Moral imagination, according to John Kekes, is indispensable to a fulfilling and responsible life.

I revisit my article, “Why Immortality Is Not So Bad,” in which I argued that Bernard Williams’s thesis that immortality would necessarily be boring for any human being is false. Here I point out various ways in which Williams’s treatment of the issues has tilted and distorted the subsequent debates.

For this second edition, the editors have returned to Austin's original lecture notes, amending the printed text where it seemed necessary.

For many years, the downtown in Clarksdale, with a municipal population of 17,960 and located in the northern part of the Mississippi Delta, had lost its role as the centre providing a wide range of jobs and services to those living in the surrounding region. For many cities and towns in America, downtown decline has been associated with the flight to the suburbs and the growth in shopping malls serving flourishing gated communities. In Clarksdale’s case, downtown decline has been due (...) largely to the advent of big box retailing and the location of new retail and commercial developments along the state highway on the edge of town, combined with the loss of jobs and population associated with agricultural restructuring. Today, however, Clarksdale has taken up the challenge to ‘revitalize’ the downtown in the face of economic adversity. Recovery is under way, and much of this is associated with blues music and Delta culture: Clarksdale is situated at the fabled ‘crossroads’ of Highways 49 and 61 and is also the home to national icons in literature, art and other cultural pursuits. These are key elements around which the downtown revitalization effort is focused. This paper charts the process by which the Clarksdale community has embarked on the road to downtown recovery, and highlights the town’s indelible links with the blues, borne out of years of toil, hardship and social deprivation. The paper emphasizes the importance of ‘champions’ and ‘creative people’, drawing on community support, in achieving downtown revitalization. Positive results are becoming evident with new businesses and jobs, improved levels of service, refurbishment of derelict buildings, a renewed sense of place, and an uplift in community confidence. The significance of cultural tourism to downtown revitalization is highlighted, with particular emphasis on the global appeal of blues, but with its roots firmly established in Clarksdale and the Delta. (shrink)

When a collective is blamed, the responsibility does not escape individuals. Spheres of influence are designed to determine the scale of blame; namely, by proximity and ability to influence a different result. Agents in the respective role types will be responsible upon our examining their extent of influence. Although you may be inclined to say that the responsibility lies with those who have access to policy-making, this doesn't allow for the deviants we expect at appropriate times. Here we are compelled (...) to seek a new moral outlook that maintains our perception of ourself: “what is not worthy of me must not be confused with special requirements of my ‘station and its duties’.”This essay offers a direction to assuage Lewis's fears toward collective responsibility. The challenges to individual responsibility behind such an ascription is complex but need not obliterate it. The delineation of roles by spheres of influence and activity gives some markers to the culpable agents. (shrink)

""This book covers an extensive range of traditional and 'new' ideologies, and organizes its complex subject matter extremely clearly.

The following lectures were really given, in substance, at a girls' school (far in the country); which, in the course of various experiments on the possibility of introducing some better practice of drawing into the modern scheme of female education, I visited frequently enough to enable the children to regard me as a friend. The Lectures always fell more or less into the form of fragmentary answers to questions; and they are allowed to retain that form, as, on the whole, (...) likely to be more interesting than the symmetries of a continuous treatise. Many children (for the school was large) took part, at different times, in the conversations; but I have endeavored, without confusedly multiplying the number of imaginary speakers, to represent, as far as I could, the general tone of comment and inquiry among young people. (shrink)

The influence of J. L. Austin on contemporary philosophy was substantial during his lifetime, and has grown greatly since his death, at the height of his powers, in 1960. Philosophical Papers, first published in 1961, was the first of three volumes of Austin's work to be edited by J. O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock. Together with Sense and Sensibilia and How to do things with Words, it has extended Austin's influence far beyond the circle who knew him or read (...) the handful of papers he published in journals. (shrink)

The human cognitive architecture consists of a set of largely independent modules associated with different brain regions. This book discusses in detail how these various modules can combine to produce behaviours as varied as driving a car and solving an algebraic equation.

One of the central problems in the philosophy of psychology is an updated version of the old mind-body problem: how levels of theories in the behavioral and brain sciences relate to one another. Many contemporary philosophers of mind believe that cognitive-psychological theories are not reducible to neurological theories. However, this antireductionism has not spawned a revival of dualism. Instead, most nonreductive physicalists prefer the idea of a one-way dependence of the mental on the physical.In Psychoneural Reduction, John Bickle presents (...) a new type of reductionism, one that is stronger than one-way dependency yet sidesteps the arguments that sank classical reductionism. Although he makes some concessions to classical antireductionism, he argues for a relationship between psychology and neurobiology that shares some of the key aims, features, and consequences of classical reductionism. Parts of Bickle's "new wave" reductionism have emerged piecemeal over the past two decades; this is his first comprehensive statement and defense of it to appear. (shrink)

The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832) is a classic of nineteenth-century English jurisprudence, a subject on which Austin had a profound impact. His book is primarily concerned with a meticulous explanation of most of the core concepts of his legal philosophy, including his conception of law, his separation of law and morality, and his theory of sovereignty. Almost a quarter of it consists of an interpretation and defence of the principle of utility. This edition includes the complete and unabridged text (...) of the fifth (1885) and last edition. The comprehensive introduction discusses Austin's life, the main themes of his book, leading criticisms of his ideas, and recent interpretations of his legal philosophy. The edition also includes an up-to-date bibliography and biographical synopses of the principal figures mentioned in the text. (shrink)

Philosophers ask just whose expression, if anyone’s, we hear in lyric poetry. Walton provides a novel possibility: it’s the reader who “uses” the poem (just as a speech giver uses a speech) who makes the language expressive. But worries arise once we consider poems in particular social or political settings, those which require a strong self-other distinction, or those with expressions that should not be disassociated from the subjects whose experience they draw from. One way to meet this challenge is (...) to consider the poem expressive of a plural subject, which frees us from looking for a particular individual whose voice we hear in the work, whether she be fictional or actual. Some lyrics give voice to a group whose experience is attended to in the work. This may be done through a posited fictional speaker, but the ontology of the speaker is shown to be less important. Attending to a group whose concerns are voiced allows us to explain how poems can manage to address our-worldly concerns even when lacking actual persons whose expressions we encounter in the poems. (shrink)

We will next speak of Liberality. Now this is thought to be the mean state, having for its object-matter Wealth: I mean, the Liberal man is praised not in the circumstances of war, nor in those which constitute the character of perfected self-mastery, nor again in judicial decisions, but in respect of giving and receiving Wealth, chiefly the former. By the term Wealth I mean all those things whose worth is measured by money.

Many subscribe to an Ethic of Life, an ethical perspective on which all living things are deserving of some level of moral concern. Within philosophy, the Ethic of Life has been clarified, developed, and rigorously defended; it has also found its strongest critics. Currently, the debate is at a standstill. This book ends this stalemate by proving that the Ethic of Life must be abandoned.

This volume is devoted entirely to exploring the role of animals in the thought of Immanuel Kant. Leading scholars address questions regarding the possibility of objective representation and intentionality in animals, the role of animals in Kant's scientific picture of nature, the status of our moral responsibilities to animals' welfare, and more.

John Austin's classic work that has had a profound influence on the study of English and American law presents Austin's distinction between "positive law" (i.e.

In books such as The World Within the World and The Anthropic Cosmological Principle, astronomer John Barrow has emerged as a leading writer on our efforts to understand the universe. Timothy Ferris, writing in The Times Literary Supplement of London, described him as "a temperate and accomplished humanist, scientist, and philosopher of science--a man out to make a contribution, not a show." Now Barrow offers the general reader another fascinating look at modern physics, as he explores the quest for (...) a single, unifying theory that will unlock nature's secrets. Theories of Everything is more than a history of science, more than a popular report on recent research and discoveries. Barrow provides a reflective, intelligent commentary on what a true Theory of Everything would be--its ingredients, its limitations, and what it could tell us about the universe. Never before, he writes, have physicists been so confident and so eager in the hunt for this "cosmic Rosetta Stone," as he calls it: "a single all-embracing picture of all the laws of nature from which the inevitability of all things seen must follow with unimpeachable logic." He lays out eight essential ingredients for a Theory of Everything and then explores each in turn, tracing how our knowledge has developed and how scientific discovery relates to our changing philosophy and religious thought in each area. Some of these ingredients are obvious--the laws of nature must be explained, for example, as well as its organizing principles--but others may be surprising, such as broken symmetries and selection biases. A Theory of Everything must account for the fact that the universe is "messy and complicated," he tells us, and for the limitations imposed by the questions we ask and the information we can obtain. The key lies in the remarkable capacity of mathematics to express the fundamental workings of the physical world--a language that the human mind is uniquely equipped to understand and manipulate. Barrow examines what mathematics actually is and describes how it makes the universe intelligible and provides a path to the underlying coherence in nature--which has led, in fact, to arguments that the universe itself is a vast computer. Yet even the most complete theory, even the most comprehensive mathematical explanation, cannot account for the uncomputable varieties of human experience and thought. "No non-poetic account of reality," he writes, "can be complete." In a field where the authorities converse in equations and mathematical notations, John Barrow speaks with the voice of thoughtful and knowledgeable humanist. Written with eloquence and expertise, Theories of Everything establishes a new perspective on humanity's efforts to explain the universe. (shrink)

Major shifts in the field of model theory in the twentieth century have seen the development of new tools, methods, and motivations for mathematicians and philosophers. In this book, John T. Baldwin places the revolution in its historical context from the ancient Greeks to the last century, argues for local rather than global foundations for mathematics, and provides philosophical viewpoints on the importance of modern model theory for both understanding and undertaking mathematical practice. The volume also addresses the impact (...) of model theory on contemporary algebraic geometry, number theory, combinatorics, and differential equations. This comprehensive and detailed book will interest logicians and mathematicians as well as those working on the history and philosophy of mathematics. (shrink)

This book provides an intellectual biography of Max Horkheimer during the early and middle phases of his life and analyzes his model of early Critical Theory.