All disciplines must define their basic units and core processes. In evolutionary biology, the core process is natural selection and the basic unit of selection and adaptation is the individual. To operationalize the theory of natural selection we must count individuals, as they are the bearers of fitness. While canonical individuals have often been taken to be multicellular organisms, the hierarchy of life shows that new kinds of individuals have evolved. A variety of criteria have been used to define biological (...) individuality. Some criteria rely on the presence/absence of a particular property while others advocate an approach that reflects the process of natural selection. The plethora of approaches to classifying individuality has resulted in confusion regarding how to study individuality in a given taxon. (shrink)

The concept of biological mimicry is viewed as a ‘process of life’ theory rather than a ‘process of change’ theory—regardless of the historical interest and heuristic value of the subject for the study of evolution. Mimicry is a dynamic ecological system reflecting the possibilities for mutualism and parasitism created by a pre-established bipartite signal-based relationship between two organisms – a potential model and its signal receiver (potential operator). In a mimicry system agency and perception play essential, interconnected roles. Mimicry thus (...) describes emergent biologically meaningful relationships based on synergy, and is not an object-based theory. Biosemiotics offers a particularly valuable discipline for analysing the dynamics and nuances of mimicry systems, and can thus pave the way for a better and more complete understanding of how mimicry has evolved in the past, and how it might evolve in the future—presented here with special reference to the need for an integrated, ‘third way of evolution’ approach to biological relativity. A revised definition of mimicry is proposed. (shrink)

This paper presents the data gathering of Matthew Fontine Maury at the U.S. Naval Observatory as pushing an epistemic boundary outside traditional laboratory walls. Maury's use and control of civilian navigators explicates the development of an astronomic epistemology deeply embedded in nineteenth century American society. In conclusion, following the movement of epistemic boundaries is offered as a guide to crucial moments in the development of a multifaceted modernity.

IN 1959 and 1960 I gave the Gifford Lectures in the University of St. Andrews. The lectures were called 'Norms and Values, an Inquiry into the Conceptual Foundations of Morals and Legislation'. The present work is substantially the same as the content of the second series of lectures, then advertised under the not very adequate title 'Values'. It is my plan to publish a revised version of the content of the first series of lectures, called 'Norms', as a separate book. (...) The two works will be independent of one another. (shrink)

This article proposes a theological emphasis to the definition of προσλαμβάνω in Romans 14–15. Previous accounts have emphasised the domestic and social implication of Paul's imperative—‘welcome one another’ (Rom. 15:7a). The result has been that what Paul might have meant by God's and Christ's ‘welcome’ (Rom. 14:3 and 15:7b) has been governed by the ethical imperative. In order to investigate the ‘welcome’ of God and Christ, this article proposes a context of three important Septuagintal antecedents as yet unconsidered: 1 Samuel (...) 12, Psalm 18, and Psalm 65: In this context, God's and Christ's ‘welcome’ in Rom. 14–15 incorporates notions of justification, election, salvation, and unified worship. A theological reading of προσλαμβάνω, using these intertextual resources, therefore provides a stronger position from which to understand Paul's imperative—‘welcome one another’. (shrink)

This is a 5 page summary with three diagrams of the main objectives and some work in progress at the University of Birmingham Cognition and Affect project. involving: Professor Glyn Humphreys (School of Psychology), and Luc Beaudoin, Chris Paterson, Tim Read, Edmund Shing, Ian Wright, Ahmed El-Shafei, and (from October 1994) Chris Complin (research students). The project is concerned with "global" design requirements for coping simultaneously with coexisting but possibly unrelated goals, desires, preferences, intentions, and other kinds of motivators, (...) all at different stages of processing. Our work builds on and extends seminal ideas of H.A.Simon (1967). We are exploring "broad and shallow" architectures combining varied capabilities most of which are not implemented in great depth. The poster summarises some ideas about management and meta-management processes, attention filtering, and the relevance to emotional states involved "perturbances", where there is partial loss of control of attention. (shrink)

The literature on critical thinking (CT) in counselling and therapy generally posits higher quality outcomes when CT is applied in therapeutic treatment. We critically examine support for the claim that CT improves clinical outcomes. The purported effects of CT are first identified by arguments in favour of using CT in therapeutic treatment, both in terms of its general efficacy and with regard to its applicability in professional counselling. We then underscore limitations in the current literature, highlighting mainly a gap between (...) theory and practice. Overall, our results suggest that available evidence provides primarily inferential, rather than direct, support for the claim that CT positively influences therapy outcomes. We close the paper by proposing research questions to guide further empirical investigation. (shrink)

This book addresses a very real gap in existing introductory texts that define, explore, and apply key theoretical concepts within the field of film studies.' Alison L. McKee, Assistant Professor, Department of Television-Radio-Film-Theatre, San Jose State University, USA 'This is the book that film students have long been waiting for: a clear, well-written and accessible introduction to film theory. Lucid theoretical exposition and case study film analysis offer readers the most intelligible summary of theory that I have yet encountered.' Paul (...) Sutton, Head of Media, Culture and Language, Roehampton University Film theory has a reputation for being difficult. It is challenging, it takes time and it can frequently leave students feeling inadequate and frustrated. Furthermore, theory can often seem intimidating and oldfashioned and therefore it can be difficult to appreciate its modern-day relevance. Understanding Film Theory aims to disassociate theory from these negative connotations and bring a fresh, modern and accessible approach to the discipline. Each of the fifteen chapters provides an insight into the main areas of debate by introducing key ideas and thinkers. Taking the application of theory as its central theme, the book incorporates a number of exciting and innovative features: 'Reflect and Respond' sections encourage readers to engage critically with theoretical concepts, while seminal texts are concisely summarized without oversimplifying key points. Throughout the book the authors illustrate why theory is important and demonstrate how it can be applied in a meaningful way, with relevant case studies drawn from both classic and contemporary cinema including: Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), Run Lola Run (1998), Moulin Rouge! (2001), Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002), Old Boy (2003), Brokeback Mountain (2005), Mamma Mia! (2008) and Avatar (2009). Additional case studies address key genres ('swashbucklers' and the film musical), film movements (Dogme 95), individual actors (Christian Bale, Judi Dench and Amitabh Bachchan) and directors (Alfred Hitchcock and Guillermo del Toro). Understanding Film Theory is an accessible and comprehensive introduction to film theory. It is the ideal entry point for any student studying film, using clear definitions and explaining complex ideas succinctly. Christine Etherington-Wright is a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at University of Portsmouth (UK) where she teaches a course on Film Theory. She is the author of Gender, Professions, Discourse (Palgrave, 2008). Ruth Doughty is a Senior Lecturer in Film Studies at University of Portsmouth (UK). She is one of the co-founding editors of the journal Transnational Cinemas and co-edited Sound and Music in Film and Visual Media (2008). (shrink)

The neuropsychopharmacological methods and theories used to investigate the nature of depression have been viewed as suspect for a variety of philosophical and scientific reasons. Much of this criticism aims to demonstrate that biochemical- and neurological-based theories of this mental illness are defective, due in part because the methods used in their service are consistently invalidated, failing to induce depression in pre-clinical animal models. Neuropsychopharmacologists have been able to stave off such criticism by showing that their methods are context and (...) domain-sensitive, and that the worth of an animal model is relative to its purpose – thereby creating logical space for the question of whether there could ever be a “good” animal model of depression. I contend that this sort of response implicitly leans on Feyerabendian principles in the philosophy of science, and exemplify this connection using a standard taxonomy of behavioral models of depression. I then take one central Feyerabendian principle – methodological and theoretical pluralism – and show how it maps onto the neuropsychopharmacological research tradition as it is currently practiced. (shrink)

An Eternity 1988 Book of the Year! Since its publication, the New Dictionary of Theology has rapidly established itself as a standard, authoritative reference work in systematic and historical theology. More than 630 articles cover a variety of theological themes, thinkers and movements: from creation to the millennium from Abelard to Zwingli from Third World liberation theology to South African Dutch Reformed theology Firmly anchored in the evangelical tradition, the NDOT is nevertheless wide-ranging in its scope. Over 200 contributors, experts (...) in their individual fields, offer both Western and international perspective. Concise and comprehensive, biblically grounded and historically informed, even-handed and free from unduly technical language, this dictionary has been praised by general readers, pastors and scholars. (shrink)

I argue that incomprehensibility (what the ancient skeptics called acatalepsia) plays a central role in the skepticism of both Bayle and Hume. I challenge a commonly held view (recently argued by Todd Ryan) that Hume, unlike Bayle, does not present oppositions of reason--what Kant called antimonies.

I Two Traditions. Scientific inquiry, seen in a very broad perspective, may be said to present two main aspects. One is the ascertaining and discovery of ...

In the crucible of the pandemic, it has never before been clearer that, to ensure the relevance and even the survival of the discipline, nursing must cultivate a radical imagination. In the paper that follows, I trace the imperative for conjuring a radical imagination for nursing. In this fever dream for nursing futures, built on speculative visions of what could be, I draw on anarchist, abolitionist, posthuman, Black feminist, new materialist and other big ideas to plant seeds of generative insurrection (...) and creative resistance. In thinking through a radical imagination, I unpack the significance of reparatory history for nursing, a discipline founded on normative whiteness. From there, I consider what it would take to shift the capitalist frame of healthcare to one of mutual aid, which requires the deep work of abolition. With a radical imagination that breaks down the enclosures that contain us through reparatory history, mutual aid and abolition, kinship becomes urgently possible. (shrink)

"New wave" reductionism aims at advancing a kind of reduction that is stronger than unilateral dependency of the mental on the physical. It revolves around the idea that reduction between theoretical levels is a matter of degree, and can be laid out on a continuum between a "smooth" pole (theoretical identity) and a "bumpy" pole (extremely revisionary). It also entails that both higher and lower levels of the reductive relationship sustain some degree of explanatory autonomy. The new wave predicts that (...) reductions of folk psychology to neuroscience will be located in the middle of this continuum; as neuroscientific evidence about mental states checks in, theoretical folk psychology will therefore be moderately revised. However, the model has conceptual problems which preclude its success in reviving reductionism, and its commitment to a syntactic approach wrecks its attempt to rescue folk psychology. Moreover, the architecture of the continuum operates on a category mistake that sneaks in an eliminativist conclusion. I argue that new wave reductionism therefore tends to be eliminativism in disguise. (shrink)

‘Fake news’ has become an increasingly common refrain in public discourse, though the term itself has several uses, at least one of which constitutes Frankfurtian bullshit. After examining what sorts of fake news appeals do and do not count as bullshit, I discuss strategies for overcoming our openness to such bullshit. I do so by drawing a parallel between openness to bullshit and naïve skepticism—one’s willingness to reject the concept of truth on unsupported or ill-considered grounds—and suggest that this parallel (...) indicates three principles for how we ought to combat our openness to fake news and other bullshit. First, the root causes of bullshit openness are not monolithic; we should adopt anti-bullshit strategies in recognition of this fact. Second, our efforts to overcome bullshit openness should be collaborative efforts to create an environment that allows for sustained interrogation of our bullshit openness, rather than a confrontational provision of contrary evidence, despite the fact that such strategies are more time-intensive. Third, social media is unlikely to be a fertile ground on which we will make meaningful progress in the fight against bullshit because of the inherent nature of social media platforms as spaces for short, declarative, confrontational claims. (shrink)

We now know of a number of ways of developing real analysis on a basis of abstraction principles and second-order logic. One, outlined by Shapiro in his contribution to this volume, mimics Dedekind in identifying the reals with cuts in the series of rationals under their natural order. The result is an essentially structuralist conception of the reals. An earlier approach, developed by Hale in his "Reals byion" program differs by placing additional emphasis upon what I here term Frege's Constraint, (...) that a satisfactory foundation for any branch of mathematics should somehow so explain its basic concepts that their applications are immediate. This paper is concerned with the meaning of and motivation for this constraint. Structuralism has to represent the application of a mathematical theory as always posterior to the understanding of it, turning upon the appreciation of structural affinities between the structure it concerns and a domain to which it is to be applied. There is, therefore, a case that Frege's Constraint has bite whenever there is a standing body of informal mathematical knowledge grounded in direct reflection upon sample, or schematic, applications of the concepts of the theory in question. It is argued that this condition is satisfied by simple arithmetic and geometry, but that in view of the gap between its basic concepts (of continuity and of the nature of the distinctions among the individual reals) and their empirical applications, it is doubtful that Frege's Constraint should be imposed on a neo-Fregean construction of analysis. (shrink)

This manuscript discusses the author’s experience implementing a secularized version of Lectio Divina, a medieval monastic contemplative reading practice, in an introductory philosophy classroom. Following brief discussion of Lectio Divina’s history and a description of how the practice was modified for the classroom, I discuss three benefits (increased attention to cognitive and noncognitive reactions to the text, willingness to engage with the material in novel ways, and the opportunity to engage in independent disciplinary practice) and three potential challenges (the time (...) required, student engagement, and the practice’s perceived religiosity) arising from the exercise. Following this, I discuss potential modifications to the exercise that instructors may wish to consider, namely strategies for addressing students’ status as novice meditators, focusing textual selections on course materials, and having students engage in some aspects of the practice as homework. (shrink)

With this paper, I will interrogate some of the implications of nursing's dominant historiography, the history written by and about nursing, and its implications for nursing ethics as a praxis, invoking feminist philosopher Donna Haraway's mantra that ‘it matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.’ First, I will describe what I have come to understand as the nursing imaginary, a shared consciousness constructed both by nurses from within and by those outside the discipline from without. This imaginary is (...) fashioned in part by the histories nursing produces about the discipline, our historical ontology, which is demonstrative of our disciplinary values and the ethics we practice today. I assert that how we choose to constitute ourselves as a discipline is itself an ethical endeavour, bound up with how we choose to be and what we allow as knowledge in nursing. To animate this discussion, I will outline the received historiography of nursing and dwell in the possibilities of thinking about Kaiserswerth, the training school that prepared Nightingale for her exploits in Crimea and beyond. I will briefly consider the normative values that arise from this received history and consider the possibilities that these normative values foreclose upon. I then shift the frame and ask what might be possible if we centred Kaiserswerth's contested legacy as a training school for formerly incarcerated women, letting go of the sanitary and sanitised visions of nursing as Victorian angels in the hospital. Much energy over the past 250 years has been invested in the professionalisation and legitimation of nursing, predicated (at least in our shared imaginary) on the interventions of Florence Nightingale, but this is one possibility of many. I conclude with a speculative dream of the terrain opens up for nursing if we shed this politics and ethos of respectability and professionalism and instead embrace community, abolition and mutual aid as organising values for the discipline. (shrink)

Philippa Foot's Natural Goodness is in the midst of a cool reception. It appears that this is due to the fact that Foot's naturalism draws on a picture of the biological world at odds with the view embraced by most scientists and philosophers. Foot's readers commonly assume that the account of the biological world that she must want to adhere to, and that she nevertheless mistakenly departs from, is the account offered by contemporary neo-Darwinian biological sciences. But as is evident (...) in her notion of function, Foot does not employ an evolutionary view of the biological world. I will attempt to show, first, that it is for good reason that Foot is not operating with an evolutionary view of function; her views do not aim to unseat evolutionary views of function, but instead simply have quite different theoretical goals. Second, I aim to underline the importance to Foot's naturalism of the fact that we are practically reasoning creatures. The profundity of Foot's ethical naturalism rests in how she approaches our nature as practically reasoning creatures. In this aspect of Foot's thought, there is a significant Kantian strain that is surprising to find in someone who calls herself an ethical naturalist. 1. (shrink)

Practical wisdom is the sine qua non of good conduct for Aristotelian virtue ethicists. Aristotelians conceive it as the virtue responsible for the intellectual side of good conduct, which involves having the right goal and deliberating well about what fulfils that goal, among other tasks. But is there any such trait as practical wisdom? Given the diversity of jobs practical wisdom is asked to do (seven goals are often enumerated), there may be a cluster of traits corresponding to what Aristotelians (...) are talking about, so there really isn’t one trait. In this paper, I defend a traditional Aristotelian position on practical wisdom, arguing that it is one thing despite having different functions. Following Thomas Aquinas, we can see practical wisdom as having parts. Those parts may be psychological components (integral parts) of the trait, or they may be derivative functions (virtual parts), things that someone with practical wisdom is also able to do because they have practical wisdom. Still, practical wisdom is one because it is a trait that functions to enable us to pursue the good as good; it possesses what I will call here ‘practical unity’ as the master virtue of praxis or acting well full stop. (shrink)

Dummett's objections to the coherence of the strict finitist philosophy of mathematics are thus, at the present time at least, ill-taken. We have so far no definitive treatment of Sorites paradoxes; so no conclusive ground for dismissing Dummett's response — the response of simply writing off a large class of familiar, confidently handled expressions as semantically incoherent. I believe that cannot be the right response, if only because it threatens to open an unacceptable gulf between the insight into his own (...) understanding available to a philosophically reflective speaker and the conclusions available to one confined to observing the former's linguistic practice; for an observer of our linguistic practice could never justifiably arrive at the conclusion that ‘red’, ‘child’, etc., are governed by inconsistent rules. But the Sorites is not the subject of this paper. The points I hope to have made plausible are: that a generalized intuitionist position cannot be so much as formulated and that even a most local intuitionism, argued for the special case of arithmetic, is hard pressed effectively to stabilize and defend itself; that strict finitism remains the natural outcome of the anti-realism which Dummett has propounded by way of support for the intuitionist philosophy of mathematics; that it is powerfully buttressed by the ideas of the latter Wittgenstein on rule-following; and that there is no extant compelling reason to suppose that its involvement with predicates of surveyability calls its coherence into question. The correct philosophical assessment of strict finitism, and its proper mathematical exegesis, remain absolutely open, almost virgin issues. This is not a situation which philosophers of mathematics should tolerate very much longer. (shrink)

In this essay, I analyze pregnancy loss from a feminist phenomenological perspective. I draw upon relational accounts of personhood wherein a person's status and identity are formed through a lived history and the activity of “calling into personhood” a being a woman may seek to know or become. I draw upon the work of Simone de Beauvoir, who advances a feminist phenomenology that grounds the status and identity of women within embodied situations. Her important work sheds light on the varied (...) perceptions and processes that inform experiences of pregnancy and pregnancy loss. (shrink)

John McDowell has argued that for human needs to matter in practical deliberation, we must have already acquired the full range of character traits that are imparted by an ethical upbringing. Since our upbringings can diverge considerably, his argument makes trouble for any Aristotelian ethical naturalism that wants to support a single set of moral virtues. I argue here that there is a story to be told about the normal course of human life according to which it is no coincidence (...) that there is agreement on the virtues. Because we are creatures who arrive at personhood only by learning from others in a relation of dependency, we cannot help but see ourselves as creatures for whom non-instrumental rationality is the norm. Those who train others in personhood must view the trainee's interests as having a value independent of their interests and must imbue the trainee with a sense of that value. Extending and preserving the sense of self-worth that we must acquire if we are to acquire personhood requires we see ourselves as creatures who need something like the virtues. (shrink)

My contention is that virtue ethics offers an important critique of traditional philosophical conceptions of moral status as well as an alternative view of important moral issues held to depend on moral status. I argue that the scope of entities that deserve consideration depends on our conception of the demands of virtues like justice; which entities deserve consideration emerges from a moral view of a world shaped by that conception. The deepest disputes about moral status depend on conflicting conceptions of (...) justice. I advocate a conception of the virtue of justice that can account for the cases that pose problems for the legalistic views of moral status and discuss what ideal moral debate looks like on this view. (shrink)

This essay brings psychoanalytic theory on trauma together with film and television criticism on rape narrative in an analysis of Michael Coel’s 2020 series I May Destroy You. Beyond the limited carceral framework of the police procedural, which dislocates the act of violence from the survivor’s history and context, Coel’s polyvalent, looping narrative metabolizes rape television’s forms and genres in order to stage and restage both trauma and genre again and anew. Contesting common conceptions of vulnerability and susceptibility that prefigure (...) a violent breach of autonomy, Coel’s series and her interviews about it invite an ethics of looking that embraces a curiosity in the unknowable and untreatable kernel of subjective experience and defies and resists a policing of the survivor’s thoughts and emotions. By emphasizing and exploring what psychoanalysis calls the “afterwardness” of trauma, Coel foregrounds her main character’s subjectivity prior to her victimization, widens the sphere of consequence beyond the victim and criminal justice system to the survivor’s larger community, and entreats that community to preserve a space for her to look and look again at everything, without judgment. (shrink)

The central idea of Philippa Foot’s Natural Goodness is that moral judgments belong to the same logical kind of judgments as those that attribute natural goodness and defect to plants and animals. But moral judgments focus on a subset of human powers that play a special role in our lives as rational animals, namely, reason, will, and desire. These powers play a central role in properly human actions: those actions in which we go for something that we see and understand (...) as good. Many readers of Foot resolutely ignore what she says about the human good being sui generis and obstinately continue to read her as advocating a version of naturalism grounded in empirical study of human nature. One might wonder how else it could count as a naturalistic view unless we could square the view with nature as studied by the empirical sciences. In this paper, I propose a metaphysical response to this question: help can come from turning to recent defenses of Aristotelian essentialism. Foot’s naturalism can square with nature as interpreted through the lens of Aristotelian essentialism. On such a view, the virtues are perfections of human powers including reason, will, and desire. (shrink)

Natsume S seki's novel Kokoro (1914) offers an indictment of the loneliness and isolation of a modernized Japan, a Japan in which people ‘feel cut off from every other living thing’. In this essay, I argue that Plato and S seki offer analogous critiques of an eradicated honor culture; an eradication that is rooted in the political exchange of honorific autonomy for honorific heteronomy. Moreover, I suggest that the deprecation and subsequent demise of the Japanese samurai and Greek warrior—individuals for (...) whom self-worth, dignity, and status are rooted in reputation and social regard—exemplify the dramatic cultural shift toward heteronomy. My reading aims to shed light on the rich philosophical connections between seemingly disparate cultures and texts through an exposition and exegesis of the master-protagonists Socrates and Sensei. (shrink)

Neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalists argue that moral norms are natural norms that apply to human beings. A central issue for neo-Aristotelians is to determine what belongs to the good human life; the question is complicated, since we take up a diversity of different lives, many of which seem good, and it seems unclear what the human species-characteristic life really is. The Aristotelian tradition gives some guidance on this question, however, because it describes us as rational animals with intellectual and appetitive powers; (...) the perfection of those powers is what makes us good qua human. This is especially well spelled out in Thomas Aquinas; he takes moral virtues of courage and temperance to be perfections of our sense appetites, a power of going for things presented as good through our senses. These virtues thereby shape our passions, specifically the passions of fear, daring and concupiscent love, which are a result of the sense appetites pursuing what appears as good. This view provides a framework for virtue, which can then be taken as the perfections of distinct powers shared by all human beings, though actualized in a variety of ways. In this article, I will focus on the passion of fear, which I here describe, following Aquinas, as a movement of sense appetite away from evils that are difficult or impossible to avoid. My focus will be on showing that this passion is necessary, irreplaceable by our cognitive powers, and that the underlying sensitive appetites that produce fear must be perfected for any human being to count as good. (shrink)

This paper provides a systematic literature review, analysis and discussion of methods that are proposed to practise ethics in research and innovation. Ethical considerations concerning the impacts of R&I are increasingly important, due to the quickening pace of technological innovation and the ubiquitous use of the outcomes of R&I processes in society. For this reason, several methods for practising ethics have been developed in different fields of R&I. The paper first of all presents a systematic search of academic sources that (...) present and discuss such methods. Secondly, it provides a categorisation of these methods according to three main kinds: ex ante methods, dealing with emerging technologies, intra methods, dealing with technology design, and ex post methods, dealing with ethical analysis of existing technologies. Thirdly, it discusses the methods by considering problems in the way they deal with the uncertainty of technological change, ethical technology design, the identification, analysis and resolving of ethical impacts of technologies and stakeholder participation. The results and discussion of our literature review are valuable for gaining an overview of the state of the art and serve as an outline of a future research agenda of methods for practising ethics in R&I. (shrink)

Neo‐Aristotelian ethical naturalists take the concept “human” to be central to practical philosophy. According to this view, practical philosophy aims at a distinctive human good that defines its subject matter. Hence, practical philosophy can survive neither the elimination of the concept nor its subsumption under a more general concept, such as that of the rational agent. The challenge central to properly formulating Aristotelian naturalism is: How can the concept of the human be specified in a way that captures the distinctive (...) role that it is supposed to play in practical philosophy? For the view to be sustained, the concept “human” as it figures in practical philosophy must not designate rationality plus a set of facts that we learn empirically about ourselves and then consider from a detached standpoint of reason. Heidegger's existential analytic offers an approach to addressing the challenge to neo‐Aristotelian naturalism and, therefore, a way of capturing the sui generis human good. I aim to show that concepts of the existential analytic in Being and Time have their origin or parallels in readings of Aristotle and that they capture the distinctive character of the being that we are, exclusively, completely, and as a unity. I argue that fundamental ontology offers a way to grasp the integral unity and irreplaceability of the human that lies at the heart of the neo‐Aristotelian project. (shrink)

There is a need to rapidly assess the impact of new technology initiatives on the Counter Improvised Explosive Device battle in Iraq and Afghanistan. The immediate challenge is the need for rapid decisions, and a lack of engineering test data to support the assessment. The rapid assessment methodology exploits available information to build a probabilistic model that provides an explicit executable representation of the initiative’s likely impact. The model is used to provide a consistent, explicit, explanation to decision makers on (...) the likely impact of the initiative. Sensitivity analysis on the model provides analytic information to support development of informative test plans. (shrink)

This dissertation argues for a particular interpretation of John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism, namely that Mill is best read as a sanction utilitarian. In general, scholars commonly interpret Mill as some type of act or rule utilitarian. In making their case for these interpretations, it is also common for scholars to use large portions of Mill’s Utilitarianism as the chief source of insight into his moral theory. By contrast, I argue that Utilitarianism is best read as an ecumenical text where Mill (...) explains and defends the general tenets of utilitarianism rather than setting out his own preferred theory. The exception to this ecumenical approach to the text comes in the fifth chapter on justice which, I argue on textual and historical grounds, outlines the central features of Mill’s utilitarianism. -/- With this understanding of Utilitarianism in place, many of the passages commonly cited in favor of the previous interpretations are rendered less plausible, and interpretations emphasizing Mill’s other writings are strengthened. Using this methodology, I critique four of the most prominent act or rule utilitarian interpretations of Mill’s moral theory. I then provide an interpretation of Mill’s theory of moral obligation and utilitarianism. On Mill’s account of moral obligation (which purportedly holds for moral theories generally, not just utilitarianism) there is a tight relation between an action being wrong and it being subject to punishment by an agent’s conscience. The utilitarian aspect of Mill’s theory concerns the role of rules in an agent’s conscience. According to Mill’s sanction utilitarian view, the actions that are punished are those actions that violate the moral rules which, if widely internalized across society, would promote general utility. On this account, an action is wrong when an agent violates a justified moral rule and is properly punished, at least by one’s conscience. An action is right when conditions are such that if the action were not performed, then the action would be properly punished by at least the agent’s conscience. I apply this interpretation to other notable components of Mill’s approach such as his account of practical action (the Art of Life) and his theory of liberty. (shrink)

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)

This paper defends a neo-Aristotelian conception of practical wisdom as a virtue that enables human agents to reflect on and direct their lives toward virtuous ends over time. This view is sometimes assumed to require a commitment to an intellectualist Grand End or blueprint view. On that view, practical wisdom would require philosophical insight and an implausibly well worked out set of weighted preferences. In this paper, I aim to show that particularists can and should take on much of what (...) was thought to belong to the Grand End view. I argue for a conception of practical wisdom as a virtue of extended action that accounts for overarching ends without the need to appeal to an unrealistic, intellectualized blueprint for life. Further, on the view advocated here, as in Aristotle, practical wisdom is a virtue of substantial rationality and a different capacity from instrumental rationality in that it requires reflection on what constitutes a good human life. This is not high-minded philosophical reflection and is, in fact, something rather mundane that draws on the same rational capacities we deploy to assess the goodness of actions. (shrink)

In this paper I argue for a secular conception of blasphemy as a grave moral wrong. I argue for this conception on the basis of a neo-Aristotelian conception of virtue ethics. Specifically, I argue that there is a virtue of intellectual fidelity to matters of great importance: morally permissible ends. In order to structure our lives around such ends, which is essential to living a characteristic human life, we must consistently bear in mind what we know to be true about (...) our ends and not succumb to a temptation to belittle our ends when we struggle in our attempts to realize them. Conversely, a disposition to believe falsehoods about morally permissible ends is a vice, and acts that express that character trait are blasphemous and wrong. Likewise, I argue that it is wrong to belittle or promote falsehoods about the morally permissible ends of others, for we must recognize that in pursuing morally permissible ends of various sorts, people are realizing their humanity in worthwhile ways. (shrink)

Overtaxed by the realities laid bare in the pandemic, nursing has imminent decisions to make. The exigencies of pandemic times overextend a health care infrastructure already groaning under the weight of inequitable distribution of resources and care commodified for profit. We can choose to prioritise different values. Invoking philosopher of science Isbelle Stengers's manifesto for slow science, this is not the only nursing that is possible. With this paper, I pick up threads of nursing's historical ontology, drawing previous scholarship on (...) the historical narratives nurses use to understand themselves. Peeling back nursing's myth to alternate points of origin allows me to consider alternate lines of flight, a speculative adventure in paths not taken but paths that exist nonetheless. I go on to examine what a collective ethic of nursing could be, when we make space for these alternate histories, considering the confluences and conflicts that enable nurses to care and those that inhibit them from doing so. The imperative for this lies in the central importance of the reproductive labour of nursing health care, which leads me to a critique of nursing's capitulation to the pressures of late stage capitalism. This is a problem with ethical and ontological implications both for nursing, and also for those who require nursing care, an imperative to think about the kinds of present/futures for health, care, and health care we might cocreate in collaboration and solidarity with the communities in which nurses are imbricated, shedding the trappings of neoliberalism. There is significant power in the vision and praxis of 28 million nurses and midwives worldwide. Our ethics can guide our imagination which can in turn create possibility. This kind of endeavour—that of dreams and imagination—leads us to what could be, if only we leap. (shrink)

This is the first article in a two-part series describing subject and family perspectives from the central thalamic deep brain stimulation for the treatment of traumatic brain injury using the Medtronic PC + S first-in-human invasive neurological device trial to achieve cognitive restoration in moderate to severe traumatic brain injury, with subjects who were deemed capable of providing voluntary informed consent. In this article, we report on interviews conducted prior to surgery wherein we asked participants about their experiences recovering from (...) brain injury and their perspectives on study enrollment and participation. We asked how risks and benefits were weighed, what their expectations and fears were, and how decisions were reached about trial participation. We found that informed consent and enrollment decisions are fraught. Subjects and families were often split, with subjects more focused on putative benefits and families concerned about incremental risk. Both subjects and families viewed brain injury as disruptive to personal identity and relationships. As decisions were made about study enrollment, families struggled with recognizing the re-emergent agency of subjects and ceding decision-making authority to subjects who had previously been dependent upon them for protection and guidance. Subjects and family members reported a hope for the relief of cognitive disabilities, improved quality of life, normalization of interpersonal interactions, and a return to work or school as reasons for study participation, along with altruism and a desire to advance science. Despite these aspirations, both subjects and families appreciated the risks of the intervention and did not suffer from a therapeutic misconception. A second essay to be published in the next issue of Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics—Clinical Neuroethics will describe interviews conducted after surgery, the effects of cognitive restoration for subjects, families, and challenges presented to the social structures they will call upon to support them through recovery. This subsequent article will be available online prior to its formal publication in October 2023. (shrink)

The typescripts from which both parts of Wittgenstein's Investigations were printed are now lost. Of the TS for Part I there exists a second copy, but not so of the TS for Part II. There is, however, a manuscript in Wittgenstein's hand which contains the whole of the printed Part II - and some additional material. A comparision of this MS with the printed text reveals some interesting discrepancies. They are noted in the paper. Moreover, a detailed comparision is made (...) in a Postscript between the printed Preface of the Investigations and another, obviously earlier, version of it. Both versions are dated "Cambridge, January 1945" - but the printed one was probably not prepared until two years later. (shrink)

The Unprovability of Consistency is concerned with connections between two branches of logic: proof theory and modal logic. Modal logic is the study of the principles that govern the concepts of necessity and possibility; proof theory is, in part, the study of those that govern provability and consistency. In this book, George Boolos looks at the principles of provability from the standpoint of modal logic. In doing so, he provides two perspectives on a debate in modal logic that has persisted (...) for at least thirty years between the followers of C. I. Lewis and W. V. O. Quine. The author employs semantic methods developed by Saul Kripke in his analysis of modal logical systems. The book will be of interest to advanced undergraduate and graduate students in logic, mathematics and philosophy, as well as to specialists in those fields. (shrink)

The typescripts from which both parts of Wittgenstein's Investigations were printed are now lost. Of the TS for Part I there exists a second copy, but not so of the TS for Part II. There is, however, a manuscript in Wittgenstein's hand which contains the whole of the printed Part II - and some additional material. A comparision of this MS with the printed text reveals some interesting discrepancies. They are noted in the paper. Moreover, a detailed comparision is made (...) in a Postscript between the printed Preface of the Investigations and another, obviously earlier, version of it. Both versions are dated "Cambridge, January 1945" - but the printed one was probably not prepared until two years later. (shrink)