An ecological momentary assessment study with the mobile health app TrackYourStress was conducted with 113 participants. The coping styles Positive Thinking, Active Stress Coping, Social Support, Support in Faith, and Alcohol and Cigarette Consumption of the Stress and Coping Inventory were measured at baseline. Situational coping was assessed by the question “How well can you cope with (...) your momentary stress level” over 4 weeks. Multilevel models were conducted to test the effects of the coping styles on situational coping. Additionally, gender differences were evaluated. Positive Thinking and Active Stress Coping had significant positive impacts on situational coping in the total sample. For women, Social Support had a significant positive effect on situational coping. For men, Active Stress Coping had a significant positive effect on situational coping. Women had higher scores on the SCI scale Social Support than men. These results suggest that different coping styles could be more effective in daily life for women than for men. Taking this into account, interventions tailored to users’ coping styles might lead to better coping outcomes than generalized interventions. (shrink)

It has rarely been recognized that the Christian writers of the first millennium pursued an ambitious and exciting philosophical project alongside their engagement in the doctrinal controversies of their age. This book offers a full analysis of this Patristic philosophy until the time of John of Damascus.

In this paper I try to underline both the positive and negative circumstances in which I began translating Heidegger's "Sein und Zeit" in Greek. In 1971 I started, as a young student of philosophy, to study and translate this book, although I misunderstood it and considered it as a paradigm of "existentiell", not existential philosophy. I benefited essentially from both the English and the French translations and I've also received great help from my Greek mentor, E. N. Platis. I published (...) my translation in two volumes, one in 1978 and the other in 1985 and the critics have been very positive. At the beginning, I gave extended explanations about the translation problems and my solutions in a paper published in 1974. In the following years, I wrote articles about the Heideggerian concepts, in order to facilitate a better understanding of his philosophy.. (shrink)

This book is the first to trace the origins and significance of positivism on a global scale. Taking their cues from Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill, positivists pioneered a universal, experience-based culture of scientific inquiry for studying nature and society—a new science that would enlighten all of humankind. Positivists envisaged one world united by science, but their efforts spawned many. Uncovering these worlds of positivism, the volume ranges from India, the Ottoman Empire, and the Iberian Peninsula to Central (...) Europe, Russia, and Brazil, examining positivism’s impact as one of the most far-reaching intellectual movements of the modern world. Positivists reinvented science, claiming it to be distinct from and superior to the humanities. They predicated political governance on their refashioned science of society, and as political activists, they sought and often failed to reconcile their universalism with the values of multiculturalism. Providing a genealogy of scientific governance that is sorely needed in an age of post-truth politics, this volume breaks new ground in the fields of intellectual and global history, the history of science, and philosophy. (shrink)

What moral reasons, if any, do we have to ensure the long-term survival of humanity? This article contrastively explores two answers to this question: according to the first, we should ensure the survival of humanity because we have reason to maximize the number of happy lives that are ever lived, all else equal. According to the second, seeking to sustain humanity into the future is the appropriate response to the final value of humanity itself. Along the way, the article discusses (...) various issues in population axiology, particularly the so-called Intuition of Neutrality and John Broome’s ‘greediness objection’ to this intuition. (shrink)

Originally published by Goethe's friend and personal secretary, Johann Peter Eckermann in German in 1836, this work comprises Eckermann's recollections of his conversations with the German writer and philosopher during the last nine years of his life. Eckermann published a further volume in 1848 using both his own memories and material from the journals of Swiss scientist Frédéric Soret, who was also a close acquaintance of Goethe. The work initially sold poorly in Germany, but quickly became popular internationally, and contributed (...) to the rehabilitation of Goethe's scholarly reputation both within Germany and throughout the world. This edition, translated by British playwright and translator John Oxenford was published in two volumes in London in 1850. Oxenford combined the original three volumes, putting the conversations in chronological order. The topics discussed include religion, politics, literature, poetry and natural sciences. Volume 2 runs from September 1827 to 1832. (shrink)

This piece continues the tradition of arguments by John Lucas, Roger Penrose and others to the effect that the human mind is not a machine. Kurt Gödel thought that the intensional paradoxes stand in the way of proving that the mind is not a machine. According to Gödel, a successful proof that the mind is not a machine would require a solution to the intensional paradoxes. We provide what might seem to be a partial vindication of Gödel and show (...) that if a particular solution to the intensional paradoxes is adopted, one can indeed give an argument to the effect that the mind is not a machine. (shrink)