Can a materialist look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come? Dean Zimmerman’s Falling Elevator Model is a speculative account of how persons, understood as material beings, might survive in a post-mortem resurrected state—a just-so story. It assumes endurantism, the doctrine that persons and other ordinary objects are three-dimensional beings which are wholly present at every time they exist. I argue that neither endurantism, nor purdurantism, according to which persons are four-dimensional ‘worms’ who (...) have proper temporal parts at every time that they exist, provides a plausible account of personal survival. If you want to be a Christian materialist you should embrace exdurantism, the ‘stage theory’, according which persons are instantaneous stages and are not identical to their temporal successors either in this world or in any world to come. Exdurantism provides a plausible account of survival in ordinary cases and extraordinary cases of this-worldly fission, and of post-mortem survival. (shrink)

Modal counterpart theory identifies a thing’s possibly being F with its having a counterpart that is F at another possible world; temporal counterpart theory, the stage view, according to which people and other ordinary objects are instantaneous stages, identifies a thing’s having been F or going to be F, with its having a counterpart that is F at another time. Both counterpart theories invite what has been called ‘the argument from concern’ (Rosen, G. 1990. “Modal Fictionalism.” Mind 99 (395): 327–54). (...) Why should I be concerned about my counterparts at other possible worlds or other times? I care about how things might have gone for me—not how they go for other people at other possible worlds; I care about my prospects—not the way go for other people at other times. Jiri Benovsky has argued that while modal counterpart theory can be defended against this style of argument, temporal counterpart theory cannot (Benovsky, J. 2015. “Alethic Modalities, Temporal Modalities, and Representation.” Kriterion: Journal of Philosophy 29: 18–34). I argue that temporal counterpart theory, like modal counterpart theory, resists the argument from concern. (shrink)

Modal counterpart theory identifies a thing’s possibly being F with its having a counterpart that is F at another possible world; temporal counterpart theory identifies a thing’s having been F or going to be F, with its having a counterpart that is F at another time. Benovsky, J. 2015. “Alethic Modalities, Temporal Modalities, and Representation.” Kriterion: Journal of Philosophy 29: 18–34 in this journal endorses modal counterpart theory but holds that temporal counterpart theory is untenable because it does not license (...) the ascription of the intuitively correct temporal properties to ordinary objects, and hence that we should understand ordinary objects, including persons, as transtemporal ‘worms’. I argue that the worm theory is problematic when it comes to accounting for what matters in survival and that temporal counterpart theory provides a plausible account of personal persistence. (shrink)

Sabellianism, the doctrine that the Persons of the Trinity are roles that a single divine being plays either simultaneously or successively, is commonly thought to entail that the Father is the Son. I argue that there is at least one version of Sabellianism that does not have this result and meets the requirements for a minimally decent doctrine of the Trinity insofar as it affirms that each Person of the Trinity is God and that the Trinity of Persons is God (...) while maintaining monotheism without undermining the distinctness of Persons. (shrink)

At first blush, the notion a “feminist epistemology” appears, at best, peculiar—not, as Sandra Harding suggests, because “‘woman the knower’ appears to be a contradiction in terms” but because it is hard to see how an epistemology, a philosophical theory of knowledge, can be either feminist or anti-feminist since it is not clear how such a theory might benefit or harm women.

There appear to be at least two important disanalogies between the situation of women and that of racial and ethnic minorities whose members are generally regarded as paradigmatic victims of oppression. First, in the case of oppressed racial and ethnic minorities it is relatively easy to identify the oppressors and the policies which serve to keep the oppressed in their place; it is not so easy to determine who the oppressors of women are--surely men are not universally blameworthy--nor even to (...) ascertain which policies are oppressive. Secondly, unlike most members of disadvantaged racial and ethnic minorities, many women seem actively to support the very policies and institutions which contribute to their oppression. (shrink)

Currently a number of feminists in philosophy and religious studies as well as other academic disciplines have argued that policies, practices and doctrines assumed to be sexneutral are in fact male-biased. Thus, Rosemary Reuther, reflecting on the development of theology in the Judeo-Christian tradition suggests that the long-term exclusion of women from leadership and theological education has rendered the “official theological culture” repressive to women and dismissive of women’s experience: “To begin to take women seriously,” she notes, “will involve a (...) profound and radical transformation of our religions.”3 Such a project exists in tension with what is generally regarded as Christian orthodoxy and so, as Reuther suggests, challenges the assumptions and categories of traditional theology. (shrink)

I was an altar girl at St. Mary the Virgin, New York City–one of the first, in fact. In the mid‑70s, one of my friends approached the Rector and negotiated a deal: we women, who were interested in acolyting, would be allowed to serve at mass during the week, in street clothes, on the condition that we form and staff an altar guild.

Introduction: is multiculturism good for anyone? -- Do people like their cultures? -- A philosophical prelude: what is multiculturalism? -- The costs of multiculturalism -- The diversity trap: why everybody wants to be an X -- White privilege and the asymmetry of choice -- Communities: respecting the establishment of religion -- Multiculturalism and the good life -- The cult of cultural self-affirmation -- Identity-making -- Identity politics: the making of a mystique -- Policy.

This essay proposes recognition theory as a preferred approach to explaining poor women’s puzzling preference for patriarchal subordination even after they have accessed an ostensibly empowering asset: microfinance. Neither the standard account of adaptive preference offered by Martha Nussbaum nor the competing account of constrained rational choice offered by Harriet Baber satisfactorily explains an important variation of what Serene Khader, in discussing microfinance, dubs the self-subordination social recognition paradox. The variation in question involves women who, refusing to reject (...) the combined socio-economic benefits of patriarchal recognition and empowering microfinance, dissemble their subordination to men. In this situation, women experience a genuine form of divided consciousness which recognition theory frames as an identity crisis. Understanding the pathological nature of deceit as a way of life that blurs the boundaries between rational choice and rationalization, recognition theory shows how dissemblance itself is constrained by conflicting recognition orders in ways that prevent women who live such a life from successfully emancipating themselves. In this respect, recognition theory provides an important ---albeit, from the standpoint of recent feminist and intersectional research on identity and autonomy, inadequately qualified---norm of personal integrity and genuine agency requisite for conceptualizing adaptive preferences. (shrink)

The concepts of time and identity seem at once unproblematic and frustratingly difficult. Time is an intricate part of our experience -- it would seem that the passage of time is a prerequisite for having any experience at all -- and yet recalcitrant questions about time remain. Is time real? Does time flow? Do past and future moments exist? Philosophers face similarly stubborn questions about identity, particularly about the persistence of identical entities through change. Indeed, questions about the metaphysics of (...) persistence take on many of the complexities inherent in philosophical considerations of time. This volume of original essays brings together these two essentially related concepts in a way not reflected in the available literature, making it required reading for philosophers working in metaphysics and students interested in these topics. The contributors, distinguished authors and rising scholars, first consider the nature of time and then turn to the relation of identity, focusing on the metaphysical connections between the two, with a special emphasis on personal identity. The volume concludes with essays on the metaphysics of death, issues in which time and identity play a significant role. This groundbreaking collection offers both cutting-edge epistemological analysis and historical perspectives on contemporary topics. Contributors:_ _Harriet Baber, Lynne Rudder Baker, Ben Bradley, John W. Carroll, Reinaldo Elugardo, Geoffrey Gorham, Mark Hinchliff, Jenann Ismael, Barbara Levenbook, Andrew Light, Lawrence B. Lombard, Ned Markosian, Harold Noonan, John Perry, Harry S. Silverstein, Matthew H. Slater, Robert J. Stainton, Neil A. Tognazzini The hardcover edition does not include a dust jacket. (shrink)

This reflection item provides an edited account of human rights lawyer Harriet Wistrich’s conversation with Manvir Grewal, Visiting Lecturer and Ph.D. student, and Harriet Samuels, Reader in Law at the University of Westminster. It summarises the exchange which focused on Harriet Wistrich’s career trajectory and the many public interest law cases that she has brought on behalf her clients, mainly women, in both domestic and international forums. It also includes a condensed version of the question and answer (...) session with the audience. Questions included the broader issues around domestic violence, rape, coercive control, sex work and the nature of feminism. (shrink)

Dion is a human person, Lefty is his left foot, and Theon is Lefty-Complement, a proper part of Dion. Lefty is annihilated and Dion survives left-footless. After Lefty’s annihilation Theon, if he survives, occupies the same region as Dion. I suggest that this scenario be understood as a fusion case in which Dion and Theon, initially overlapping but distinct, are identical after Lefty’s annihilation and propose an account of proper names that allows us to say that Dion and Theon have (...) ‘become identical’ without commitment to occasional identity or other controversial metaphysical doctrines. The proposed solution employs the semantics developed by Wolfgang Schwarz to address the ‘paradox of occasional identity’, posed by puzzle cases of fission, to deal with the problem of Dion and Theon, a body-minus puzzle. (shrink)

The jurists of classical Islamic Law defined the interior forum as a limit to the religious validity of the sentences of Muslim judges , because these have neither access to God's knowledge nor to the individual believer’s conscience and motivations. They can base their decisions solely on exterior appearances and can, therefore, neither be sure that their judgments correspond to the facts nor to the intentions and memories of the individuals concerned. This holds especially true for questions of belief and (...) unbelief. From the eighth to the nineteenth century, the norms of Islamic law were the result of learned debates among independent jurists and their schools of law. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, it was integrated into the codes enacted by the competent institutions of the national states and lost its normative authority in most spheres of the modern state law. It remained dominant only in personal statute law, i.e. the rules concerning marriage and divorce, family and succession. From the early seventies of the twentieth century, opposition against the neglect of religious norms in modern state law was centered on the demand for the “codification of Islamic law” . Its leaders were jurists trained in modern law faculties, who wanted to insert the norms of classical Islamic Law into the codes of the national state with which they are familiar. The ethical debates of classical Islamic law, obviously, did not lend themselves easily to such an approach.The jurists movement for the codification of Islamic law gained in momentum during the eighties when, in a number of states, it succeeded in assuring for the classical apostasy rules a place in the modern criminal codes. In other states, such as Egypt, the highest courts opened the way for apostasy trials. The analysis of one apostasy judgment of the highest Egyptian court shows that the court understands belief and apostasy as objective facts that can be separated from the person who professes or denies them. It is on this question that my lecture focuses. The court effectively claims the role of the highest instance in questions of belief and unbelief. Belief and apostasy thus become depersonalized objective facts without any relation to the intentions of the individuals concerned. The court’s sentence does not refer to the believer’s own interior forum : the concept seems to be irrelevant to the judges. Their definition of apostasy serves to control the ideas that can legitimately be discussed in the public sphere. It denies bold reinterpretations of Islam, but also a number of political persuasions and theories, the right of access to the public space and assigns them the private sphere as their legitimate abode. A new concept of private and public is thus developed in the detailed reasoning by which the court justifies its judgment.There is, to my understanding, nothing in the religion of Islam that renders such a stance necessary. Other courts, in Egypt, develop other ideas of the principles of Islamic normativity and in other Arab states go so far as to develop a concept of privacy that would forbid the debates discussed in this lecture. It seems important to underline that the use of classical elements in the court’s judgment does not conceal the fact that the ethical criteria of classical Muslim law find little place in this jurisdiction that represents a special version of modern legal positivism. (shrink)

The ArgumentWritten as one book, Science, Technology and Society in Seventeenth-Century England has become two. One book, treating Puritanism and science, has since become “The Merton Thesis.” The other, treating shifts of interest among the sciences and problem choice within the sciences, has been less consequential. This paper proposes that neglect of one part of the monograph has skewed readers' understanding of the whole. Society and culture contributed to institutionalization of science and the directions it took, neither one exclusively. Four (...) aspects of the neglected chapters are examined: their theoretical underpinnings, the conceptions providing foundations for this part specifically and for the monograph as a whole; their comparative neglect, attributed partly to the absence of a cognitive constituency for their claims; the problem of problem choice in science in Merton's work; and the Merton monograph and later social constructionism:their differences and affinities. (shrink)

According to the Argument for Autonomous Mental Disorder, mental disorder can occur in the absence of brain disorder, just as software problems can occur in the absence of hardware problems in a computer. This article argues that the AAMD is unsound. I begin by introducing the “natural dysfunction analysis” of disorder, before outlining the AAMD. I then analyze the necessary conditions for realizer autonomous dysfunction. Building on this, I show that software functions disassociate from hardware functions in a way that (...) mental functions do not disassociate from brain functions. It follows that mental disorders are brain disorders necessarily. (shrink)

Questions about the use of “inclusive language” in Christian discourse are trivial but the discussion which surrounds them raises an exceedingly important question, namely that of whether gender is theologically salient-whether Christian doctrine either reveals theologically significant differences between men and women or prescribes different roles for them. Arguably both conservative support for sex roles and allegedly progressive doctrines about the theological significance of gender, race, ethnicity and sexual orientation are contrary to the radical teaching of the Gospel that in (...) Christ there is no male or female, Greek or Jew, slave or free man. (shrink)

According to perdurantist accounts of persistence, transtemporal aggregates of stages, ‘worms’, are ‘the referents of ordinary terms, members of ordinary domains of quantification, subjects of ordinary predications, and so on…on the stage view…it is instantaneous stages rather than worms that play this role’. I argue the stage theory should be preferred as an account of personal persistence. I consider the way in which four‐dimensionalist accounts of personal persistence are organized and the conditions which, arguably, any plausible account of personal persistence (...) should satisfy. I sketch a semantics for the stage theory which yields a stage‐theoretical account of personal persistence that satisfies these conditions. I argue that standard purdurantist accounts do not. I conclude that standard purdurantist accounts fail because, while persons view themselves and their worlds from the time‐bound first‐person perspective of stages, purdurantist accounts privilege the atemporal view of persons as four‐dimensional aggregates of stages or ‘worms’. Perdurantist accounts produce counterintuitive results in fission cases because there is a discrepancy between a person's time‐bound first‐person perspective and the purdurantist view from nowhen. (shrink)

Justin Garson has recently advanced a Generalised Selected Effects Theory of biological proper function. According to Garson, his theory spells trouble for the Dysfunction Account of Disorder. This paper argues that Garson’s critique of the Dysfunction Account from the Generalised Theory fails, and that we should reject the Generalised Theory outright. I first show that the Generalised Theory does not, as Garson asserts, imply that neurally selected disorders are not dysfunctional. Rather, it implies that they are both functional and dysfunctional. (...) I argue on this basis that the Generalised Theory yields conflicting functional norms, and we that should reject it outright on these grounds. (shrink)

To mark International Women’s Day the Research Group for Law, Gender and Sexuality at Westminster Law School held an evening conversation on 10 March 2016 on Women and Asylum. Speakers working in different areas of the asylum system shared their insights and experiences with an audience of staff, students, activists and other visitors. Harriet Samuels chaired the conversation and the speakers were Princess Chine Onyeukwu, Debora Singer, Priya Solanki and Zoe Harper. This article is an edited extract from the (...) transcript of the presentations and wide-ranging discussion, including the question and answer session. The discussion focused on the different steps in the refugee determination process and considered, in particular, the gendering of credibility and how women’s perceived lack of credibility has a significant impact on determinations and processes. (shrink)

Climate science denial is serious. It facilitates political procrastination and brings us ever closer to a world beset by growing food insecurity, heatwaves, floods, storms, fires and extensive los...

This paper asks when a natural disease kind is truly 'reactive' and when it is merely associated with a corresponding social kind. I begin with a permissive account of real kinds and their structure, distinguishing natural kinds, indifferent kinds and reactive kinds as varieties of real kind characterised by super-explanatory properties. I then situate disease kinds within this framework, arguing that many disease kinds prima facie are both natural and reactive. I proceed to distinguish ‘simple dependence’, ‘secondary dependence’ and ‘essential (...) dependence’ between a natural kind and its classification, and argue that a natural kind is only really reactive, in an important sense, under conditions of essential dependence. On this basis, I offer a principled hypothesis for why psychiatric kinds tend to be more metaphysically unstable than paradigm somatic disease kinds. (shrink)

Even in the absence of overt discrimination, women are often channelled into different directions from their male counterparts by the network of incentives and disincentives which constitute what has been called a ‘discriminatory environment’. On the account of freedom and coercion developed in this essay, the incentives and disincentives which typically figure in discriminatory environments are not coercive. Nevertheless such environments, it is argued, are morally objectionable on independent grounds.

In the last two decades, prizes in the sciences have proliferated and, in particular, rich prizes with large honoraria. These developments raise several questions: Why have rich prizes proliferated? Have they greatly changed the reward system of science? What effects will such prizes have on scientists and on science? The proliferation of such prizes derives from marked limitations on the numbers and types of scientists eligible for Nobel prizes and consequent increases in the number of uncrowned laureate-equivalents. These would-be surrogates (...) for Nobel prizes extend the reward system of science in its upper reaches but this change is not fundamental. The spread of rich prizes to new fields provides added incentives to potential winners, which has its own disutilities; it reinforces competitiveness, concern for priority and attendant secrecy, all this amplifying ambivalence toward the reward system in science. There may also be modest positive effects of such new awards in the form of heightened popular esteem for science and interest in it. (shrink)

This research investigates the perceptions of five constituent groups of an accredited business school — their perceptions of others'' ethics, of their own ethics and ideal values, and of how business ethics can be improved. Self-described behavior from the constituent groups is quite similar, yet is decidedly different from that which respondents felt others would do. Undergraduate business students tended to have the lowest estimation of others'' ethics in addition to the least ethical self-described behavior compared with other constituent groups. (...) All constituents were solidly in favor of improving ethics by developing principles of business ethics, requiring ethics courses in business schools and introducing industry codes of ethics. People are much more ethical than they are perceived to be. Knowing that others are more ethical may in turn cause other people to act more ethically. Similarly, believing that others are less ethical may encourage less ethical behavior. (shrink)

This paper presents four arguments in favour of respecting Ulysses Contracts in the case of individuals who suffer with severe chronic episodic mental illnesses, and who have experienced spiralling and relapse before. First, competence comes in degrees. As such, even if a person meets the usual standard for competence at the point when they wish to refuse treatment, they may still be less competent than they were when they signed the Ulysses Contract. As such, even if competent at time 1 (...) and time 2, there can still be a disparity between the levels of competence at each time. Second, Ulysses Contracts are important to protect people’s most meaningful concerns. Third, on the approach defended, the restrictions to people’s liberty would be temporary, and would be consistent with soft paternalism, rather than hard paternalism: the contracts would be designed in such a way that individuals would be free to change their minds, and to change or cancel their Ulysses Contracts later. Finally, even if one rejects the equivalence thesis, this is still consistent with the claim that, in particular cases, it can be as wrong to allow a harm as to do a harm. Nevertheless, controversies remain. This paper also highlights several safeguards to minimise risks. Ultimately, we argue that people who are vulnerable to spiralling deserve a way to protect their autonomy as far as possible, using Ulysses Contracts when necessary. (shrink)

_Supervision of Sandplay Therapy_, the first book on this subject, is an internationally-based volume that describes the state of the art in supervision of sandplay therapy. Recognizing that practitioners are eager to incorporate sandplay therapy into their practice, Harriet Friedman and Rie Rogers Mitchell respond to the need for new information, and successfully translate the theories of sandplay therapy into supervision practice. The book provides a meaningful connection and balance between theoretical principles, practical application, and ongoing therapeutic encounter involved (...) in sandplay. Divided into six sections, contributors cover: original supervision models contemporary supervision models special challenges in supervision international sandplay supervision supervision of special groups connections with other arts therapies. _Supervision of Sandplay Therapy _expands the vision of what is possible in supervision and will be vital reading for those studying supervision and sandplay therapy, as well as for those wanting to provide a depth-oriented approach during supervision. (shrink)

Sandplay is one of the fastest growing therapies. What are its origins, who were it pioneers, and how have they influenced the current practice of sandplay? What does the future hold? Rie Rogers Mitchell and Harriet S. Friedman have written a unique book that answers all these questions and many more. They give an overview of the historical origins of sandplay, including biographical profiles of the innovators together with discussions of their seminal writings. The five main therapeutic trends are (...) explored, and in a final chapter the future of sandplay is discussed through addressing emerging issues and concerns. A special feature is a comprehensive international bibliography as well as a listing of sandtray videotapes and audiotapes. (shrink)

The prior issue of Krisis (42:1) published Critical Naturalism: A Manifesto, with the aim to instigate a debate of the issues raised in this manifesto – the necessary re-thinking of the role (and the concept) of nature in critical theory in relation to questions of ecology, health, and inequality. Since Krisis considers itself a place for philosophical debates that take contemporary struggles as starting point, it issued an open call and solicited responses to the manifesto. This is one of the (...) sixteen selected responses, which augment, specify, or question the assumptions and arguments of the manifesto. (shrink)

Defining Mental Disorder: Jerome Wakefield and His Critics, edited by Denis Forest and Luc Faucher, is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy of medicine whose work is informed by that of Jerome Wakefield, or the disease debate in general. If you are anything like me, this book will open the door to a new depth of understanding of the harmful dysfunction analysis (HDA) and its methodical underpinnings, and an enriched appreciation of what is at stake in defining medical (...) disorder. To those confident that they understand Wakefield’s view and the surrounding debate, thinking perhaps that they do not need a refresher, I would say: perhaps you do not understand it as well as you think. Defining Mental Disorder provides much more than an overview of previously well-trodden ground. The chapters themselves, and Wakefield’s own detailed responses, help to elucidate a number of methodological nuances and peculiarities that have rarely been covered in such depth before. I was startled to learn how philosophically complex Wakefield’s position actually is, and how shallow my own understanding of it has been. It emerges as a far more nuanced and sophisticated account than I had given it credit for, and one that deserves serious reevaluation. (shrink)