In his influential work, The Concept of Law, H. L. A. Hart levels several criticisms at the traditional natural law principle: lex iniusta non est lex. Although some of his criticisms have received a great deal of careful evaluation, others have not. In this paper I will focus on several ways in which Hart attempts to undermine the value of this principle. I will pay particularly close attention to his claims concerning the unfortunate effects that follow from either scholars’ or (...) ordinary citizens’ acceptance of this principle. It is my aim to show that his criticisms of this principle fail. It must be noted that my end is a modest one. I do not attempt to clear all possible objections to this principle, nor conclusively prove its value, but merely show that one set of arguments against it fails. Although this aim is surely modest, it is, I contend, nonetheless important. Investigating the relationship between morality and legality is undoubtedly one of the central tasks of legal philosophy. Since the time of Plato, natural law theories, although differing on various particulars, have proposed a powerful answer concerning this relationship. It is clear that these theories no longer receive the attention they once did, at least in part because of Hart’s objections. I intend to show that these objections fail to show the inadequacy of the lex iniusta principle. (shrink)

In this volume, Peter Furlong delves into the question of divine determinism - the view that God has determined everything that has ever happened or will ever happen. This view, which has a long history among multiple religious and philosophical traditions, faces a host of counterarguments. It seems to rob humans of their free will, absolving them of all the wrongs they commit. It seems to make God the author of sin and thus blameworthy for all human wrongdoing. (...) Additionally, it seems to undermine the popular 'Free Will Defense' of the problem of evil, to make a mockery of the claim that God loves us, and to make it inappropriate for God to blame and punish us. This work carefully formulates these and other objections to divine determinism and investigates possible responses to each of them, providing systematic and balanced discussion of this major philosophical and theological debate. (shrink)

According to the highly controversial “Principle of Alternative Possibilities,” an agent is morally responsible for an action only if he could have done otherwise. In this paper, I will investigate whether Aquinas accepts this principle. I will begin by arguing that if one grants Aquinas’s theory of human action, Frankfurt-style counter-examples do not succeed. For this reason, it is necessary to investigate various texts in order to discover how Aquinas views this principle. Although he does not explicitly discuss it, he (...) does discuss an axiom that is similar to this principle in various ways. I eventually conclude that, even if Aquinas would reject a strict understanding of PAP, he would only demand a relatively common modification of it. (shrink)

This volume unites established authors and rising young voices in philosophical theology and philosophy of religion to offer the single most wide-ranging examination of theological determinism-in terms of both authors represented and issues investigated-published to date. Fifteen contributors present discussions about theological determinism, the view that God determines everything that occurs in the world. Some authors provide arguments in favor of this position, while others provide considerations against it. Many contributors investigate the relationship between theological determinism and other philosophical issues, (...) theological doctrines, or moral attitudes and practices. This book is essential reading for all those interested in the relationship between theological determinism and philosophical thought. (shrink)

It is widely assumed that candidates for free, undetermined choices must have objective probabilities prior to their performance. Indeed although this premise figures prominently in a widely discussed argument against libertarianism, few libertarians have called it into question. In this article, I will investigate whether libertarians ought to reject it. I will conclude that doing so should not be tempting to event-causal libertarians or most agent-causal ones, because the added costs outweigh the benefits.

In this paper I will investigate one way of resolving the apparent tension between the following three propositions, endorsed by some theists: Every worldly event is a consequence guaranteed by God’s unimpedible causal activity, People sin, God is not the cause of sin. In particular, I will examine what I will call the unadorned privation defense, which has roots in Aquinas and continues to find defenders. I will argue that although defenders of this view successfully rebut certain criticisms, their defense (...) ultimately fails to reconcile these three propositions. (shrink)

Agents are morally responsible for their actions only if they understand what they are doing. This much seems clear, but it is unclear exactly what agents must understand in order to be morally responsible; in other words, the epistemic condition for moral responsibility is difficult to discover. In this paper, I will investigate Aquinas’s discussion of knowledge, voluntariness, and moral responsibility in order to discover his views on this condition. Although he never provides a formal expression of such a condition, (...) I will use his discussions of related issues to construct a three-part epistemic condition for moral responsibility. In the process I will raise and discuss several interpretative difficulties, arguing that while some can be resolved, others, despite recent claims to the contrary, resist resolution. Finally, I will draw out several consequences of his account, noteworthy for a variety of reasons. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore some problems faced by those who endorse what I will call strong divine sovereignty. According to this view, every worldly event is guaranteed by God’s causal activity. The first problem this view faces is that it seems to make God morally blameworthy. I explore several possible ways for defenders of SDS to avoid this conclusion. Unfortunately, however, each of these solutions leaves another problem intact: if SDS is true, then it appears that God is not (...) much like a loving parent, as many have thought. I explore a number of options to avoid this conclusion, arguing that some fail and others include significant costs. (shrink)

This paper examines and compares the ways in which the Latin Avicenna, that is the Persian thinker’s work as known in Latin translation to medieval Christianthinkers, and Aquinas alter Aristotle’s conception of the breadth and scope of the subject of metaphysics. These two medieval philosophers inherited the problem that Aristotle posed in the Metaphysics concerning the relationship between the study of being as being and the natural study of God. Both thinkers reject the idea that God is the subject of (...) metaphysics and maintain that the one subject of this science is being qua being. They differ, however, in their analysis of the relationship between this subject and God. Avicenna does not directly address this problem, but certain passages from the Liber de prima philosophia seem to suggest, and were interpreted during the middle ages as suggesting, that God falls within the scope of being qua being. Aquinas, on the other hand, analyzes this relationship in detail and firmly denies that God falls within the scope of the subject of metaphysics. (shrink)

In this paper we will examine a number of G.E.M. Anscombe’s claims about the human person after death in light of the practices of praying to and for the pre-resurrected dead. In particular, we will look at whether these practices commit one to weighty ontological beliefs. In order to evaluate the costs and benefits of Anscombe’s claims, we will weigh them against competing claims from other theories. In section 1, we will describe a number of views about the human person, (...) noting whether they face difficulties, either in general or in relation to certain practices of prayer. In section 2, we turn to Anscombe’s theory itself, describing both her claims about the disembodied soul and the relation of these claims to the practices of prayer. In section 3, we will discuss the costs and benefits of this approach. In particular, we will note that Anscombe’s view has the benefit of avoiding the theoretical difficulties that plague each of the other views we discuss. We will argue, however, that there is also a great cost to her theory for Catholics: Her view would undermine the practices of praying to and for the dead for many of their participants. (shrink)

This paper examines and compares the ways in which the Latin Avicenna, that is the Persian thinker’s work as known in Latin translation to medieval Christianthinkers, and Aquinas alter Aristotle’s conception of the breadth and scope of the subject of metaphysics. These two medieval philosophers inherited the problem that Aristotle posed in the Metaphysics concerning the relationship between the study of being as being and the natural study of God. Both thinkers reject the idea that God is the subject of (...) metaphysics and maintain that the one subject of this science is being qua being. They differ, however, in their analysis of the relationship between this subject and God. Avicenna does not directly address this problem, but certain passages from the Liber de prima philosophia seem to suggest, and were interpreted during the middle ages as suggesting, that God falls within the scope of being qua being. Aquinas, on the other hand, analyzes this relationship in detail and firmly denies that God falls within the scope of the subject of metaphysics. (shrink)

This article examines Aquinas’s theory of free choice and moral responsibility throughout his De malo and provides a careful analysis of question 6 “on human choice.” We argue that Aquinas here proposes an account of free choice as incompatible with determinism. We also show briefly that Aquinas’s account of the fall of the angels in the De malo confirms our interpretation.

Peter Furlong has recently raised an objection to my defense of Aquinas’s approach to explaining how God could cause all creaturely actions without causing sin. In this short paper, I argue that the objection fails.

Peter Furlong has recently raised an objection to my defense of Aquinas’s approach to explaining how God could cause all creaturely actions without causing sin. In this short paper, I argue that the objection fails.

Berkeley’s likeness principle is the claim that “an idea can be like nothing but an idea”. The likeness principle is intended to undermine representationalism: the view (that Berkeley attributes to thinkers like Descartes and Locke) that all human knowledge is mediated by ideas in the mind which represent material objects. Yet, Berkeley appears to leave the likeness principle unargued for. This has led to several attempts to explain why Berkeley accepts it. In contrast to ‘metaphysical’ and ‘epistemological’ interpretations available in (...) the literature, in this paper I defend a ‘conceptual’ interpretation. I argue that Berkeley accepts the likeness principle on the basis of (i) his commitment to the transparency of ideas, and (ii) his account of resemblance which he sets out in his works on vision. Thus, I provide an explanation for Berkeley’s reasons for accepting the likeness principle which, appropriately, focuses on his views concerning ideas and likeness. (shrink)

In my contribution to this Concise Collection on Margaret Cavendish, I focus on teaching Cavendish’s work in the context of philosophy (and, more specifically, Early Modern Philosophy). I have three aims. First, to explain why teaching women from philosophy’s history is crucially important to the discipline. Second, to outline my own reflections on teaching Cavendish’s philosophy. Third, to defend a specific claim about the benefits of teaching Cavendish to philosophy students; namely, that introducing biographical detail alongside philosophical ideas enriches the (...) learning experience. (shrink)

When do two sentences say the same thing, that is, express the same content? We defend two-component (2C) semantics: the view that propositional contents comprise (at least) two irreducibly distinct constituents, (1) truth-conditions, and (2) subject-matter. We contrast 2C with one-component (1C) semantics, focusing on the view that subject-matter is reducible to truth- conditions. We identify exponents of this view and argue in favor of 2C. An appendix proposes a general formal template for propositional 2C semantics.

Margaret Macdonald was at the institutional heart of analytic philosophy in Britain in the mid-twentieth century. Yet, her views on the nature of philosophical theories diverge quite considerably from those of many of her contemporaries. In this paper, I focus on her 1953 article ‘Linguistic Philosophy and Perception’, a provocative paper in which Macdonald argues that the value of philosophical theories is more akin to that of poetry or art than science or mathematics. I do so for two reasons. First, (...) because it reveals just how far Macdonald’s meta- philosophical views diverged from those of many of her contemporaries. Second, because the discussion in LPP pre-empts recent literature on the nature of philosophical inquiry and the efficacy of philosophical arguments. Indeed, Macdonald’s paper is just as likely to provoke discussion today as it was in the 1950s. (shrink)

This paper provides a philosophical evaluation of the concept of handedness prevalent but largely unspoken in the scientific literature. This literature defines handedness as the preference or ability to use one hand rather than the other across a range of common activities. Using the philosophical discipline of phenomenology, I articulate and critique this conceptualization of handedness. Phenomenology shows defining a concept of handedness by focusing on hand use leads to a right hand biased concept. I argue further that a phenomenological (...) model based in spatial orientation rather than hand use provides a more inclusive concept of handedness. (shrink)

William Molyneux was born in Dublin, studied in Trinity College Dublin, and was a founding member of the Dublin Philosophical Society (DPS), Ireland’s counterpart to the Royal Society in London. He was a central figure in the Irish intellectual milieu during the Early Modern period and – along with George Berkeley and Edmund Burke – is one of the best-known thinkers to have come out of that context and out of Irish thought more generally. In 1688, when Molyneux wrote the (...) letter to Locke in which he posed the now famous question about a man born blind made to see, he was an active member of the DPS and was on familiar terms with several other key figures in Irish philosophy at the time. For the most part, Irish thinkers in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries answered “no” to Molyneux’s question of whether a blind man made to see could distinguish, by sight alone, between a cube and a sphere. (shrink)

"This book is an augmented and updated translation by the author of Theorie des Subjekts: Subjectiviteat und Identiteat zwischen Moderne und Postmoderne, Teubingen, Francke-UTB, 2010 (3rd ed.)"--Title page verso.

Illustrated throughout, Peter Mitchell's highly readable and non-technical Introduction to Theory of Mind focuses on the latest research in the field and integrates work carried out on humans, apes and children with autism.

In this book we present a collection of papers on the topic of applying paraconsistent logic to solve inconsistency related problems in science, mathematics and computer science. The goal is to develop, compare, and evaluate different ways of applying paraconsistent logic. After more than 60 years of mainly theoretical developments in many independent systems of paraconsistent logic, we believe the time has come to compare and apply the developed systems in order to increase our philosophical understanding of reasoning when faced (...) with inconsistencies. This book wants to be a first step toward an application based, constructive debate to tackle the question which systems are best applied for which kind of problems and which philosophical conclusions can be drawn from such applications. (shrink)

What is the relation between monetary policy and inequalities in income and wealth? This question has received insufficient attention, especially in light of the unconventional policies introduced since the 2008 financial crisis. The article analyzes three ways in which the concern central banks show for inequalities in their official statements remains incomplete and underdeveloped. First, central banks tend to care about inequality for instrumental reasons only. When they do assign intrinsic value to containing inequalities, they shy away from trade-offs with (...) the standard objectives of monetary policy that such a position entails. Second, central banks play down the causal impact monetary policy has on inequalities. When they do acknowledge it, they defend their actions by claiming that it is an unintended side effect, that it is temporary, and/or that any alternative policy would fare even worse. The article appeals to the doctrine of double effect to criticize these arguments. Third, even if one accepts that inequalities should be contained and that today’s monetary policies exacerbate them, is it both desirable and feasible to make containing inequalities part of the mandate of central banks? The article analyzes and rejects three attempts on the part of central banks to answer this question negatively. (shrink)

In this article I intend to justify six theses: (1) Temporal becoming is founded in an intuition-form of self-intuition, whereas physical space-time is independent of any form of intuition; (2) communicable thoughts are, as Kant says, products of self-consciousness; (3) both roots of idealism are connected by the tensed form of predication; (4) the thinking subject is, as Kant says, an appearance for itself; (5) the subject has, in virtue of this nature, the capacity of mental causality; and (6) mental (...) causality is a sufficient basis for a Kantian “causality from freedom”. (shrink)

‘British Empiricism’ is a name traditionally used to pick out a group of eighteenth-century thinkers who prioritised knowledge via the senses over reason or the intellect and who denied the existence of innate ideas. The name includes most notably John Locke, George Berkeley, and David Hume. The counterpart to British Empiricism is traditionally considered to be Continental Rationalism that was advocated by Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz, all of whom lived in Continental Europe beyond the British Isles and all embraced innate (...) ideas. This article characterizes empiricists more broadly as those thinkers who accept Locke’s Axiom that there is no idea in the mind that cannot be traced back to some particular experience. It includes British-Irish Philosophy from the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth century. As well as exploring the traditional connections among empiricism and metaphysics and epistemology, it examines how British empiricists dealt with issues in moral philosophy and the existence and nature of God. The article identifies some challenges to the standard understanding of British Empiricism by including early modern thinkers from typically marginalised groups, especially women. Finally, in showing that there is nothing uniquely British about being an empiricist, it examines a particular case study of the eighteenth-century philosopher Anton Wilhelm Amo, the first African to receive a doctorate in Europe. (shrink)

Carroll shaped the corporate social responsibility discourse into a four-dimensional pyramid framework, which was later adapted to corporate citizenship and sustainability approaches. The four layers of the pyramid—structured from foundation to apex as economic, legal, ethical, and philanthropic responsibilities—drew considerable managerial attention. An important criticism of the economic foundation of the Carroll pyramid concerns the identification and ordering of the four dimensions, which are inadequately justified theoretically. The authors of this article propose an alternative approach that builds on the public (...) value concept, which integrates a microfoundation of psychological research into basic human needs. Drawing on their Swiss Dialogue process, the authors argue that a four-dimensional pyramid does have heuristic value for managers. The advantage of this alternative pyramid logic is that it may be contingently adapted to different cultural contexts, because it allows adaptive internal reordering. (shrink)

This white paper outlines the plans of the History Philosophy Culture Working Group of the Next Generation Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration.

Factorial surveys integrate elements of survey research and classical experiments. Using a large number of respondents in a controlled setting, FSs approximate complex and realistic judgment situations through so-called vignettes—that is, carefully designed descriptions of hypothetical people, social situations, or scenarios. Despite being rooted, and predominantly applied, in sociology, FSs are particularly promising for business and society scholars. Given the multiplicity, inherent complexity, and sometimes fuzziness of B&S research objects, conventional research methods inevitably reach their limits. This article, therefore, systematically (...) presents methodological and thematic opportunities for FS studies in B&S research. It is argued that FSs are well suited to dealing with the complex interplay of societal-, organizational-, and individual-level factors in B&S research and to studying the principles underlying human perceptions, attitudes, values, social norms, and behavior. The application of the FS method is illustrated based on a showcase example in the realm of socially responsible investments. As the literature on the conceptualization of FSs is limited, methodological challenges are addressed to guide B&S researchers past the common methodological pitfalls. (shrink)

This book is a comprehensive development and defense of one of the guiding assumptions of evolutionary psychology: that the human mind is composed of a large number of semi-independent modules. The Architecture of the Mind has three main goals. One is to argue for massive mental modularity. Another is to answer a 'How possibly?' challenge to any such approach. The first part of the book lays out the positive case supporting massive modularity. It also outlines how the thesis should best (...) be developed, and articulates the notion of 'module' that is in question. Then the second part of the book takes up the challenge of explaining how the sorts of flexibility and creativity that are distinctive of the human mind could possibly be grounded in the operations of a massive number of modules.Peter Carruthers's third aim is to show how the various components of the mind are likely to be linked and interact with one another - indeed, this is crucial to demonstrating how the human mind, together with its familiar capacities, can be underpinned by a massively modular set of mechanisms. He outlines and defends the basic framework of a perception / belief / desire / planning / motor-control architecture, as well as detailing the likely components and their modes of connectivity. Many specific claims about the place within this architecture of natural language, of a mind-reading system, and others are explained and motivated. A number of novel proposals are made in the course of these discussions, one of which is that creative human thought depends upon a prior kind of creativity of action.Written with unusual clarity and directness, and surveying an extensive range of research in cognitive science, this book will be essential reading for anyone with an interest in the nature and organization of the mind. (shrink)

"How do we go about weighing evidence, testing hypotheses and making inferences? According to the model of 'inference to the Best explanation', we work out what to inter from the evidence by thinking about what would actually explain that evidence, and we take the ability of a hypothesis to explain the evidence as a sign that the hypothesis is correct. In inference to the Best Explanation, Peter Lipton gives this important and influential idea the development and assessment it deserves." (...) "The second edition has been substantially enlarged and reworked, with a new chapter on the relationship between explanation and Bayesianism, and an extension and defence of the account of contractive explanation. It also includes an expanded defence of the claims that our inferences really are guided by diverse explanatory considerations, and that this pattern of inference can take us towards the truth. This edition of Inference to the Best Explanation has also been updated throughout and incudes a new bibliography."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

As much as Zimbabwe is considered one of the highly literate countries in the Global South, with well documented succession and inheritance laws, womenfolk continue to be stripped of their assets after the death of their husbands. This trend became even worse during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic when movement was restricted, making it difficult to access the courts of law. Using a mixed methodological approach of a desk research and qualitative interviews conducted in the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe, (...) Zororo Comfort circuit in Harare, it has been noted that women and girls face numerous horrific experiences, pushing them to wallow in the margins of society. This study therefore calls for the church to address the vulnerability of women and girls using a deviant theory. To date, there are increasing figures of domestic violence, sexual assault, and child marriages. Financial and communal disturbances corresponding through continuous pandemic challenges for women are aggravated, and those who survive find it challenging to hunt for fairness because of stockpiled court issues and freedom for the perpetrators. The fact that women are dispossessed of their belongings because of the cultural status of being a woman calls for a cultural cue. Using a deviant theory in the narrative of a tenacious widow in the gospel of Luke 18:1–8 from a sociological dimension, this study provides a critical edge into interpreting the action of this widow who deviated from expected societal customs. The study concludes by calling faith communities to re-read the widow’s story through deviant theory spectacles to raise questions on how this widow courageously represented herself from societal margin to undermine the centre (patriarchal standards) and to utilise the text as a resource for addressing the plight of women to be repositioned and be empowered in Zimbabwe.Contribution: This study contributes to the ongoing academic studies on women, pandemics, religion and gender, using the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe, Zororo Comfort circuit as a case study. It concludes by an invitation to faith communities to re-read the widow’s story using a deviant theory in order to use the text as a resource to alleviate the plight of women and empower them to the position of equilibrium with men. (shrink)

The historian Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406) is most often treated by historians of philosophy as part of the story of political philosophy in the Islamic world. While this is perfectly legitimate, it may be misleading when it comes to the question of the method he proposes for the historian. This paper argues that that method is in fact based on a different branch of (Aristotelian) science: natural philosophy. After rendering this proposition initially plausible by noting frequent references to "nature" in (...) the _Muqaddima_, the paper discusses a number of parallels between natural philosophy and history as Ibn Khaldūn conceives it. Ultimately it is suggested that this method is legitimated insofar as history is for Ibn Khaldūn a study of human nature. (shrink)

Claims about consciousness in animals are often made in support of their moral standing. Peter Carruthers argues that there is no fact of the matter about animal consciousness and it is of no scientific or ethical significance. Sympathy for an animal can be grounded in its mental states, but should not rely on assumptions about its consciousness.

How can phenomenal consciousness exist as an integral part of a physical universe? How can the technicolour phenomenology of our inner lives be created out of the complex neural activities of our brains? Many have despaired of finding answers to these questions; and many have claimed that human consciousness is inherently mysterious. Peter Carruthers argues, on the contrary, that the subjective feel of our experience is fully explicable in naturalistic terms. Drawing on a variety of interdisciplinary resources, he develops (...) and defends a novel account in terms of higher-order thought. He shows that this can explain away some of the more extravagant claims made about phenomenal consciousness, while substantively explaining the key subjectivity of our experience. Written with characteristic clarity and directness, and surveying a wide range of extant theories, this book is essential reading for all those within philosophy and psychology interested in the problem of consciousness. (shrink)

This work describes the concept of bond order. It shows that covalent bond energy is correlated to bond order. Simple expressions which included bond order are introduced to calculate bond energies of homo-nuclear and hetero-nuclear bonds. Calculated values of bond energies are compared with literature values and show there is very good agreement between and calculated and experimental values in the vast majority of cases. Bond order reveals the strength of a bond and shows the number of bonds in both (...) homo-nuclear and hetero-nuclear covalent bonds. (shrink)

Can phenomenal consciousness be given a reductive natural explanation? Exponents of an ‘explanatory gap’ between physical, functional and intentional facts, on the one hand, and the facts of phenomenal consciousness, on the other, argue that there are reasons of principle why phenomenal consciousness cannot be reductively explained: Jackson (1982), (1986); Levine (1983), (1993), (2001); McGinn (1991); Sturgeon (1994), (2000); Chalmers (1996), (1999). Some of these writers claim that the existence of such a gap would warrant a belief in some form (...) of ontological dualism (Jackson, 1982; Chalmers, 1996), whereas others argue that no such entailment holds (Levine, 1983; McGinn, 1991; Sturgeon, 1994). In the other main camp, there are people who argue that a reductive explanation of phenomenal consciousness is possible in principle (Block and Stalnaker, 1999), and yet others who claim, moreover, to have provided such an explanation in practice (Dennett, 1991; Dretske, 1995; Tye, 1995,2000; Lycan, 1996; Carruthers, 2000). (shrink)

Die Methode der Dialektik im modernen Sinne stammt von Hegel. Woher aber hat er diese Methode bezogen? Die nachfolgende Theorie heisst: Hegel logisiert das trinitarische Geheimnis Gottes (Mythos) und stilisiert dieses zur Weltformel, die fur Marx bis Marcuse und Sartre gleichermassen verbindlich ist.".