The characteristic property of definite descriptions in natural language is commonly assumed to be their uniqueness requirement, although there is disagreement with respect to how occurrences should be interpreted, for instance with regard to the well-known restriction problem. I offer a novel argument against characterizing definite expressions in terms of uniqueness. If a singular definite description ?the F? implies that its denotation is the unique satisfier of ?F? (relative to a context) then there are real-life states of affairs that can (...) be described in simple first-order languages, but which we are simply unable to describe accurately in natural language. I argue, first, that there is no way to describe these states of affairs properly without using definite descriptions. Second, if definite descriptions imply uniqueness we will systematically get the wrong truth conditions, regardless of whatever semantic or pragmatic resources the defender of the uniqueness-implying approach invokes. Hence, the Russellian idea of characterizing definite descriptions in terms of uniqueness must be given up. In the final section I explain what an adequate account of definite expressions must achieve?primarily coordinating elements brought to salience by context or previous discourse?and sketch a way of accomplishing this by using a liberal version of familiarity theory. Although there may be other accounts that can do the job, the account I sketch (based on an approach that has largely been overlooked) shows promise and can easily deal with the inexpressibility problem. (shrink)

On a remarkably thin base of evidence – largely the spectral analysis of points of light – astronomers possess, or appear to possess, an abundance of knowledge about the structure and history of the universe. We likewise know more than might even have been imagined a few centuries ago about the nature of physical matter, about the mechanisms of life, about the ancient past. Enormous theoretical and methodological ingenuity has been required to obtain such knowledge; it does not invite easy (...) discovery by the untutored. It may seem odd, then, that we have so little scientific knowledge of what lies closest at hand, apparently ripe for easy discovery, and of greatest importance for our quality of life: our own conscious experience – our sensory experiences and pains, for example, our inner speech and imagery, our felt emotion. Scientists know quite a bit about human visual capacities and the brain processes involved in vision, much less about the subjective experience of seeing; a fair bit about the physiology of emotion, almost nothing about its phenomenology. Philosophers began in earnest in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to describe and classify our patterns of conscious experience. John Locke, for instance, divided experienced “ideas” into those that arise from sensation and those that arise from reflection, and he began to classify them into. (shrink)

The analytic/synthetic distinction looks simple. It is a distinction between two different kinds of sentence. Synthetic sentences are true in part because of the way the world is, and in part because of what they mean. Analytic sentences - like all bachelors are unmarried and triangles have three sides - are different. They are true in virtue of meaning, so no matter what the world is like, as long as the sentence means what it does, it will (...) be true. -/- This distinction seems powerful because analytic sentences seem to be knowable in a special way. One can know that all bachelors are unmarried, for example, just by thinking about what it means. But many twentieth-century philosophers, with Quine in the lead, argued that there were no analytic sentences, that the idea of analyticity didn't even make sense, and that the analytic/synthetic distinction was therefore an illusion. Others couldn't see how there could fail to be a distinction, however ingenious the arguments of Quine and his supporters. -/- But since the heyday of the debate, things have changed in the philosophy of language. Tools have been refined, confusions cleared up, and most significantly, many philosophers now accept a view of language - semantic externalism - on which it is possible to see how the distinction could fail. One might be tempted to think that ultimately the distinction has fallen for reasons other than those proposed in the original debate. -/- In Truth in Virtue of Meaning, Gillian Russell argues that it hasn't. Using the tools of contemporary philosophy of language, she outlines a view of analytic sentences which is compatible with semantic externalism and defends that view against the old Quinean arguments. She then goes on to draw out the surprising epistemological consequences of her approach. (shrink)

We naturally tend to think of our own opinions as akin to the coins we carry around in our pockets, transferable and yet inalienable. We may share or alter them, yet in form they remain fundamentally our own, sacrosanct as registers of our very sense of self. Hegel was aware of this relationship between opinion and subjectivity, and regarded such a bond as one of the great accomplishments of modernity itself. Yet for Hegel, excessive estimation of inwardness comes at a (...) dangerous price. Truth reducible to subjective and arbitrary will, to caprice and without philosophical reflection, sets, in his view, a corrosive standard for ethics, politics and thinking itself. This essay will excavate from Hegel's corpus the conceptual groundwork for a critical theory of opinion relevant for the twenty-first century. The overall aim is to offer a holistic reading of Hegel's critique of opinion by drawing on both his early and late writings, tracking its appearance as an initial critique of subjectivism but subsequently developed in his political philosophy. We begin with Hegel's polemics during the Jena years and unearth opinion as an index for self-certitude. Second, we proceed to a focused analysis of Elements of the Philosophy of Right, paying particular attention to what Hegel describes as the contradiction of public opinion. Thirdly, Hegel's epistemological critique of opinion will be synthesized with his political critique of public opinion by returning to the category of certainty, not as a certainty found in an individual opinion, but a certainty in one's own subjective standpoint, while employing elements from Adorno's critique of epistemology. We will conclude by examining the contradiction of public opinion specifically in accordance with the historical conditions of civil society and therewith begin to situate the socio-epistemological problem of opinion as historically specific to capitalist society. (shrink)

In addition to facing the known competitors in the formal economy, entrepreneurs must also be concerned with rivalry emanating from the informal economy. The informal economy is characterized by actions outside the normal scope of commerce, such as unsanctioned payments and gift-giving, as means of influencing competition. Scholars and policy makers alike have an interest in mitigating the impacts of such informal activity in that it might present an obstacle for legitimate commerce. Received theory suggests that country institutions can enable (...) and constrain productive activity, and, in doing so, influence competitive obstacles in a country. Leveraging 13,670 responses from entrepreneurs distributed across 59 countries, we provide evidence that two particular types of enabling institutions, countries’ property rights regulations and cooperative actions, are useful for lowering the obstacles presented by informal activity. We also find evidence that two constraining institutions, economic and financial regulations lead to more obstacles presented by informal activity. We describe implications for entrepreneurs, policy makers, and future researchers stemming from these findings. (shrink)

The new two volume edition of Hume’s Essays, Moral, Political and Literary, edited by Tom Beauchamp and Mark Box, is the first critical edition.[3] What primarily distinguishes a critical edition is that it collates the copy-text with all other editions and provides a complete record of variations in the texts. Beauchamp and Box provide readers with detailed, informative notes and annotations that describe the variations and revisions that have been made to the Essays published within Hume’s lifetime. They (...) also provide a table that catalogues the contents of the various editions from 1741 to 1771 and several helpful appendixes relating to their publication. The final text of the essays has been carefully edited and annotated. The second volume contains the editors’ extensive annotations, which are both informed and illuminating. All the editorial work has been done with enormous attention to detail and precision.... (shrink)

Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) is a method for exploring inner experience. DES subjects carry a random beeper in natural environments; when the beep sounds, they capture their inner experience, jot down notes about it, and report it to an investigator in a subsequent expositional interview. DES is a fundamentally idiographic method, describing faithfully the pristine inner experiences of persons. Subsequently, DES can be used in a nomothetic way to describe the characteristics of groups of people who share some common (...) characteristic. This paper describes DES and compares it to Petitmengin’s [Phenomenol Cogn Sci, this issue] second-person interview method. (shrink)

This study provides a survey of phenomena that present themselves during moments of naturally occurring inner experience. In our previous studies using Descriptive Experience Sampling we have discovered five frequently occurring phenomena—inner speech, inner seeing, unsymbolized thinking, feelings, and sensory awareness. Here we quantify the relative frequency of these phenomena. We used DES to describe 10 randomly identified moments of inner experience from each of 30 participants selected from a stratified sample of college students. We found that each of (...) the five phenomena occurred in approximately one quarter of sampled moments, that the frequency of these phenomena varied widely across individuals, that there were no significant gender differences in the relative frequencies of these phenomena, and that higher frequencies of inner speech were associated with lower levels of psychological distress. (shrink)

Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) is an approach to apprehending and describing pristine inner experience in high fidelity. The DES participant wears a random beeper in her natural environments. The beep cues the participant to jot down notes about her inner experience that was ongoing at the moment of the beep. A subsequent expositional interview produces a description of the beeped experience. It is likely that the fidelity of those descriptions iteratively increases across sampling days as participant and investigator acquire skill (...) at bracketing presuppositions about the nature of the participant's experience. (shrink)

The use of Big Data—however the term is defined—involves a wide array of issues and stakeholders, thereby increasing numbers of complex decisions around issues including data acquisition, use, and sharing. Big Data is becoming a significant component of practice in an ever-increasing range of disciplines; however, since it is not a coherent “discipline” itself, specific codes of conduct for Big Data users and researchers do not exist. While many institutions have created, or will create, training opportunities to prepare people to (...) work in and around Big Data, insufficient time, space, and thought have been dedicated to training these people to engage with the ethical, legal, and social issues in this new domain. Since Big Data practitioners come from, and work in, diverse contexts, neither a relevant professional code of conduct nor specific formal ethics training are likely to be readily available. This normative paper describes an approach to conceptualizing ethical reasoning and integrating it into training for Big Data use and research. Our approach is based on a published framework that emphasizes ethical reasoning rather than topical knowledge. We describe the formation of professional community norms from two key disciplines that contribute to the emergent field of Big Data: computer science and statistics. Historical analogies from these professions suggest strategies for introducing trainees and orienting practitioners both to ethical reasoning and to a code of professional conduct itself. We include two semester course syllabi to strengthen our thesis that codes of conduct can be harnessed to support the development of ethical reasoning in, and a sense of professional identity among, Big Data practitioners. (shrink)

Controversies over how to define the word religion have persisted for decades. It is a term of art and of academic study, but also one of governance, technologies, and of networks; it is a concept whose diversity is often its own worst enemy. Religion is as much a fuzzy set of conceptualizations and generalizations about a range of human activities as it is an authorizing system of persons, ideas, and practices. What is Religion?: Debating the Academic Study of Religion (...) invites readers to eavesdrop on scholarly debates over the limits of, and uses for, a word commonly used but infrequently defined in a precise manner. This volume takes the temperature of the modern field of Religious Studies by inviting a diverse group of scholars to offer their own substantive contribution that builds on the shared opening prompt, Religion is.... Their essays document the current state of the field and its various sub-fields, assess the progress that has been made over the past generation, and propose new directions for future work. Seventeen of the international field's leading scholars show how they work with each other's definition, or, sometimes, the lack of a definition. Of interest to students, scholars, and general readers alike, What is Religion? will provoke debate and provide insights into the state of the field. (shrink)

Descriptive Experience Sampling (DES) attempts to apprehend in high fidelity pristine inner experience (the naturally-occurring, directly-apprehended phenomena that fill our waking lives, including inner speaking, visual imagery, sensory awarenesses, etc.). Previous DES investigations had shown individual differences in the frequency of inner speaking ranging from nearly zero to nearly 100% of the time. In early 2020, the Internet was ablaze with comments expressing astonishment that constant internal monologue was not universal. We invited Lena, a university student who believed she had (...) constant internal monologue, to participate in a DES analog of a pre-registered study: We would announce, on the Internet, that we would conduct a fully transparent DES investigation and roll out videos of the DES interviews (and annotated transcripts) as they occurred in (almost) real-time, something like “reality TV about inner experience,” so that spectators could examine for themselves our characterizations of Lena and how we arrived at them. We describe here the procedure and its findings: Lena did _not_ have frequent internal monologue (contrary to her expectations); she _did_ have frequent visual imagery (to her surprise); and we speculated about the frequent presence of two simultaneous “centers of gravity” of her experience. The entire procedure is available for inspection. (shrink)

From what race is to what race does -- Reproductive technologies are not "post-racial" -- Race isn't just made, it's used -- A technological history of race -- "I just want children like me" -- Race and choice in the era of liberal eugenics.

Some philosophers have thought that life could only be meaningful if there is no God. For Sartre and Nagel, for example, a God of the traditional classical theistic sort would constrain our powers of self-creative autonomy in ways that would severely detract from the meaning of our lives, possibly even evacuate our lives of all meaning. Some philosophers, by contrast, have thought that life could only be meaningful if there is a God. God and the Meanings of Life is interested (...) in exploring the truth in both these schools of thought, seeking to discover what God could and couldn't do to make life meaningful (as well as what he would and wouldn't do). Mawson espouses a version of the 'amalgam' or 'pluralism' thesis about the issue of life's meaning – in essence, that there are a number of different legitimate meanings of 'meaning' (and indeed 'life') in the question of life's meaning. According to Mawson, God, were he to exist, would help make life meaningful in some of these senses and hinder in some others. He argues that whilst there could be meaning in a Godless universe, there could be other sorts of meaning in a Godly one and that these would be deeper. (shrink)

Ethical or socially responsible investment is one of the most rapidly growing areas of finance. New government regulations mean that all pension funds are obliged to take such considerations into account. However, this phenomenon has received little critical attention from business ethicists, and a clear conceptual framework is lacking. This paper, by a practitioner in the field, attempts to fill this analytical gap. It considers what difference, if any, lies between the terms ‘ethical’, ‘green’, or ‘socially responsible’. It also (...) tackles the difficult question of how any public form of investment can be called ‘ethical’ in an overtly pluralistic society. The paper provides an account of the historical development of ethical investment, and traces the evolution of the varying terms used to describe it. This is followed by a conceptual analysis of these terms, and a description of ethical decision‐making in this context. The paper ends by considering the role of shareholder action within ethical investment, and assesses the utility of the stakeholder model as a theoretical justification. (shrink)

Ethical or socially responsible investment is one of the most rapidly growing areas of finance. New government regulations mean that all pension funds are obliged to take such considerations into account. However, this phenomenon has received little critical attention from business ethicists, and a clear conceptual framework is lacking. This paper, by a practitioner in the field, attempts to fill this analytical gap. It considers what difference, if any, lies between the terms ‘ethical’, ‘green’, or ‘socially responsible’. It also (...) tackles the difficult question of how any public form of investment can be called ‘ethical’ in an overtly pluralistic society. The paper provides an account of the historical development of ethical investment, and traces the evolution of the varying terms used to describe it. This is followed by a conceptual analysis of these terms, and a description of ethical decision‐making in this context. The paper ends by considering the role of shareholder action within ethical investment, and assesses the utility of the stakeholder model as a theoretical justification. (shrink)

Dramatization and comedy are recurring themes in Deleuze's work in the 1960′s and, from his book on Nietzsche in 1962 through The Logic of Sense in 1969, remarks on humor and comedy are closely bound to ethical and political concerns. In Nietzsche and Philosophy, he speaks of the “true” and “false” senses of the tragic in order to frame his interpretation of Nietzsche as a whole, but the distinction acquires its immediate importance from its bearing on the question, “what (...) is justice?” In 1967, in Coldness and Cruelty, he describes legal critique as possible only in terms of irony and comedy. And, in 1969, in The Logic of Sense, the series on humor is followed and explicated by the series “On the Moral Problem in Stoic Philosophy.” This final discussion makes clear what binds these disparate discussions together: comedy is a mode of dramatization that facilitates a morally relevant experience that does not necessarily or immediately engender an act of judgment. For Deleuze, comedy is a demonstration that provokes an experience of wonder at a world that is not organized by the concepts and judgments of subjectivity. (shrink)

Experience, it is widely agreed, constrains our thinking and is also thoroughly theory-laden. But how can it constrain our thinking while depending on what it purports to constrain? To address this issue, I revisit and carefully analyze the account of observation provided by Norwood Russell Hanson, who introduced the term ‘theory-ladenness of observation’ in the first place. I show that Hanson’s account provides an original and coherent response to the initial question and argue that, if suitably developed, his (...) account provides a distinctive, powerful, and attractive alternative to relationalist and standard representationalist conceptions of experience. (shrink)

What does it mean to "trust?" What makes us feel secure enough to place our confidence—even at times our welfare—in the hands of other people? Is it possible to "trust" an institution? What exactly do people mean when they claim to "distrust" their governments? As difficult as it may be to define, trust is essential to the formation and maintenance of a civil society. In Trust and Trustworthiness political scientist Russell Hardin addresses the standard theories of (...) trust and articulates his own new and compelling idea: that much of what we call trust can be best described as "encapsulated interest." Research into the roles of trust in our society has offered a broad range of often conflicting theories. Some theorists maintain that trust is a social virtue that cannot be reduced to strategic self-interest; others claim that trusting another person is ultimately a rational calculation based on information about that person and his or her incentives and motivations. Hardin argues that we place our trust in persons whom we believe to have strong reasons to act in our best interests. He claims that we are correct when we assume that the main incentive of those whom we trust is to maintain a relationship with us—whether it be for reasons of economic benefit or for love and friendship. Hardin articulates his theory using examples from a broad array of personal and social relationships, paying particular attention to explanations of the development of trusting relationships. He also examines trustworthiness and seeks to understand why people may behave in ways that violate their own self-interest in order to honor commitments they have made to others. The book also draws important distinctions between vernacular uses of "trust" and "trustworthiness," contrasting, for example, the type of trust (or distrust) we place in individuals with the trust we place in institutions Trust and Trustworthiness represents the culmination of important new research into the roles of trust in our society; it offers a challenging new voice in the current discourse about the origins of cooperative behavior and its consequences for social and civic life. A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Series on Trust. (shrink)

The debate surrounding eliminative materialism, and the role of empiricism more broadly, has been one of the more prominent philosophical debates of the last half-century. But too often what is at stake in this debate has been left implicit. This essay surveys the rhetoric of two participants in this debate, Paul Churchland and Thomas Nagel, on the question of whether or not scientific explanations will do away with the need for nonscientific descriptions. Both philosophers talk about this possibility in (...) language reminiscent of revolutionary politics. These authors do not see eliminative materialism merely as an idea to be evaluated, but a revolution to be welcomed or quashed. After surveying their rhetoric, the paper turns to the work of four philosophers—G.E.M. Anscombe, Peter Winch, Paul Holmer, and G.H. von Wright—to suggest that there is within Wittgensteinian tradition a ‘nonrevolutionary’ approach to the question of eliminative materialism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Scientific Method in PhilosophyAuthor's note: Thanks to Gregory Landini for helpful clarifications.Gregory Landini. Repairing Bertrand Russell's 1913 Theory of Knowledge. (History of Analytic Philosophy.) London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. Pp. x, 397. isbn: 978-3-030-66355-1, us$139 (hb); 978-3-030-66356-8, us$109 (ebook).The title of this book might suggest a rather narrow study of a problem with Russell's Theory of Knowledge and a proposed solution. But as with Landini's first book, (...) class='Hi'>Russell's Hidden Substitutional Theory, the title does not capture the full scope of the work. That work did not just point out the lingering substitution theory in Principia, but gave a sweeping view of Russell's overall development from Principles to Principia and one of the most detailed accounts of the formal system in Principia in any work. This work gives a sweeping overview of Russell's philosophy up to 1918, including not just Russell's multiple-relation theory of judgment, but the whole project of what Russell called scientific method in philosophy, which was the subtitle to his 1914 Our Knowledge of the ExternalWorld. Landini thinks this is the height of Russell's philosophy and proposes a fix to the problems which led Russell to abandon the project.Landini does not just present Russell's views during this period, but vigorously defends them, and not just the multiple-relation theory of judgment mostly associated with Theory of Knowledge, but also the views that logic should be understood as synthetic a priori, Russell's doctrine of acquaintance, including the acquaintance with universals as the grounding of synthetic a priori knowledge, and Russell's view that logic is the essence of philosophy. The book contains a wide range of discussions, including issues in philosophy of mind, theories of representation, theories of universals, evolution in philosophy, and the metaphysics of time and space.The book opens with an overview of some main themes, including Landini's view of the three main phases of Russell's post-idealist philosophy and his discussion of what he calls the revolutions in logic and mathematics. The three phases Landini has in mind are the Principles phase, the Principia phase [End Page 81] (which includes The Problems of Philosophy and Theory of Knowledge) and the neutral monist phase, which Landini sees as a mistake Russell made when he didn't see how to repair his 1913 work. According to Landini, the Principles era ends with the failure of the substitution theory from the po /ao paradox, the Principia era ends by 1918 with the abandonment of the attempt to finish the project of the 1913 Theory of Knowledge, and the neutral monist era begins in 1919 and continues through 1948. Landini wants to concentrate on repairing the view in the Principia era. Any remarks of Russell's from later rejecting, for example, his view of the subject, of acquaintance, of neutral monism, and remarks concerning logic as consisting of tautologies are to be rejected. Landini firmly believes that after abandoning the 1913 project, Russell took a wrong turn. Landini's discussion of the multiple-relation theory of judgment is therefore quite different from the other discussion in the literature, in that most commentators have thought Russell was correct in abandoning the theory and most think there is something to Wittgenstein's criticism. Landini thinks Wittgenstein's criticism was based on his new vision of logic, and that Russell should have rejected it and proceeded with the project of Theory of Knowledge.Given the controversies involved in these claims, I think the best way forward is an explication of Landini's new emphasis on the revolutions in logic and mathematics and some of the key claims Landini makes concerning the Principia era. Then we can look at the details of Landini's repairing of the project.the two revolutionsWhat is striking about Landini's more recent work is his emphasis on these two revolutions. One is the revolution within logic, which originates with Frege; the other a revolution in mathematics which originates with Weierstrass, von Staudt, Pieri and Cantor. While most historians of this period are aware of the important shifts... (shrink)

As described elsewhere on this journal’s website, The Journal of Evolution and Technology was founded in 1998 as The Journal of Transhumanism, and was originally published by the World Transhumanist Association. In November 2004, JET moved under the umbrella of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies , an organization that seeks to contribute to our understanding of the impact of emerging technologies on individuals and societies. Prior to my appointment, in January 2008, as JET’s editor-in-chief, I’d had four distinguished (...) predecessors – Nick Bostrom, Robin Hanson, Mark Walker, and James Hughes – who had established the journal as a leading forum for discussion of the future of the human species and whatever might come after it. Articles that they'd published in JET were – and are – frequently cited in discussions of the human or posthuman future. With a decade of history behind the journal as I commenced my watch this year, and with JET’s fifth year with IEET now underway, we have much to celebrate. I'm personally delighted to have taken up my position with a journal of ideas that has such a rich history and so much promise. JET is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal. The material that it publishes may or may not be submitted by scholars and scientists currently working within the academy, but it must certainly meet the standards of well-established academic journals. Most submissions received are rejected because they don’t reach the required standard, but we are always looking for appropriate articles and reviews. We require only that they be relevant to the human or posthuman future and that they meet our high standards of scholarship, originality, and intellectual rigor. We welcome submissions on a wide range of relevant topics and from almost any academic discipline or interdisciplinary standpoint. Central to our thinking at JET is the idea – increasingly familiar and plausible – that the human species is about to commence, or has already commenced, a new form of evolution. This is something quite different from the slow Darwinian processes of survival, reproduction, and adaptation. It is powered, rather, by new technologies that increasingly work their way inwards, transforming human bodies and minds. According to this idea, technology can do more than merely giving us tools to manipulate the world around us; it can alter us far more comprehensively than by shaping our neurological pathways when we learn to handle new tools. This idea of a technologically-mediated process of evolution remains controversial, of course, and even if we grant it broad acceptance there is still much to debate. Just how the process might be manifested in the years to come, and just where it might take us or our successors, are both unclear. Nonetheless, the idea merits careful study from many viewpoints, whether scientific, philosophical, historical, sociological, anthropological, legal, artistic … or even theological. (shrink)

In the Phaedo, Socrates offers recommendations for living a philosophical life. We argue that those recommendations can be properly understood only in light of Socrates’ account of the soul’s true nature, considered separately from the body. Embodiment causes the soul to diverge from its proper end, the pursuit of knowledge. Bodily pleasures, pains, and desires divert the soul to other ends, distract its attention away from knowledge, and deceive it about what is true. Socrates’ recommended solutions to these obstacles (...) are diverse, reflecting the complexities of human psychology. He recommends avoidance of bodily experiences in many cases as well as reevaluation of the importance of the body, but he doesn’t recommend either the wholesale rejection or embrace of the bodily. We are our souls but, like it or not, we are temporarily embodied, and what happens to the body is thereby experienced by us. Socrates thus exhorts us to live in a way that recognizes both our temporary humanity and our lasting, true nature. Only so can we best pursue knowledge. (shrink)

Some writers object to logical pluralism on the grounds that logic is normative. The rough idea is that the relation of logical consequence has consequences for what we ought to think and h...

Freud had read Bergson’s 1900 book Laughter when he composed his own book on jokes, and, even prior to his development of the concept of the super-ego, Freud had criticized Bergson for not following up his insights into the linkage between comedy and childhood experiences. Freud thus chides Bergson for failing to pursue a line of inquiry that would confirm the ultimately tragic underpinnings of comedy. Wise to this clever and even mischievous little suggestion, Bergson’s book can be read as (...) an account of comedy that might avoid the perennial temptation of yoking it to tragedy. Bergson approaches the problem of comedy in its concreteness, in its liveliness, and follows the various paths of its unfolding. What results is an analysis that shares some similarities with Freud’s investigations but that also eliminates the theoretical prejudices that guide Freud’s reflections. The comic spirit is, first of all, “undefinable.” A strange way to begin an essay on the subject except that, for Bergson, this designation is not a strictly negative one: “we shall not aim at imprisoning the comic spirit within a definition. We regard it, above all, as a living thing. However trivial it may be, we shall treat it with the respect due to life. We shall confine ourselves to watching it grow and expand.” In a deliberate departure from the sort of circumscription that characterizes the style of Aristotle’s Poetics – as well as its progeny – Bergson’s strategy is an indefinite one appropriate to the particular complexity of the subject. The text of the investigation will then share its subject’s style – it will dramatize rather than describe the comic – in order to give an account that is suited to the nature of the comic: it will be neither a joke nor a tragedy. Bergson’s book is of an essential different kind than Freud’s: its focus is upon the motivation or forces that bring laughter and the comic situation into existence. Freud’s analysis ultimately moves in a circle, discovering the tragic principles of its investigation in its conclusion, because it fails to begin with the question closer to the vital complex of which humour and the comic are a part: what advantage does comedy procure for life? (shrink)

This article discusses the concept of suffering in the Old Testament. It first looks at passages in the Pentateuch that describe life before the fall, which paints a picture of human existence before suffering. It then examines what the Pentateuch and Proverbs teach about avoiding suffering through living a life of faithful obedience. Next, it examines suffering in the books of Job and Ecclesiastes, which tackle head-on the issue of the suffering of the righteous. It then moves to (...) the New Testament to examine how suffering differs on this side of the cross and how modern-day Christians must live in light of the reality of suffering. The article concludes with few proposals for how to apply the biblical theology of suffering. (shrink)

With the release of Laudato Si (2015) Pope Francis has introduced new conceptual language into Catholic social teaching (CST), what he has called "integral ecology." His intent appears to be grounded in the realization that "It is essential to seek comprehensive solutions which consider the interactions with natural systems themselves and with social systems" (LS, no. CXXXVIII). Pope Francis goes on to make the case that ''We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, (...) but rather with one complex crisis with isboth social and environmental" (LS, no. CXXXVIII). Consequently, in order to solve this crisis we need to utilize "an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time pro­ tecting nature" (LS, no. CXXXVlll). This perspective represents a major development in CST whereby the encyclical connects the dots between ecology/environment, economics and society, three essential aspects of what many in the environmental community and elsewhere see as in­ dispensable for humanity to achieve a sustainable relationship with the Earth. While this is extremely important for articulating a Catholic vision of sustainability, that is not the direction we take in this article. Rather our intent is to use the concept of integral ecology to do three things:(1) examine a current case in the U.S. that has received signif­ icant media attention as well as notoriety-the water crisis in Flint, Michigan; (2) describe how our recent understanding of the epigenetic impacts of environmental toxins casts a new and ominous light on this crisis and on other instances of environmental toxin exposure, and (3) propose some ideas on how epigenetic research might enlarge our in­ terpretation of basic aspects of CST highlighted in Laudato Si such as human dignity, justice and the common good. (shrink)

This chapter deals with the following myths: without God there is no morality; atheists are moral relativists; atheists don't give to charity; atheists deny the sanctity of human life; and if there is no god we are soulless creatures. Atheists, informed by secular approaches to ethics, are more likely to be focused on what will cause, or prolong, or conversely, ameliorate, suffering, rather than taking the view that human life possesses some kind of transcendent or supernatural value. Many thinkers (...) in the Eastern philosophical tradition have put forward arguments for the existence of something much like the concept of the soul, without depending on theistic arguments. (shrink)

THE PHILOSOPHY which I advocate is generally regarded as a species of realism, and accused of inconsistency because of the elements in it which seem contrary to that doctrine. For my part, I do not regard the issue between realists and their opponents as a funda- mental one; I could alter my view on this issue without changing my mind as to any of the doctrines upon which I wish to lay stress. I hold that logic is what is (...) fundamental in philosophy, and that schools should be characterized rather by their logic than by their metaphysic. My own logic is atomic, and it is this aspect upon which I should wish to lay stress. Therefore I prefer to describe my philosophy as "logical atomism," rather than as "realism," whether with or without some prefixed adjective. (shrink)

Cognitive neuroscience aims to map mental processes onto brain function, which begs the question of what “mental processes” exist and how they relate to the tasks that are used to manipulate and measure them. This topic has been addressed informally in prior work, but we propose that cumulative progress in cognitive neuroscience requires a more systematic approach to representing the mental entities that are being mapped to brain function and the tasks used to manipulate and measure mental processes. We (...) describe a new open collaborative project that aims to provide a knowledge base for cognitive neuroscience, called the Cognitive Atlas, and outline how this project has the potential to drive novel discoveries about both mind and brain. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:September 27, 2008 (1:09 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2801\russell 28,1 048RED.wpd russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s. 28 (summer 2008): 69–93 The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. issn 0036-01631; online 1913-8032 eviews WITTGENSTEIN, CRITIC OF RUSSELL Russell Wahl English and Philosophy / Idaho State U Pocatello, id 83209, usa [email protected] Jérôme Sackur. Formes et faits: Analyse et théorie de la connaissance dans l’atomisme (...) logique. Paris: Vrin, 2005. Pp. 313. ¤31.00. isbn 978-2-7116-1722-7. Sackur joins several other recent French authors in writing penetrating analyses of Russell’s and Wittgenstein’s work. Forms and Factsz is an explication of the Tractatus, conducted by means of a contrast between Russell’s work and Wittgenstein’s. Sackur examines the interplay between Russell’s and Wittgenstein ’s versions of logical atomism, particularly, as Sackur puts it, between Russell’s original thought on the one hand, which provides the material for Wittgenstein’s position in the Tractatus, and Wittgenstein’s critique and development on the other, which, he says, provides a unity to Russell’s position (p. 12). While recognizing the inXuence of Russell on Wittgenstein’s project, Sackur in the end sees Wittgenstein as undermining and ultimately rejecting Russell’s logicism. He does not just repeat old claims about Wittgenstein, Russell and logical form. His analysis is very subtle and, perhaps unusually for a work on Wittgenstein which defends Wittgenstein over Russell, Formes et faitsz displays a surprisingly detailed knowledge of Russell’s work, before, during and after the period in question, 1913–19. Anyone who is interested in Russell’s and Wittgenstein ’s work during this period, and in particular Wittgenstein’s criticisms of Russell, will beneWt greatly from this book. There are detailed, well informed discussions of important points of disagreement, particularly Russell and Whitehead ’s account of succession and the ancestor relation, Wittgenstein’s remarks on operators, in particular the Nz operator, various remarks about the theory of types, and Wittgenstein’s now well known criticism of Russell’s theory of judgment. The subtitle of the work, “Analysis and the theory of knowledge in logical atomism”, reXects the points where Sackur sees the greatest disagreement between Russell and Wittgenstein. In the Wrst place, he sees them diTering in their attitude toward analysis, with Russell oTering translations of sentences into a September 27, 2008 (1:09 pm) G:\WPData\TYPE2801\russell 28,1 048RED.wpd 70 Reviews 1 For the Wrst point, see (among others) P.yM.yS. Hacker, Wittgenstein’s Place in Twentieth Century Philosophy (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), pp. 69–70. For the second, see (again among others), David Pears, The False Prison (Oxford: Clarendon P., 1987), i: 63, where Pears says that Russell’s atomism was founded on the doctrine of “forced acquaintance”. 2 P.yJ. Hager, Continuity and Change in the Development of Russell’s Philosophy (Dordrecht: Klewer, 1994). perspicuous language and Wittgenstein oTering explications, or elucidations, of senses already in the sentences. Secondly, they diTer on the role that epistemology should play in logical atomism, with Wittgenstein criticizing the role of acquaintance in the development of logic. While both of these points have been made before,1 Sackur’s discussion is more thorough than previous studies and leads to some new interpretations of passages in the Tractatus. Sackur’s discussion of analysis is important to his argument. He is interested in a tension between what he sees as two aims of analysis in Wittgenstein’s work, one found in Tractatusz 3.2–3.3 and the other in Tractatusz 4.21–4.2211. He sees analysis in the Wrst group as revealing or elucidating the sense a proposition expresses, a sense understood and already there in the ordinary unanalyzed proposition, and analysis in the second group, driven by the theses of necessity and logical independence, as focusing on truth-functional analysis in terms of elementary propositions that consist of names referring to simple objects. He argues that these two aims don’t automatically go together and in fact appear to be at cross purposes. In the course of the Wrst chapter, the major distinction Sackur makes is between analysis... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviews 171 c:\users\ken\documents\type3402\rj 3402 050 red.docx 2015-02-04 9:19 PM REFLECTIONS FROM PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA Russell Wahl English and Philosophy / Idaho State U. Pocatello, id 83209 usa [email protected] Alexandre Guay, ed. Autour des Principia Mathematica de Russell et Whitehead. (Collection Histoire et Philosophie des Sciences.) Dijon: Editions Universitaires de Dijon, 2012. Pp. 168. isbn 978-2-36441-001-4. €20.00 (pb). his collection, by several distinguished French philosophers, is intended to be (...) a work on problems which are suggested by or perhaps stem from Whitehead and Russell’s Principia Mathematica. It turns out to be a somewhat eclectic collection. Some of the papers explicate points in Principia, some delve into issues from Principia or perhaps suggested by something in it, and q= 172 Reviews c:\users\ken\documents\type3402\rj 3402 050 red.docx 2015-02-04 9:19 PM some into issues suggested by later works of Russell’s. The collection was put together for the centenary of Principia, with the idea of focusing on “its posterity, the doors it has opened, the questions it has brought up, and the techniques it has initiated” (p. 5). The essays are all interesting, but in some of them the main focuses are only introduced and are not developed very much, appearing to explicate points already made in detail elsewhere and not adding a great deal that is new. The first essay, for example, gives an overview of the development of Russell’s logic, the theory of classes and the account of relations, the antinomies, the theory of descriptions and even the ramified theory of types. While the review is useful, there doesn’t seem to be here anything more than what would be found in the previous works of Denis Vernant, Jules Vuillemin, or Philippe de Rouilhan, on which the author draws. Hints of further issues are to be found in the discussion, but they are not developed because of the sheer number of points being reviewed. Denis Vernant, in the fifth essay, gives a thorough review of Russell’s account of similarity of relations and his use of this in relation-arithmetic, mostly from Chapter 6 of Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy. Vernant points out that Russell uses the terms “analogy” and “exactly analogous” in several places and thinks of these in terms of his definition of structure. At the end of the essay Vernant begins with Russell’s formal account of structure and seeks to give an account of analogy, and specifically metaphor, using the tools of similarity of structure. Again, the discussion of similarity relations is good, but does not really go beyond previous work, and the application to metaphor, while interesting, is very brief. The sixth essay, by Nadine Gessler and Denis Miéville, discusses Lesniewski ”s criticisms of Principia and gives some hint of Lesniewski’s own positions. Lesniewski’s work is very interesting and has probably not been given its due. These authors briefly mention Lesniewski’s concerns about classes, the assertion sign and definitions, and then give a short presentation of Lesniewski’s own views. This last part is again just sketched out. The authors do point out difficulties Lesniewski had with parts of Principia, including the sloppiness about use and mention, the requirement that definitions be non-creative and the theory of types. They also point out that Lesniewski had a view of logic (reminiscent of Arnauld and Nicod) as “the art of thinking”, and they discuss his suspicion of sets as abstract entities rather than mereological wholes of the kind which can be grounded in experience. Lesniewski apparently thought of mathematical logic as limiting and not encompassing the whole of thinking. This is curious, because often Russell and Whitehead are accused of expanding logic in order to capture all mathematics as part of logic. Gessler and Miéville accent the differences between Lesniewski ’s position and Principia, but in many ways Lesniewski’s views are actually Reviews 173 c:\users\ken\documents\type3402\rj 3402 050 red.docx 2015-02-04 9:19 PM closer to those of Whitehead and Russell than to, e.g., the views... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s. 33 (summer 2013): 59–94 The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. issn 0036–01631; online 1913–8032 oeviews PRINCIPIA’S SECOND EDITION Russell Wahl English and Philosophy / Idaho State U. Pocatello, id 83209, usa [email protected] Bernard Linsky. The Evolution of Principia Mathematica: Bertrand Russell’s Manuscripts and Notes for the Second Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge U. P., 2011. Pp. vii, (...) 407; 2 plates. isbn: 978-1-10700-327-9. £96; us$159. ussell and Whitehead’s Principia Mathematica was a pioneering work which was in many ways overtaken by the success of the new discipline it helped found. There is little doubt that Principia Mathematica was one of the most important works in the development of symbolic logic, as even Quine, one of the critics of the foundations proposed in it, said: “This is the book that has meant the most to me.”Yet few mathematicians or logicians follow the theory of types proposed in Principia as the foundation of mathematics, nor the logicist project of which it is a variant. While much of Principia ’s notation has been incorporated into modern formal logic and set theory, much of it also is dated and not easy for contemporary mathematicians and logicians to read. Among those who were dissatisfied with the philosophical foundations of the first edition were the authors themselves.1 During 1923 and 1924 Russell revised and updated Principia, and the second edition of the first volume appeared in 1925 with the other two volumes appearing in 1927. What resulted was a new edition with the philosophical underpinning modi- fied, but with the superstructure, that is, the resulting theorems of the three volumes, unchanged. Russell wrote a new Introduction and added three Appendices, but other than that made only minor changes.The new philosophy of logic had as its core idea a principle of extensionality which Russell expressed as the view that “functions of propositions are always truth-functions and a function can only occur in a proposition through its values” (PM2 1: ______ 1 Russell wrote the new material for the second edition, but it is clear from a letter to him byWhitehead on 24 May 1923, quoted by Linsky, that he, too, thought the foundational system needed tweaking: “I don’t think that ‘types’ are quite right” (p. 16). o= 60 Reviews xiv). It is interesting that at times Russell seems to have been hesitant about even endorsing this change.2 The second edition of Principia has not been well received; by and large it has either been ignored or scorned. Linsky cites especially negative remarks by Monk, but others have dismissed the second edition additions and it has generally been thought a failure since 1944, when Gödel pointed out an error in the Appendix B proof that mathematical induction can be “rectified” even without the axiom of reducibility. The Evolution of Principia Mathematica makes available to scholars Russell’s notes and manuscripts of the new material added to the second edition. Linsky also seeks to redress the indifference to the second edition, to set the record straight about several misunderstandings, and to give an account of the new material.The book he has produced will be very valuable to scholars of Russell and to anyone interested in the development of type theory and indeed of logic as a whole during this time. This is also a difficult book, both because the material can get quite technical at times and also because the new material included in the introduction to the second edition is somewhat sketchy, and there are philosophical and technical points about which Russell himself is less than clear. As a result there have been disagreements about how the second edition is best to be interpreted. Linsky recognizes that the interpretive issues are under-determined by the text and wants to stay relatively neutral with respect to the different alternatives about the various controversies. At times it can be difficult to keep the various positions straight.The difficulty lies with the material, and Linsky does a very good job of explaining the issues to the layman. The work is divided into... (shrink)

This dissertation focuses on an exploration of the use of parables in the works of Soren Kierkegaard. While some work has been done on Kierkegaard’s poetic style, very little attention has been paid to his metaphors, despite their prevalent use in his works. Much of the scholarship instead treats his parables as mere examples of philosophical concepts. In this work, I argue that Kierkegaard’s parables function primarily to cause the reader to see him or herself truly. The parables work like (...) mirrors, reflecting our true selves back onto ourself. In this way, the parables prompt Kierkegaard’s readers to overcome the illusion of Christendom and to instead recognize the requirements that authentic Christianity places upon them. My dissertation begins with an examination of the purpose that Kierkegaard saw for his authorship. By focusing on his later works, I argue that Kierkegaard primarily wanted to bring the religious forward in his readers. He thought that in order to accomplish this he needed to start with works describing the life that he thought most of his readers lived, a life of pleasure seeking, and to slowly move them towards the religious. I then present Kierkegaard’s view of what Christianity essentially consists of, subjectivity, and of the style of communication that is tied to subjectivity. Kierkegaard claims that when communicating subjective truths that we must employ an indirect style. I go on to argue that parables very much fit into this style and that they work to cause tension on the part of the reader. The reader of the parable must choose between various competing interpretations that the parable presents, and in choosing how to interpret the parable, the reader reveals and discloses him or herself. I follow this up with an examination of a number of parables from different works of Kierkegaard, showing how they function in this manner. I end by arguing that Kierkegaard’s parables are designed to function like mirrors, revealing ourselves to us. (shrink)

Debates in animal cognition are frequently polarized between the romantic view that some species have human-like causal understanding and the killjoy view that human causal reasoning is unique. These apparently endless debates are often characterized by conceptual confusions and accusations of straw-men positions. What is needed is an account of causal understanding that enables researchers to investigate both similarities and differences in cognitive abilities in an incremental evolutionary framework. Here we outline the ways in which a three-dimensional model of (...) causal understanding fulfills these criteria. We describe how this approach clarifies what is at stake, illuminates recent experiments on both physical and social cognition, and plots a path for productive future research that avoids the romantic/killjoy dichotomy. (shrink)

It is not intended as some sort of revelation on my part that Greenberg's cultural theory was originally Marxist in its stresses and, indeed in its attitude to what constituted explanation in such matters. I point out the Marxist and historical mode of proceeding as emphatically as I do partly because it may make my own procedure later in this paper seem a little less arbitrary. For I shall fall to arguing in the end with these essay's Marxism and (...) their history, and I want it understood that I think that to do so is to take issue with their strengths and their main drift.But I have to admit there are difficulties here. The essays in question ["Avant-Garde and Kitsch" and "Towards a Newer Lacoön"] are quite brief. They are, I think, extremely well written: it was not for nothing the Partisan Review described Clement Greenberg, when he first contributed to the journal early in 1939, as "a young writer who works in the New York customs house"—fine, redolent avant-garde pedigree, that! The language of these articles is forceful and easy, always straightforward, blessedly free from Marxist conundrums. Yet the price paid for such lucidity, here as so often, is a degree of inexplicitness—certain amount of elegant skirting round the difficult issues, where one might otherwise be obliged to call out the ponderous armory of Marx's concepts and somewhat spoil the low of the prose from one firm statement to another. The Marxism, in other words, is quite largely implicit; it is stated on occasion, with brittle and pugnacious finality, as the essay's frame of reference, but it remains to the reader to determine just how it works in the history and theory presented—what that history and theory depend on, in the way of Marxist assumptions about class and capital or even abase and superstructure. That is what I intend to do in this paper: to interpret and extrapolate from the texts, even at the risk of making their Marxism declare itself more stridently than the "young writer" seems to have wished. And I should admit straight away that there are several point in what follows where I am genuinely uncertain as to whether I am diverging from Greenberg's argument or explaining it more fully. This does not worry me overmuch, as long as we are alerted to the special danger in this case, dealing with such transparent yet guarded prose, and as long as we can agree that the project in general—pressing home a Marxist reading of texts which situate themselves within the Marxist tradition—is a reasonable one.22. This carelessness distinguishes the present paper from two recent studies of Greenberg's early writings, Serge Guilbaut's "The New Adventures of the Avant-Garde in America," October 15 , and Fred Orton and Griselda Pollock's "Avant-Gardes and Partisans Reviewed," Art History 3 I am indebted to both these essays and am sure that their strictures on the superficiality—not to say the opportunism–of Greenberg's Marxism are largely right. But I am nonetheless interested in the challenge offered to most Marxist, and non-Marxist, accounts of modern history by what I take to be a justified though extreme, pessimism as t the nature of established culture since 1870. That pessimism is characteristic, I suppose, of what Marxists call an ultraleftist point of view. I believe, as I say, that a version of some such view is correct and would therefore with to treat Greenberg's theory as if it were a decently elaborated Marxism of an ultraleftist kind, on which issues in certain mistaken views but which need not so issue and which might still provide, cleansed of those errors, a good vantage for a history of our culture.T. J. Clark, professor of fine arts at Harvard University, is the author of The Absolute Bourgeois: Artists and Politics in France, 1848-1851 and Image of the People: Gustave Courbet and the 1848 Revolution. His book on impressionist painting and Paris is forthcoming. (shrink)

Recent research conducted in Australia shows that many oncologists withhold information about expensive unfunded drugs in what the authors of the study suggest is unacceptable medical paternalism. Surprised by the Australian results, we ran a version of the study in New Zealand and received very different results. While the percentages of clinicians who would prescribe the drugs described in the scenarios were very similar (73–99% in New Zealand and 72–94% in Australia depending on the scenario) the percentage who would (...) not discuss expensive unfunded drugs was substantially lower in New Zealand (6.4–11.1%) than it was in Australia (28–41%). This seems surprising given the substantial similarities between the two countries, and the extensive interaction between their medical professions. We use the contrast between the two studies to examine the generalisability of the Australian results, to identify influences on clinicians' decisions about what treatment information to give patients, and so the tendency towards medical paternalism and, more pragmatically, about how such decisions might be influenced. (shrink)

In 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the criminal law prohibiting physician assisted death in Canada. In 2016, Parliament passed legislation to allow what it called ‘medical assistance in dying.’ The authors first describe the arguments the Court used to strike down the law, and then argue that MAID as legalized in Bill C-14 is based on principles that are incompatible with a free and democratic society, prohibits assistance in dying that should be permitted, and makes (...) access to medically-assisted death unnecessarily difficult. They then propose a version of MAID legislation that gives proponents and opponents of MAID everything they can legitimately want, contend that it is the only way to legalize MAID that is compatible with a free and democratic society, and conclude that it is the way to legalize MAID in Canada and other similarly free and democratic societies. (shrink)

The explicit topic of Fear and Trembling's third Problema (the longest single section, accounting for a third of the book's total length), the theme of Abraham's silence stands not far in the background in every other section, and its importance is flagged by the pseudonym—Johannes de silentio—under which Kierkegaard had the book published. Here I aim to defend an interpretation of the meaning of the third Problema's central claim—that Abraham cannot explain himself, 'cannot speak'—and to argue on its basis for (...) an interpretation of the work as a whole. (shrink)

In this article, I begin by describing what I call this Black Lives Matter moment in the US. I then offer three reasons for considering racism as a bioethical issue, the least discussed of which is the way in which racism acts as a barrier to the creation of better healthcare systems. Next, I argue that the concept of race itself constitutes a bioethical issue in a way that is not fully reducible to racism. Finally, I discuss how we, (...) both bioethicists and health care professionals, might meet this moment by identifying individual points of responsibility (beyond liability) for structural injustice. (shrink)

Background Ethically, informed consent regarding randomised controlled trials (RCTs) should be understandable to patients. The patients can then give free consent or decline to participate in a RCT. Little is known about what patients really understand in consultations about RCTs. Methods Cancer patients who were asked to participate in a randomised trial were surveyed using a semi-standardised interview developed by the authors. The interview addresses understanding, satisfaction and needs of the patients. The sample included eight patients who participated in (...) a trial and two who declined. The data were analysed on the basis of Mayring's qualitative analysis. Results Patients' understanding of informed consent was less developed than anticipated, especially concerning key elements such as randomisation, content and procedure of RCTs. Analysing the result about satisfaction of the patients, most of the patients described their consultations as hectic and without advance notice. Health limitations due to cancer played a decisive role. However, most of the patients perceived their physician to be sympathetic. Analysing the needs of patients, they ask for a clear informed consent consultation with enough time and adequate advance notice. Conclusion This study fills an important empirical research gap of what is ethically demanded in an RCT consultation and what is really understood by patients. The qualitative approach enabled us to obtain new results about cancer patients' understanding of informed consent, to clarify patients' needs and to develop new ideas to optimise the informed consent. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the purpose of public philosophy, challenging the claim that its goal is to create better citizens. I define public philosophy narrowly as the act of professional philosophers engaging with non-professionals, in a non-academic setting, with the specific aim of exploring issues philosophically. The paper is divided into three sections. The first contrasts professional and public philosophy with special attention to the assessment mechanism in each. The second examines the relationship between public philosophy and citizenship, calling (...) into question the effect public philosophy has on political reasoning. The third focuses on the practice of public philosophy, describing actual events to investigate the nature and limits of their outcomes. I conclude that public philosophy aims at future philosophical inquiry but is best considered a form of entertainment. (shrink)

David Lewis holds that a single possible world can provide more than one way things could be. But what are possible worlds good for if they come apart from ways things could be? We can make sense of this if we go in for a metaphysical understanding of what the world is. The world does not include everything that is the case—only the genuine facts. Understood this way, Lewis's “cheap haecceitism” amounts to a kind of metaphysical anti-haecceitism: it (...) says there aren't any genuine facts about individuals over and above their qualitative roles. (shrink)