​This book is the first sustained scholarly account of women and goddesses in presocratic philosophy. It approaches the origin of western philosophy via Nietzsche, Feminism, and Embodied Cognition in order to argue that the presocratics were reviving, within the largely patriarchal and death-glorifying culture of archaic Greece, a paleo/neolithic goddess-centered religiosity that affirmed life and rebirth. By taking readers from prehistoric Europe to classical Athens, Joseph I. Breidenstein Jr. provides a novel narrative of the dawn of western philosophy (...) which is more comprehensive than traditional accounts and which helps us address contemporary problems—the patriarchal attitudes and ideas that continue to corrupt academic-philosophical culture; the fascist-dominator lifestyle that continues to threaten western democracy and which is encouraged by the patriarchal aspects of academia; and the consumerism that continues to result from a materialistic-secular paradigm that is being increasingly recognized as both intellectually untenable and socially unsustainable. (shrink)

Although Descartes has in some ways become a symbol of academic isolation, we can dispel this misunderstanding by taking into consideration the holistic nature of Cartesian philosophy. Descartes understood the various branches of philosophy as constituting an organic totality of knowledge that, because of its dependence on imagination and sensation, remains irreducible to intellectual comprehension. Ethics holds a particularly significant place in Cartesian philosophy, and this essay both demonstrates the spiritual nature of Cartesian ethics and explains why Descartes saw ethics (...) as “the ultimate degree of wisdom” so as to illustrate how we can interpret Cartesian philosophy as a spiritual practice. This takes place through a discussion of the distinctions and interconnections of Descartes’s three primary notions (soul, body, and the union of soul and body) and concludes by reflecting on the specific temporality of nobility as well as addressing several objections to Cartesian ethics. (shrink)

Although Descartes has in some ways become a symbol of academic isolation, we can dispel this misunderstanding by taking into consideration the holistic nature of Cartesian philosophy. Descartes understood the various branches of philosophy as constituting an organic totality of knowledge that, because of its dependence on imagination and sensation, remains irreducible to intellectual comprehension. Ethics holds a particularly significant place in Cartesian philosophy, and this essay both demonstrates the spiritual nature of Cartesian ethics and explains why Descartes saw ethics (...) as “the ultimate degree of wisdom” so as to illustrate how we can interpret Cartesian philosophy as a spiritual practice. This takes place through a discussion of the distinctions and interconnections of Descartes’s three primary notions (soul, body, and the union of soul and body) and concludes by reflecting on the specific temporality of nobility as well as addressing several objections to Cartesian ethics. (shrink)

The externalist examples of Burge, Putnam etc. were offered as examples of how it is physically identical twins can differ in mental states such as belief, and little attention was paid to the interpretations the twins impose on their respective acoustic inputs. The received story today is that this form of interpretation—the semantic reading one assigns the sounds one hears—is the product of inference. The problem for this inferential model is simple to state: though the twins are physical doppelgangers and (...) don't differ in their acoustic inputs, they differ in the interpretations they impose on their respective inputs. I argue that the inferential model does not allow for how it is the twins arrive at these different interpretations. And, since the externalist examples are compelling, this tells against the inferential model. (shrink)

Although risky decision-making has been posited to contribute to the maladaptive behavior of individuals with psychopathic tendencies, the performance of psychopathic groups on a common task of risky decision-making, the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT; Bechara, Damasio, Damasio, & Anderson, 1994), has been equivocal. Different aspects of psychopathy (personality traits, antisocial deviance) and/or moderating variables may help to explain these inconsistent findings. In a sample of college students (N = 129, age 18–27), we examined the relationship between primary and secondary psychopathic (...) features and IGT performance. A measure of impulsivity was included to investigate its potential as a moderator. In a joint model including main effects and interactions between primary psychopathy, secondary psychopathy and impulsivity, only secondary psychopathy was significantly related to risky IGT performance, and this effect was not moderated by the other variables. This finding supports the growing literature suggesting that secondary psychopathy is a better predictor of decision-making problems than the primary psychopathic personality traits of lack of empathy and remorselessness. (shrink)

According to the indispensability argument, the fact that we quantify over numbers, sets and functions in our best scientific theories gives us reason for believing that such objects exist. I examine a strategy to dispense with such quantification by simply replacing any given platonistic theory by the set of sentences in the nominalist vocabulary it logically entails. I argue that, as a strategy, this response fails: for there is no guarantee that the nominalist world that go beyond the set of (...) sentences in the nominalist language such theories entail. However, I argue that what such theories show is that mathematics can enable us to express possibilities about the concrete world that may not be expressible in nominalistically acceptable language. While I grant that this may make quantification over abstracta indispensable, I deny that such indispensability is a reason for accepting them into our ontology. I urge that the nominalist should be allowed to quantify over abstracta whilst denying their existence and I explain how this apparently contradictory practice (a practice I call 'weaseling') is in fact coherent, unproblematic and rational. Finally, I examine the view that platonistic theories are simpler or more attractive than their nominalistic reformulations, and thus that abstract ought to be accepted into our ontology for the same sorts of reasons as other theoretical objects. I argue that, at least in the case of numbers, functions and sets, such arguments misunderstand the kind of simplicity and attractiveness we seek. (shrink)

Focusing on episodes of student-generated and -sustained talk during document-based disciplinary history discussions, this study explored what teacher candidates prioritize and value about social studies discussions, and how these priorities align with their actions and goals as facilitators. Using a complex systems-based model, we investigated candidates’ goals as they planned for, facilitated, and reflected upon student sensemaking relative to three common orientations for social studies discussions: disciplinary history, participatory civics, and critical literacy. Findings revealed that candidates employed elements from all (...) three orientations, yet without clear alignment to any particular approach. This misalignment reflected tensions between candidates’ stated goals, beliefs about student engagement, and instructional decisions. We draw implications for teacher education to support candidates in developing coherent practices for discussion facilitation that align with their instructional visions and sociocultural contexts. (shrink)

Multifunctionality poses significant challenges for human brain mapping. Cathy Price and Karl Friston argue that brain regions perform many functions in one sense and a single function in another. Thus, neuroscientists must revise their “cognitive ontologies” to obtain systematic mappings. Colin Klein draws a different lesson from these findings: neuroscientists should abandon systematic mappings for context-sensitive ones. I claim that neither account succeeds as a general treatment of multifunctionality. I argue that brain areas, like genes or organs, are multifunctional in (...) different ways. I call this the “functional heterogeneity hypothesis.” I contend that different multifunctional parts require different mapping strategies. (shrink)

In this paper I claim that Earman and Norton 's hole argument against substantivalist interpretations of General Relativity assumes that the substantivalist must adopt a conception of determinism which I argue is unsatisfactory. Butterfield and others have responded to the hole argument by finding a conception of determinism open to the substantivalist that is not prone to the hole argument. But, unfortunately for the substantivalist, I argue this conception also turns out to be unsatisfactory. Accordingly, I search for a conception (...) of determinism that is both independently plausible and capable of blocking the hole argument. (shrink)

Functional localization is a central aim of cognitive neuroscience. But the nature and extent of functional localization in the human brain have been subjects of fierce theoretical debate since the 19th Century. In this essay, I first examine how concepts of functional localization have changed over time. I then analyze contemporary challenges to functional localization drawing from research on neural reuse, neural degeneracy, and the context-dependence of neural functions. I explore the consequences of these challenges for topics in philosophy of (...) science and philosophy of mind including localizationist versus anti-localizationist approaches to cognitive neuroscience, multiple realizability, reverse inference in functional neuroimaging, and the modularity of mind. (shrink)

Many important harms result in large part from our collective omissions, such as harms from our omissions to stop climate change and famines. Accounting for responsibility for collective omissions turns out to be particularly challenging. It is hard to see how an individual contributes anything to a collective omission to prevent harm if she couldn’t have made a difference to that harm on her own. Some groups are able to prevent such harms, but it is highly contentious whether groups can (...) be loci of responsibility. This paper takes an existing and plausible framework of moral responsibility—one based on abilities—and scales it up to accommodate responsibility for collective omissions. This centrally involves identifying what the relevant collective abilities are and how they work. One significant benefit of this approach is that we can do this while remaining neutral on the debates about collective agency and collective responsibility by showing how individualist and collectivist versions of the theory work. Finally, I explore several further upshots of the scaled-up ability-based account, including that degrees of responsibility can be cashed out in terms of strengths of the relevant abilities, which has both theoretical and applied implications. (shrink)

What are the vehicles of conceptual thought? Recently, cognitive scientists and philosophers of psychology have developed quite different theories about what kinds of representations concepts are. At one extreme, amodal theories claim that concepts are representations whose vehicles are distinct from those used in perceptual processes. At the other end of the spectrum, neo-empiricism proposes that concepts are perceptual representations grounded in the mind's sensory, motor, and affective systems. In this essay, I examine how evidence from the neuropsychological disorder semantic (...) dementia bears on philosophical debates about the nature of conceptual vehicles. I argue that the pattern of deficits in semantic dementia undermines recent neo-empiricist predictions about where and how conceptual knowledge is organized in the brain. I do not intend my analysis of semantic dementia to wholly discredit neo-empiricism; instead, I draw lessons for future theorizing about conceptual vehicles. (shrink)

This essay offers a standard by which to assess the feasibility of market anarchism. In anarchist thought, the concept of feasibility concerns both the ability and the willingness of private defense agencies to liberate their clients from state oppression. I argue that the emergence of a single stateless pocket of effective, privately-provided defense for a “reasonable” length of time is sufficient to affirm feasibility. I then consider the failure of private defense agencies to achieve even this standard. Furthermore, I identify (...) five possible explanations for the conspicuous absence of private defense agencies. These explanations are entrepreneurial, technological, or economic in nature, or result from a lack of consumer demand or a lack of incentive for violence specialists to refrain from aggression. Of these, only an economic deficiency renders anarchism intrinsically unworkable. (shrink)

This project explores the ethical obligations of food journalists. Using history, normative, and feminist theory, I argue that if specific media is going to be considered food journalism, then we should be able to identify its service to citizens. This project thus seeks a unified view for evaluating the democratic and caring potential of food journalism. I outline some of the contours of quality food journalism – its principles, practices and forms – through both historical and contemporary examples. I show (...) how both sets of food journalists adhere(d) to traditional notions of democracy-serving communication while also employing a more situated ethic of care. Ultimately, I argue that quality food journalists should adopt this care ethic addressing citizen-eaters, as this nourishes the relationships necessary for democratic worldmaking and gives us the best opportunity of collectively eating and living well. (shrink)

Its relentless pursuit of the good provides act-consequentialism with one sort of intuitive ethical rationale. But more indirect forms of consequentialism promise more intuitive normative implications, for instance the evil of even beneficent murders. I favor a middle way which combines the intuitive rationale of act-consequentialism and the intuitive normative implications of the best indirect forms. Multiple-Act Consequentialism or ‘MAC’ requires direct consequentialist evaluation of the options of group agents. It holds that one should only defect from a group act (...) with good consequences if one can achieve better consequences by the defecting act alone than the entire group act achieves, and that when different beneficent group acts of which one is part specify roles which conflict, one should follow the role in the group act with better consequences. This paper develops MAC as a solution to the Trolley Problem. Section 1 concerns the relative advantages of direct and indirect consequentialisms. Section 2 develops MAC by a focus on competing conceptions of group agency. Section 3 applies MAC to the Trolley Problem. (shrink)

The series of 'trolley' examples issue a challenge to moral principles based on intentions, since it seems that these give the wrong answers in two important cases: 'Fat Man', where they seem to say that it is permissible to push someone in front of a trolley to save others, and 'Loop', where they seem to say that it is wrong to divert a trolley towards a single person whose body will stop it and save others. I reply, first, that there (...) is a parallel between the wrongful intention to mutilate in 'Transplant', where one person's vital organs are removed to save others' lives, and the intention to assault in Fat Man. Secondly, I defend Frances Kamm's view that in Loop one can divert the trolley towards the one without an intention to kill or assault, since good potential side-effects can be taken into account in deciding what to do, without their becoming intentions. (shrink)

The dissertation is centered around the Moral Virtuosity Project . The central task of the dissertation is to examine what other philosophers have had to say on this topic and ultimately to successfully complete this project. ;Chapter One is concerned exclusively with Aristotle's attempt to complete the Moral Virtuosity Project. I defend the view that Aristotle holds that each moral virtue is a disposition toward proper practical reasoning, action, and emotion within a certain sphere. I critically examine Aristotle's argument for (...) the unity of the virtues. I then try to point to some areas where Aristotle's views on moral virtue fail to correspond with our ordinary common sense views on moral virtue. ;Chapter Two has three main parts. First, I consider Immanuel Kant's attempt to complete the Moral Virtuosity Project. I develop an interpretation of Kant's views on this topic. Second, I take up the topic of the relationship between Aristotle's views on moral virtue and Kant's views on moral virtue. Third, I examine some objections to Kant's views on moral virtue. I conclude that Kant's account of moral virtue goes wrong because it is inextricably tied up with the concept of moral obligation. ;Chapter Three is devoted to critical discussions of contemporary attempts to complete the Moral Virtuosity Project. Authors whose views are discussed include: G. H. von Wright, Philippa Foot, Judith Thomson, Linda Zagzebski, and Thomas Hurka. I conclude that each view has serious problems. ;In Chapter Four I develop a novel account of moral virtue by appealing to the concept of admirability. Drawing on work on virtue by Michael Slote, I try to shed some light on the concept of admirability and distinguish the concept from related concepts. I then appeal to the concept of admirability to explicate the concept of a moral virtue, thus completing the Moral Virtuosity Project. I discuss a number of other topics, including "hard cases", excessive virtue, and two sorts of morally virtuous persons: the Good Hearted Hero and the Conflicted Hero. (shrink)

Amid the ongoing debate over the proper interpretation of Aristotle's theory of sense perception in the "De Anima," Steven Everson has recently presented a well-documented and ambitious treatment of the issue, arguing in favor of Richard Sorabji's controversial position that sense organs literally take on the qualities of their proper objects. Against the interpretation of M. F. Burnyeat, Everson and others make a compelling case the Aristotelian account of sensation requires some physical process to occur in sense organs. A detailed (...) examination of the interpretation by Everson and Sorabji of Aristotle's theory, however, shows that their reading cannot be the correct one, since it involves many textual and philosophical difficulties. Their interpretation, for instance, would require abandoning Aristotle's requirement that only a transparent substance is suitable matter for an eye. Likewise, their understanding of the Aristotle's doctrine of sensation as the reception of form without matter in "DA 2.12" cannot be reconciled with other texts of his from "On Generation and Corruption." An analysis of these texts, as well as "DA 2.7" and "De Sensu 6" on the roles of light and the transparent medium in vision, show that, for Aristotle, the physical processes which sense organs undergo are not standard qualitative changes (i.e. alterations), but activities or the actualizations of potencies in the material constituents of living animal bodies. (shrink)

‘Simple desire-based accounts’ of individual good or well-being identify an individual’s good with the satisfaction of their actual desires. I will defend one version.

Omissions are puzzling, and theyraise myriad questions for many areas of philosophy. In contrast, omissions ofomissions are not usually taken to be very puzzling since they are oftenthought to just be a fancy way of describing ordinary “positive” events, statesof affairs, or actions. This paper contends that – as far as agency isconcerned – at least some omissions of omissions are omissions, not actions. First,this paper highlights how our actions are accompanied by many first-orderomissions - i.e., omissions to act – (...) and that there already are many strongreasons to think that at least some of these first-order omissions are agentiallydistinct from simultaneous actions and from other first-order omissions. Itthen argues that our actions and first-order omissions are also accompanied byhigher-order omissions – i.e., omissions to omit to act – and that higher-orderomissions are distinct from actions and first-order omissions for similarreasons. Higher-order omissions also illuminate a more holistic picture of agency,which involves recognizing that our exercises of agency at a moment in timeinclude all of our overlapping behaviors – our actions, first-order omissions,and higher-order omissions. This paper concludes by exploring the impacts ofhigher-order omissions. (shrink)

Most philosophical defences of the state’s right to exclude immigrants derive their strength from the normative importance of self-determination. If nation-states are taken to be the political institutions of a people, then the state’s right to exclude is the people’s right to exclude – and a denial of this right constitutes an abridgement of self-determination. In this paper, I argue that this view of self-determination does not cohere with a group-agency view of nation-states. On the group-agency view that I defend, (...) a nation-state is the kind of group-agent that does not supervene on the intentionality of member/citizens. If we think that a nation-state is an intentional group-agent in its own right, then we should think that self-determination resides with the institutions of the state rather than with the citizens. If nation-states do not supervene on the intentionality of citizens, then it is unclear why citizens might have the right to control membership in the state as a feature of self-determination. (shrink)

This essay offers a standard by which to assess the feasibility of market anarchism. In anarchist thought, the concept of feasibility concerns both the ability and the willingness of private defense agencies to liberate their clients from state oppression. I argue that the emergence of a single stateless pocket of effective, privately-provided defense for a “reasonable” length of time is sufficient to affirm feasibility. I then consider the failure of private defense agencies to achieve even this standard. Furthermore, I identify (...) five possible explanations for the conspicuous absence of private defense agencies. These explanations are entrepreneurial, technological, or economic in nature, or result from a lack of consumer demand or a lack of incentive for violence specialists to refrain from aggression. Of these, only an economic deficiency renders anarchism intrinsically unworkable. (shrink)

This paper aims to explore and expand on Wittgenstein’s remarks on the nature of mental imagery. Despite some rather cryptic passages and obvious objections, his notion of mental imagery as possessing a constitutive (and not merely added) element of expressive thought and conceptuality offers critical insights linking perceptual capacities with our shared practices. In particular I seek to further develop Wittgenstein’s claim that perceptual impressions presuppose a “mastery of a technique.” I argue that this sense of technique, understood as acquired (...) conceptual capacities, can explain and capture the rich and varied spectrum of expressive visual content that can be accessed by human beings initiated and embedded in a variety of shared practices. Using Gilbert Ryle’s account of dispositions, I cash out the notion of acquired conceptual capacities as spanning a wide latitude of responsive dispositions from mere “blind” visual habits to more normatively-guided, intelligent, and deliberately-trained visual “skills.” Visual impressions construed as such are hardly perceptually (nor representationally) univocal and instead exhibit a dynamic and reflexive plurivocity manifested through one’s initiation into shared practices and forms of life. This plurivocity makes possible a rich array of visual affordances that would otherwise not be accessible outside the context of a shared practice. This suggests that human beings possess a distinctive kind of expressive and responsive intelligence which picks out visual affordances determined not so much by a merely receptive perceptual faculty but by the subject’s skillful, active, and responsive engagement with the world. (shrink)

Harold Laski (Manchester, 1893-Londres, 1950) es de los pocos teóricos del Estado en el mundo anglo-sajón que, desde John Stuart Mill, merece ser recordado. Sus teorías se desenvuelven en el tránsito del pensamiento liberal a la acción de tipo socialista. Fue miembro de la renombrada Fabian Society aunque renunció a su puesto en el Comité Ejecutivo Fabiano aduciendo incompatibilidad de opiniones, pues no aceptaba la posición "gradualista" y evolucionista de la socialdemocracia. Además formó parte del comité ejecutivo del partido laboralista (...) -aunque con serias disensiones con el premier MacDonald-, que debería estudiar los cambios originados en la acción socialista tras la primera Guerra Mundial. A su renombre puede haber ayudado el hecho de haber enseñado en las prestigiosas universidades de Mac-Gill de Montreal y en Harvard. De todas formas, a pesar de ser un pensador que extrajo sus teorías de la práctica y dar a sus aportaciones un contenido pragmático, como Hobbes o Locke, no se puede parangonar en ningún caso con ellos. Se trata -a pesar de sus bandazos- de un intelectual independiente de izquierda, postura que afirmó en su pertenencia al partido laborista. De esta suerte su teoría política pudo fundarse en la ética, que como se verá no se deja entremezclar con el materialismo histórico marxista. El Estado en la teoría y en la práctica corresponde al período en el que busca un acomodamiento de la teoría del Estado a las nuevas circunstancias, una fase que el autor inicia en la década de los treinta del siglo XX. Es un libro que desarrolla y amplía, como él deja claro, su libro anterior, La Democracia en crisis (1933), que también fuera traducido para Revista de Derecho Privado, y supone un perfeccionamiento de sus principios filosóficos. Laski se ocupa de diagnosticar las causas del fracaso y avanza un proyecto de teoría social que se propone desenvolver en el marco de ocho años. Este plan sería corregido después de colaboraciones en simposios y de publicaciones en diversas revistas junto a un grupo de adalides del socialismo, entre los que cabe destacar a Bernard Shaw, J.A. Hobson o Lowes Dickinson entre otros. Este libro, que se vertió al castellano en 1936, fue traducido por Vicente Herrero Ayllón. INDICE. Presentación Prefacio Capítulo I.- La concepción filosófica del Estado Capítulo II.- Estado y Gobierno en el mundo real Capítulo III.- El Estado y la comunidad internacional Capítulo IV.- Perspectivas para nuestra generación. (shrink)

Teleosemantics holds that the contents of psychological states depend crucially on the functions of such states. Etiological accounts of function hold that the functions of things depend on their histories, especially their evolutionary or learning histories. Etiological teleosemantics combines these two features. Consider the case of beliefs. Since selection rests on the stable effects of things, since beliefs have no obvious effects independent of unstable desires, and since desires themselves have mental content, beliefs may seem a hard case for etiological (...) teleosemantics. But David Papineau deploys the effects of beliefs mediated by conation in an artful way to evade these difficulties. I argue that accounts with such an architecture are false. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss Moore’s assessment of Lewis’s metaphysical theorizing. While I am sympathetic to Moore’s complaint that much contemporary metaphysics lacks the scope and reach of older metaphysical theories, I take issue with Moore’s diagnosis: neither lack of self-consciousness, nor Quinean naturalism, nor the post-Quinean restitution of necessity is to blame. Rather, the lack of impact of Lewis’s system should be attributed to the very high weight he attaches to conservatism: the preservation of commonsense and ordinary thought and (...) talk. Yet one can agree with Quine that there should be no first philosophy without, as Lewis does, putting philosophy last. Finally, I argue against Moore that, for the Quinean naturalist, there is no conflict between the metaphysician’s armchair methodology and the view that the truths so discovered are on a par with science. (shrink)

There is a palpable malaise in American medicine as clinical practice veers off its moorings, swept along by a new commercialism that is displacing medical professionalism and its attendant moral obligations. Although the sociology of this phenomenon is complex and multifactorial, I argue that this move toward medical commercialism was accelerated by the abortive efforts of the Clinton Administration's Health Security Act. Through an analysis of performative speech I show that, although the Clinton plan drew on many strands of speech (...) about healthcare, it favored the discourse of health policy and health economics over that of clinical practice and professionalism. Though the Clinton plan failed, this new vocabulary of health economics has led us to imagine a new descriptive framework, which has commodified healthcare and commercialized the clinic. (shrink)

What does cognitive neuroscience contribute to our philosophical understanding of concepts? Over the past several decades, brain researchers have employed the tools of cognitive neuroscience and neuropsychology to probe the structure and func­tion of the conceptual system. The results of this effort, which are often extremely surprising, raise more questions than they resolve. Brain research has invigorated age-old philosophical debates about the nature of concepts—such as whether concepts are perceptual representations—and generated new controversies about how conceptual knowledge is organized. In (...) this essay, I examine three debates in the neuroscience of conceptual knowledge: whether concepts are embodied or couched in amodal representations, whether conceptual knowledge is organized according to evolved categories, and whether the brain has multiple conceptual systems. My purpose is not to resolve these debates—rather, I intend to show how many of the proposed solutions fail to accommodate the diverse range of data emerging from cognitive neuroscience. I am therefore skeptical that brain data alone will resolve these issues, but remain optimistic that neuroscience has much to contribute to philosophical accounts of concepts. (shrink)

In his paper, Leuenberger discerns two salient conceptions of logical validity. Strikingly, neither of these conceptions involves modality. He goes on to use these conceptions as a framework to explore certain recent investigations in the logic of modality, where he ingeniously articulates and proves interesting theses about the logic of contingentism. While I think there’s much of interest in Leuenberger’s results, and that his conception of de facto validity gives a unified account of philosophers’ talk of the logic of time (...) and modality, in this note I suggest that perhaps he is too hasty to dismiss the modal conception of validity and that, moreover, his concept of de facto validity may be too inclusive. (shrink)

Fred Feldman is known for the view that consequentialists should admit a fundamental role for desert in moral evaluation. But this book sketches a different desertism. It is a theory of what Feldman calls “political-economic distributive justice,” according to which such justice is a matter of getting what one deserves. The view, briefly stated in Feldman’s theoretical vocabulary, is this: First, there is perfect political-economic distributive justice in a country if and only if, and in virtue of the fact that, (...) in every case in which a citizen of that country deserves a political-economic desert, he or she receives that desert from the appropriate political-economic distributor. Second, there is greater political-economic distributive justice in one imperfectly just group than another when the situation of the first more closely approximates perfect political economic justice than does the situation of the second. These claims require unpacking. I will focus, with Feldman, on the first and central claim. What does it mean? Perhaps the best way to capture the basic idea behind Feldman’s view is to cite the case used to motivate it: a hurricane causes enormous damage to a farm, which the farm family needs some assistance to repair. Feldman says that they “need to get some help from someone—presumably their community, and they deserve it because they need it”. Many people do not have devastated farms. But, Feldman says, they “are like the farmers in this somewhat more abstract respect: since they are vulnerable to natural disasters... and since they are individually unable to protect themselves against these natural disasters, they deserve to be embedded in a community that will do its best to ensure that help will be provided to members who are adversely affected by such things”. Everyone is vulnerable to natural disasters, and on Feldman’s view, everyone deserves for that very reason assurance of assistance, guaranteed by their community. (shrink)

This article provides an overview of P.T. Raju’s Neo-Vedantic philosophy of I-am and a relationalist assessment of it.

In his recent article, ‘A Gift to Theology? Jean-Luc Marion's ‘Saturated Phenomena’ in Christological Perspective’, Brian Robinette has critiqued Marion's phenomenology for confining theology to a one-sided approach to Christology, one that stresses only the passive, mystical reception of Christ. To correct this imbalance, Robinette brings Marion into dialogue with those more active Christologies or ‘prophetical-ethical’ liberation theologies of Gustavo Gutierrez, Johann Baptist Metz and others that stress a life-praxis focused on confronting evil and suffering. In this essay I am (...) arguing that Robinette has not fully developed the ‘logic’ of Marion's phenomenology of the ‘call and the gifted’, in which both a passive and an active element are operative. I explore more fully that very dynamic phenomenological process of the call-and-the-gifted as developed in Marion's work Being Given: Toward a Phenomenology of Givenness. Once viewed in Christological perspective, and especially in light of Christ's death and resurrection, Marion's phenomenology entails an ethical trope consistent with the mission of Christ as rendered in Scriptural revelation, and thus the gap between Marion's work and the prophetical-ethical theologies of Gutierrez and Baptist Metz becomes narrowed. (shrink)

abstract: This article compares and contrasts the Ignatian concept of consolation without previous cause with the Zen Buddhist concept of satori. The aim is to underscore a unique but not commonly recognized characteristic of Ignatian contemplation and promote interreligious understanding. I argue that Ignatian prayer methods, though primarily kataphatic in their approach, share common features with apophatic spirituality and Zen meditation, even though Zen does not make any reference to God. This article consists of three main parts: In the first (...) part, I delve into Ignatius's own religious experience, particularly the experiences he had during eleven months in Manresa, and interpret these experiences from the lens of the Ignatian consolation without previous cause. In the second part, I explore the overall goal of Zen, focusing on the discussion of Zen sunyata and satori. In the final part, I draw out points of contact and differences between the Ignatian concept of consolation without previous cause and Zen satori with an aim toward better appropriating the Ignatian consolation without previous cause from Zen satori. In doing so, I hope to make Ignatian spirituality more appealing and available to spiritual seekers across religious traditions. (shrink)

Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit is typically read as a work that either rehabilitates the metaphysical tradition or argues for a new form of idealism centred on social normativity. In the following, I show that neither approach suffices. Not only does the metaphysical reading ignore how the Phenomenology demonstrates that human rationality can never adequately capture ultimate reality because ultimate reality itself has a moment of brute facticity that resists explanation, which prevents us from taking it as a logically self-contained, self-justifying (...) metaphysical zone traditionally known as ‘substance,’ but it also ignores how the Phenomenology equally demonstrates that human rationality creates a historically self-unfolding universe of meaning that is, because it displays a rational systematicity and consistency unlike anything else in the world, the closest thing we have to substance, but which, given its freedom, is more correctly called ‘subject.’ Consequently, while the non-metaphysical reading rightly recognizes that the Phenomenology develops a radically innovative account of intersubjectivity, it neglects how the social theory that it develops comes fully equipped with various metaphysical commitments concerning nature, spirit, and the relationship between them without which this theory would be unintelligible. (shrink)

"I'll furnish the war" : the making of a media myth -- Fright beyond measure? : the myth of the war of the worlds -- Murrow vs. McCarthy : timing makes the myth -- TV viewers, radio listeners, and the myth of the first Kennedy-Nixon debate -- The Bay of Pigs-New York Times suppression myth -- Debunking the "Cronkite moment" -- The nuanced myth : bra burning at Atlantic City -- Picture power? : confronting the myths of the "napalm girl" (...) photograph -- It's all about the media : Watergate's heroic-journalist myth -- The "fantasy panic" : the news media and the "crack-baby" myth -- "She was fighting to the death" : mythmaking in Iraq -- Hurricane Katrina and the myth of superlative reporting -- Counterfeit quotations : swelling with a digital tide. (shrink)

On the question of language about God, Moses Maimonides and Thomas Aquinas propose directly opposing viewpoints. Whereas Aquinas explicitly argues in favour of an analogical use and against an equivocal use, Maimonides on the contrary argues against an analogical use and in favour of an equivocal use of terms when applied to God. Although their respective concepts of analogical meaning appear to differ, I argue on the basis of an analysis of the criteria for analogical predication implicit in each that (...) a thomistic concept of analogical predication is reducible to a maimonidean concept. Thus, it follows that the explicit critique Maimonides lodges against an analogical use of terms when applied to God, if defensible, can be shown to be successful against Aquinas' proposal for analogical language of God. On this basis I conclude that there is a significant and defensible philosophical difference between Aquinas and Maimonides on language about God. (shrink)