We tackle the problem of preservation of totality by composition in arena games. We first explain how this problem reduces to a finiteness theorem on what we call pointer structures, similar to the parity pointer functions of Harmer, Hyland and Mélliès and the interaction sequences of Coquand. We discuss how this theorem relates to normalization of linear head reduction in simply-typed lambda-calculus, leading us to a semantic realizability proof à la Kleene of our theorem. We then present another proof (...) of a more combinatorial nature. Finally, we discuss the exact class of strategies to which our theorems apply. (shrink)

Can there be higher level laws of nature even though everything is reducible to the fundamental laws of physics? The computer science notion of level of abstraction explains how there can be.

Introduction -- Part I: The good life -- Hedonism : its powerful appeal -- Is happiness all that matters? -- Getting what you want -- Problems for the desire theory -- Part II: Doing the right thing -- Morality and religion -- Natural law theory -- Psychological egoism -- Ethical egoism -- Consequentialism : its nature and attractions -- Consequentialism : its difficulties -- The kantian perspective : fairness and justice -- The kantian perspective : autonomy and respect -- The (...) social contract tradition : theory and attractions -- The social contract tradition : problems and prospects -- Ethical pluralism and absolute moral rules -- Ethical pluralism : prima facie duties and ethical particularism -- Virtue ethics -- Feminist ethics -- Part III: The status of morality -- Ethical relativism -- Moral nihilism -- Ten arguments against moral objectivity. (shrink)

Philosophers often identify needing something with requiring it to avoid harm. This view of need is roughly accurate, but no adequate analysis of the relevant sort of requirement has been given, and the relevant notion of harm has not been clarified. Further, the harm-avoidance picture must be broadened, because we also need what is required to reduce danger. I offer two analyses of need (one probabilistic) to address these shortcomings. The analyses are at a high level of generality and accommodate (...) our ordinary notion of need as well as narrower conceptions. I also explain why the only extant, detailed modal account of need, David Wiggins’s (1987/1998), is inadequate. My analyses imply that to have a need for something is to have the (expected) quality of one’s life depend counterfactually on it in a certain way. The analyses shed some light on need’s distinctive normative significance. (shrink)

Although John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice does not deal specifically with the ethics of environmental concerns, it can generally be applied to give justification for the prudent and continent use of our natural resources. The argument takes two forms: one dealing with the immediate effects of environmental impact and the other, delayed effects. Immediate effects, which impact the present society, should besubject to environmental controls because they affect health and opportunity, social primary goods to be dispensed by society. Delayed (...) environmental impacts, affecting future generations, are also subject to control because future generations have a just claim upon our natural resources-the generation to which a person belongs is an arbitrary contingency which should not exclude persons not yet born from consideration in the original contract of society. (shrink)

The photographer and reformer Jacob Riis once wrote, “I have seen an armful of daisies keep the peace of a block better than a policeman and his club.” Riis was not alone in his belief that beauty could tame urban chaos, but are aesthetic experiences always a social good? Could aesthetics also inspire violent crime, working-class unrest, and racial murder? To answer these questions, Russ Castronovo turns to those who debated claims that art could democratize culture—civic reformers, anarchists, novelists, (...) civil rights activists, and college professors—to reveal that beauty provides unexpected occasions for radical, even revolutionary, political thinking. B eautiful Democracy explores the intersection of beauty and violence by examining university lectures and course materials on aesthetics from a century ago along with riots, acts of domestic terrorism, magic lantern exhibitions, and other public spectacles. Philosophical aesthetics, realist novels, urban photography, and black periodicals, Castronovo argues, inspired and instigated all sorts of collective social endeavors, from the progressive nature of tenement reform to the horrors of lynching. Discussing Jane Addams, W.E.B. Du Bois, Charlie Chaplin, William Dean Howells, and Riis as aesthetic theorists in the company of Kant and Schiller, Beautiful Democracy ultimately suggests that the distance separating academic thinking and popular wisdom about social transformation is narrower than we generally suppose. (shrink)

Although John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice does not deal specifically with the ethics of environmental concerns, it can generally be applied to give justification for the prudent and continent use of our natural resources. The argument takes two forms: one dealing with the immediate effects of environmental impact and the other, delayed effects. Immediate effects, which impact the present society, should besubject to environmental controls because they affect health and opportunity, social primary goods to be dispensed by society. Delayed (...) environmental impacts, affecting future generations, are also subject to control because future generations have a just claim upon our natural resources-the generation to which a person belongs is an arbitrary contingency which should not exclude persons not yet born from consideration in the original contract of society. (shrink)

Leibniz argues against Descartes’s conception of material substance based on considerations of unity. I examine a key premise of Leibniz’s argument, what I call the Plurality Thesis—the claim that matter (i.e. extension alone) is a plurality of parts. More specifically, I engage an objection to the Plurality Thesis stemming from what I call Material Monism—the claim that the physical world is a single material substance. I argue that Leibniz can productively engage this objection based on his view that matter is (...) discrete. The discreteness of matter provides two aspects of support for the Plurality Thesis. First, it indicates that the parts of matter do not share boundaries and are, therefore, independent in an important sense. Second, it indicates that the parts of matter are determinate and are, therefore, ontologically prior to the wholes they compose. (shrink)

Leibniz argues that God doesn't create everything possible because not all possible things are compossible, that is, compatible with each other. Much recent debate has focused on Leibniz's conception of compossibility. One important aspect of this debate, which has not been examined directly, is the distinction between possible worlds and possible creations: the notion of possible world is more robust than simply whatever God can create. Many commentators have relied on this distinction without a clear formulation of it. I develop (...) the distinction between possible worlds and possible creations by looking at how Leibniz characterizes what God is capable of creating. I argue that possible creations must be both logically consistent and determinate. Possible creations differ from possible worlds insofar as possible creations fail to be either maximal or harmonious. I conclude, therefore, that focusing on the notion of determinateness offers a new approach to answering the question why doesn't God create everything possible? (shrink)

Modern computing is generally taken to consist primarily of symbol manipulation. But symbols are abstract, and computers are physical. How can a physical device manipulate abstract symbols? Neither Church nor Turing considered this question. My answer is that the bit, as a hardware-implemented abstract data type, serves as a bridge between materiality and abstraction. Computing also relies on three other primitive—but more straightforward—abstractions: Sequentiality, State, and Transition. These physically-implemented abstractions define the borderline between hardware and software and between physicality and (...) abstraction. At a deeper level, asking how a physical device can interact with abstract symbols is the wrong question. The relationship between symbols and physical devices begins with the realization that human beings already know what it means to manipulate symbols. We build and program computers to do what we understand to be symbol manipulation. To understand what that means, consider a light switch. A light switch doesn’t turn a light on or off. Those are abstractions. Light switches don’t operate with abstractions. We build light switches, so that when flipped, the world is changed in such a way that we understand the light to be on or off. Similarly, we build computers to perform operations that we understand as manipulating symbols. (shrink)

Our project in this essay is to showcase nonnaturalistic moral realism’s resources for responding to metaphysical and epistemological objections by taking the view in some new directions. The central thesis we will argue for is that there is a battery of substantive moral propositions that are also nonnaturalistic conceptual truths. We call these propositions the moral fixed points. We will argue that they must find a place in any system of moral norms that applies to beings like us, in worlds (...) similar to our own. By committing themselves to true propositions of these sorts, nonnaturalists can fashion a view that is highly attractive in its own right, and resistant to the most prominent objections that have been pressed against it. (shrink)

Leibniz claims that nature is actually infinite but rejects infinite number. Are his mathematical commitments out of step with his metaphysical ones? It is widely accepted that Leibniz has a viable response to this problem: there can be infinitely many created substances, but no infinite number of them. But there is a second problem that has not been satisfactorily resolved. It has been suggested that Leibniz’s argument against the world soul relies on his rejection of infinite number, and, as such, (...) Leibniz cannot assert that any body has a soul without also accepting infinite number, since any body has infinitely many parts. Previous attempts to address this concern have misunderstood the character of Leibniz’s rejection of infinite number. I argue that Leibniz draws an important distinction between ‘wholes’– collections of parts that can be thought of as a single thing – and ‘fictional wholes’ – collections of parts that cannot be thought of as a single thing, which allows us to make sense of his rejection of infinite number in a way that does not conflict either with his view that the world is actually infinite or that the bodies of substances have infinitely many parts. (shrink)

Leibniz's World-Apart Doctrine states that every created substance is independent of everything except God. Commentators have connected the independence of substance asserted by World-Apart to a variety of important aspects of Leibniz's modal metaphysics, including his theory of compossibility and his notion of a possible world (including what possible worlds there are). But what sort of independence is at stake in World-Apart? I argue that there is not a single sense of "independence" at stake, but at least three: what I (...) call "causal", "phenomenal", and "ontological" independence. Further, I distinguish two versions of each type of independence: what I call "basic" and "strict" versions. I argue that only basic versions can be legitimately attributed to Leibniz. In light of this result, I conclude, pace previous commentators, that World-Apart has little impact on Leibniz's modal metaphysics. (shrink)

Leibniz argues that Cartesian extension lacks the unity required to be a substance. A key premise of Leibniz’s argument is that matter is a collection or aggregation. I consider an objection to this premise raised by Leibniz’s correspondent Burchard de Volder and consider a variety of ways that Leibniz might be able to respond to De Volder’s objection. I argue that it is not easy for Leibniz to provide a dialectically relevant response and, further, that the difficulty arises from Leibniz’s (...) commitment to part-whole priority in the case of material wholes, a commitment not shared by De Volder. One major implication is that Leibniz relies on a bottom-up conception of material things, which makes his argument vulnerable to objections stemming from certain types of monist positions. (shrink)

Nelson, Russ Paul's letter to the Romans highlights the significance of volunteers to the mission of Jesus in the church. Acts 18 introduces a married couple, Priscilla and Aquila, late of Rome and now of Corinth. Initially they house and employ Paul, thereby giving voluntary service to Paul. Priscilla and Aquila's generosity remains a feature of contemporary Catholicism, clearly identifiable in the parishes. As an everyday part of church life, volunteering is worthy of recognition and nurture. Contemporary ministers might (...) reflect on the development of Priscilla and Aquila as volunteers as first mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles. Perhaps these two lay people were instructed by Paul around the meal table during the eighteen months they were together. Priscilla and Aquila provide an example of volunteering and the focus of this paper is on the formation of volunteers. (shrink)

Describes evolution, including the history of the theory, biological classification, societal and legal ramifications, and the connection between evolution and ...

Seasonal influenza poses a significant public health risk in many countries worldwide. Lower immunity and less influenza virus circulating during the pandemic has resulted in a significant increase in cases since the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions in 2022. The seasonal influenza vaccine offers effective protection and is safe for use in large numbers of the population. This article asserts that a moral obligation to vaccinate against influenza can be understood as an Institutional Duty of Rescue. The traditional understanding of the (...) Duty of Rescue encounters issues with force and scope, making it difficult to apply to rescue cases in general, as well as being overdemanding for the individual agent. An Institutional view of the Duty of Rescue addresses these difficulties, looks at the wider context of rescue and leaves room for discussion on collective, preventative rescue measures. This makes the concept well suited to supporting a moral obligation to vaccinate against influenza as part of a collective effort on the part of institutional organisations. (shrink)

This chapter discusses Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s philosophical reflections on mind and body. It first considers Leibniz’s distinction between substance and aggregate, referring to the former as a being that must have true unity (what he calls unum per se) and to the latter as simply a collection of other beings. It then describes Leibniz’s extension of the term “substance” to monads and other things such as animals and living beings. It also examines Leibniz’s views about the union of mind and (...) body, whether mind and body interact, and how interaction is related to union. More specifically, it asks whether mind and body together constitute an unum per se and analyzes Leibniz’s account of the per se unity of mind-body composites. In addition, the chapter explores the problem of soul-body union as opposed to mind-body union and concludes by discussing Leibniz’s explanation of soul-body interaction using a system of pre-established harmony. (shrink)

Leibniz famously argues that there must be simple substances, since there are composites, and a composite is nothing but a collection of simples. I reconstruct Leibniz’s argument, showing that it relies on a commitment to mereological nihilism (i.e., the view that composites cannot be true beings). I show further that Leibniz endorses mereological nihilism as early as the 1680s and offers both direct and indirect support for this commitment: indirect support via the notion of unity and direct support via the (...) notion of persistence. I then assess the alignment of Leibniz’s mereological nihilism with his other commitments during the 1680s, including his potential commitment to corporeal substances. I argue that any viable interpretation of Leibniz’s commitment to corporeal substances is compatible with mereological nihilism, which provides a new perspective both on Leibniz’s developing theory of substance and on his mature theory of simple substance. (shrink)

Encountering Leibniz for the first time can be a dizzying experience. Unlike many early modern thinkers, Leibniz did not produce a treatise, which outlines his philosophical system step by step. Rather, each of Leibniz’s texts provides a kaleidoscopic view of the whole, a complex mixture of elements, some in the foreground, some receding into the background, present but not altogether in focus. Furthermore, Leibniz produced philosophical work over 6 decades, and the extent to which his views changed over that time (...) is an ongoing subject of scholarly disagreement. The perpetual challenge for readers and teachers of Leibniz is, then, where to start: which fragment of the whole provides a viable entry point into Leibniz’s philosophy? Leibniz’s Key Philosophical Writings engages this challenge, providing an introduction to Leibniz’s thought, not by focusing on particular themes, doctrines, or threads running through his entire corpus, but by engaging complete texts in all their complexity. (shrink)

As José Benardete observes, "the concept of the infinite is found to impinge on almost the whole schedule of ontological questions" (Infinity, viii). This is especially true for the early moderns, for whom questions like the following were still very much in play: Does the world have a beginning? Are there bounds to the spatial extent of the world? How does an imperfect creation flow from an infinitely perfect creator? How does the infinite divisibility of the continuum relate to the (...) structure of the material world? How are human actions related to the (possibly) infinite chain of causes or influences that shape our behaviors? Far from being an esoteric topic, which is best relegated to the outskirts of metaphysics or mathematics, infinity has tendrils reaching into nearly every philosophical domain. (shrink)

I argue that Leibniz’s well-known Argument from Unity is equally an argument from plurality. I detail two main claims about plurality that drive the argument, and I provide evidence that they structure Leibniz’s argument from the late 1670s onwards. First, there is what I call Mereological Nihilism (i.e., the claim that a plurality cannot be made into a true unity by any available means). Second, there is what I call the Plurality Thesis (i.e., the claim that matter is a plurality (...) in need of unity in the first place). I suggest that the Plurality Thesis offers a general analysis of materiality that, in some sense, is the most important aspect of Leibniz’s argument. Finally, I connect these claims about plurality to the common 17th & 18th century commitment known as the actual parts doctrine. (shrink)

Vom Blickpunkt der Wissenschaftslehre des Kritischen Rationalismus aus erscheint der Gedanke, es solle über die Grenzen der Disziplinen hinweg theoretisiert und geforscht werden, als keine atemberaubende Erfindung. Das Wort Interdisziplinarität ist nicht eindeutig, was man aber sinnvollerweise darunter verstehen kann, betrachtet der kritische Rationalismus als eine Konsequenz des (metaphysischen) Realismus. Deswegen weist das Thema Realismus auf den Kontext hin, in dem das Problem der Interdisziplinarität gestellt werden kann. Das kommt in den Beiträgen des ersten Teils des Sammelbandes zum Ausdruck. Die (...) im zweiten Teil versammelten Abhandlungen betreffen Fragen, die sich aus der “disziplinenübergreifenden” Anwendung der kritisch-rationalen Ansätze auf spezielle Probleme ergeben. (shrink)

Are moral systems actually impediments to leading a truly good human life? What is good and what is not good? Do we need anyone to tell us these things? With Russ Shaffer-Landau, Bryan Van Norden, and Richard Garner.

Nicolas Gueudeville's 1715 French translation of Utopia is often dismissed as a “belle infidèle,” an elegant but unfaithful work of translation. Gueudeville does indeed expand the text to nearly twice its original length. But he presents Utopia as a contribution to emergent debates on tolerance, natural religion, and political anthropology, directly addressing the concerns of many early advocates of the ideas we associate with Enlightenment. In this sense, it is not as much an “unfaithful” presentation of More's project as it (...) is an attempt to introduce Utopia to eighteenth-century francophone audiences—readers for whom theses on political economy and natural religion were much more salient than More's own preoccupations with rhetoric and English law. This paper introduces Gueudeville and his oeuvre, paying particular attention to his revisions to Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce, Baron de Lahontan's 1703 Nouveaux Voyages dans l'Amérique Septentrionale. Published in 1705, Gueudeville's “revised, corrected, & augmented” version of Lahontan's Voyages foregrounds the rational and natural religion of the Huron as well as their constitutive aversion to property, to concepts of “mine” and “yours.” Gueudeville's revised version of Lahontan's Voyages purports to be an anthropological investigation as well as a study of New World political economy; it looks forward, moreover, to his edition of Utopia, framing More's work as a comparable study of political economy and anthropology. Gueudeville, in other words, renders More's Utopia legible to Enlightenment audiences, depicting Utopia not in terms of impossibility and irony but rather as a study of natural religion and attendant forms of political, devotional, and economic life. Gueudeville's edition of Utopia even proved controversial due, in part, to his insistence on the rationality as well as the possibility of Utopia. (shrink)

Tragedy as Philosophy in the Reformation World' examines how sixteenth- and seventeenth-century poets, theologians, and humanist critics turned to tragedy to understand providence and agencies human and divine in the crucible of the Reformation. Rejecting familiar assumptions about tragedy, vital figures like Philipp Melanchthon, David Pareus, Lodovico Castelvetro, John Rainolds, and Daniel Heinsius developed distinctly philosophical ideas of tragedy,irreducible to drama or performance, inextricable from rhetoric, dialectic, and metaphysics. In its proximity to philosophy, tragedy afforded careful readers crucial insight into (...) causality, probability, necessity, and the terms of human affect and action. With these resources at hand, poets and critics produced aseries of daring and influential theses on tragedy between the 1550s and the 1630s, all directly related to pressing Reformation debates concerning providence, predestination, faith, and devotional practice. Under the influence of Aristotle's Poetics, they presented tragedy as an exacting forensic tool, enabling attentive readers to apprehend totality. And while some poets employed tragedy to render sacred history palpable with new energy and urgency, others marshalled a precise philosophicalnotion of tragedy directly against spectacle and stage-playing, endorsing anti-theatrical theses on tragedy inflected by the antique Poetics. In other words, this work illustrates the degree to which some of the influential poets and critics in the period, emphasized philosophical precision at the0expense of-even to the exclusion of-dramatic presentation. (shrink)