Heidegger’s early project aims to articulate the form of our being as Dasein, and he says that for this usually hidden form to become accessible, a certain kind of “mood” is required of the philosopher. This “ground-mood” he identifies in Sein und Zeit as anxiety. He also, however, presents anxiety as a mood anyone, philosopher or not, experiences when there is some significant breakdown in the living of her life. I argue here that there are largely unrecognized problems with this (...) conflation of methodological and “existential” moods, but that there is nevertheless a compelling methodological account of anxiety that can be teased apart from the existentialist one: methodologically understood, anxiety is a self-affected state of the ontologist, one that results from her asking ontological questions of herself, and, by imagining crisis or breakdown, withdrawing from her determinate situation to a position where she can see the form of her own activity as questioner and imaginer. I draw out some consequences this has for how we should understand the place of ontological understanding in living one’s life, and I conclude by briefly showing how my reading helps us see Heidegger as developing key elements in the work of Descartes and Kant. (shrink)

Against the background of a recent exchange between Cristina Lafont and Hubert Dreyfus, I argue that Heidegger's method of ?formal indication? is at the heart of his attempt in Sein und Zeit to answer ?the ontological question of the being of the ?sum?? (SZ, p. 46). This method works reflexively, by picking out certain essential features of one's first-person singular being at the outset of its investigation that are implicit in the question ?what is it to be the entity I (...) am?? On the basis of these features, various further a priori, ontological structures (care and temporality) that constitute one as a first-person singular entity then become accessible. Formal indication is thus formal in two senses: it officially designates or signals certain first-person singular phenomena as the topic of investigation, and it picks out features which define the ontological form of the entity in question. It is thereby the method by which a legitimately transcendental account of our being may be begun to be generated by each of us from out of our factical, immanent existence. (shrink)

Abstract: Heidegger's Sein und Zeit (SZ) is commonly viewed as one of the 20th century's great anti-Cartesian works, usually because of its attack on the epistemology-driven dualism and mentalism of modern philosophy of mind or its apparent effort to ‘de-center the subject’ in order to privilege being or sociality over the individual. Most who stress one or other of these anti-Cartesian aspects of SZ, however, pay little attention to Heidegger's own direct engagement with Descartes, apart from the compressed discussion in (...) SZ§§19–21. I here show through a careful reading of Heidegger's lectures on Descartes from the years immediately preceding SZ that, while he has sharp criticisms of Descartes and certain ‘Cartesian’ aspects of modern philosophy along the lines commonly recognized, he also aims to disclose what he calls the ‘positive possibilities’ in Descartes and the philosophy he inspired. I detail a number of these and then show that they force us to see Heidegger's own early project as largely unconcerned with dualism and mentalism per se, and much more with questions of the philosophical methodology that gives rise to them. Moreover, I show that a careful reading of Heidegger's treatment of the cogito makes clear that he is no serious way attempting to ‘de-center the subject’ and that the fundamental question of the ‘analytic of Dasein’ is one that takes Descartes as an immediate jumping off point: how can I articulate what I understand myself to be as the general kind of entity I am, and on what besides me does my being depend? (shrink)

I begin with a brief exposition of what is positive in Haugeland's interpretation of Heidegger. At the same time, I show how Haugeland subtly shifts the ground so as to make it possible to read into the texts his own idea that being is the entity-beholden, variable, normative basis for ways of life. I then argue that what Heidegger himself says about the being of available (zuhanden) entities, i.e., things of use or equipment (Zeug), doesn’t fit with Haugeland’s normativity-oriented account. (...) I develop this argument further through a look at Heidegger’s treatment of occurrent (vorhanden) nature as he elaborates that in his reading of Kant. This allows us to see how Heidegger follows Kant in thinking of the forms of being as spontaneous but non-arbitrary creations we produce for ourselves via what Kant called imagination, which activity Heidegger takes to be the self-temporalizing of Dasein identified but only opaquely described in SZ. From there, I show how we might generalize from Heidegger’s Kant’s treatment of the occurrent to a broader account in which other regional understandings of being, including that of the available, may also be understood as emerging from our temporalizing/imaginative activity. This shows what Heidegger’s overall project of fundamental ontology looks like, and how it could be completed in a way he himself didn't, if an understanding of being is an understanding of forms not norms. (shrink)

Cristina Lafont's recent reading of Heidegger offers a powerful formulation of the widespread view that once one recognizes our `facticity' and the role of language in shaping it, there is no room left to talk about transcendental structures of meaning or experience. In this article I challenge this view. I argue that Lafont inaccurately conflates what Heidegger calls our `understanding of being' with that which language discloses. In order to show that the philosophical motivation for this conflation is unsound, I (...) also argue that Lafont's own positive theory of meaning itself tacitly assumes a distinction between factical and transcendental, and so rests on exactly what she finds problematic in Heidegger. This still leaves a puzzle as to how factical individuals are actually able to grasp anything transcendental, so I conclude by sketching Heidegger's method of `formal indication', which is meant to show precisely how this can be done. (shrink)

John Haugeland aimed throughout his career to determine what it is for an entity to count as having intelligence or thought, and at each stage he developed the idea from the phenomenological tradition that genuine thought requires intentionality. His most mature essay to do this, “Authentic Intentionality,” shows how the intentional directedness of thought requires that thinkers understand themselves as responsive to entities they think about, that they be committed to maintaining the socially shared forms of understanding of those entities, (...) and yet that they be self-critically open to the possibility of needing to revise or reject those forms of understanding. In this essay I argue that, while Haugeland’s account of intentionality sheds much light on empirical thought (thought directed at different kinds of things in the world), it doesn’t address what it takes for thought to intend or think its own form—and so it fails to describe the kind of transcendental thought of which the account itself is an instance. Building on Haugeland’s own rich picture of self-understanding, I show how we can remedy this omission, and that when we do, we see that transcendental thought is performed by each of us as concrete individuals and yet takes place from a perspective outside of, and thus free from, the normative demands and existential situations of our empirical lives. It is thus of at most therapeutic use in them, even as it is valuable for its own sake as an exercise of our finite freedom. (shrink)

With the exception of solidity, Locke's list of primary qualities matches his list of ideas of "divers senses," that is, ideas that are perceived in multiple sensory modalities. I argue that for these ideas, the fact that they are robust in our sensory experience in a way that single-modality ideas are not provides the main reason for taking them to be ideas of primary qualities. Solidity, however, is taken as primary because it is ineliminable from experience in a way that (...) other ideas are not, and because the multiply-sensed ideas are all tied to it. Since solidity is experienced through touch, Locke is thus offering us an account of primary quality perception grounded in our embodied interaction with the world. (shrink)

This book provides a systematic reading of Martin Heidegger’s project of “fundamental ontology,” which he initially presented in Being and Time (1927) and developed further in his work on Kant. It shows our understanding of being to be that of a small set of a priori, temporally inflected, “categorial” forms that articulate what, how, and whether things can be. -/- As selves bound to and bounded by the world within which we seek to answer the question of how to live, (...) we imaginatively generate these forms in order to open ourselves up to those intra-worldly entities which determinately instantiate them. This makes us, as selves, the source and unifying ground of being. But this ground is hidden from us – until we do fundamental ontology. In showing how Heidegger develops these ideas, the author challenges key elements of the anti-Cartesian framework that most readers bring to his texts, arguing that his Kantian account of being has its roots in the anti-empiricism and Augustinianism of Descartes, and that his project relies implicitly on an essentially Cartesian “meditational” method of reflective self-engagement that allows being to be brought to light. He also argues against the widespread tendency to see Heidegger as presenting the basic forms of being as in any way normative, from which he concludes, partially against Heidegger himself, that fundamental ontology is, while profound and worth pursuing for its own sake, inert with respect to the question of how to live. (shrink)

One of the characteristics that define us as Dasein, according to Heidegger, is that our being is at issue for us. Most readers interpret this to mean that we each, as individuals situated in the world with others, face the questions of who, how, and whether to be within our unique situations. Yet what Heidegger identifies as Dasein’s being is a general structure—care—that is the same for all individuals. Adapting and modifying John Haugeland’s account of understanding as projecting entities upon (...) their constitutive ontological possibilities, I argue that it is this general, ontological structure that Heidegger means to say is at issue for us, and that understanding ourselves in terms of it is a condition of possibility of understanding ourselves as particular individuals faced with the questions of who, how, and whether to be in our respective situations. I then show how this allows us to begin to address Heidegger’s view of the role philosophy plays in an individual’s existence as it makes explicit the ontological structure which she normally only tacitly understands. (shrink)

Surgeons have an ethical obligation to ensure all patients, regardless of their personal characteristics, receive the same quality of care. Established surgeons also have an obligation to ensure equal treatment for their peers and for those who would like to join the field. The commitment to ethical hiring and working standards entails making certain all individuals have the same opportunities free from discriminatory practices. The world of business has long realized the positive implications of having a diverse and inclusive workforce. (...) Studies have shown a positive correlation between increased racial and gender diversity and company performance. Diversity can lead to an increase in knowledge by sharing ideas with individuals who come from different life experiences and breakdown cultural barriers. We have already begun to see the impact of ignoring the importance of diversity within healthcare, including surgery. Healthcare disparities are defined by the NIH as “differences in the incidence, prevalence, mortality, and burden of diseases and other adverse health conditions that exist among specific population groups.” Healthcare disparities persist despite decades acknowledging their existence, and they are pernicious and prevalent in surgery. One proposed method to help reduce or eliminate healthcare disparities is to increase the diversity of the workforce treating the patients, which would in turn reduce potential bias the patients face in the healthcare setting. Implicit bias can play a key role in interactions with patients and colleagues and needs to be explored on an individual basis. Cultural competence training can also provide surgeons the ability to effectively communicate with not only a diverse population of patients but also a diverse surgical workforce. All surgeons regardless of their role can have a positive impact on diversity as it relates to patient care and the surgical workforce. (shrink)

A response to Lee Basham's 'The Need for Accountable Witnesses: A Reply to Dentith'.

Belief in conspiracy theories is typically considered irrational, and as a consequence of this, conspiracy theorists––those who dare believe some conspiracy theory––have been charged with a variety of epistemic or psychological failings. Yet recent philosophical work has challenged the view that belief in conspiracy theories should be considered as typically irrational. By performing an intra-group analysis of those people we call “conspiracy theorists”, we find that the problematic traits commonly ascribed to the general group of conspiracy theorists turn out to (...) be merely a set of stereotypical behaviours and thought patterns associated with a purported subset of that group. If we understand that the supposed prob- lem of belief in conspiracy theories is centred on the beliefs of this purported sub- set––the conspiracists––then we can reconcile the recent philosophical contribu- tions to the wider academic debate on the rationality of belief in conspiracy theories. (shrink)

Stephen Phillips has devoted his career to excavating some of the most valuable gems of Indian philosophy and bringing them into conversation with contemporary thought. This volume honors him and follows his lead by continuing his lifelong project: faithfully interpreting Sanskrit texts to think along with their authors about ideas that still perplex us today. -/- It features ten new essays focusing on epistemology, logic, and metaphysics from outstanding philosophers and scholars of Sanskrit philosophy, with contributions varying in methodology: both (...) historical and cross-cultural. Further, in addition to essays on Nyāya and Advaita Vedānta, it engages with Navya-Nyāya (“new Nyāya”), an important but understudied part of Indian philosophy. Through these investigations, in conversation with Phillips's groundbreaking work, the contributors show the value of cross-cultural engagement for philosophical progress. -/- The Vindication of the World will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in Indian philosophy, comparative philosophy, and, more generally, epistemology, logic, and metaphysics. (shrink)

In this article, we focus on a particular kind of emotional impact of the pandemic, namely the phenomenology of the experience of moral injury in healthcare professionals. Drawing on Weber's reflections in his lecture Politics as a Vocation and data from the Experiences of Social Distancing during the COVID-19 Pandemic Survey, we analyse responses from healthcare professionals which show the experiences of burnout, sense of frustration and impotence, and how these affect clinicians’ emotional state. We argue that this may relate (...) to the ethical conflicts they experience when they are forced to make clinical decisions where there are no optimal outcomes, and how in turn that impacts on their own emotional state. We then further examine the notion of ‘burnout’ and the phenomenology of ‘moral injury’. Our argument is that these experiences of moral injury across a range of clinicians during the pandemic may be more prevalent and long-standing in psychiatry and mental health than in other areas of healthcare, where ethically difficult decisions and resource constraints are common outside times of crisis. Hence, in these clinical arenas, moral injury and the phenomenology of emotional changes may be independent of the pandemic. The insights gained during the pandemic may provide wider insights into the challenges of developing services and training the workforce to provide appropriate mental health care. (shrink)

The contributors to this volume argue that whilst there is a commonplace superstition conspiracy theories are examples of bad beliefs (and that the kind of people who believe conspiracy theories are typically irrational), many conspiracy theories are rational to believe: the members of the Dewey Commission were right to say that the Moscow Trials of the 1930s were a sham; Woodward and Bernstein were correct to think that Nixon was complicit in the conspiracy to deny any wrongdoing in the Watergate (...) Hotel break in; and if we either accept the terrorist events of 9/11 were committed by Al-Qaeda, or that the Bush Administration was responsible, then it seems we are endorsing some theory about a conspiracy to commit an act of terror on American soil. As such, there is no reason to reject conspiracy theories sui generis. This volume challenges the prima facie that conspiracy theories are irrational beliefs, arguing that we should treat conspiracy theories and the phenomena of conspiracy theories seriously. It presents fresh perspectives from the wider philosophical, sociological and psychological community on what is becoming an issue of increasing relevance in our time. (shrink)

Conspiracy theories are typically thought to be examples of irrational beliefs, and thus unlikely to be warranted. However, recent work in Philosophy has challenged the claim that belief in conspiracy theories is irrational, showing that in a range of cases, belief in conspiracy theories is warranted. However, it is still often said that conspiracy theories are unlikely relative to non-conspiratorial explanations which account for the same phenomena. However, such arguments turn out to rest upon how we define what gets counted (...) both as a ‘conspiracy’ and a ‘conspiracy theory’, and such arguments rest upon shaky assumptions. It turns out that it is not clear that conspiracy theories are prima facie unlikely, and so the claim that such theories do not typically appear in our accounts of the best explanations for particular kinds of events needs to be reevaluated. (shrink)

History, Philosophy and Science Teaching argues that science teaching and science teacher education can be improved if teachers know something of the history and philosophy of science and if these topics are included in the science curriculum. The history and philosophy of science have important roles in many of the theoretical issues that science educators need to address: the goals of science education; what constitutes an appropriate science curriculum for all students; how science should be taught in traditional cultures; what (...) integrated science is; how scientific literacy can be promoted; and the conflict which can occur between science curriculum and deep-seated religious or cultural values and knowledge. In part, answers to these questions hinge on views about the nature of science, views that are best informed by historical and philosophical study. Outlining the history of liberal, or contextual, approaches to the teaching of science, Michael Matthews elaborates contemporary curriculum developments that explicitly address questions about the nature and the history of science. He provides examples of classroom teaching and develops useful arguments on constructivism, multicultural science education and teacher education. The book will appeal to school and university science teachers, educators of science teachers, and historians and philosophers of science. (shrink)

The contemporary methodological debate about justice has centered around a dispute about the value of so-called ideal theory. I argue that justice performs a social-guiding function, which explains how people should respond to their limited and fallible abilities to realize justice institutionally. My argument helps to re-orientate the contemporary methodological debate. The obvious disagreement between many prominent supporters and skeptics of ideal theory obscures the fact that they are united by a false assumption: the practical value of justice exclusively consists (...) of its institution-guiding function. To capture the overlooked social-guiding function, a richer normative theory of justice is required; I show how such a theory can be supplied by “ideal-transitional” principles. (shrink)

Schuklenk and van de Vathorst's paper is a very welcome addition to the literature on the assisted dying debate and will be of great interest to clinicians working in the field of mental health.1 Many psychiatrists will have had patients who have asked them to allow them to die, to desist in their efforts to prevent their suicide, and one of us has had personal experience, outside of professional life, of being asked to aid in someone's attempt to end their (...) life in the context of an episode of mood disorder. The person with depression asking professionals, friends and family members to aid them in ending their life is a very real phenomenon. In their discussion, Schuklenk and van de Vathorst's paper uses two principles that we endorse and add weight to their argument: namely, the reality of suffering in depression and the parity of mental and physical illness. Indeed, the case Schuklenk and van de Vathorst make is a strong one and our commentary will focus on the premise of the argument around choosing death and some empirical clarification about competence in depression and the nature of treatment-resistant depression (TRD) and its prognosis. The conceptual concern we wish to discuss in relation to assisted dying, endorsed by the state and legislature, is not linked to any moral or religious concern, or even on grounds related to ‘slippery slope’ or ‘abuse’ arguments. Rather the worry is how one could operationalise decisions around assisted dying as based on competence and capacity and view such decisions as rational. I think this concern is not limited to depressive illness, but to all decisions regarding choosing non-existence. Schuklenk and van de Vathorst offer the following useful criteria to regulate assisted suicide:1. (shrink)

A reply to Patrick Stokes' “Between Generalism and Particularism About Conspiracy Theory".

The first edition of The Scientific Background to Modern Philosophy took the dialogue of science and philosophy from Aristotle through to Newton. This second edition adds eight chapters, taking the dialogue through the Enlightenment and up to Darwin. This anthology is an attempt to help bridge the gap between the history of science and the history of philosophy.

Brings together and interprets previously hard-to-find texts, new translations and passages detailing the interplay between philosophy and psychopathology.

In the literature on conspiracy theories, the least contentious part of the academic discourse would appear to be what we mean by a “conspiracy”: a secretive plot between two or more people toward some end. Yet what, exactly, is the connection between something being a conspiracy and it being secret? Is it possible to conspire without also engaging in secretive behavior? To dissect the role of secrecy in con- spiracies – and thus contribute to the larger debate on the epistemology (...) of conspir- acy theories – we dene the concepts of “conspiracy,” “conspirator,” and “secret,” and argue that while conspirators might typically be thought to commit to keeping secrets once their conspiracy is underway, the idea that conspiracies are necessarily secretive to start with is not as obvious as previously thought. (shrink)

Since the nineteenth century, hominid palaeontology has offered critical information about prehistoric humans and evidence for human evolution. Human fossils discovered at a time when there was growing agreement that humans existed during the Ice Age became especially significant but also controversial. This paper argues that the techniques used to study human fossils from the 1850s to the 1870s and the way that these specimens were interpreted owed much to the anthropological examination of Stone, Bronze, and Iron Age skeletons retrieved (...) by archaeologists from prehistoric tombs throughout Europe. What emerged was the idea that a succession of distinct human races, which were identified using techniques such as craniometry, had occupied and migrated into Europe beginning in the Ice Age and continuing into the historic period. This marks a phase in the history of human palaeontology that gradually gave way to a science of palaeoanthropology that viewed hominid fossils more from the perspective of evolutionary theory and hominid phylogeny. (shrink)

A reply to Gérald Bronner, Véronique Campion-Vincent, Sylvain Delouvée, Sebastian Dieguez, Nicolas Gauvrit, Anthony Lantian, and Pascal Wagner-Egger's piece, '“They” Respond: Comments on Basham et al.’s “Social Science’s Conspiracy-Theory Panic: Now They Want to Cure Everyone”.

This book provides a richly documented account of the historical, cultural, philosophical and practical dimensions of feng shui. It argues that where feng shui is entrenched educational systems have a responsibility to examine its claims, and that this examination provides opportunities for students to better learn about the key features of the nature of science, the demarcation of science and non-science, the characteristics of pseudoscience, and the engagement of science with culture and worldviews. The arguments presented for feng shui being (...) a pseudoscience can be marshalled when considering a whole range of comparable beliefs and the educational benefit of their appraisal. Feng shui is a deeply-entrenched, three-millennia-old system of Asian beliefs and practices about nature, architecture, health, and divination that has garnered a growing presence outside of Asia. It is part of a comprehensive and ancient worldview built around belief in chi the putative universal energy or life-force that animates all existence, the cosmos, the solar system, the earth, and human bodies. Harmonious living requires building in accord with local chi streams; good health requires replenishment and manipulation of internal chi flow; and a beneficent afterlife is enhanced when buried in conformity with chi directions. Traditional Chinese Medicine is based on the proper manipulation of internal chi by acupuncture, tai-chi and qigong exercise, and herbal dietary supplements. Matthews has produced another tour de force that will repay close study by students, scientists, and all those concerned to understand science, culture, and the science/culture nexus. Harvey Siegel, Philosophy, University of Miami, USA With great erudition and even greater fluidity of style, Matthews introduces us to this now-world-wide belief system. Michael Ruse, Philosophy, Florida State University, USA The book is one of the best research works published on Feng Shui. Wang Youjun, Philosophy, Shanghai Normal University, China The history is fascinating. The analysis makes an important contribution to science literature. James Alcock, Psychology, York University, Canada This book provides an in-depth study of Feng Shui in different periods, considering its philosophical, historical and educational dimensions; especially from a perspective of the ‘demarcation problem’ between science and pseudoscience. Yao Dazhi, Chinese Academy of Sciences, China. (shrink)

From the early modern period, Western epistemologists have often been concerned with a rigorous notion of epistemic justification, epitomized in the work of Descartes: properly held beliefs require insulation from extreme skepticism. To the degree that veridical cognitive states may be indistinguishable from non-veridical states, apparently veridical states cannot enjoy high-grade positive epistemic status. Therefore, a good believer begins from what are taken to be neutral, subjective experiences and reasons outward—hopefully identifying the kinds of appearances that properly link up to (...) the world and those that do not. Good beliefs, beliefs that are justified (warranted, etc.), are those that a believer has .. (shrink)

This article poses a challenge to the assumption that all conceptions of the imago Dei are practical, meaning that they can coherently provide a guide for human action. The article identifies three criteria for practicality and applies them to two accounts of the imago, one in the thought of the twentieth-century theologian Helmut Thielicke, the other in the Roman Catholic tradition. It argues that Thielicke’s account of the imago, which forms the basis for what he calls ‘alien dignity’, fails to (...) meet the criteria of practicality, and thus cannot serve as an adequate guide for action. In contrast, the account of the imago and human dignity in the Roman Catholic tradition does meet the criteria. This comparison, the article concludes, ultimately helps provide a means of assessing diverse theological interpretations of the imago and their value for supporting a morally useful conception of human worth. (shrink)

Typical analyses of belief in conspiracy theories have it that identifying as a conspiracy theorist is irrational. However, given that we know conspiracies occur, and theories about said conspiracies can be warranted, should we really be scared of the locution 'I'm a conspiracy theorist...'?

"The greatest crisis of our times in a failure of the human imagination." -Editors The world is currently undergoing a period of unprecedented crises on virtually every front: economic, ecological, and humanitarian. It is starkly apparent that a shift is needed in our dominant structural systems - and that by addressing the collective thinking that has created and maintained these systems, scholars can do their part to catalyze such a shift. The interdisciplinary field known as the Anthropology of Consciousness offers (...) important insights for enacting this necessary shift. This book draws on the work of a group of diverse scholars to explore what the intersection of anthropology and consciousness studies can contribute to the "public turn" within anthropology and the academy in general. Its twelve chapters span disparate geographies and disciplinary frameworks, yet cohere in their focus on common themes such as imagination, empathy, agency, dialogue, and ethics. The answers to the question "So What? Now What?" differ for a linguistic anthropologist in the South Pacific, an environmental educator in Hawai'i, a grant-writing anthropologist serving a refugee agency in Portland, Oregon and the founder of a girls' school in Brazil. Nevertheless, they are united in the desire to reframe the anthropology of consciousness as an "anthropology of conscience," and this pioneering volume is the result. (shrink)

This imagined conversation between Sir Isaac Newton and the priestess Diotima examines the possible merits of reductionism in scientific inquiry, finding it of value both as a methodology for the simplification of scientific explanations and for the decisive elimination of metaphysically extravagant scientific hypotheses. However, the power and narrative appeal of reductionism renders its overuse a perennial danger. Science thus needs reductionism, but also needs reminding that its task is to explain natural phenomena, not to explain them away.

A reply to Patrick Stokes' 'Reluctance and Suspicion'—itself a reply to an early piece by myself replying to Stokes—in which I clarify what it is I intend when talking about how we should investigate conspiracy theories.

Much of classical Hindu thought has centered on the question of self: what is it, how does it relate to various features of the world, and how may we benefit by realizing its depths? Attempting to gain a conceptual foothold on selfhood, Hindu thinkers commonly suggest that its distinctive feature is consciousness (caitanya). Well-worn metaphors compare the self to light as its awareness illumines the world of knowable objects. Consciousness becomes a touchstone to recognize the presence of a self. A (...) rock is insentient, void of consciousness, and purely an object. Selves, however, are loci of awareness and thus subjects. Some schools, most notably classical Sāṁkhya and Advaita Vedānta, take this approach to its furthest conclusion: consciousness is not only unique to the self, but is the fundamental feature of selfhood. Other putative features of the self—feelings, memories, moral responsibility, and importantly, agency (kartṛtva)—are taken to be the impositions of insentient matter (prakṛti) or symptoms of primordial illusion (avidyā). Against this position, Nyāya defends a more robust notion of selfhood, placing qualities like desire, aversion, volition, and moral responsibility alongside cognition as the self’s distinctive qualities. These various aspects of selfhood come together neatly when we consider agency. An agent performs intentional actions under her volition, which is triggered by her own cognitive and affective states. Her volitional acts further generate moral consequences which she must bear, and which are, in the Indian context, embodied in the form of karmic merit and demerit. For Nyāya, agency is, therefore, a special expression of the self’s different capacities and potentialities, which coherently binds them together. Nyāya’s view is an important contribution to Indian theories of self as it is a counterpoint to what we may call exclusively cognitive accounts of selfhood in other influential Hindu schools, as noted above. The first half of this paper will consider Nyāya’s conception of agency in relation to selfhood. The second half will discuss Nyāya’s arguments with other Hindu schools—specifically Sāṁkhya—in support of the thesis that the self must be an agent as well as a knower. (shrink)

Despite the growing popularityof farmers' markets (FMs) across the UnitedStates, the experiences and perspectives offarmers who sell at markets have received verylittle research attention. This study describesthe views of 18 farmers from Upstate New Yorkon the importance of FMs as part of theirlifestyle and livelihood, the challenges theyface selling at markets, and their conceptionsof ideal FMs. Through in-depth, semi-structuredinterviews, farmers expressed economic andsocial motivations for selling at FMs; socialbenefits from interacting with customers; andthe challenges they faced as small-scalefarmers and sellers, (...) including extra-marketcompetition, uncooperative and problematicmarket vendors, rising farm input costs, andchanging consumer trends. Farmers alsodiscussed personal values associated withselling at FMs, such as pride in raising andmarketing one's own products, working togetherwith other farmer-vendors, and providingcustomers with honest information. Visions ofideal FMs were varied among farmers, but therewas general agreement that FMs should provide adiversity of products to attract customers andeducational opportunities for the public tolearn more about FMs and local produce. Theinterdependence of FM farmers was a majoremergent theme across interviews. Findingssuggested that market experiences of FMfarmers, including economic success, are notonly contingent on personal effort, but canalso be affected by the work of fellow vendors.Future research may look to further explore howFM farmers and other vendors interact ascooperative and competitive social and economicunits. At the community level, FM leadershipshould continue to focus on the experiences andperspectives of farmers and other marketvendors, in addition to identifying ways forenhancing cooperative FM enterprises. (shrink)

Plasticity of body representation fundamentally underpins human tool use. Recent studies have demonstrated remarkably complex plasticity of body representation in humans, showing that such plasticity (1) occurs flexibly across multiple time scales and (2) involves multiple body representations responding differently to tool use. Such findings reveal remarkable sophistication of body plasticity in humans, suggesting that Vaesen may overestimate the similarity of such mechanisms in humans and non-human primates.

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)

Western Kansas is one of the most important agricultural regions in the world. Most agricultural production in this semi-arid region depends on the consumption of nonrenewable groundwater from the High Plains Aquifer, which will be 70 % depleted by 2070. The problem of depletion has drawn significant attention from local citizens and policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels for at least 40 years, resulting in a variety of policies and institutions to manage groundwater from the aquifer as a (...) common pool resource. Yet depletion has persisted. We explain this conundrum as an outcome of a mismatch between the scale of resource management, which has become more intensively local, and the scale of resource exchange, which has rendered the High Plains Aquifer a global common pool resource. We then explain the deeper, structural origins of the management–exchange scale mismatch. Drawing on concepts from structural human ecology theory and empirical evidence from Southwest Kansas, we show that agriculture is predicated on local metabolic rift in the hydrological cycle that is exacerbated through ecological unequal exchange with higher-income, core areas beyond the region. We conclude by highlighting two key policies that, if implemented together, may lessen the deleterious effects of these structural dynamics and thus promote a more sustainable relationship between society and environment in this region and other water-scarce regions that are net-exporters of groundwater. (shrink)

This intelligent and often subtle introduction to rationalist metaphysics focuses on the development of the concept of substance in Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. After briefly reviewing the Aristotelian background in the introduction, Woolhouse spends the first three chapters presenting the broad outlines of each thinker’s account of substance. These are followed by three chapters devoted more specifically to the metaphysics of extended substance and to foundational issues in early modern physics. Next come two chapters on thinking substance and its relation (...) to extended substance, and finally a chapter on the relation between created and uncreated substance, which Woolhouse describes as "an organizing centre of the whole book". (shrink)

Various authors have argued that progress in the neurocognitive and neuropsychiatric sciences might threaten the commonsense understanding of how the mind generates behavior, and, as a consequence, it might also threaten the commonsense ways of attributing moral responsibility, if not the very notion of moral responsibility. In the case of actions that result in undesirable outcomes, the commonsense conception—which is reflected in sophisticated ways in the legal conception—tells us that there are circumstances in which the agent is entirely and fully (...) responsible for the bad outcome and circumstances in which the agent is not at all responsible for the bad outcome. (shrink)