The Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment series, previously known as SVEC (Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century), has published over 500 peer-reviewed scholarly volumes since 1955 as part of the Voltaire Foundation at the University of Oxford. International in focus, Oxford University Studies in the Enlightenment volumes cover wide-ranging aspects of the eighteenth century and the Enlightenment, from gender studies to political theory, and from economics to visual arts and music, and are published in English or French.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics CommentaryRenato Manaloto, Assistant ProfessorThe key ethical question in this case is whether it is acceptable for Dr. C to disclose information about the 16-year-old patient’s sexual and psychiatric health condition. The answer to the question is yes, if such disclosure serves the patients’ well-being and future interests.The patient, Miss M, may have had her own reasons for asking Dr. C not to inform her parents of her condition (...) — perhaps she was worried about their reaction, or believed that such disclosure was unnecessary, because she could already understand, have an opinion and make decisions for herself. In this respect, Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child provides assurance for “the child, who is capable of forming his or her own views, the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting” him or her. As a 16-year-old, Miss M plausibly senses her capacity for decision-making that is independent of her parents. Various developmental theories, such as those of Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg, affirm that her decision-making competence might have reached maturity by age 16.1 Seeing her wishes respected, Miss M may be encouraged to open up to Dr. C and receive suitable medical care or services, which may not be there if confidence in her doctor is broken. Her exercise of autonomous decision-making capacity may help in her recovery and restoration.Dependency of children on their parents is, however, arguably unavoidable as they are yet to possess capacities of decision-making equal to those of adults. Children are still, in the words of Aristotle, albeit pejorative, “incomplete adults […] unfinished human beings”, or “becomings” rather than “beings”.2 If [End Page 265] they live under the authority of their parents, they may be subject to “Constrained Parental Paternalism”. Constrained because: “It must be exercised for the good of the child and its exercise lasts only for so long as the child is incapable of making its own choices”.3Following this line of argument, parents may exercise authority over their children in ways that guide their decision-making and thereby promote their best interests. John Locke terms this “guiding the decision-making”, “informing the mind”.4 Immanuel Kant justifies “promoting the best interests of children” as: those who have brought a child into the world “incur an obligation to make the child content with his condition so far as they can”.5 “From this duty,” Kant adds, “there must necessarily arise the right of parents to manage and develop the child.” 6 Thus, parents may have not only an obligation, but also a right to guide the decision-making of their children.As persons who can understand and respond to the needs of their children, parents may be the best judges of the child’s well-being so that they may always be involved in the decision-making especially for significant decisions involving medical care the child. After all, making a medical decision can involve major life decisions. Medical choices may have long-term impact on a child’s well-being that makes parents’ involvement in such decision-making highly desirable. No amount of care by doctors for the child patient can match the invaluable insight and knowledge of the parents.In the case at hand, Miss M’s parents should be informed of her condition as they can provide her with essential support for her recovery and the restoration of her well-being. The mere fact that her parents protested about not being informed of her condition suggests that they wanted — in the sense of taking responsibility and supporting her future interests — to be involved in the medical decision-making. They believe that any harm or injury might have been prevented had they been informed. Miss M is also still under the care and custody of her parents. Not having reached the age of maturity, her parents have an obligation and a right to guide her decision-making.Nevertheless, in some countries, children between 13 and 16 years of age have the right to make medical decisions without parental involvement. In Singapore, parents’ participation in the medical care of... (shrink)

The author seeks to understand the meaning and goals of the New Evangelization in a diachronic way as they were exposed mainly by the last popes John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis and how to relate it to the current Brazilian context that needs urgently new methods of evangelization.

This article formulates a novel conception of constitutions based on John Finnis’s jurisprudential work. The ‘central case constitution’ transcends the formal or functionalist analyses currently dominant in constitutional theory by considering a constitution as having a ‘double life’. Constitutions are necessarily and intrinsically normative and factual. The article explores Finnis’s natural law philosophy, emphasizing the central case constitution’s alignment with the practical reasonableness viewpoint and its role in directing a political community towards its common good. Focusing on key elements (...) such as the rule of law and the context of a political community, the central case constitution emerges as a legal determination that structures society, frames political institutions and authoritatively directs communities towards justice. This ontological understanding has theoretical and practical implications, including identifying genuine constitutional purposes, safeguarding private associations from the overwhelming state presence, promoting community identity and accommodating diverse constitutional choices for self-determination. (shrink)

Polycomb response elements (PREs) are regulatory switch elements that can direct the genes that they control to be either active or silenced. Once decided, this on or off state is maintained through subsequent cell divisions. We do not know how the switching works, or how it is copied to newly replicated chromosomes. Experiments that switch a silenced PRE to an active state have provided insights into both questions. A PRE switched experimentally can remember its previously silenced state and return to (...) it after several cell divisions. In the most recent study of this phenomen on,(1) the data show that several distinct variables affect the ability of PREs to “remember” and restore their previous state. The authors' interpretation of these results is discussed here. BioEssays 23:566–570, 2001. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Are theories ‘underdetermined by the evidence’ in any way that should worry the scientific realist? I argue that no convincing reason has been given for thinking so. A crucial distinction is drawn between data equivalence and empirical equivalence. Duhem showed that it is always possible to produce a data equivalent rival to any accepted scientific theory. But there is no reason to regard such a rival as equally well empirically supported and hence no threat to realism. Two theories are empirically (...) equivalent if they share all consequences expressed in purely observational vocabulary. This is a much stronger requirement than has hitherto been recognised— two such ‘rival’ theories must in fact agree on many claims that are clearly theoretical in nature. Given this, it is unclear how much of an impact on realism a demonstration that there is always an empirically equivalent ‘rival’ to any accepted theory would have—even if such a demonstration could be produced. Certainly in the case of the version of realism that I defend—structural realism—such a demonstration would have precisely no impact: two empirically equivalent theories are, according to structural realism, cognitively indistinguishable. (shrink)

In his preface Mr Wilson writes 'I feel that a great many adults … would do better to spend less time in simply accepting the concepts of others uncritically, and more time in learning how to analyse concepts in general'. Mr Wilson starts by describing the techniques of conceptual analysis. He then gives examples of them in action by composing answers to specific questions and by criticism of quoted passages of argument. Chapter 3 sums up the importance of this kind (...) of mental activity. Chapter 4 presents selections for the reader to analyse, followed by questions of university entrance/scholarship type. This is a book to be worked through, in a sense a text-book. (shrink)

How do we acquire thoughts and beliefs about particulars by looking at pictures? One kind of reply essentially compares depiction to perception, holding that picture-perception is a form of remote object-perception. Lopes’s theory that pictures refer by demonstrative identification, and Walton’s transparency theory for photographs, constitute such remote acquaintance theories of depiction. The main purpose of this paper is to defend an alternative conception of pictures, on which they are not suitable for acquainting us with particulars but for acquainting us (...) with certain kinds of properties. This conception is outlined in §4, where it is argued that pictures are useful devices for what Heal has called indexical predication. In §2 and §3, I explain why I believe that remote acquaintance theories are false, and why picture-perception cannot function as a form of extended or remote object-perception. The main reason is that the contents of picture-perceptions do not themselves provide the kind of numerical and contextual information required for singular thought. Picture-reference is instead secured by independent beliefs or linguistic communication about the causal history of pictures as objects. In other words, it is beliefs about the numerical identity of pictures as objects that anchors the reference of the representational contents of pictures. (shrink)

Setting the scene -- Sentience and the sentient mind -- Special senses and their interpretation Survival strategies -- Social strategies -- Animals of the waters -- Animals of the air -- Animals of the savannah and plains -- Animals of the forests -- Close neighbours -- Our duty of care.

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)

Obviously medicine should be evidence-based. The issues lie in the details: what exactly counts as evidence? Do certain kinds of evidence carry more weight than others? (And if so why?) And how exactly should medicine be based on evidence? When it comes to these details, the evidence-based medicine (EBM) movement has got itself into a mess – or so it will be argued. In order to start to resolve this mess, we need to go 'back to basics'; and that means (...) turning to the philosophy of science. The theory of evidence, or rather the logic of the interrelations between theory and evidence, has always been central to the philosophy of science – sometimes under the alias of the 'theory of confirmation'. When taken together with a little philosophical commonsense, this logic can help us move towards a position on evidence in medicine that is more sophisticated and defensible than anything that EBM has been able so far to supply. (shrink)

This book investigates the central role of reason in Islamic intellectual life. Despite widespread characterization of Islam as a system of belief based only on revelation, John Walbridge argues that rational methods, not fundamentalism, have characterized Islamic law, philosophy and education since the medieval period. His research demonstrates that this medieval Islamic rational tradition was opposed by both modernists and fundamentalists, resulting in a general collapse of traditional Islamic intellectual life and its replacement by more modern but far shallower (...) forms of thought. However, the resources of this Islamic scholarly tradition remain an integral part of the Islamic intellectual tradition and will prove vital to its revival. The future of Islam, Walbridge argues, will be marked by a return to rationalism"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Man controls and dominates the habitat of most animals, both domestic and wild and there is a need for a pragmatic, workable approach to the problem of reconciling animal welfare with economic forces and the needs of man. It is the author's contention that much of the current philosophical discussion of animal welfare is misdirected now that it is possible to measure to some extent what animals think and feel and how much they can appreciate their quality of life. The (...) book deals with farm animals, pets, wild animals and laboratory animals and dicusses their environmental requirements, fear and stress, their response to pain, injury, disease and death, behaviour and aggression, and the implications of biotechnology and genetic engineering. Finally, the book tries to reconcile reverence for life with the inescapability of killing and reviews the prospects of preserving and enhancing quality of life for animals through legislations, education, economic and moral incentives. (shrink)

John Turri gives an example that he thinks refutes what he takes to be “G. E. Moore's view” that omissive assertions such as “It is raining but I do not believe that it is raining” are “inherently ‘absurd'”. This is that of Ellie, an eliminativist who makes such assertions. Turri thinks that these are perfectly reasonable and not even absurd. Nor does she seem irrational if the sincerity of her assertion requires her to believe its content. A commissive counterpart (...) of Ellie is Di, a dialetheist who asserts or believes that The Russell set includes itself but I believe that it is not the case that the Russell set includes itself. Since any adequate explanation of Moore's paradox must handle commissive assertions and beliefs as well as omissive ones, it must deal with Di as well as engage Ellie. I give such an explanation. I argue that neither Ellie's assertion nor her belief is irrational yet both are absurd. Likewise neither Di's assertion nor her belief is irrational yet in contrast neither is absurd. I conclude that not all Moore-paradoxical assertions or beliefs are irrational and that the syntax of Moore's examples is not sufficient for the absurdity found in them. (shrink)

A brief account of educational aims, focussing on preparation for a life of autonomous well-being.

I argue that incomprehensibility (what the ancient skeptics called acatalepsia) plays a central role in the skepticism of both Bayle and Hume. I challenge a commonly held view (recently argued by Todd Ryan) that Hume, unlike Bayle, does not present oppositions of reason--what Kant called antimonies.

Foreword I. Critical rationalism is a genuinely new philosophical perspective. It is not, however, one systematic view. The development of it by Popper and ...

1. 1735-1738 -- 2. 1738-1743 -- 3. 1743-1754 -- 4. 1755-1765 -- 5. 1765-1775 -- 6. 1776-1786 -- 7. 1787-91.

Whiskey Lao -- Fair warning -- Randomness at large -- We the addicted -- The best possible world -- The importance of being doomed -- Moral responsibility -- The upper limit to the value of possible worlds.