In an important new book on shared agency, Michael Bratman develops an account of the normative demand for the coordination of intentions amongst participants in shared agency. Bratman seeks to understand this form of normative guidance in terms of that associated with individual planning intentions. I give reasons to resist his form of reductionism. In addition, I note how Bratman’s discussion raises the interesting issue of the function or purpose of shared intention and of shared agency more generally. According to (...) Bratman, the function of shared intention is to promote interpersonal coordination of intention and action. I suggest that power sharing amongst participants must also be included as a function of shared intention. (shrink)

My concern here is to motivate some theses in the philosophy of mind concerning the interpersonal character of intentions. I will do so by investigating aspects of shared agency. The main point will be that when acting together with others one must be able to act directly on the intention of another or others in a way that is relevantly similar to the manner in which an agent acts on his or her own intentions. What exactly this means will become (...) clearer once we understand what it is to act directly on one’s own intentions. But I take it to be a fundamental assumption of the prevailing individualism of the theory of action— one at the core of its conception of the separateness of individuals— that one person cannot act directly on another’s intention. I agree that there is an important way in which we are or can be separate and autonomous thinkers and agents. But the way the individualist tries to capture this separateness is misguided. (shrink)

Accepting a promise is normatively significant in that it helps to secure promissory obligation. But what is it for B to accept A’s promise to φ? It is in part for B to intend A’s φ-ing. Thinking of acceptance in this way allows us to appeal to the distinctive role of intentions in practical reasoning and action to better understand the agency exercised by the promisee. The proposal also accounts for rational constraints on acceptance, and the so-called directedness of promissory (...) obligation. Finally, the proposal, conjoined with Cognitivism about intentions, addresses recent criticism of Scanlon’s expectation-based view of promissory obligation. (shrink)

My concern here is to motivate some theses in the philosophy of mind concerning the interpersonal character of intentions. I will do so by investigating aspects of shared agency. The main point will be that when acting together with others one must be able to act directly on the intention of another or others in a way that is relevantly similar to the manner in which an agent acts on his or her own intentions. What exactly this means will become (...) clearer once we understand what it is to act directly on one’s own intentions. But I take it to be a fundamental assumption of the prevailing individualism of the theory of action—one at the core of its conception of the separateness of individuals—that one person cannot act directly on another’s intention. I agree that there is an important way in which we are or can be separate and autonomous thinkers and agents. But the way the individualist tries to capture this separateness is misguided. (shrink)

Shared activity is often simply willed into existence by individuals. This poses a problem. Philosophical reflection suggests that shared activity involves a distinctive, interlocking structure of intentions. But it is not obvious how one can form the intention necessary for shared activity without settling what fellow participants will do and thereby compromising their agency and autonomy. One response to this problem suggests that an individual can have the requisite intention if she makes the appropriate predictions about fellow participants. I argue (...) that implementing this predictive strategy risks derailing practical reasoning and preventing one from forming the intention. My alternative proposal for reconciling shared activity with autonomy appeals to the idea of acting directly on another's intention. In particular, I appeal to the entitlement one sometimes has to another's practical judgment, and the corresponding authority the other sometimes has to settle what one is to do. (shrink)

Sometimes individuals act together, and sometimes each acts on his or her own. It's a distinction that often matters to us. Undertaking a difficult task collectively can be comforting, even if only for the solidarity it may engender. Or, to take a very different case, the realization (or delusion) that the many bits of rudeness one has been suffering of late are part of a concerted effort can be of significance in identifying what one is up against: the accumulation of (...) grievances (no doubt well catalogued) is seen, not as an unfortunate coincidence of affronts stemming from various quarters, but as itself a product of a unified exercise of agency. A paranoid conspiracy theorist is not usually to be taken seriously. But he does get right that it certainly would be awful, for example, if everyone were out to get him and were working together to do so. After all, the stability and impact of agency that's shared can be expected to be more serious than the effects of a mere collection of individual acts.[1.. (shrink)

One important thesis Ásta defends in Categories We Live By is that social properties and categories are somehow dependent on our thoughts, attitudes, or practices—that they are inventions of the mind, projected onto the world. Another important aspect of her view is that the social properties are related to certain base properties; an individual is placed in a category when the relevant base properties are thought to hold of them. I see the relationship between the social and the base as (...) connected to the problem of explaining how the social properties are sufficiently stable so as to be taken seriously, both in theoretical endeavors as well as in practical matters of how we relate to each other. In this light, I identify stability constraints for an adequate account of social categories. I argue that certain distinctive aspects of Ásta's conferralist view of social categories, such as the radical contextualism in her account of gender, undermine the stability of categories and are at odds with taking social categories seriously. I end with the suggestion that a distinctive “sheltered” form of normativity might help us do justice to Ásta's insights while avoiding some of the destabilizing elements of conferralism. (shrink)

What is it for a duty or obligation to be directed? Thinking about paradigmatic cases such as the obligations generated by promises will take us only so far in answering this question. This paper starts by surveying several approaches for understanding directed duties, as well as the challenges they face. It turns out that shared agency features something similar to the directedness of duties. This suggests an account of directedness in terms of shared agency – specifically, in terms of the (...) so-called practical intimacy that holds between individuals when they act together. The final section addresses a challenge to the shared agency approach posed by legal wronging in tort law. (shrink)

There is a way of talking that would appear to involve ascriptions of purpose, goal directed activity, and intentional states to groups. Cases are familiar enough: classmates intend to vacation in Switzerland, the department is searching for a metaphysician, the Democrats want to minimize losses in the upcoming elections, and the US intends to improve relations with such and such country. But is this talk to be understood just in terms of the attitudes and actions of the individuals involved? Is (...) the talk, to take an overly simple proposal as an example, a mere summary of familiar individual attitudes of the group members? Or is the ascription of attitudes and actions to groups to be taken more literally, as suggesting that the group for example believes that P, or intends to A, over and above what the members individually think and do? In short, are there groups with minds of their own? Philip Pettit has deployed the “discursive dilemma” to defend the thesis that there are such group minds. In what follows, I explore the relationship between the group allegedly with a mind of its own and the individuals it comprises, and I consider just how this relationship must be understood in order to give Pettit’s argument for group minds its best chance for success. As I understand it, the discursive dilemma has to be used in conjunction with what might be called an indispensability argument for group minds. It is useful to distinguish two forms of this argument. The explanatory version of the indispensability argument is, very schematically, as follows: there is a compelling explanatory theory T concerning the social, certain indispensable elements of T entail the group mind thesis, so the group mind thesis is true. Several questions immediately arise: What sort of theory is T? In what sense is it indispensable? Are there other forms of indispensability? I don’t have definitive answers to these questions. But how we settle them will have implications for the interaction and support the discursive dilemma provides the indispensability argument. In particular, using the discursive dilemma to defend what I characterize below as a practical version of the indispensability argument commits us to the rationality of individual participants in a way that the explanatory version of the indispensability argument does not. My point in the first part of the paper is that if Pettit wants to avoid the weaknesses of the explanatory indispensability argument and pursue the practical version, then he owes us a story about the rationality of individual participation in groups. Pettit also owes us a story about the agency an individual exercises as part of a group. If it takes the actions of individuals to execute the intentions of the group, how are we to understand those actions in order for the group to count as having a mind of its own? How must group intentions figure in the practical or deliberative perspective of individuals who execute those intentions? I will argue that the proponent of the group mind thesis must proceed with some care here, because some natural ways of answering these questions will undermine the thesis. But in the end, I think that these questions are interesting independently of whether Pettit is right to think that groups do have minds of their own. That’s because investigating Pettit’s arguments might lead to new ideas about how the rationality and agency of individuals can be exercised, and suggests new ways of understanding how individuals can act together, irrespective of whether the groups they compose ever have minds of their own. (shrink)

Is there something special about one’s attitude toward a prospective action when deciding or intending to do it? Philosophers often appeal to the idea of settling to distinguish intention from other attitudes toward some prospective action, such as expecting it, or desiring it. But 'settle' has become a term of art invoked in divergent ways. The first use of the term concerns the more immediate upshot of a decision on the psychology of the agent. Once a decision has been made (...) and an intention formed, the agent is settled on a course of action to pursue. She stops considering alternatives and attends to means for bringing it about. Decision and intention thus play a distinctive role in the agent’s psychology and practical reasoning. Call this intransitive settling. In contrast, the transitive use of the term involves the thought that when, for example, you decide and intend to attend a lecture tomorrow, what you’re settling goes beyond your psychology, to take in worldly matters such as your being at the lecture. If we take this idea seriously, as I think we should, it might seem that we are led to an implausible picture of the agent reaching outside the temporal order to determine in direct fashion some future state of affairs. We can avoid this consequence while maintaining a robust transitive conception of settling. This will require articulating how one can act directly on a prior intention, and appreciating the role of intention in preserving reasons for action. (shrink)

An appreciation of Hume’s psychology of object identity allows us to recognize certain tensions in his discussion of the origin of our belief in personal identity---tensions which have gone largely unnoticed in the secondary literature. This will serve to provide a new solution to the problem of explaining why Hume finds that discussion of personal identity so problematic when he famously disavows it in the Appendix to the Treatise. It turns out that the two psychological mechanisms which respectively generate the (...) ideas of object and of personal identity are mutually incompatible. It is this sort of conflict within Hume’s introspective or subjectivist psychology which is the source of his worry. (shrink)

What are the implications for agency – and in particular, the idea of acting for reasons – if we are to take seriously the notion of collective responsibility? My thesis is that some cases of individuals subject to a collective form of responsibility and blame will force us to make sense of how it is that an individual can be entitled to collective reasons for action, i.e. entitled to a reason had in the first place by a plurality of individuals (...) together rather than any one of them alone. This entitlement makes it possible for the collective reason to be a reason for which one acts, even if one’s contribution on its own makes little or no difference in the collective effort. Although a full defense of this entitlement cannot be undertaken here, I will gesture at how this might work by suggesting that intentions function to preserve reasons for action. . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume Studies Volume XXII, Number 2, November 1996, pp. 273-298 Hume's Psychology of Identity Ascriptions ABRAHAM SESSHU ROTH Introduction Hume observes that we naturally believe ordinary objects to persist through time and change. The question that interests him in the Treatise1 is, What causes such a belief to arise in the human mind? Hume's question is, of course, the naturalistic one we would expect given that (...) the project of the Treatise is the construction of a "science of man." This paper seeks to clarify Hume's discussion of how we acquire the notion of persisting objects. In the first section, I note that several observations Hume makes about the actions of the mind may all come under the heading of "seeing successions as simple." These observations pose a problem for Hume's system, revealing a tension between his accounts of our ideas of time and persistence: if (as Hume believes) only successions, which are not simple, endure through time, how is it that bodies seen as simple are nevertheless thought to endure or have duration as well? In the second section I show how Hume answers this question. The third section is devoted to an interpretation of Hume's notions of the identity relation and what he calls an "object existent at a time." Identity through time is standardly treated in contemporary analytic philosophy using the notion of a unity relation connecting various temporal parts or stages of a persisting object. One interpretation of Hume takes his talk of the identity relation as signifying just such a unity relation, and "object existent at a time" as referring to a temporal part of an object. Another interpretation makes use of the notion of substance Abraham Sesshu Roth is at the Department of Philosophy, Brandeis University, Waltham MA 02254-9110 USA. Email: [email protected] 274 Abraham Sesshu Roth and of qualities inhering in a substance at different times. These interpretations concentrate upon metaphysical issues, and neglect the psychological aspects of Hume's discussion of identity. I demonstrate that these interpretations are unacceptable because they cannot be reconciled with Hume's psychologically significant distinction between vulgar or commonplace views on the one hand, and those views held by philosophers on the other. Finally, I propose and defend an alternative view of Hume's account of identity. This new understanding makes use of the notion of distinctions of reason to interpret Hume's idea of an object existent at a time. It turns out that a focus upon Hume's psychology of identity ascriptions will allow us to discern an interesting metaphysical alternative to the temporal parts view of identity. 1. Seeing Successions as Simples There has been some dispute in the literature about the temporal nature of Humean impressions. According to Barry Stroud, Hume holds that if one stares at an unchanging object (in unchanging conditions) for some more than minimal amount of time, one's experience takes the form of a sequence of qualitatively identical impressions, each of which occupies a temporal minimum.2 Thus when I fix my gaze upon an object, I am subject to a temporal series of impressions which may be represented as follows: (1) A A A A Eli Hirsch and Don Baxter question Stroud's assumption that a Humean perception occupies only a temporal minimum.3 Baxter holds that in Hume's view an impression will last as long as you keep looking and the conditions under which you look remain unchanged. So to stare fixedly at an object would on his view be represented in this way: (I') A I side with Baxter and Hirsch on this matter.4 But the dispute in any case has minimal ramifications for the purposes of this paper. My concern is with how Hume thinks a sequence or succession of impressions such as (1) would normally be experienced, i.e., with what idea the common person would derive from such a succession, and with how such an individual would characterize this succession. According to Hume, regardless of whether or not perceptions are extended, if a perceiver were to be presented with a succession like (1), it would be experienced or taken as (V). Hume... (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Causal Inference and Justification The Traditional View: Skepticism and Unreflective Inference Causal Inference is not always Immediate and Unreflective Reflective Causal Inference What was Hume arguing in Treatise 1.3.6? The Skeptical Reading The Anti‐rationalist Reading The Causal/Explanatory Reading (1) The Causal/Explanatory Reading (2) Notes References and further reading.

Much of what Hume calls probable reasoning is deliberate and reflective. Since there are aspects to Hume’s psychology that tempt some commentators to think, on the contrary, that for Hume all such reasoning is simple and immediate, I will be concerned to emphasize Hume’s recognition of the sophisticated sort of probable reasoning (section I). Though some of the details of my case may be new, the overall point of this section should not be news to recent scholarship. But once we (...) recognize that this reflective and deliberate reasoning constitutes a significant portion of all probable reasoning, it becomes legitimate to ask how Hume accommodates this reasoning in his psychology, his ‘science of man.’ I believe that .. (shrink)

Before one can give a fully adequate account of action, one must know where the action is. This amounts to understanding the nature of basic or unmediated action, the performance of which does not require performing any other act as a means. There is little consensus on what sort of act is basic. Volitionists such as H. A. Prichard, Brian O'Shaughnessy, Jennifer Hornsby and Carl Ginet, hold that a special type of mental act is basic and underlies all overt bodily (...) action. They believe that action, in its fundamental form, occurs in the head or mind of the agent that performs it. "Corporealists" like Donald Davidson hold that the basic act is one of bodily movement. Finally, "environmentalists" include events beyond the body as part of the basic act. ;The dissertation is devoted to establishing the viability and exploring the ramifications of the environmentalist conception of basicness. Ideas of various theorists are discussed, including Donald Davidson, G. E. M. Anscombe, George Wilson, Gilbert Harman, John Searle, Alfred Mele, Tyler Burge, and John Perry. I address a number of arguments for volitionism or corporealism which draw upon some aspect of action, such as its individuation , its description , its rationalization , and its intentionality or content--in particular its self-referential content . Discussions of these topics serve to further articulate the environmentalist notion that in acting we can have an unmediated or direct effect upon our surroundings. A defense of environmentalism offers, in turn, a new understanding of these various aspects of action. (shrink)

Socializing Metaphysics supplies diverse answers to the basic questions of social metaphysics, from a broad array of voices. It will interest all philosophers and social scientists concerned with mind, action, or the foundations of social theory.

The reasons for which I act are normally my reasons; I represent goal states and the means to attaining them, and these guide me in action. Can your reason ever be the reason why I act? If I haven’t yet taken up your reason and made it mine by representing it for myself, then it may seem mysterious how this could be possible. Nevertheless, the paper argues that sometimes one is entitled to another’s reason and that what one does is (...) to be explained in terms of it. The case for this draws on aspects of the interplay between reasons and intentions in individual agency that have not received the attention they deserve. The paper closes by exploring the limits of interpersonal entitlement to reasons by formulating a hypothesis about which reasons one might be entitled to, and by considering how defeaters can undermine entitlement. (shrink)

The intentions of others often enter into your practical reasoning, even when you’re acting on your own. Given all the agents around you, you’ll come to grief if what they’re up to is never a consideration in what you decide to do and how you do it. There are occasions, however, when the intentions of another figure in your practical reasoning in a particularly intimate and decisive fashion. I will speak of there being on such occasions a practical intersubjectivity of (...) intentions holding between you and the other individual. I will try to identify this practical intersubjectivity, and to take some preliminary steps toward giving a philosophical account of it. Occasions of practical intersubjectivity are usually those where individuals share agency, or do things jointly, such as when they walk together, kiss, or paint a house together. I will not assume that all instances of practical intersubjectivity are instances of shared agency. But the converse is true: any instance of shared agency involves a practical intersubjectivity holding between the participants. An account of shared agency is inadequate if it fails to handle practical intersubjectivity. The paper is structured as follows. In section 1, I present an example to illustrate this idea of practical intersubjectivity, at least as it appears in the context of shared agency. Practical intersubjectivity is a normative phenomenon, and it is on this basis that in section 2 I distinguish it from the mere coordination of intentions some have recognized as essential for shared activity. The task of section 3 is to show how practical intersubjectivity cannot be adequately described in terms of ordinary intentions familiar from the study of individual agency. Such approaches fail to handle the rational dynamics of intention revision when practical.. (shrink)

Davidson held that the explanation of action in terms of reasons was a form of causal explanation. He challenged anti-causalists to identify a non-causal relation underlying reasons---explanation which could distinguish between merely having a reason and that reason being the one for which one acts. George Wilson attempts to meet Davidson’s challenge, but the relation he identifies can serve only in explanations of general facts, whereas reasons explanation is often of particular acts. This suggests that the relation underlying reasons explanation (...) is not only causal, but singular as well. A further proposal, extracted from Fred Dretske’s views, characterizes this singular causal relation in terms of non-mental triggers. But this suggestion underestimates the explanatory role of the environment at the time of action, and shares with Wilson’s proposal the inability to account for the rationalization of particular acts. A situational environmentalist conception of reasons explanation, however, does not face these difficulties. (shrink)

Some of the reasons one acts on in joint action are shared with fellow participants. But others are proprietary: reasons of one’s own that have no direct practical significance for other participants. The compatibility of joint action with proprietary reasons serves to distinguish the former from other forms of collective agency; moreover, it is arguably a desirable feature of joint action. Advocates of “team reasoning” link the special collective intention individual participants have when acting together with a distinctive form of (...) practical reasoning that purports to put individuals in touch with group or collective reasons. Such views entail the surprising conclusion that one cannot engage in joint action for proprietary reasons. Suppose we understand the contrast between minimal and robust forms of joint action in terms of the extent to which participants act on proprietary reasons as opposed to shared reasons. Then, if the team reasoning view of joint intention and action is correct, it makes no sense to talk of minimal joint action. As soon as the reason for which one participates is proprietary, then one is not, on this view, genuinely engaged in joint action. (shrink)

The author of Categories We Live By replies to critics Linda Martín Alcoff, Judith Butler, and Abraham Sesshu Roth.

These are replies to the discussions by Kirk Ludwig, Elizabeth Pacherie, Björn Petersson, Abraham Roth, and Thomas Smith of Michael E. Bratman, Shared Agency: A Planning Theory of Acting Together (Oxford University Press, 2014).

Immanuel Kant’s moral philosophy, political philosophy, and philosophy of judgement have been and continue to be widely discussed among many scholars. The impact of his thinking is beyond doubt and his ideas continue to inspire and encourage an on-going dialogue among many people in our world today. Given the historical and philosophical significance of Kant’s moral, political, and aesthetic theory, and the connection he draws between these theories and the appropriate function and methodology of education, it is surprising that relatively (...) little has been written on Kant’s contribution to education theory. Recently, however, internationally recognized Kant scholars such as Paul Guyer, Manfred Kuehn, Richard Velkley, Robert Louden, Susan Shell, and others have begun to turn their attention to Kant’s writings on education and the role of education in cultivating moral character. _Kant and Education: Interpretations and Commentary_ has gathered these scholars together with the aim of filling this perceived void in Kant scholarship. All of the essays contained within this volume will examine either Kant’s ideas on education through an historical analysis of his texts; or the importance and relevance of his moral philosophy, political philosophy, and/or aesthetics in contemporary education theory. (shrink)

One of the most basic questions an ontology can address is: How many things, or substances, are there? A monist will say, ‘just one’. But there are different stripes of monism, and where the borders between these different views lie rests on the question, ‘To what does this “oneness” apply?’ Some monists apply ‘oneness’ to existence. Others apply ‘oneness’ to types. Determining whether a philosopher is a monist and deciphering what this is supposed to mean is no easy task, especially (...) when it comes to those writing in the early modern period because many philosophers of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries include God in their ontologies. InThe Principles,Anne Finch Conway offers an ontology that is often described as being both ‘vitalist’ and ‘monist’. I take this to mean that, for Conway, all that exists is in some way alive and that if asked ‘How many things, or substances, are there?’ Conway would say, ‘Just one’. But to what does this ‘oneness’ apply? And where does the point of disagreement between Conway and her interlocutors, Hobbes, Spinoza, More, and Descartes lie? In this paper, I argue that determining the answer to this first question turns out to be quite difficult. Nevertheless, we can still make sense of the second. (shrink)

The importance of John Locke's discussion of persons is undeniable. Locke never explicitly tells us whether he thinks persons are substances or modes, however. We are thus left in the dark about a fundamental aspect of Locke's view. Many commentators have recently claimed that Lockean persons are modes. In this paper I swim against the current tide in the secondary literature and argue that Lockean persons are substances. Specifically I argue that what Locke says about substance, power, and agency commits (...) him to the claim that persons are substances. I consider the passages mode interpreters cite and show why these passages do not imply that Lockean persons are modes. I also respond to two objections anyone who thinks Lockean persons are substances must address. I show that a substance reading of Locke on persons can be sympathetic and viable. I contend that with a clearer understanding of the ontological status of Lockean persons we can gain a firmer grasp of what Locke's picture of persons looks like. Finally, once we are armed with a better understanding of Locke on substance, mode, and personhood, we can pave the way toward a more nuanced description of the early modern debate over personal identity. (shrink)

Typically developing 3-day-old newborns take significantly more forward steps on a moving treadmill belt than on a static belt. The current experiment examined whether projecting optic flows that specified forward motion onto the moving treadmill surface would further enhance forward stepping. Twenty newborns were supported on a moving treadmill without optic flow, with optic flow matching the treadmill’s direction and speed, with optic flow in the same direction but at a faster speed, and in a control condition with an incoherent (...) optic flow moving at the same speed as in the Congruent condition but in random directions. The results revealed no significant differences in the number or coordination of forward treadmill steps taken in each condition. However, the Faster condition generated significantly fewer leg pumping movements than the Random control condition. When highly aroused, newborns made significantly fewer single steps and significantly more parallel steps and pumping movements. We speculate the null findings may be a function of the high friction material that covered the treadmill surface. (shrink)

There are many reasons to include texts written by women in early modern philosophy courses. The most obvious one is accuracy: women helped to shape the philosophical landscape of the time. Thus, to craft a syllabus that wholly excludes women is to give students an inaccurate picture of the early modern period. Since it seems safe to assume that we all aim for accuracy, this should be reason enough to include women writers in our courses. This article nonetheless offers an (...) additional reason: when students are exposed to philosophical texts written by women, they learn that women have been, are, and can be philosophers. Given how underrepresented women are in philosophy, this finding is significant. If we aim to change the face of philosophy—so that it includes more women—we must include texts written by women in our syllabi. The article considers various obstacles faced by those who work to respond to this call to action. (shrink)

Catharine Trotter Cockburn is best known for her Defence of Mr. Locke’s Essay of Human Understanding (1702). However very little has been said about Trotter’s treatment of Locke’s metaphysical commitments therein. In this paper I give a brief description of the history of Trotter’s Defence. Thereafter I focus on two (of the many) objections to which Trotter responds on Locke’s behalf: 1) the objection that Locke has not proved the soul immortal, and 2) the objection that Locke’s view leads to (...) the absurd consequence that our souls are in constant flux. I argue that Trotter offers a compelling response to both of these charges. This is not only because of what Trotter explicitly claims in the Defence, but also because the Defence invites and encourages the reader to return to Locke’s text. I then argue that in Trotter we find additional insights and clarifications once we move past the two objections I just mentioned, and on to the related topic of personal identity. In this short paper I am not be able to offer a full explication or evaluation of Trotter’s treatment of Locke’s metaphysical commitments. I am, however, able to show that this aspect of Trotter’s Defence warrants careful consideration and further study. (shrink)

Feminist work in the history of philosophy has been going on for several decades. Some scholars have focused on the ways philosophical concepts are themselves gendered. Others have recovered women writers who were well known in their own time but forgotten in ours, while still others have firmly placed into a philosophical context the works of women writers long celebrated within other disciplines in the humanities. The recovery of women writers has challenged the myth that there are no women in (...) the history of philosophy, but it has not eradicated it. What, we may ask, is impeding our progress? This paper argues that so often we treat early modern women philosophers’ texts in ways that are different from, or inconsistent with, the explicit commitments of the analytic tradition, and in so doing, we may be triggering our audiences to reject these women as philosophers, and their texts as philosophical. Moreover, this is the case despite our intention to achieve precisely the opposite effect. (shrink)

Foundations of Set Theory discusses the reconstruction undergone by set theory in the hands of Brouwer, Russell, and Zermelo. Only in the axiomatic foundations, however, have there been such extensive, almost revolutionary, developments. This book tries to avoid a detailed discussion of those topics which would have required heavy technical machinery, while describing the major results obtained in their treatment if these results could be stated in relatively non-technical terms. This book comprises five chapters and begins with a discussion of (...) the antinomies that led to the reconstruction of set theory as it was known before. It then moves to the axiomatic foundations of set theory, including a discussion of the basic notions of equality and extensionality and axioms of comprehension and infinity. The next chapters discuss type-theoretical approaches, including the ideal calculus, the theory of types, and Quine's mathematical logic and new foundations; intuitionistic conceptions of mathematics and its constructive character; and metamathematical and semantical approaches, such as the Hilbert program. This book will be of interest to mathematicians, logicians, and statisticians. (shrink)

This paper offers the concept of “justice failure,” as a counterpart to the familiar idea of market failure, in order to better understand managers’ ethical obligations. This paper takes the “market failures approach” to business ethics as its point of departure. The success of the MFA, I argue, lies in its close proximity with economic theory, particularly in the idea that, within a larger scheme of social cooperation, markets ought to pursue efficiency and leave the pursuit of equality to the (...) welfare state. As a result, the core ethical responsibility of business actors is to avoid profiting off of market failure. After reviewing this approach I challenge its emphasis on efficiency. I argue that just as we note the suboptimal efficiency of actual markets, we should also take seriously the suboptimal equality of actual welfare states. Taking this idea seriously results in a whole other set of ethical responsibilities for businesses to take into account; in addition to market imperfections and regulatory lacunae, managers should also avoid profiting from, and exacerbating, structural inequalities and injustices. I offer an outline of the kinds of injustices and inequalities that would have bearing on business ethics, and the kinds of ethical responsibilities that this approach suggests that business actors should take into account. (shrink)

This paper presents a cognitive model of the planning process. The model generalizes the theoretical architecture of the Hearsay‐ll system. Thus, it assumes that planning comprises the activities of a variety of cognitive “specialists.” Each specialist can suggest certain kinds of decisions for incorporation into the plan in progress. These include decisions about: (a) how to approach the planning problem; (b) what knowledge bears on the problem; (c) what kinds of actions to try to plan; (d) what specific actions to (...) plan; and (e) how to allocate cognitive resources during planning. Within each of these categories, different specialists suggest decisions at different levels of abstraction. The activities of the various specialists are not coordinated in any systematic way. Instead, the specialists operate opportunistically, suggesting decisions whenever promising opportunities arise. The paper presents a detailed account of the model and illustrates its assumptions with a “thinking aloud” protocol. It also describes the performance of a computer simulation of the model. The paper contrasts the proposed model with successive refinement models and attempts to resolve apparent differences between the two points of view. (shrink)

Abraham Pais's Subtle Is the Lord was a publishing phenomenon: a mathematically sophisticated exposition of the science and the life of Albert Einstein that reached a huge audience and won an American Book Award. Reviewers hailed the book as "a monument to sound scholarship and graceful style", "an extraordinary biography of an extraordinary man", and "a fine book". In this groundbreaking new volume, Pais undertakes a history of the physics of matter and of physical forces since the discovery of (...) x-rays. The book attempts to relate not only what has happened over the last hundred years but why it happened the way it did, what it was like for those scientists involved, and how what at the time may have seemed a series of bizarre or unrelated events, now with hindsight emerges as a logical sequence of events. Pais, a noted physicist, was personally involved in many of the developments he describes, and thus Inward Bound, like his earlier book, is filled with unique insights into the world of big and small physics. Between 1895 and 1983, the period he covers, the smallest distances explored have shrunk a hundred millionfold, Pais notes. Along this incompletely traveled "road inward," scientists have established markers that later generations will rank among the principal monuments of the twentieth century. In alternating technical and nontechnical sections, this magisterial survey richly conveys what has been discovered about the constituents of matter, the laws to which they are subject, and the forces that act on them. But the advances have certainly not come smoothly. The book shows that these have been times of progress and stagnation, of order and chaos, of clarity and confusion, of belief and incredulity, of the conventional and the bizarre; also of revolutionaries and conservatives, of science by individuals and by consortia, of little gadgets and big machines, and of modest funds and big money. About the Author: Abraham Pais is Detlev W. Bronk Professor of Physics at the Rockefeller University. The author of the prizewinning biography of Einstein now undertakes a history of modern physics. (shrink)

"John Locke is considered as one of the most important philosophers of the modern era. The Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were both highly influenced by Locke's philosophical ideas. Commonly known as the 'Father of Liberalism' Locke heavily influences contemporary libertarianism, with its emphasis on small government, the requirement of actual consent to that government, and a natural executive right to establish one's own sovereignty and enforce one'' own rights. The Lockean Mind provides a comprehensive survey of (...) his work, not only placing it in its historical context but also exploring its contemporary significance. Comprising almost sixty chapters by a superb team of international contributors, the volume is divided into twelve parts covering the full range of Locke's thought: Historical Background, Locke's Interlocutors, Locke's Epistemology, Locke's Philosophy of Mind, Locke on Philosophy of Language and Logic, Locke's Metaphysics, Locke's Natural Philosophy, Locke's Moral Philosophy, Locke on Education, Locke's Political Philosophy, Locke's Social Philosophy, Locke on Religion. This collection is essential reading for students and researchers working in political philosophy, philosophy of mind, libertarianism, British Empiricism, epistemology and political theory, as well as for those in related Humanities and Social Sciences disciplines with an interest in John Locke"--. (shrink)