These essays examine how some perennial problems in philosophy and religion are significant for understanding contemporary life. Issues discussed include: capitalism; public philosophy; man-made mass death; psychoanalysis; feminism; fundamentalism; and the desire to be happy.

We defend Joseph Melia's thesis that the role of mathematics in scientific theory is to 'index' quantities, and that even if mathematics is indispensable to scientific explanations of concrete phenomena, it does not explain any of those phenomena. This thesis is defended against objections by Mark Colyvan and Alan Baker.

This article compares and contrasts Hans Kelsen's concept of normative imputation, in the Lecture Course of 1926, with the concepts of peripheral and central imputation, in The Pure Theory of Law of 1934. In this process, a wider and more significant distinction is revealed within the development of Hans Kelsen's theory of positive law. This distinction represents a shift in Kelsen's philosophical allegiance from the Neo‐Kantianism of Windelband to that of Cohen. This, in turn, reflects a broader disengagement of The (...) Pure Theory of Law from the more direct connection with a political project of a civitas maxima envisaged by the Lecture Course. (shrink)

Haworth has set out in his book to expound and provide a preliminary defence of the idea that the pursuit of human autonomy represents our highest good. He begins by telling us that autonomism is characteristic of "one who has individuated himself vividly" and who possesses independence and self-control, who acts intentionally and with competence. These things are not only qualities of individual acts, but of a person's life as a whole.

Glenn Langford; Teaching as a Social Practice: a reply to S. B. Brooke-Norris, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 20, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 235–24.

Glenn Langford; Teaching as a Social Practice: a reply to S. B. Brooke-Norris, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 20, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 235–24.

We defend Joseph Melia's thesis that the role of mathematics in scientific theory is to ‘index’ quantities, and that even if mathematics is indispensable to scientific explanations of concrete phenomena, it does not explain any of those phenomena. This thesis is defended against objections by Mark Colyvan and Alan Baker.

Hans Kelsen and Max Weber are conventionally understood as initiators not only of two distinct and opposing processes of concept formation, but also of two discrete and contrasting theoretical frameworks for the study of law. _The Foundation of the Juridical-Political: Concept Formation in Hans Kelsen and Max Weber _places the conventional understanding of the theoretical relationship between the work of Kelsen and Weber into question. Focusing on the theoretical foundations of Kelsen’s legal positivism and Weber’s sociology of law, and guided (...) by the conceptual frame of the juridico-political, the contributors to this interdisciplinary volume explore convergences and divergences in the approach and stance of Kelsen and Weber to law, the State, political science, modernity, legal rationality, legal theory, sociology of law, authority, legitimacy and legality. The chapters comprising _The Foundation of the Juridical-Political _uncover complexities within as well as between the theoretical and methodological principles of Kelsen and Weber and, thereby, challenge the enduring division between legal positivism and the sociology of law in contemporary discourse. (shrink)

Hans Kelsen and Max Weber are conventionally understood as the original proponents of two distinct and opposed processes of concept formation generating two separate and contrasting theoretical frameworks for the study of law. _The Reconstruction of the Juridico-Political: Affinity and Divergence in Hans Kelsen and Max Weber__ _contests the conventional understanding of the theoretical relationship between Kelsen’s legal positivism and Weber’s sociology of law. Utilising the conceptual frame of the juridico-political, the contributors to this interdisciplinary volume analyse central points of (...) affinity and divergence in the work of these two influential figures. Thus, the chapters collected in _The Reconstruction of the Juridico-Political _offer a comprehensive reconsideration of these affinities and divergences, through a comparison of their respective reconstruction of the notions of democracy, the State, legal rights and the character of law. From this reconsideration a more complex understanding of their theoretical relationship emerges combined with a renewed emphasis upon the continued contemporary relevance of the work of Kelsen and Weber. (shrink)

This paper considers two strategies for undermining indispensability arguments for mathematical Platonism. We defend one strategy (the Trivial Strategy) against a criticism by Joseph Melia. In particular, we argue that the key example Melia uses against the Trivial Strategy fails. We then criticize Melia’s chosen strategy (the Weaseling Strategy.) The Weaseling Strategy attempts to show that it is not always inconsistent or irrational knowingly to assert p and deny an implication of p . We argue that Melia’s case for this (...) strategy fails. (shrink)

David Lewis's cohabitation theory suffered damaging criticism from Derek Parfit. Though many have defended versions of Lewis's theory Parfit's criticism has not been answered. This paper shows how to defend the cohabitation theory against Parfit's criticism.

This article compares and contrasts Hans Kelsen's concept of normative imputation, in the Lecture Course of 1926, with the concepts of peripheral and central imputation, in The Pure Theory of Law of 1934. In this process, a wider and more significant distinction is revealed within the development of Hans Kelsen's theory of positive law. This distinction represents a shift in Kelsen's philosophical allegiance from the Neo-Kantianism of Windelband to that of Cohen. This, in turn, reflects a broader disengagement of The (...) Pure Theory of Law from the more direct connection with a political project of a civitas maxima envisaged by the Lecture Course. (shrink)

Roberto Esposito: Law, Community and the Political provides an introduction to this increasingly influentialItalian theorist'sreconceptualisation ofthe relationship between law and community. Focusing primarily on Esposito's worksCatgories de l'Impolitique, Communitas and Bos, andBiopolitics and Philosophy, his work, it is argued, is animated by an abiding concern with the question of the political as that which remains unthought in the tradition of modern and contemporary political philosophy. Esposito's fundamental rethinking of the notion of community thereby breaks with the existing framework of political (...) and legal philosophy; critiquing its traditions and, in the process, rethinking the very form of critique. As the first monograph length study of Esposito in English, Roberto Esposito: Law, Community and the Politicalwill be of considerable interest to those with interests in contemporarylegal, political and philosophical thought. (shrink)

The threshold problem for knowledge is the problem of saying where the threshold for knowledge lies in various cases and explaining why it lies there rather than elsewhere. Pragmatic encroachment is the idea that the knowledge-threshold is sensitive to practical factors. The latter idea seems to help us make progress on the former problem. However, Jessica Brown has argued that appearances are deceiving in this case: the threshold problem is still a thorny one even for those who accept pragmatic encroachment. (...) This paper takes a look at Brown’s arguments and at Michael Hannon’s recent attempt to respond to them. Hannon’s response is shown to face serious difficulties and a novel alternative response to Brown is provided. The paper also takes up an issue Brown raises very briefly concerning cases in which a proposition is relevant to multiple stakes which a subject faces at a given time. It turns out that there is a good deal more to be said about how defenders of pragmatic encroachment should try to handle such cases than Brown permits. (shrink)

_Hans Kelsen and the Natural Law Tradition_ provides the first sustained examination of Hans Kelsen’s critical engagement, itself founded upon a distinctive theory of legal positivism, with the Natural Law Tradition.

André Gallois (1998) attempts to defend the occasional identity thesis (OIT), the thesis that objects which are distinct at one time may nonetheless be identical at another time, in the face of two influential lines of argument against it. One argument involves Kripke’s (1971) notion of rigid designation and the other, Leibniz’s law (affirming the indiscernibility of identicals). It is reasonable for advocates of (OIT) to question the picture of rigid designation and the version of Leibniz’s law that these arguments (...) employ, but, the problem is, some form of rigidity is required for one to affirm the occasional identity of objects, and some (restricted) version of Leibniz’s law must be conceded if identity really is involved. Gallois accordingly recommends an account of rigidity and a version of Leibniz’s law to this end.1 We find Gallois’ proposals entirely inadequate to their task. We aim in this paper is to explicate and defend an alternative approach for occasional identity theorists. We do not seek to defend (OIT) per se; our aim, rather, is simply to show that the arguments from rigid designation and Leibniz’s law are inconclusive. Let’s begin with an outline of these arguments. (shrink)

Faring poorly by international standards, out-of-home childcare in Canada is often described as ‘in crisis’. This study addresses how national childcare movement actors, who are overwhelmingly women, have discursively constructed their collective identity during two contrasting political climates. Data comprise publically available media releases produced in 2005 and 2008 by the Child Care Advocacy Association of Canada, a national grassroots childcare social movement organization. Guided by Fairclough's overarching framework for critical discourse analysis and Koller's approach to analysing collective identity through (...) CDA, the discursive mechanisms of CCAAC movement actors have employed in relation to their collective identity construction are identified and explored. Finally, whether or not these mechanisms may have been strategic is explored. (shrink)

Advocates of occasional identity have two ways of interpreting putative cases of fission and fusion. One way—we call it the Creative view—takes fission to involve an object really dividing (or being replicated), thereby creating objects which would not otherwise have existed. The more ontologically parsimonious way takes fission to involve merely the ‘separation’ of objects that were identical before: strictly speaking, no object actually divides or is replicated, no new objects are created. In this paper we recommend the Creative approach (...) as the best way of dealing with certain problem cases involving teletransportation. Our considerations yield novel takes on psychological-continuity theories of personal identity and survival, and on the puzzle of Theseus' ship. (shrink)

In ‘The Turning Point in Philosophy’ Moritz Schlick expressed the following view: ‘Everything is knowable which can be expressed, and this is the total subject matter concerning which meaningful questions can be raised. There are consequently no questions which are in principle unanswerable, no problems which are in principle insoluble.’ I will refer to this as Schlick's principle, although it is shared by many others. What it amounts to is the view that all meaningful questions can be answered by rational (...) procedures, that is by logical argument or appeal to evidence. It is this view which I wish to challenge, at the same time relating what I have to say to belief in God. For it follows from Schlick's principle that provided the question ‘Does God exist?’ can be meaningfully asked, it is in principle possible to answer it either affirmatively or negatively. Having done so, we would then know, and not merely believe, that God does or does not exist. I will try to show that provided the question ‘Does God exist?’ can be meaningfully asked, no such consequence need be taken to follow. (shrink)

Roache has raised a new objection to cohabitation theories of personal fission. According to these theories, in cases of personal fission the pre-fission body is cohabited by (at least) two persons. She claims such cohabitants cannot be concerned for their survival in the way ordinary non-cohabitants can. I will offer criticism of Roache’s argument and conclude she doesn’t establish this claim.

Tom Gibson: False Evidence Appearing Real features forty-four photographs, an interview with Gibson, and critical commentary. Gibson's photographs depict cities and their inhabitants in Europe, Canada, and the United States. In many images, the city streets are stages on which pedestrians are the actors and urban artifacts like mannequins, graffiti, billboards, and statues are the props. In others, Gibson focuses on the reactions of his human subjects by turning the camera on passersby who observe him at work.