Among the many philosophers who hold that causal facts1 are to be explained in terms of—or more ambitiously, shown to reduce to—facts about what happens, together with facts about the fundamental laws that govern what happens, the clear favorite is an approach that sees counterfactual dependence as the key to such explanation or reduction. The paradigm examples of causation, so advocates of this approach tell us, are examples in which events c and e—the cause and its effect—both occur, but: had (...) c not occurred, e would not have occurred either. From this starting point ideas proliferate in a vast profusion. But the remarkable disparity among these ideas should not obscure their common foundation. Neither should the diversity of opinion about the prospects for a philosophical analysis of causation obscure their importance. For even those philosophers who see these prospects as dim—perhaps because they suffer post-Quinean queasiness at the thought of any analysis of any concept of interest—can often be heard to say such things as that causal relations among events are somehow “a matter of” the patterns of counterfactual dependence to be found in them. It was not always so. Thirty-odd years ago, so-called “regularity” analyses (so-called, presumably, because they traced back to Hume’s well-known analysis of causation as constant conjunction) ruled the day, with Mackie’s Cement of the Universe embodying a classic statement. But they fell on hard times, both because of internal problems—which we will review in due course—and because dramatic improvements in philosophical understanding of counterfactuals made possible the emergence of a serious and potent rival: a counterfactual analysis of causation resting on foundations firm enough to be repel the kind of philosophical suspicion that had formerly warranted dismissal.. (shrink)
Dans la première partie de cet article, je presente une thèse parapluie — la thèse de l'«exhaustion» (exhaustion thesis) — qui cerne bien l'élément central des diverses positions déflationnistes au sujet de la vérité : l'idée que le contenu du prédicat de vérité s'épuise entièrement dans le contenu de ce à quoi le prédicats'applique. Je soutiens que cette thèse n'est supportée que d'une manière triviale par l'idée courante que la vérite résiste à une analyse substantielle, car les prédicats en général (...) ne se prêtent guere à ce genre d'analyse. J'examine ensuite deux élaborations positives de la thèse de l'exhaustion; et je soutiens que ni l'une ni l'autre ne commence même à montrer que la thèse en question soit explicativement adéquate. (shrink)
Did the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the U.S. cause the values of teenagers in the U.S. to change? Did their previously important self-esteem and self-actualization values become less important and their survival and safety values become more important? Changes in the values of teenagers are important for practitioners, managers, marketers, and researchers to understand because high school students are our current and future employees, managers, and customers, and research has shown that values impact work and consumer-related attitudes and (...) behaviors. Further, studies that compared higher to lower performing for-profit and not-for-profit companies have found that higher performing organizations had strong values that permeated their organizations [Collins J. C., and J. I. Porras: 1994, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (New York, Harper Business); O’Reilly, C. A. and J. A. Chatman: 1996, in B. M. Staw and L. L. Cummings (eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior, vol. 18 (JAI Press, Greenwhich, CT), pp. 157–200; O’Reilly, C. A.: 1989, California Management Review 31(4), 9–25; Posner, B. Z., and W. H. Schmidt: 1996, Public Personnel Management, 25(3), 277–298; Rousseau, D.: 1990, Group and Organization Studies 15(4), 448–460; Schein, E. H.: 2004, Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco, Jossey Bass)]. While one study of adults found value changes, no known studies have explored if the values of teenagers also changed post-9/11. This study filled that research gap by exploring the values of a random sample of 1000 U.S. teenagers in grades 9 to 12 pre- and post-9/11, using a demographic questionnaire and the Rokeach Value Survey. The research results indicated that teenage survival, safety, and security values (a world at peace, freedom, national security, and salvation) increased in importance while their self-esteem and self-actualization values (a sense of accomplishment, inner harmony, pleasure, self-respect, and wisdom) decreased in importance, mirroring the changes for adults. The meaning of these findings for practitioners, managers, marketers and researchers was discussed. (shrink)
Ditton, J. A bibliographic exegesis of Goffman's sociology.--Lofland, J. Early Goffman: syle, structure, substance, soul.--Psathas, G. Early Goffman and the analysis of fact-to-face interaction in Strategic interaction--Hepworth, M. Deviance and control in everyday life.--Rogers, M. F. Goffman on power hierarchy, and status.--Gonos, G. The class position of Goffman's sociology.--Collins, R. Erving Goffman and the development of modern social theory.--Williams, R. Goffman's sociology of talk.--Crook, S. and Taylor, L. Goffman's version of reality.--Manning, P. K. Goffman's framing order: style as structure.
--Father Hart, by J.D. Collins.--The meeting of the ways, by J.A. McWilliams.--On the notion of subsistence, by J. Maritain.--Metaphysics and unity, by E.G. Salmon.--What is really real? By W.N. Clarke.--Professor Scheltens and the proof of God's existence, by F.X. Meehan.--On the mathematical approach to nature, by V.E. Smith.--The assimilation of the new to the old in the philosophy of nature, by L.A. Foley.--In seipsa subsistere, by I. Brady.--St. Thomas and the unity of man, by A.C. Pegis.--Law and morality, by (...) G.B. Phelan.--Thomistic thoughts on government and rulers, by I. Smith. (shrink)
Causation is a deeply intuitive and familiar relation, gripped powerfully by common sense. Or so it seems. But as is typical in philosophy, deep intuitive familiarity has not led to any philosophical account of causation that is at once clean, precise, and widely agreed upon. Not for lack of trying: the last 30 years or so have seen dozens of attempts to provide such an account, and the pace of development is, if anything, accelerating. (See Collins, Hall and Paul (...) 2003a for a comprehensive sampling of the latest work.) It is safe to say that none has yet succeeded. It is also safe to say that the effort put into their development has yielded a wealth of insights into causation. And it is, arguably, from the study of causal preemption—cases that feature multiple competing candidates for the title of “cause” of some given effect—that the greatest such wealth has flowed. These cases come in a number of varieties: so-called early and late preemption, symmetric overdetermination, and trumping preemption. Collectively, they place extremely severe constraints on any philosophical account of causation that can successfully handle them. One of the lessons they have to teach, then, is a lesson about the form that a successful analysis of causation must have. There is a deeper lesson, a lesson about the nature of causation itself, or if you like, about the workings of our causal concept. It emerges from close study of the struggles that extant accounts face in trying to provide even remotely attractive treatments of causal preemption. It is this: There appears to be a significant and perhaps intractable tension between one strand in our thinking about causation—a strand that emphasizes the need for causes to be connected to their effects via intervening processes with the right intrinsic character—and another—one that emphasizes the claim that effects in some sense depend on their causes. By the end of this essay, this tension will be vividly apparent.. (shrink)
I J’ai grandi au milieu des collines bleues et des lacs cristallins des Appalaches, loin de l’artifice des grandes métropoles : je vivais dans des conditions plus primitives, moins compliquées que dans l’effervescence des zones très peuplées. La nature fut mon premier professeur et les animaux domestiques mes premiers compagnons. Ma jeunesse s’écoula dans ce cadre et c’est là que je conçus pour la première fois l’idée que les animaux parlent. Enfant, je croyais que tous les animaux d’une même..
