Examines the religious philosophy of John Hick, with an emphasis on his attempt to show that theistic claims are factually significant.

This comparative field study evaluated the moral reasoning used by U.S. and Belizean business students in resolving business-related moral dilemmas. The Belizeans, citizens of a less-developed country with Western heritage and a values-based education system, revolved the dilemmas using higher stages of moral judgment than did the U.S. business students.

Presents a plethora of approaches to developing human potential in areas not conventionally addressed. Organized in two parts, this international collection of essays provides viable educational alternatives to those currently holding sway in an era of high-stakes accountability.

Domination consists in subjection to the will of others and manifests itself both as a personal relation and a structural phenomenon serving as the context for relations of power. Domination has again become a central political concern through the revival of the republican tradition of political thought . However, normative debates about domination have mostly remained limited to the context of domestic politics. Also, the republican debate has not taken into account alternative ways of conceptualizing domination. Critical theorists, liberals, feminists, (...) critical race theorists, and postcolonial writers have discussed domination in different ways, focusing on such problems as imperialism, racism, and the subjection of indigenous peoples. This volume extends debates about domination to the global level and considers how other streams in political theory and nearby disciplines enrich, expand upon, and critique the republican tradition’s contributions to the debate. This volume brings together, for the first time, mostly original pieces on domination and global political justice by some of this generation’s most prominent scholars, including Philip Pettit, James Bohman, Rainer Forst, Amy Allen, John McCormick, Thomas McCarthy, Charles Mills, Duncan Ivison, John Maynor, Terry Macdonald, Stefan Gosepath, and Hauke Brunkhorst. -/- Front matter and First chapter available for download. (shrink)

The excellent quality and depth of the various essays make [the book] an invaluable resource....It is likely to become essential reading in its field.—CHOICE.

In this commentary, after first summarizing the three major theses of Jeffrey's paper Probability and Falsification: Critique of the Popper Program, and sketching out what I take to be his central argument, I criticize Jeffrey on two grounds. The first is that he has failed to explain why his version of Bayesianism provides us with better theories upon which to make decisions; the second is that he has offered a theory about decision-making that by-passes the important question: How can we (...) make more rational decisions? (shrink)

Impossible Presence brings together new work in film studies, critical theory, art history, and anthropology for a multifaceted exploration of the continuing proliferation of visual images in the modern era. It also asks what this proliferation—and the changing technologies that support it—mean for the ways in which images are read today and how they communicate with viewers and spectators. Framed by Terry Smith's introduction, the essays focus on two kinds of strangeness involved in experiencing visual images in the modern (...) era. The first, explored in the book's first half, involves the appearance of oddities or phantasmagoria in early photographs and cinema. The second type of strangeness involves art from marginalized groups and indigenous peoples, and the communicative formations that result from the trafficking of images between people from vastly different cultures. With a stellar list of contributors, Impossible Presence offers a wide-ranging look at the fate of the visual image in modernity, modern art, and popular culture. Contributors: Jean Baudrillard Marshall Berman Jeremy Gilbert-Rolfe Elizabeth Grosz Tom Gunning Peter Hutchings Fred R. Myers Javier Sanjines Richard Shiff Hugh J. Silverman Terry Smith. (shrink)

Elaborating the analogy between the sun and the good, Plato's Socrates tells Glaucon to divide a line αβ into two unequal segments at γ. The result is that αγ represents what is intelligible and γβ what is visible.1 Then Glaucon is to divide each of the two segments by the same ratio as he used in the original division.2 Whatever proportion he used to make the cuts γ, δ, and ε in the divided line, generating its four segments, the geometrical (...) implication is that the two middle segments must be equal in length. As both Nicholas D. Smith and Richard Foley have emphasized, when Socrates reiterates the characteristics of the line at 534a3–5, transposing δγ and γε, there should be no doubt that Plato... (shrink)

In his 2013 Theoria article, “Unreliable Intuitions: A New Reply to the Moral Twin-Earth Argument,” Jorn Sonderholm attempts to undermine our moral twin earth argument against Richard Boyd's moral semantics by debunking the semantic intuitions that are prompted by reflection on the thought experiment featured in the MTE argument. We divide our reply into three main sections. In section 1, we briefly review Boyd's moral semantics and our MTE argument against this view. In section 2, we set forth what (...) we take to be Sonderholm's master debunking argument, along with his proposed Boydian explanation of the semantic intuitions he seeks to debunk. Then in section 3, we mount our defence of the semantic intuitions under scrutiny, arguing on abductive grounds that, contrary to Sonderholm, the semantic intuitions generated by reflection on MTE scenarios are to be trusted in evaluating the plausibility of Boydian moral semantics. Section 4 is our summary and conclusion. (shrink)

A superb introduction to the ethical aspects of war and peace, this collection of tightly integrated essays explores the reasons for waging war and for fighting with restraint as formulated in a diversity of ethical traditions, religious and secular. Beginning with the classic debate between political realism and natural law, this book seeks to expand the conversation by bringing in the voices of Judaism, Islam, Christian pacifism, and contemporary feminism. In so doing, it addresses a set of questions: How do (...) the adherents to each viewpoint understand the ideas of war and peace? What attitudes toward war and peace are reflected in these understandings? What grounds for war, if any, are recognized within each perspective? What constraints apply to the conduct of war? Can these constraints be set aside in situations of extremity? Each contributor responds to this set of questions on behalf of the ethical perspective he or she is presenting. The concluding chapters compare and contrast the perspectives presented without seeking to adjudicate their differences. Because of its inclusive, objective, comparative, and dialogic approach, the book serves as a valuable resource for scholars, journalists, policymakers, and anyone else who wants to acquire a better understanding of the range of moral viewpoints that shape current discussion of war and peace. In addition to the editor, the contributors are Joseph Boyle, Michael G. Cartwright, Jean Bethke Elshtain, John Finnis, Sohail H. Hashmi, Theodore J. Koontz, David R. Mapel, Jeff McMahan, Richard B. Miller, Aviezer Ravitzky, Bassam Tibi, Sarah Tobias, and Michael Walzer. (shrink)

A common response to Richard Dawkins' assault on religious belief has been that he is attacking a straw man. The beliefs of religious believers, so the protest goes, are not as crude and simplistic as the ones which he attributes to them. Here is Terry Eagleton's comment to that effect: Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds , and you have a rough idea of what it feels (...) like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins…invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. (shrink)

Wojtasiewicz (2006) brings up an important topic in medical ethics: end-of-life care for the terminally ill. This issue came to the public eye most recently in the Terri Schiavo case. Wojtasiewicz...

Wojtasiewicz (2006) brings up an important topic in medical ethics: end-of-life care for the terminally ill. This issue came to the public eye most recently in the Terri Schiavo case. Wojtasiewicz...

Terry McLaughlin's sudden death in 2006 deprived the academic world of a leading British philosopher of education, and the author himself of the opportunity to publish a planned synthesis of his work. This volume brings together a collection of his essays from a variety of leading journals. They have been selected by former colleagues well-acquainted with his thinking to celebrate his work and make it available in a convenient and accessible form.

V roce 2007 byla siru Terrymu Pratchettovi, proslulému autorovi fantastických románů, diagnostikovaná vzácná forma Alzheimerovy choroby. Terry Pratchett se rozhodl nečekat, až jej nemoc umoří se všemi neblahými průvodními jevy, a stal se jedním z nejvlivnějších proponentů eutanázie. V článku nabízím rekonstrukci Pratchettovy argumentace, kterou předložil roku 2010 v rámci přednáškového cyklu The Richard Dimbleby Lecture. Terry Pratchett se explicitně vyrovnává se třemi známými argumenty vůči asistované smrti – Care or Killing argumentem, argumentem z vynucené eutanázie a (...) Božím argumentem. Po odmítnutí každého z nich dospívá k závěru, že neexistuje rozumný důvod, proč by nemohl zemřít za okolností, které si zvolí, a přisvojuje si na asistovanou smrt právo. Toto chápání smrti jako něčeho, na co má člověk právo, mě inspiruje ke dvěma úvahám: Za prvé, pokud uznáme právo na asistovanou smrt, proč neexistuje stejně rozsáhlá diskuze hájit práva sebevrahů? Terry Pratchett důsledně odmítá mluvit o sebevraždě, ovšem jeho východiska pro přijetí asistované smrti jsou aplikovatelná i na případ vlastní terminace bez lékařské pomoci z jiných než zdravotních důvodů. Za druhé, jak by měla vypadat právní úprava praxe asistované smrti a z jakých odborníků by měl být složený orgán, posuzující jednotlivé případy? Závěry Terryho Pratchetta implikují, že v takovém orgánu by bylo místo pro uplatnění morálních filosofů. (shrink)

V roce 2007 byla siru Terrymu Pratchettovi, proslulému autorovi fantastických románů, diagnostikovaná vzácná forma Alzheimerovy choroby. Terry Pratchett se rozhodl nečekat, až jej nemoc umoří se všemi neblahými průvodními jevy, a stal se jedním z nejvlivnějších proponentů eutanázie. V článku nabízím rekonstrukci Pratchettovy argumentace, kterou předložil roku 2010 v rámci přednáškového cyklu The Richard Dimbleby Lecture. Terry Pratchett se explicitně vyrovnává se třemi známými argumenty vůči asistované smrti – Care or Killing argumentem, argumentem z vynucené eutanázie a (...) Božím argumentem. Po odmítnutí každého z nich dospívá k závěru, že neexistuje rozumný důvod, proč by nemohl zemřít za okolností, které si zvolí, a přisvojuje si na asistovanou smrt právo. Toto chápání smrti jako něčeho, na co má člověk právo, mě inspiruje ke dvěma úvahám: Za prvé, pokud uznáme právo na asistovanou smrt, proč neexistuje stejně rozsáhlá diskuze hájit práva sebevrahů? Terry Pratchett důsledně odmítá mluvit o sebevraždě, ovšem jeho východiska pro přijetí asistované smrti jsou aplikovatelná i na případ vlastní terminace bez lékařské pomoci z jiných než zdravotních důvodů. Za druhé, jak by měla vypadat právní úprava praxe asistované smrti a z jakých odborníků by měl být složený orgán, posuzující jednotlivé případy? Závěry Terryho Pratchetta implikují, že v takovém orgánu by bylo místo pro uplatnění morálních filosofů. (shrink)

The Phenomenology of Spirit is both one of Hegel's most widely read books and one of his most obscure. The book is the most detailed commentary on Hegel's work available. It develops an independent philosophical account of the general theory of knowledge, culture, and history presented in the Phenomenology. In a clear and straightforward style, Terry Pinkard reconstructs Hegel's theoretical philosophy and shows its connection to ethical and political theory. He sets the work in a historical context and shows (...) the contemporary relevance of Hegel's thought for European and Anglo-American philosophers. The principal audience for the book is teachers and students of philosophy, but the great interest in Hegel's work and the clarity of Pinkard's exposition ensure that historians of ideas, political scientists, and literary theorists will also read it. (shrink)

This study is divided into three parts: the classical tradition; Althusser and after; and modern debates. It includes chapters on class consciousness, ideology and utopia, and the epistemology of sociology, looking at the work of Georg Lukas, Karl Mannheim and Lucien Goldman respectively.

There are two main ways in which an interest in the sociology of literature can be justified. The first form of justification is realist: literature is in fact deeply conditioned by its social context, and any critical account of it which omits this fact is therefore automatically deficient. The second way is pragmatist: literature is in fact shaped by all kinds of factors and readable in all sorts of contexts, but highlighting its social determinants is useful and desirable from a (...) particular political standpoint.Both of these cases would seem to have something going for them. Hardly anybody would want to deny that literature is in an important sense a social product; but this claim is so general that a specifically “sociological” treatment of literary works does not necessarily follow from it. Metaphors and line endings, after all, are also in some sense social products, so that to attend to these elements of a literary text is not necessarily to deny the work’s sociality. “Social product” would seem too comfortably broad a category, just as “economic product” would seem too crippingly narrow. A problem with the realist case about the sociology of literature, then, is that it is not very clear what exactly is being claimed. The pragmatist case would seem a persuasive rationale for, say, a feminist reading of Alexander Pope’s Essay on Criticism, since few people would want to claim that the poem was in some central way about patriarchal relations in the sense that The Rape of the Lock is. A Marxist critic who attended to questions of social class in Treasure Island, perhaps placing Long John Silver in the context of the British shop stewards’ movement and celebrating his antagonism to the gentry, would not necessarily be committed to holding that these issues were “in fact” crucial to the text; he or she would insist instead that they should be brought to light because they were crucial to history and society in general. Terry Eagleton’s recent works include collected essays—Against the Grain and William Shakespeare—as well as a novel, Saints and Scholars. His work in progress is on the ideology of the aesthetic. (shrink)

While corpus studies have shown that discourse connectives that convey the same coherence relation can display subtle differences, research on online discourse processing has only focused on a rather limited set of connectives. Yet, different connectives – for example, rare or polyfunctional ones – might elicit different reading patterns. In order to explore this assumption, we test the robustness of discourse processing for French native speakers by measuring the way they process causal and concessive sentences that are conveyed by either (...) an appropriate or inappropriate connective. Throughout three experiments, we change important characteristics of the connectives: we first test frequently used connectives, secondly less frequent ones, and finally less frequent connectives that are polyfunctional and for which different functions clearly compete. Our results show that the processing for incoherent items was affected for all connectives, however readers showed altered reading fluency when infrequent connectives were used. We conclude that discourse processing is quite robust and that readers are able to insert meaning conveyed by rare connectives while still showing the highest reading ease with frequent connectives. (shrink)