A scholarly edition of a work by Adam Smith. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.

Identity, Morality, and Threat offers a critical examination of the social psychological processes that generate outgroup devaluation and ingroup glorification as the source of conflict. Daniel Rothbart and Karyna Korostelina bring together essays analyzing the causal relationship between escalating violence and opposing images of the Self and Other.

The Thirteenth Epode is an intriguing poem. Like Carm. i. 7 it concludes dramatically with a highly condensed episode from epic tradition, in this case drawn from the early life of Achilles; but, unlike the Ode to Plancus, Epodes 13 does not reveal even the name of the addressee. And whether in spite of or because of this, the poem has been highly praised for its purely lyrical qualities. The now famous critique of E. Fraenkel, for example, represents the view (...) of many: ‘A perfect poem,’ he calls it; ‘… its depth of feeling and beauty of expression and the harmonious blending of ideas of very different origin, make this ode superior to Odes 1. 7.’ The general approval of its poetic qualities might encourage a fresh attempt to discover any deeper significance it might have held for Horace's contemporaries. (shrink)

Sacrifice haunts the Phaedo. In this article, I argue that the mise-en-scène of the death scene of the Phaedo, as well as other sacrificial elements in the background of the dialogue, creates a nexus that positively integrates the birth, philosophical practice, and death of Socrates into the ritualized rhythm of the life of the city of Athens. A close reading of the death scene presented as a synopsis with Walter Burkert’s well-known analysis of Greek sacrifice reveals convergences and divergences between (...) the Phaedo and Greek sacrificial practice. Socrates appears as a willing victim who accepts the city’s sacrificial practice while remaining on his own terms. (shrink)

This essay explores the universal cognitive bases of biological taxonomy and taxonomic inference using cross-cultural experimental work with urbanized Americans and forest-dwelling Maya Indians. A universal, essentialist appreciation of generic species appears as the causal foundation for the taxonomic arrangement of biodiversity, and for inference about the distribution of causally-related properties that underlie biodiversity. Universal folkbiological taxonomy is domain-specific: its structure does not spontaneously or invariably arise in other cognitive domains, like substances, artifacts or persons. It is plausibly an innately-determined (...) evolutionary adaptation to relevant and recurrent aspects of ancestral hominid environments, such as the need to recognize, locate, react to, and profit from many ambient species. Folkbiological concepts are special players in cultural evolution, whose native stability attaches to more variable and difficult-to-learn representational forms, thus enhancing the latter's prospects for regularity and recurrence in transmission within and across cultures. This includes knowledge that cumulatively enriches (folk expertise), overrides (religious belief) or otherwise transcends (science) the commonsense ontology prescribed by folkbiology. Finally, the studies summarized here indicate that results gathered from “standard populations” in regard to biological categorization and reasoning more often than not fail to generalize in straightforward ways to humanity at large. This suggests the need for much more serious attention to cross-cultural research on basic cognitive processes. (shrink)

Illusionism about phenomenal properties has the potential to leave us with all the benefit of taking consciousness seriously and far fewer problems than those accompanying phenomenal realism. The particular problem I explore here is an epistemological puzzle that leaves the phenomenal realist with a dilemma but causes no trouble for the illusionist: how can we account for false beliefs about our own phenomenal properties? If realism is true, facts about our phenomenal properties must hold independent of our beliefs about those (...) properties, so mistaken phenomenal beliefs must always remain an open possibility. But there is no way to identify the phenomenal facts that make these beliefs false other than by mere stipulation. If illusionism is true, then the state of affairs regarding what a subject's experience seems like is just the illusion itself; there are no further facts of the matter about which the subject might have mistaken beliefs, so the problem does not arise. (shrink)

Problematic substance use (PSU) among nurses has wide‐ranging adverse implications. A critical integrative literature review was conducted with an emphasis on building knowledge regarding the influence of structural factors within nurses' professional environments on nurses with PSU. Five thematic categories emerged: (i) access, (ii) stress, and (iii) attitudes as contributory factors, (iv) treatment policies for nurses with PSU, and (v) the culture of the nursing profession. Conclusions were that an overemphasis on individual culpability and failing predominates in the literature and (...) that crucial knowledge gaps exist regarding the influence of structural factors on driving and shaping nurses' substance use. (shrink)

Some argue that Lewisian realism fails as a reduction of modality because in order to meet some criterion of success the account needs to invoke primitive modality. I defend Lewisian realism against this charge; in the process, I hope to shed some light on the conditions of success for a reduction. In §1 I detail the resources the Lewisian modal realist needs. In §2 I argue against Lycan and Shalkowski’s charge that Lewis needs a modal notion of ‘world’ to ensure (...) that worlds correspond to possibilities. In §3 I respond to Divers and Melia’s objection that Lewis needs to invoke primitive modality to give a complete account of what worlds there are. In §4 I ask what it is for a notion to ‘involve’ modality. I conclude that the question is either in bad standing or at best offers little traction on the debate, and propose a different way of assessing when materials are appropriately included in a reductive base. (shrink)

In this paper I further elucidate and defend a metaontological position that allows you to have a minimal ontology without embracing an error-theory of ordinary talk. On this view 'there are Fs' can be strictly and literally true without bringing an ontological commitment to Fs. Instead of a sentence S committing you to the things that must be amongst the values of the variables if it is true, I argue that S commits you to the things that must exist as (...) truthmakers for S if it is true. I rebut some recent objections that have been levelled against this metaontological view. (shrink)

I begin by contrasting three approaches one can take to the distinction between the essential and accidental properties: an ontological, a deflationary, and a mind‐dependent approach. I then go on to apply that distinction to the necessary a posteriori, and defend the deflationist view. Finally I apply the distinction to modal truth in general and argue that the deflationist position lets us avoid an otherwise pressing problem for the actualist: the problem of accounting for the source of modal truth.

When there is truth, there must be some thing (or things) to account for that truth: some thing(s) that couldn’t exist and the true proposition fail to be true. That is the truthmaker principle. True propositions are made true by entities in the mind-independently existing external world. The truthmaker principle seems attractive to many metaphysicians, but many have wanted to weaken it and accept not that every true proposition has a truthmaker but only that some important class of propositions require (...) truthmakers.1 Let us, following Armstrong, call the claim that all true propositions, without exception, have a truthmaker, Truthmaker Maximalism. Why might one be tempted to the spirit of truthmaker theory but reject Truthmaker Maximalism? Well, you might deny that necessary truths need truthmakers, for one, and insist that only contingent truths have truthmakers. But I think it’s fair to say that the most common motivation for rejecting maximalism concerns negative truths. The thought that negative truths are exempt from the demand for truthmakers could be justified in one of two ways: there is the claim that we don’t need truthmakers for negative truths, and there is the claim that we can’t have.. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to evaluate the ethical and political conclusions that Ulrich Beck draws from his account of ‘civilization risks’. I have argued that the categories of ‘life’, ‘the organic’, and the ‘technological’ which are presented in Risk Society, presuppose a certain metaphysics of ‘natural’ human identity; and that it is the inscription of this identity in the politics of risk administration which opens the possibility of an absolutely legitimized regulation of nature, humanity, and society. Thus, in (...) order to evaluate the ‘risk’ entailed in the ethical and political strictures of Beck's ‘world risk society’, I have had recourse to the expositions of time, presence, identity and technology which Derrida has given in Of Grammatology and Specters of Marx. It is through these expositions that I have tried to work through the idea of an ecological politics that would remain sensitive to the events of difference and alterity precipitated by its own ‘cosmopolitan’ interventions. (shrink)

I address an intuition commonly endorsed by metaphysicians, that there must be a fundamental layer of reality, i.e., that chains of ontological dependence must terminate: there cannot be turtles all the way down. I discuss applications of this intuition with reference to Bradley’s regress, composition, realism about the mental and the cosmological argument. I discuss some arguments for the intui- tion, but argue that they are unconvincing. I conclude by making some suggestions for how the intuition should be argued for, (...) and discussing the ramifications of giving the justification I think best. (shrink)

Simon Blackburn posed a dilemma for any realist attempt to identify the source of necessity. Either the facts appealed to to ground modal truth are themselves necessary, or they are contingent. If necessary, we begin the process towards regress; but if contingent, we undermine the necessity whose source we wanted to explain. Bob Hale attempts to blunt both horns of this dilemma. In this paper I examine their respective positions and attempt to clear up some confusions on either side. I (...) come to defend Hale’s conclusion that both horns of the dilemma can be resisted. I end by defending my own account of the source of necessity, and showing why it does not fall victim to Blackburn’s problem. (shrink)

The paper essentially shows that the paraconsistent logicDR satisfies the depth relevance condition. The systemDR is an extension of the systemDK of [7] and the non-triviality of a dialectical set theory based onDR has been shown in [3]. The depth relevance condition is a strengthened relevance condition, taking the form: If DR- AB thenA andB share a variable at the same depth, where the depth of an occurrence of a subformulaB in a formulaA is roughly the number of nested ''s (...) required to reach the occurrence ofB inA. The method of proof is to show that a model structureM consisting of {M 0 , M1, ..., M}, where theM i s are all characterized by Meyer''s 6-valued matrices (c. f, [2]), satisfies the depth relevance condition. Then, it is shown thatM is a model structure for the systemDR. (shrink)

Paul Sheehy has argued that the modal realist cannot satisfactorily allow for the necessity of God's existence. In this short paper I show that she can, and that Sheehy only sees a problem because he has failed to appreciate all the resources available to the modal realist. God may be an abstract existent outside spacetime or He may not be: but either way, there is no problem for the modal realist to admit that He exists at every concrete possible world.

The doxastic view (DV) of trust maintains that trust essentially involves belief. In a recent paper, Arnon Keren (Citation2020) gestures toward a new objection to the view, labeled Trust’s Meno Problem (TMP), which calls into question the DV’s ability to explain the widely held intuition that trust has distinct and indispensable value. As of yet, there has been no attempt to take up TMP on behalf of DV. This paper aims to fill precisely this lacuna. I do so in three (...) main stages. In §1 I contextualize and elucidate the problem, to which Keren gestures but does not address in detail. In §2 I disambiguate multiple possible interpretations of TMP, seeking to identify the most philosophically challenging. Finally, in §3, I argue that DV can solve even this interpretation. In order to do so, I make use ofthe highly plausible claim we find in the work of Katherine Hawley (Citation2012, 2019): that trust pays a compliment to the trustee. The payoffs of exploring the doxastic view in the context of Trust’s Meno Problem are twofold: we better understand the nature of the problem itself, and we see that the doxastic view can give a satisfying answer. (shrink)

Is authoritarian power ever legitimate? The contemporary political theory literature—which largely conceptualizes legitimacy in terms of democracy or basic rights—would seem to suggest not. I argue, however, that there exists another, overlooked aspect of legitimacy concerning a government’s ability to ensure safety and security. While, under normal conditions, maintaining democracy and rights is typically compatible with guaranteeing safety, in emergency situations, conflicts between these two aspects of legitimacy can and often do arise. A salient example of this is the COVID-19 (...) pandemic, during which severe limitations on free movement and association have become legitimate techniques of government. Climate change poses an even graver threat to public safety. Consequently, I argue, legitimacy may require a similarly authoritarian approach. While unsettling, this suggests the political importance of climate action. For if we wish to avoid legitimating authoritarian power, we must act to prevent crises from arising that can only be resolved by such means. (shrink)

We provide a semantics for relevant logics with addition of Aristotle's Thesis, ∼(A→∼A) and also Boethius,(A→B)→∼(A→∼B). We adopt the Routley-Meyer affixing style of semantics but include in the model structures a regulatory structure for all interpretations of formulae, with a view to obtaining a lessad hoc semantics than those previously given for such logics. Soundness and completeness are proved, and in the completeness proof, a new corollary to the Priming Lemma is introduced (c.f.Relevant Logics and their Rivals I, Ridgeview, 1982).

I argue that Agustín Rayo’s symmetric ‘just is’ statements cannot be defined in terms of notions like essence, grounding or metaphysical truth-conditions. I go on to argue that one of these latter notions, which allow us to express an asymmetric relationship between facts, is needed to do some of the work that Rayo intends ‘just is’ statements to do, such as stating reductionist claims.

In spite of a powerful tradition, more than two thousand years old, that in a valid argument the premises must be relevant to the conclusion, twentieth-century logicians neglected the concept of relevance until the publication of Volume I of this monumental work. Since that time relevance logic has achieved an important place in the field of philosophy: Volume II of Entailment brings to a conclusion a powerful and authoritative presentation of the subject by most of the top people working in (...) the area. Originally the aim of Volume II was simply to cover certain topics not treated in the first volume--quantification, for example--or to extend the coverage of certain topics, such as semantics. However, because of the technical progress that has occurred since the publication of the first volume, Volume II now includes other material. The book contains the work of Alasdair Urquhart, who has shown that the principal sentential systems of relevance logic are undecidable, and of Kit Fine, who has demonstrated that, although the first-order systems are incomplete with respect to the conjectured constant domain semantics, they are still complete with respect to a semantics based on "arbitrary objects." Also presented is important work by the other contributing authors, who are Daniel Cohen, Steven Giambrone, Dorothy L. Grover, Anil Gupta, Glen Helman, Errol P. Martin, Michael A. McRobbie, and Stuart Shapiro. Robert G. Wolf's bibliography of 3000 items is a valuable addition to the volume. (shrink)

Most philosophical accounts of the foundations of economics have assumed that economics is intended to be an empirical science concerned with human behaviour, though they have, of course, differed over the extent to which it has been or can be successful as such an enterprise. A prominent source of dissent against this consensus is Alexander Rosenberg. In his recent book, Rosenberg summarizes and completes his statement of a position that he has been developing for some time. He argues that although (...) economists evaluate one another's work according to shared and rigorous standards of adequacy, these standards are strictly internal, like those of mathematics, instead of being derived from discoveries about contingent relationships between theoretical statements and empirical facts. Economics, that is to say, is essentially conceptual rather than empirical inquiry. In the following discussion, I will provide grounds for resisting Rosenberg's conclusion. The point of this criticism, however, is not mainly negative. Most of the historical preoccupations of the philosophy of economics, like those of the philosophy of science in general, have been epistemological. Careful attention to Rosenberg's argument, however, redirects our attention to ontological questions about the objects of economics, and this redirection, I will maintain, is to be welcomed. I will argue that while the majority of philosophers of economics is correct, as against Rosenberg, in regarding economics as an empirical science, the conventional view as to the identity of its empirical objects should be substantially revised under the pressure of Rosenberg's criticisms. My critical analysis of the implications of Rosenberg's work for the ontological commitments of economics is intended to furnish one line of argument towards my own conception of the objects of economics. This conception, which is still preliminary in many respects, will be briefly sketched toward the end of the present paper; a detailed account of it is given in Ross and LaCasse. (shrink)

This paper attempts to locate, within an actualist ontology, truthmakers for modal truths: truths of the form or . In Sect. 1 I motivate the demand for substantial truthmakers for modal truths. In Sect. 21 criticise Armstrong's account of truthmakers for modal truths. In Sect. 31 examine essentialism and defend an account of what makes essentialist attributions true, but I argue that this does not solve the problem of modal truth in general. In Sect. 41 discuss, and dismiss, a theistic (...) account of the source of modal truth proposed by Alexander Pruss. In Sect. 5 I offer a means of (dis)solving the problem. (shrink)

In Strawson’s “Freedom and Resentment”, the idea of the reactive attitudes is used to provide a corrective for an over-intellectualised picture of moral responsibility and of the moral life generally. But Strawson also tells us that in reasoning with someone our attitude towards them must be reactive. Taking up that thought, I argue that Strawson has also provided us with a corrective for an over-intellectualised picture of rationality. Drawing on a Wittgensteinian conception of the relation between thought and its expression, (...) I argue that rationality presupposes participation in a form of engagement with others that is reactive in Strawson’s sense. I also throw fresh light on what Strawson understands by a reactive attitude. (shrink)

In footnote 56 of his Naming and Necessity, Kripke offers a ‘proof’ of the essentiality of origin. On its most literal reading the argument is clearly flawed, as was made clear by Nathan Salmon. Salmon attempts to save the literal reading of the argument, but I argue that the new argument is flawed as well, and that it can’t be what Kripke intended. I offer an alternative reconstruction of Kripke’s argument, but I show that this suffers from a more subtle (...) fault. (shrink)

Many feel a sense of aversion and tragedy about proposals for engineering the climate. Precautionary concerns only partly explain these feelings. For a fuller understanding, we need a thicker conception of the values and ends of political society than “neutralitarian” political theories offer. To this end, I examine how Buddhist and Greek notions of temperance, justice, and freedom bear on the question of geo-engineering. My intention is not to pronounce on whether geo-engineering is morally “right” or “wrong,” but to highlight (...) reasons for thinking it unattractive in a broader sense, thereby strengthening the case for exhausting conventional emissions-reductions options. (shrink)

I attempt to accommodate the phenomenon of vagueness with classical logic and bivalence. I hold that for any vague predicate there is a sharp cut-off between the things that satisfy it and the things that don’t; I claim that this is due to the greater naturalness of one of the candidate meanings of that predicate. I extend the view to give an account of arbitrary reference and a solution to Benacerraf problems. I end by exploring the idea that it is (...) ontically indeterminate what the most natural meanings are, and hence ontically indeterminate where the sharp cut-off in a sorites series is. (shrink)

The first principle of the Nuremberg Code requires the informed consent of the subject. Proxy consent was not addressed until the Declaration of Helsinki. U.S. policies regarding consent for the participation of children in research would not be finalized for almost two more decades in subpart D of the federal regulations that govern the participation of subjects in research. In October 2000, the Children's Health Act was passed. Title X required the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (...) to conduct a review of the regulations under subpart D and “to consider any modifications necessary to ensure the adequate and appropriate protection of children participating in research, and report the findings of the Secretary to Congress.” In this article, I provide a brief overview of the current informed consent requirements in pediatric research, which include requirements for parental permission and the child's assent. I then examine the moral bases for these requirements; whether the current policies are consistent with these moral foundations; and if not, how the policies ought to be modified. a. (shrink)

Prominent tuberculosis (TB) actors are invoking solidarity to motivate and justify collective action to address TB, including through intensified development and implementation (D&I) of technologies such as drugs and diagnostics. We characterize the ethical challenges associated with D&I of new TB technologies by drawing on stakeholder perspectives from 23 key informant interviews and we articulate the ethical implications of solidarity for TB technology D&I. The fundamental ethical issue facing TB technological D&I is a failure within and beyond the TB community (...) to stand in solidarity with persons with TB in addressing the complex sociopolitical contexts of technological D&I. The failure in solidarity relates to two further ethical challenges raised by respondents: skewed power dynamics that hinder D&I and uncertainties around weighing risks and benefits associated with new technologies. Respondents identified advocacy and participatory research practices as necessary to address such challenges and to motivate sustained collective action to accelerate toward TB elimination. We present the first empirical examination of bioethical accounts of solidarity in public and global health. Our study suggests that solidarity allows us better to understand and address the ethical challenges that arrest the D&I of new TB technologies. Solidarity lends credence to policies and practices that address the relational nature of illness and health through collective action. (shrink)

The authors, on the basis of brief arguments, have dismissed tensor networks as a viable response to Jackendoff's challenges. However, there are reasons to believe that connectionist approaches descended from tensor networks are actually very well suited to answering Jackendoff's challenges. I rebut their arguments for dismissing tensor networks and briefly compare the approaches.

I consider David Efird and Tom Stoneham's recent version of the subtraction argument for metaphysical nihilism, the view that there could have been no concrete objects at all. I argue that the two premises of their argument are only jointly acceptable if the quantifiers in one range over a different set of objects from those which the quantifiers in the other range over, in which case the argument is invalid. So either the argument is invalid or we should not accept (...) both its premises. (shrink)

Central to W.E.B. Du Bois’s political theory is a conception of “world” remarkably similar to that put forward, years later, by Martin Heidegger. This point is more methodological than historical: I claim that approaching Du Bois’s work as a source, rather than as a product, of concepts that resonated with subsequent thinkers allows us to better appreciate the novelty and vision of his political theory. Exploring this resonance, I argue, helps to refine the notions of world and founding present in (...) each theorist’s work. Yet, it is only by remaining attentive to their differences that we can understand how Du Bois and Heidegger could endorse such dramatically opposed political programs despite similar theoretical starting points. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that warrant for Lewis’ Modal Realism is unobtainable. I consider two familiar objections to Lewisian realism – the modal irrelevance objection and the epistemological objection – and argue that Lewis’ response to each is unsatisfactory because they presuppose claims that only the Lewisian realist will accept. Since, I argue, warrant for Lewisian realism can only be obtained if we have a response to each objection that does not presuppose the truth of Lewisian realism, this circularity (...) is vicious. I end by contrasting Lewis’ methodology with Forrest’s in order to illustrate a rival method that does not fall victim to the objection I lay against Lewis. (shrink)

Recent scholarship has drawn attention to John Rawls’s concern with stability—a concern that, as Rawls himself notes, motivated Part III of A Theory of Justice and some of the more important changes of his political turn. For Rawls, the possibility of achieving ‘stability for the right reasons’ depends on citizens possessing sufficient moral motivation. I argue, however, that the moral psychology Rawls develops to show how such motivation would be cultivated and sustained does not cohere with his specific descriptions of (...) ‘pluralist ’ doctrines. Considering Rawls’s claims that ‘most’ citizens—both in contemporary liberal democracies and in the well-ordered society—possess such doctrines, this incompatibility threatens to undermine his stability arguments. Despite the enormous importance of pluralist doctrines and the potential difficulties they pose for Rawls’s project, remarkably little attention has been paid to them. By critically examining these difficulties, the article begins to address this oversight. (shrink)

In this book, Yagisawa defends a type of realism about merely possible worlds and individuals.1 The view defended is much closer to David Lewis’s genuine modal realism than it is to any kind of actualist or ersatzist modal realism, and I think the best way of understanding Yagisawa’s view will be to see where it differs from Lewis’s. To that end, let’s briefly remind ourselves of Lewis’s theory.

Game experiments designed to test the effectiveness of reward and/or punishment incentives in promoting cooperative behavior among their participants are quite common. Results from two such recent experiments conducted in Beijing, based on the Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD) game and Public Goods Game respectively, are summarized here. The unexpected empirical outcomes for the repeated PD game, that cooperation actually decreased when the participants had the option of using a costly punishment strategy and that participants who used costly punishment in some round (...) of the repeated game often did so in the first round, are discussed in terms of differences in attitudes toward reputation in Chinese culture compared to other locations (mostly in Western society) where similar experiments have been conducted. The second experiment models an institution providing incentives to increase contribution levels (i.e., cooperation) to the public good. The results show that combined institutional reward and punishment is the most effective means to increase cooperation, followed by a scheme using only punishment. It is shown how these empirical results are related to the theoretical predictions that assume players play rationally by optimizing their personal payoff given their opponents’ actions in these multi-player games. (shrink)

I reply to Miller, Sider and Skow’s comments on my book The Moving Spotlight. I aim to make clearer the epistemic argument against non-presentist A-theories of time, and why I avoid it. I provide further elaboration of the moving spotlight view, and why I think there is real change in important features of things on this metaphysic. I explain further what I think is required for there to be genuine temporal passage, and why there is such a thing according to (...) the moving spotlight view. I defend my argument that endurantism is incompatible with the B-theory. (shrink)

This review commemorates the 20th anniversary of Stephen Clark’s explication of ecological thought. After appraising both philosophical and theological perspectives, Clark argues that society must awaken to Earth’s “Otherness.” I describe Clark’s ecological consciousness and highlight the significance of his book for 21st-century readers.

This review commemorates the 20th anniversary of Stephen Clark’s explication of ecological thought. After appraising both philosophical and theological perspectives, Clark argues that society must awaken to Earth’s "Otherness." I describe Clark’s ecological consciousness and highlight the significance of his book for 21st-century readers.

This article is primarily concerned with Zygmunt Bauman's ‘adoption’ of Levinas's ethic of primordial responsibility, and his attempt to found a ‘sociological’ critique of postmodern ambivalence upon the erasure of the face and loss of moral proximity. I have argued that the reading of Levinas which Bauman presents in Modernity and the Holocaust and Postmodern Ethics is radically incompatible with the redemptive significance of the Levinasian commandment; and that consequently, his attempt to determine the cognitive and aesthetic forms involved in (...) the adiaphorising trend of postmodern societies is unable to salvage the ethical relation from its own comprehensive/totalising necessity. I have also suggested that Derrida's reading of Totality and Infinity, discloses a certain ‘provocation’ in Levinas's writing; one which gestures towards a conception of ‘the ethical’ as an unforeseen possibility deployed within the resources of social identity. Thus, the idea of ‘situating’ Bauman's thought refers to what I consider to be his ambiguous position with regard to the ‘reflective’ project of a critical theory, and the transcendent necessity of the Levinasian commandment. Ultimately, it is this ambiguity which structures Bauman's writing of the ‘postmodern condition’. For having described the overwhelming powers of cognitive and aesthetic ‘heteronomy’ in the postmodern world, his only recourse is to a ‘politics of distant consequences’ in which the absolute difference of the face would have its originary demand intensified and retransmitted. Such a programmatic demand, I have argued, is radically at odds with an ‘ethical’ reception of racial, sexual or cultural ‘otherness’. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that warrant for Lewis’ Modal Realism is unobtainable. I consider two familiar objections to Lewisian realism – the modal irrelevance objection and the epistemological objection – and argue that Lewis’ response to each is unsatisfactory because they presuppose claims that only the Lewisian realist will accept. Since, I argue, warrant for Lewisian realism can only be obtained if we have a response to each objection that does not presuppose the truth of Lewisian realism, this circularity (...) is vicious. I end by contrasting Lewis’ methodology with Forrest’s in order to illustrate a rival method that does not fall victim to the objection I lay against Lewis. (shrink)