This paper examines several passages in which Nietzsche considers burgeoning Christianity’s relationship to the secretive “mystery cults” that flourished alongside the official state religions of ancient Rome. The purpose of this paper is four-fold. i) To shed light on an unexplored aspect of Nietzsche’s philosophy. ii) To explore the intellectual reality behind some of his specific charges concerning Pauline Christianity’s indebtedness to the ancient Mithras cult. iii) To assess the validity of several of Nietzsche’s accusations in this area in light (...) of more recent scholarship. iv) To contrast the middle-period Nietzsche’s treatment of this theme with several of his end-of-career ruminations. I make the case that while some of his later claims concerning this topic are indeed exaggerated, they nonetheless reveal remarkable insight into a fascinating aspect of late antiquity. (shrink)
This issue includes four papers originally presented to the North American Nietzsche Society at group sessions of the April 2007 Central Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association in Chicago. The program committee selected these papers by blind review from among responses to its annual call for papers. In Session I, chaired by Jacqueline Scott (Loyola University Chicago), MorganRempel, now Associate Professor at the University of Southern Mississippi, presented a reading of Daybreak 72, and Bryan Finken, currently (...) teaching at the University of Colorado at Denver, presented his examination of a peculiar type of genetic fallacy against which Nietzsche struggles, especially in his earlier published .. (shrink)
Models as Mediators discusses the ways in which models function in modern science, particularly in the fields of physics and economics. Models play a variety of roles in the sciences: they are used in the development, exploration and application of theories and in measurement methods. They also provide instruments for using scientific concepts and principles to intervene in the world. The editors provide a framework which covers the construction and function of scientific models, and explore the ways in which they (...) enable us to learn about both theories and the world. The contributors to the volume offer their own individual theoretical perspectives to cover a wide range of examples of modelling, from physics, economics and chemistry. These papers provide ideal case-study material for understanding both the concepts and typical elements of modelling, using analytical approaches from the philosophy and history of science. (shrink)
How should we determine the distribution of psychological traits—such as Theory of Mind, episodic memory, and metacognition—throughout the Animal kingdom? Researchers have long worried about the distorting effects of anthropomorphic bias on this comparative project. A purported corrective against this bias was offered as a cornerstone of comparative psychology by C. Lloyd Morgan in his famous “Canon”. Also dangerous, however, is a distinct bias that loads the deck against animal mentality: our tendency to tie the competence criteria for cognitive (...) capacities to an exaggerated sense of typical human performance. I dub this error “anthropofabulation”, since it combines anthropocentrism with confabulation about our own prowess. Anthropofabulation has long distorted the debate about animal minds, but it is a bias that has been little discussed and against which the Canon provides no protection. Luckily, there is a venerable corrective against anthropofabulation: a principle offered long ago by David Hume, which I call “Hume’s Dictum”. In this paper, I argue that Hume’s Dictum deserves a privileged place next to Morgan’s Canon in the methodology of comparative psychology, illustrating my point through a discussion of the debate over Theory of Mind in nonhuman animals. (shrink)
In Discovering Levinas, Michael L. Morgan shows how this thinker faces in novel and provocative ways central philosophical problems of twentieth-century philosophy and religious thought. He tackles this task by placing Levinas in conversation with philosophers such as Donald Davidson, Stanley Cavell, John McDowell, Onora O'Neill, Charles Taylor, and Cora Diamond. He also seeks to understand Levinas within philosophical, religious, and political developments in the history of twentieth-century intellectual culture. Morgan demystifies Levinas by examining his unfamiliar and surprising (...) vocabulary, interpreting texts with an eye to clarity, and arguing that Levinas can be understood as a philosopher of the everyday. Morgan also shows that Levinas's ethics is not morally and politically irrelevant nor is it excessively narrow and demanding in unacceptable ways. Neither glib dismissal nor fawning acceptance, this book provides a sympathetic reading that can form a foundation for a responsible critique. (shrink)
Although recent research suggests that women are underrepresented in philosophy after initial philosophy courses, there have been relatively few empirical investigations into the factors that lead to this early drop-off in women’s representation. In this paper, we present the results of empirical investigations at a large American public university that explore various factors contributing to women’s underrepresentation in philosophy at the undergraduate level. We administered climate surveys to hundreds of students completing their Introduction to Philosophy course and examined differences in (...) women’s and men’s feelings of belonging, comfort, and confidence in the philosophy classroom. We present findings suggesting various factors that contribute to women’s lower willingness to continue in philosophy compared to men’s, including perceptions about intuition-based methods in philosophy, the usefulness of the philosophy major, philosophy as a male discipline, and philosophical abilities as innate talents. We conclude by providing some suggestions for improving undergraduate philosophy courses in ways that would increase women’s willingness to continue in philosophy and may improve the courses for all students. (shrink)
Many philosophers and psychologists have attempted to elucidate the nature of mental representation by appealing to notions like isomorphism or abstract structural resemblance. The ‘structural representations’ that these theorists champion are said to count as representations by virtue of functioning as internal models of distal systems. In his 2007 book, Representation Reconsidered, William Ramsey endorses the structural conception of mental representation, but uses it to develop a novel argument against representationalism, the widespread view that cognition essentially involves the manipulation of (...) mental representations. Ramsey argues that although theories within the ‘classical’ tradition of cognitive science once posited structural representations, these theories are being superseded by newer theories, within the tradition of connectionism and cognitive neuroscience, which rarely if ever appeal to structural representations. Instead, these theories seem to be explaining cognition by invoking so-called ‘receptor representations’, which, Ramsey claims, aren’t genuine representations at all—despite being called representations, these mechanisms function more as triggers or causal relays than as genuine stand-ins for distal systems. I argue that when the notions of structural and receptor representation are properly explicated, there turns out to be no distinction between them. There only appears to be a distinction between receptor and structural representations because the latter are tacitly conflated with the ‘mental models’ ostensibly involved in offline cognitive processes such as episodic memory and mental imagery. While structural representations might count as genuine representations, they aren’t distinctively mental representations, for they can be found in all sorts of non-intentional systems such as plants. Thus to explain the kinds of offline cognitive capacities that have motivated talk of mental models, we must develop richer conceptions of mental representation than those provided by the notions of structural and receptor representation. (shrink)
The paper identifies the phenomenal rise of increasingly invasive forms of elective cosmetic surgery targeted primarily at women and explores its significance in the context of contemporary biotechnology. A Foucauldian analysis of the significance of the normalization of technologized women's bodies is argued for. Three "Paradoxes of Choice" affecting women who "elect" cosmetic surgery are examined. Finally, two utopian feminist political responses are discussed: a Response of Refusal and a Response of Appropriation.
Questions about the function of consciousness have long been central to discussions of consciousness in philosophy and psychology. Intuitively, consciousness has an important role to play in the control of many everyday behaviors. However, this view has recently come under attack. In particular, it is becoming increasingly common for scientists and philosophers to argue that a significant body of data emerging from cognitive science shows that conscious states are not involved in the control of behavior. According to these theorists, nonconscious (...) states control most everyday behaviors. Andy Clark does an admirable job of summarizing and defending the most important data thought to support this view. In this paper, I argue that the evidence available does not in fact threaten the view that conscious states play an important and intimate role in the control of much everyday behavior. I thereby defend a philosophically intuitive view about the functions of conscious states in action. (shrink)
This book explores the dynamic relationship between myth and philosophy in the Presocratics, the Sophists, and in Plato - a relationship which is found to be more extensive and programmatic than has been recognized. The story of philosophy's relationship with myth is that of its relationship with literary and social convention. The intellectuals studied here wanted to reformulate popular ideas about cultural authority and they achieved this goal by manipulating myth. Their self-conscious use of myth creates a self-reflective philosophic sensibility (...) and draws attention to problems inherent in different modes of linguistic representation. Much of the reception of Greek philosophy stigmatizes myth as 'irrational'. Such an approach ignores the important role played by myth in Greek philosophy, not just as a foil but as a mode of philosophical thought. The case studies in this book reveal myth deployed as a result of methodological reflection, and as a manifestation of philosophical concerns. (shrink)
What determines the reference of first-person thoughts—thoughts that one would express using the first-person pronoun? I defend a model on which our ways of gaining knowledge of ourselves do, in much the way that our ways of gaining knowledge of objects in the world determine the reference of perceptual demonstrative thoughts. This model—the Demonstrative Model of First-Person Thought—can be motivated by reference to independently plausible general principles about how reference is determined. But it faces a serious objection. There seems to (...) be an explanatory rival to it with a great deal of plausiblility. The rival is The Simple Rule Model, which says that first-person thoughts are governed by the simple rule that any token of one will be about the person whose token it is. I pinpoint a crucial unclarity in The Simple Rule Model, hinging on how we understand the notion of a rule, and argue that no version of the Simple Rule Model is both plausible and a genuine explanatory rival to the Demonstrative Model. I also provide an argument that the Demonstrative Model is extensionally adequate. (shrink)
Most people agree that murder is wrong. Yet, within computer games virtual murder scarcely raises an eyebrow. In one respect this is hardly surprising, as no one is actually murdered within a computer game. A virtual murder, some might argue, is no more unethical than taking a pawn in a game of chess. However, if no actual children are abused in acts of virtual paedophilia (life-like simulations of the actual practice), does that mean we should disregard these acts with the (...) same abandon we do virtual murder? In this paper I shall outline several arguments which attempt to permit virtual murder, whilst prohibiting virtual paedophilia. (shrink)
A comparison of models and experiments supports the argument that although both function as mediators and can be understood to work in an experimental mode, experiments offer greater epistemic power than models as a means to investigate the economic world. This outcome rests on the distinction that whereas experiments are versions of the real world captured within an artificial laboratory environment, models are artificial worlds built to represent the real world. This difference in ontology has epistemic consequences: experiments have greater (...) potential to make strong inferences back to the world, but also have the power to isolate new phenomena. This latter power is manifest in the possibility that whereas working with models may lead to ?surprise?, experimental results may be unexplainable within existing theory and so ?confound? the experimenter. (shrink)
Emmanuel Levinas conceives of our lives as fundamentally interpersonal and ethical, claiming that our responsibilities to one another should shape all of our actions. While many scholars believe that Levinas failed to develop a robust view of political ethics, Michael L. Morgan argues against understandings of Levinas’s thought that find him politically wanting or even antipolitical. Morgan examines Levinas’s ethical critique of the political as well as his Jewish writings—including those on Zionism and the founding of the Jewish (...) state—which are controversial reflections of Levinas’s political expression. Unlike others who dismiss Levinas as irrelevant or anarchical, Morgan is the first to give extensive treatment to Levinas as a serious social political thinker whose ethics must be understood in terms of its political implications. Morgan reveals Levinas’s political commitments to liberalism and democracy as well as his revolutionary conception of human life as deeply interconnected on philosophical, political, and religious grounds. (shrink)
Recently, researchers have begun to empirically investigate the gender gap in philosophy and provide potential explanations for the underrepresentation of women in philosophy relative to their representation in other disciplines. This empirical research as well as research on the gender gap in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics fields has shed light on a priori, armchair explanations of the gender gap. For example, implicit bias and stereotype threat may contribute much less to the philosophy gender gap than previously thought. However, new (...) candidate contributing factors have emerged. Drawing on the theoretical resources concerning fixed mindsets in response to difficult tasks, a new theory suggests that practitioners in various fields, including philosophy, hold the belief that success in their fields requires natural brilliance. Further, the extent to which members of a field hold that belief predicts the diversity of the members of that field. Initial findings suggest that among the set of students who hold these beliefs, women are disproportionately disinterested in continuing in philosophy. Other hypotheses seem plausible, such as the idea that lay people hold gendered schemas about philosophy, but require more empirical support to be partial explanations. Future empirical research should focus on these plausible hypotheses, replications of previous findings, and investigating the effects of intersectionality within the gender gap. (shrink)
My argument will proceed as follows. I will first sketch out the broad internalist case for pitching its normative account of sport in the abstract manner that following Dworkin?s lead in the philosophy of law its adherents insist upon. I will next show that the normative deficiencies in social conventions broad internalists uncover are indeed telling but misplaced since they hold only for what David Lewis famously called ?coordinating? conventions. I will then distinguish coordinating conventions from deep ones and make (...) my case not only for the normative salience of deep conventions but for their normative superiority over the abstract normative principles broad internalists champion. (shrink)
Shame is one of a family of self-conscious emotions that includes embarrassment, guilt, disgrace, and humiliation. _On Shame_ examines this emotion psychologically and philosophically, in order to show how it can be a galvanizing force for moral action against the violence and atrocity that characterize the world we live in. Michael L. Morgan argues that because shame is global in its sense of the self, the moral failures of all groups in which we are a member – including the (...) entire human race – reflect on each person individually. Drawing on historical and current affairs to explore the emotion of shame, as well as films such as _Night and Fog_, _Hotel Rwanda_ and _Life is Beautiful_ and the work of Primo Levi, Bernard Williams, and Stanley Cavell, Michael Morgan illustrates how moral responsibility can be facilitated by calling upon an emotional reaction that is familiar, complex, and central to our conception of ourselves as individuals and as members of society. (shrink)
Stories form an integral part of models. An economic model can not be fully characterized simply by knowing its structure: the model can only be completely described when we know how it works and what it can do. This activity of manipulating a model requires a narrative device, such as a question, which sets off a story told with the model. The structure or system portrayed in the model constrains and shapes the stories that can be told, but without stories (...) showing how the structure works, we cannot tell what might happen in specific cases. Without these narrative elements, we cannot apply model-structures directly onto the facts of the economic world, nor demonstrate outcomes about the hypothetical world represented in the model. Thus, stories are not simply devices of persuasion, but constitute an important part of the identity of a model. (shrink)
Philosophers of science studying scientific practice often consider it a methodological requirement that their conceptualization of "model" closely connects with the understanding and use of models by practicing scientists. Occasionally, this connection has been explicitly made (Hutten 1954, Suppes 1961, Morgan and Morrison 1999, Bailer-Jones 2002, Lehtinen and Kuorikoski 2007, Kuorikoski 2007, Morgan 2012a). These studies have been dominated by a focus on the—relatively similar forms of—mathematical models in physics and economics. Yet it has become increasingly evident that (...) the way models are conceptualized is very different in some other sciences, where philosophers' accounts of models' characteristics and .. (shrink)
Corporate reputation is an intangible asset that is related to marketing and financial performance. The social, economic, and global environment of the 1990'shas resulted in environmental performance becoming an increasingly important component of a company'sreputation. This paper explores the relationship between reputation, environmental performance, and financial performance, and looks at the contingencies that impact environmental policy making.
This paper is mainly a response to Charles Morgan's criticisms (this journal, pp. 511-25) of the author's model of the (formal aspects of) explanation. It is claimed in the paper that with two modifications and some additional specifications the model withstands Morgan's criticisms.
The rise of neo-integrative worldviews : towards a rational spirituality for the coming planetary civilization -- Beyond fundamentalism : spiritual realism, spiritual literacy and education -- Realism, literature and spirituality -- Judgemental rationality and the equivalence of argument : realism about God, response to Morgan's critique -- Transcendence and God : reflections on critical realism, the "new atheism", and Christian theology -- Human sciences at the edge of panentheism : God and the limits of ontological realism -- Beyond East (...) and West -- Meta-Reality (re-)contextualized -- Anti-anthropic spirituality : dualism, duality and non-duality -- "The more you kick God out the front door, the more he comes in through the window" : Sean Creaven's critique of transcendental dialectical critical realism and the philosophy of meta-Reality -- Resisting the theistic turn -- The pulse of freedom and the existential dilemma of alienation -- Meta-Reality, creativity and the experience of making art. (shrink)
This book provides a clear and helpful overview of the thought of Emmanuel Levinas, one of the most significant and interesting philosophers of the late twentieth century. Michael L. Morgan presents an overall interpretation of Levinas' central principle that human existence is fundamentally ethical and that its ethical character is grounded in our face-to-face relationships. He explores the religious, cultural and political implications of this insight for modern Western culture and how it relates to our conception of selfhood and (...) what it is to be a person, our understanding of the ground of moral values, our experience of time and the meaning of history, and our experience of religious concepts and discourse. Includes an annotated list of recommended readings and a selected bibliography of books by and about Levinas. An excellent introduction to Levinas for readers unfamiliar with his work and even for those without a background in philosophy. (shrink)
Does the decision to relax by taking a drive rather than by taking a walk cause harm? In particular, do the additional carbon emissions caused by such a decision make anyone worse off? Recently several philosophers have argued that the answer is no, and on this basis have gone on to claim that act-consequentialism cannot provide a moral reason for individuals to voluntarily reduce their emissions. The reasoning typically consists of two steps. First, the effect of individual emissions on the (...) weather is miniscule: the planet’s meteorological system is so large, and the size of individual emissions so tiny, that whatever impact an individual emission has on the weather must be vanishingly small. Second, vanishingly small impacts aren’t morally relevant because no one could possibly tell the difference between such an impact occurring and it not occurring. In this paper, we show why both steps are mistaken, and hence why act-consequentialism implies that each of us has an individual obligation to do what we can to stop damaging the climate, including by refraining from, or perhaps by purchasing offsets against, our own individual luxury carbon emissions. (shrink)
‘Morgan's canon’ is a rule for making inferences from animal behaviour about animal minds, proposed in 1892 by the Bristol geologist and zoologist C. Lloyd Morgan, and celebrated for promoting scepticism about the reasoning powers of animals. Here I offer a new account of the origins and early career of the canon. Built into the canon, I argue, is the doctrine of the Oxford philologist F. Max Müller that animals, lacking language, necessarily lack reason. Restoring the Müllerian origins (...) of the canon in turn illuminates a number of changes in Morgan's position between 1892 and 1894. I explain these changes as responses to the work of the American naturalist R. L. Garner. Where Morgan had a rule for interpreting experiments with animals, Garner had an instrument for doing them: the Edison cylinder phonograph. Using the phonograph, Garner claimed to provide experimental proof that animals indeed spoke and reasoned. (shrink)
The famous ethological maxim known as “Morgan’s Canon” continues to be the subject of interpretive controversy. I reconsider Morgan’s canon in light of two questions: First, what did Morgan intend? Second, is this, or perhaps some re-interpretation of the canon, useful within cognitive ethology? As for the first issue, Morgan’s distinction between higher and lower faculties is suggestive of an early supervenience concept. As for the second, both the canon in its original form, and various recent (...) re-readings, offer nothing useful to cognitive ethology. (shrink)
