This paper critically examines the claim that supposed religious experiences of God are not based on “intersubjective evidence.” I examine how “intersubjective evidence” has been construed in the literature, and argue that those specifications do not succeed in marking off a way in which supposed experiences of God are not based on “intersubjective evidence.” I then specify a sense of “intersubjective evidence” that I think successfully shows how such experiences are not based on intersubjective evidence. I also show that “intersubjective (...) evidence” does not mean the same thing as “public” but that God can be an object of “public” knowledge. (shrink)

Since there have been many recent occurrences of alleged wrongdoing by business persons and other professionals, it seems additional ethics research is needed to obtain knowledge that will impact real-world behavior. An empirical study assessed business students’ impressions of hypothetical wrongdoers and whistleblowers. To some extent, impressions of an unethical executive and a whistleblower were influenced by the same variables and in opposite directions. Female respondents judged the unethical executive less favorably and the whistleblower more favorably than did males. The (...) executive was rated less favorably and the whistleblower more favorably when the executive sought a small gain than when the goal was a large gain or prevention of a loss of either magnitude. Some manipulations, however, impacted impressions of one actor, but not the other. Perhaps ethics training can make students aware that issue␣framing and moral intensity components may bias decisions. (shrink)

Since there have been many recent occurrences of alleged wrongdoing by business persons and other professionals, it seems additional ethics research is needed to obtain knowledge that will impact real-world behavior. An empirical study assessed business students' impressions of hypothetical wrongdoers and whistleblowers. To some extent, impressions of an unethical executive and a whistleblower were influenced by the same variables and in opposite directions. Female respondents judged the unethical executive less favorably and the whistleblower more favorably than did males. The (...) executive was rated less favorably and the whistleblower more favorably when the executive sought a small gain than when the goal was a large gain or prevention of a loss of either magnitude. Some manipulations, however, impacted impressions of one actor, but not the other. Perhaps ethics training can make students aware that issue framing and moral intensity components may bias decisions. (shrink)

This paper presents methods and challenges attendant on the use of protocol analysis to develop a model of heuristic processing applied to research ethics. Participants are exposed to ethically complex scenarios and asked to verbalize their thoughts as they formulate a requested decision. The model identifies functional parts of the decision-making task: interpretation, retrieval, judgment and editing and seeks to reliably code participant verbalizations to those tasks as well as to a set of cognitive tools generally useful in such work. (...) Important difficulties in the reliability and external validity of measurement are evaluated and a small set of illustrative data is used in support of that discussion. Results indicate that both intuitive emotional but also more deliberative cognition is present which is consistent with work in related literatures in expertise and in neuropsychology. Finally, the theoretical and practical potential of the approach is elaborated, particularly through links to a framing in Aristotelian ethics. (shrink)

It describes and explains the patient-centered model examining and evaluating qualitative and quantitative research. It comprehensively covers the evolution and the six interactive components of the patient-centered clinical method, taking the reader through the relationships between the patient and doctor and the patient and clinician. All the editors are professors in the Department of Family Medicine at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.

As one approach to examining the way ethical decisions are made, we asked experts and novices to review a set of scenarios that depict some important ethical tensions in research. The method employed was “protocol analysis,” a talk-aloud technique pioneered by cognitive scientists for the analysis of expert performance. The participants were asked to verbalize their normally unexpressed thought processes as they responded to the scenarios, and to make recommendations for courses of action. We found that experts spent more time (...) working through the decision-making process than novices and also raised substantially more concerns than novices. Differences also exist among the three groups of experts. (shrink)

In this thorough compendium, nineteen accomplished scholars explore, in some manner the values they find inherent in the world, their nature, and revelence through the thought of Frederick Ferré. These essays, informed by the insights of Ferré and coming from manifold perspectives—ethics, philosophy, theology, and environmental studies, advance an ambitious challenge to current intellectual and scholarly fashions.

In this thorough compendium, nineteen accomplished scholars explore, in some manner the values they find inherent in the world, their nature, and revelence through the thought of Frederick FerrZ. These essays, informed by the insights of FerrZ and coming from manifold perspectives—ethics, philosophy, theology, and environmental studies, advance an ambitious challenge to current intellectual and scholarly fashions.

The Concussion in Sport Group guidelines have successfully brought the attention of brain injuries to the global medical and sport research communities, and has significantly impacted brain injury-related practices and rules of international sport. Despite being the global repository of state-of-the-art science, diagnostic tools and guides to clinical practice, the ensuing consensus statements remain the object of ethical and sociocultural criticism. The purpose of this paper is to bring to bear a broad range of multidisciplinary challenges to the processes and (...) products of sport-related concussion movement. We identify lacunae in scientific research and clinical guidance in relation to age, disability, gender and race. We also identify, through multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary analysis, a range of ethical problems resulting from conflicts of interest, processes of attributing expertise in sport-related concussion, unjustifiably narrow methodological control and insufficient athlete engagement in research and policy development. We argue that the sport and exercise medicine community need to augment the existing research and practice foci to understand these problems more holistically and, in turn, provide guidance and recommendations that help sport clinicians better care for brain-injured athletes. (shrink)

As one approach to examining the way ethical decisions are made, we asked experts and novices to review a set of scenarios that depict some important ethical tensions in research. The method employed was “protocol analysis,” a talk-aloud technique pioneered by cognitive scientists for the analysis of expert performance. The participants were asked to verbalize their normally unexpressed thought processes as they responded to the scenarios, and to make recommendations for courses of action. We found that experts spent more time (...) working through the decision-making process than novices and also raised substantially more concerns than novices. Differences also exist among the three groups of experts. (shrink)

This paper presents methods and challenges attendant on the use of protocol analysis to develop a model of heuristic processing applied to research ethics. Participants are exposed to ethically complex scenarios and asked to verbalize their thoughts as they formulate a requested decision. The model identifies functional parts of the decision-making task: interpretation, retrieval, judgment and editing and seeks to reliably code participant verbalizations to those tasks as well as to a set of cognitive tools generally useful in such work. (...) Important difficulties in the reliability and external validity of measurement are evaluated and a small set of illustrative data is used in support of that discussion. Results indicate that both intuitive emotional but also more deliberative cognition is present which is consistent with work in related literatures in expertise and in neuropsychology. Finally, the theoretical and practical potential of the approach is elaborated, particularly through links to a framing in Aristotelian ethics. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

Volume 25, Issue 7-8, November - December 2020, Page 863-866.

The interest of this paper is to discover the precondition of experience. It is suggested that Walter Benjamin's meditations on Proust, as well as on the origin of the novel, lead to the verge of that discovery. A la recherche du temps perdu is less a monumental work of fiction in this view than the limit of experience – the intransmissible fact of the transience of the present – made manifest in writing. While in Proust transience gives way to its (...) recuperation as image, Thomas Bernhard's post-Proustian masterpiece Extinction mobilizes the present's destructive potential with compelling effect, and turns it upon the work of historical experience itself. (shrink)

In this critical history of modern philosophy, Cristaudo develops the argument put forward by Thomas Reid that modern philosophy has generally continued along the 'way of ideas' to its own detriment. Its ever-shifting dominant ideas contribute to capturing and imprisoning rather than expands our thinking.

Le but de Pierre Hadot en développant la notion de philosophie ancienne comme « exercice spirituel » était de fournir une solution de rechange à la religion. Dans cette perspective, Hadot rend le triomphe de la chrétienté et de la scolastique médiévale, exemplifié par Thomas d’Aquin, responsable de la « perte de la philosophie comme manière de vivre ». Le jugement qu’il porte sur Thomas d’Aquin s’applique également au néoplatonisme ancien. Or, de fait, pour les deux il n’y (...) a rien d’abstrait dans la théorie de la philosophie comme ascension vers Dieu : la philosophie est une manière de vivre qui nous transforme et nous tourne vers le divin. Comme son prédécesseur néoplatonicien, l’Université médiévale considérait la philosophie comme un « exercice spirituel » dans le cadre d’une spiritualité chrétienne qui préparait aussi les intellectuels à une félicité surnaturelle. (shrink)

While critics have relied upon bibliographical data and his translation of Thucydides to establish the early Thomas Hobbes as a humanist, this essay argues that substantive evidence to support this conclusion can be found in the comparatively neglected discourses of the Horae Subsecivae. Reading Hobbe's contribution to the Horae alongside his translation of Thucydides reveals a consistent concern with the political potential of both verbal and visual images and with the dangers rhetorical manipulation could pose to individual and sovereign (...) authority. Together these texts demonstrate an early Hobbes already deeply invested in the political debates and crises of his era. (shrink)

In this paper we (1) give a new interpretation to Thomas Nagel’s The Possibility of Altruism, and (2) use that account to show how internalism and anti-relativism are compatible, despite appearances to the contrary.

In this paper we (1) give a new interpretation to Thomas Nagel’s The Possibility of Altruism, and (2) use that account to show how internalism and anti-relativism are compatible, despite appearances to the contrary.

In Truth in Aquinas Catherine Pickstock and John Milbank continue Radical Orthodoxy's ‘reinterpretation’ of the history of philosophy and theology by evaluating philosophy as metaphysics so that ‘metaphysics collapses into sacra doctrina’ in Thomas Aquinas. Their strategy for saving Aquinas from Heideggerian ‘onto‐theology’ is the opposite of that Jean‐Luc Marion who in ‘Saint Thomas d'Aquin et l'onto‐théo‐logie’ keeps philosophy and metaphysics distinct from sacred teaching. The article examines some of the questions involved by reconsidering the nature of philosophy (...) as textual commentary in late Antiquity and in the Middle Ages. It goes on to examine what Aquinas means by ‘the truth of things’, and concludes by looking at how he treats the aspects of metaphysics and the relation of metaphysics and sacra doctrina. Hankey judges that Marion is right on this question. The author suggests that what is involved with Milbank and Pickstock is not a reinterpretation of Aquinas. What they have written depends on mistakes and misrepresentations of basic points in his teaching, e.g, participation, intellectual intuition and abstractions, God's being and his existence in things, with the result that Thomas looks more like Descartes or Spinoza than himself. (shrink)

Aquinas contradicts Isaiah VI. 6 because of his following of the ps. Dionysius, who is in turn reproducing the logical structures of Iamblichus and Proclus. These came to prevail despite doubts raised by earlier medieval theologians with the exception of Eriugena. Here are considered Thomas’ principles of biblical interpretation and the character of his Aristotelianism. His thought is shown to be a form of neoplatonic systematizing as developed by Iamblichus and Proclus.

This paper contrasts the reception of Dionysius in relation to non-Christian philosophy during the Latin Middle Ages with his reception in twentieth-centuryChristian thought. The medievals, including Eriugena, Thomas Aquinas, Nicholas of Cusa, and many others, as a rule refuse to divide religion from philosophy and they distinguish or unite thinkers by their teaching rather than by their confessional adherence. Hence they see no need to set Dionysius in opposition to non-Christian philosophers such as Plato, Aristotle, and Proclus, or to (...) repudiate the latter in favor of the former. By contrast, Vladimir Lossky and Jean-Luc Marion, with their shared background in Etienne Gilson, celebrate Dionysius in opposition to the non-Christian Neoplatonists, whom they polemically misrepresent as reducing God to conceptual categories. These twentieth-century figures evince a sectarian religious narrowness that blinds them to the textual and philosophical community of Dionysius with his non-Christian sources. (shrink)

In Truth in Aquinas Catherine Pickstock and John Milbank continue Radical Orthodoxy's ‘reinterpretation’ of the history of philosophy and theology by evaluating philosophy as metaphysics so that ‘metaphysics collapses into sacra doctrina’ in Thomas Aquinas. Their strategy for saving Aquinas from Heideggerian ‘onto‐theology’ is the opposite of that Jean‐Luc Marion who in ‘Saint Thomas d'Aquin et l'onto‐théo‐logie’ keeps philosophy and metaphysics distinct from sacred teaching. The article examines some of the questions involved by reconsidering the nature of philosophy (...) as textual commentary in late Antiquity and in the Middle Ages. It goes on to examine what Aquinas means by ‘the truth of things’, and concludes by looking at how he treats the aspects of metaphysics and the relation of metaphysics and sacra doctrina. Hankey judges that Marion is right on this question. The author suggests that what is involved with Milbank and Pickstock is not a reinterpretation of Aquinas. What they have written depends on mistakes and misrepresentations of basic points in his teaching, e.g, participation, intellectual intuition and abstractions, God's being and his existence in things, with the result that Thomas looks more like Descartes or Spinoza than himself. (shrink)

In this paper we give (1) a new interpretation to Nagel’s THE POSSIBILITY OF ALTRUISM and (2) use that interpretation to show that internalism and anti-realism are compatible, despite appearances to the contrary.

MORRIS: But come back to that other kind of fiction, in which the author himself is involved with his works, not merely in writing something for other people but in writing what seems to be necessary to his conscious existence, to his sense of well-being. For such a writer, when he finished with something he finishes with it; he is not left with continuations that he can go on knitting until he runs out of yarn. This conceit reflects my own (...) experience as a writer, relying on the sap that keeps rising, the force that drives the flower, as Dylan Thomas put it. It is plantlike. We put it in the sun and when it doesn't grow, we take it and put it in another room. I don't think of repotting the plant. The plant must make its own way. BOOTH: I like the organic metaphor, but I keep wanting to come back to particular cases to see how you actually work, in literal detail. Even the organic novelist obviously still has the matter of collecting notes, starting a novel, having it fail to go. Let me put a simple question, and move out from there. How many actual novels, whether they ever reach fruition or not, do you have "growing" at a given time? MORRIS: You don't mean simultaneously? BOOTH: I mean actual notes that exist in some kind of manuscript form, starts on a novel, something you are actually working on. MORRIS: It is so unusual for me to have more than one or two things in mind at once that I don't find this a fruitful question. Wright Morris's work as a novelist, essayist, and photographer is examined by prominent critics in Conversations with Wright Morris; the collection, edited by Robert E. Knoll, was published in the spring of 1977 by the University of Nebraska Press. "The Writing of Organic Fiction" is a chapter in that book. Wayne C. Booth's other contributions to Critical Inquiry include "Kenneth Burke's Way of Knowing" ,"Irony and Pity Once Again: Thais Revisited" , "M.H. Abrams: Historian as Critic, Critic as Pluralist" , “'Preserving the Exemplar': Or, How Not to Dig our Own Graves" , "Notes and Exchanges" , "Metaphor as Rhetoric: The Problem of Evaluation" ,"Ten Literal 'Theses" , and, with Robert E. Streeter, W.J.T. Mitchell: "Sheldon Sacks 1930-1979". (shrink)

Anselm said that God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived, but he believed that it followed that God is greater than can be conceived. The second formula—essential to sound theology—points to the mystery of God. The usual way of preserving divine mystery is the via negativa, as one finds in Aquinas. I formalize Hartshorne’s central argument against negative theology in the simplest modal system T. I end with a defense of Hartshorne’s way of preserving the mystery of (...) God, which he locates in the actuality of God rather than in the divine existence or essence. This paper was delivered during the APA Pacific 2007 Mini-Conference on Models of God. (shrink)

In this article, it is argued that a convergence between the analytic and continental traditions in philosophy is unlikely. Both traditions have fundamentally different approaches to questions concerning consciousness and subjectivity. They also differ in their conception of the role of philosophy, if we are to become autonomous and reflective humans beings.To illustrate this, a comparison is made between the work of the continental philosopher Dieter Henrich and the 'post- analytic ' philosopher Thomas Nagel, who is often seen as (...) a typical 'converger'. (shrink)

This paper presents, explains, and addresses the pedagogical utility of the “Wachter crystal,” a three-dimensional representation of basic principles of logic designed and created by Thomas Wachter in 1992. The author first discusses a way of understanding relations of logical inference which groups propositions possessing identical truth tables into the same class (that is, a way of conceptualizing rules for replacement). Next, the author presents and explains a 16 x 16 matrix, the most basic figure for representing the inferential (...) relations between the classes of propositional logic. Such a matrix easily maps reflexivity, asymmetry, and transitivity in relations of implication. Moreover, since the relations and properties it illustrates can also be illustrated by a lattice, one can construct a three-dimensional model to represent them. The Wachter crystal, which resembles chemists’ models of molecules, illustrates the same principles as the matrix while foregrounding the commonly-neglected difference between Philonian conditionals (which belong to the object language of propositional logic) and implication (which belong to the metalanguage). In addition to being a perspicuous and aesthetically engaging way to represent basic principles of propositional logic, the Wachter crystal is a bridge to more advanced logical concepts such as modal logic, sentence connectives, and predicates of sentences. (shrink)

What does it mean to be an ethical professional? A professional career can be so demanding that it permeates every aspect of a person's life and personality. In light of this fact, it is especially important for students who are planning to enter a chosen profession to understand its moral status, moral virtues, and possible moral pitfalls, so that they will be equipped to deal with the inevitable moral quandaries that they will encounter as professionals. The most up-to-date professional ethics (...) reader available, Ethics Across the Professions analyzes the complex ethical issues that arise in such fields as engineering, finance, healthcare, journalism, and law. Featuring a wide array of both classic and contemporary sources, it ranges from works by Aristotle and Kant to selections by Michael Bayles, Sissela Bok, Paul Ekman, and Thomas Nagel. Organized topically, the anthology covers what it means to be a professional, outlines several ethical models, and addresses key issues including deception in professional life, privacy, loyalty, social welfare, conflicts of interest, and self-regulation. The book includes detailed chapter introductions, several practical case studies at the end of each chapter, and provocative discussion questions on issues like "whistle-blowing," the Iraq War, educating illegal immigrant children, and advertisements for pharmaceutical companies. Edited by three renowned ethicists, Ethics Across the Professions is especially suited for introductory professional ethics courses taught in philosophy departments as well as in nursing schools, business schools, and other professional programs. (shrink)

The most up-to-date reader with cases in professional ethics available.What does it mean to be an ethical professional? A professional career can be so demanding that it permeates every aspect of a person's life and personality. In light of this fact, it is especially important for students who are planning to enter a chosen profession to understand its moral status,moral virtues, and possible moral pitfalls, so that they will be equipped to deal with the inevitable moral quandaries that they will (...) encounter as professionals.The most up-to-date professional ethics reader available, Ethics Across the Professions analyzes the complex ethical issues that arise in such fields as engineering, finance, healthcare, journalism, and law. Featuring a wide array of both classic and contemporary sources, it ranges from works byAristotle and Kant to selections by Michael Bayles, Sissela Bok, Paul Ekman, and Thomas Nagel. Organized topically, the anthology covers what it means to be a professional, outlines several ethical models, and addresses key issues including deception in professional life, privacy, loyalty, socialwelfare, conflicts of interest, and self-regulation. The book includes detailed chapter introductions, several practical case studies at the end of each chapter, and provocative discussion questions on issues like "whistle-blowing," the Iraq War, educating illegal immigrant children, andadvertisements for pharmaceutical companies. Edited by three renowned ethicists, Ethics Across the Professions is especially suited for introductory professional ethics courses taught in philosophy departments as well as in nursing schools, business schools, and other professional programs. (shrink)

In an effort to construct a plausible theory of experience-based welfare, Wayne Sumner imposes two requirements on the relevant kind of experience: the information requirement and the autonomy requirement. I argue that both requirements are problematic.First, I argue (very briefly) that a well-know case like ‘the deceived businessman’ need not support the information requirement as Sumner believes. Second, I introduce a case designed to cast further doubt on the information requirement. Third, I attend to a shortcoming in Sumner’s theory (...) of welfare, namely that it is unclear which of later and informed assessments are to be treated as authoritative when it comes to the evaluation of a person’s welfare. Finally, I suggest that, in combination with ‘welfarism’ (to which Sumner subscribes, and which has it that welfare is all that matters from a moral viewpoint), the information requirement entail morally troublesome conclusions: e.g. the conclusion that, from a moral point of view, we should, other things being equal, only to be concerned with the alternative that makes one person slightly better off in respect of welfare instead of also being morally concerned with the alternative that makes one person very happy. (shrink)