Yet, hitherto, there has been no attempt to reconstruct the relation betwen these two thinkers, a major interpretative task for which "Heidegger and Aristotle" ...

This challenging new reading of Nietzsche counters the highly misleading interpretation of post-modern commentators.

Maudemarie Clark adalah salah satu dari sekian akademisi yang cukup tekun menggeluti teks-teks Nietzsche dalam 20 tahun terakhir ini. Buku pertamanya berjudul Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy juga diterbitkan oleh Oxford University Press pada tahun 1990. Sejak saat itu, Clark sering menuliskan kajian-kajiannya mengenai Nietzsche pada berbagai antologi buku maupun jurnal, termasuk Journal of Nietzsche Studies (New York: Penn State University Press). Salah satu kekhasan pendekatan Clark adalah pendekatan kombinasinya yang bercorak analitis. Ia menamakannya kombinasi karena ia mengambil unsur-unsur pendekatan (...) tradisional (Walter Kaufmann dan John Wilcox) dan pendekatan Nietzsche Baru (Alexander Nehamas dan Sarah Kofmann) seraya menganalisisnya dengan gaya analitis (seperti Arthur Danto dan Bern Magnus). Dan hasilnya adalah suatu kajian simpatik mengenai filsafat Nietzsche yang berkaitan erat dengan perkembangan sains, pendidikan, etika, dan politik terkini. Dua tema terakhir itulah (etika dan politik) yang menjadi tema besar buku terbarunya, Nietzsche on Ethics and Politics (NEP). Tentu saja kajian Clark ini menarik karena bertentangan dengan pandangan umum yang sering dikenakan kepada Nietzsche: imoralis dan apolitis. NEP sendiri sebetulnya terdiri dari empat belas artikel yang telah disusun secara terpisah oleh Clark entah sebagai artikel jurnal, konferensi, ataupun kuliah. Namun, untuk memudahkan pembaca, Clark menggolongkan keempat belas artikel tersebut ke dalam tiga topik besar, yakni etika, politik, dan metafisika. Melalui dua tema tersebutetika dan politikClark menghadirkan tafsiran tak lazim atas teks-teks Nietzsche. Meski demikian, tafsiran ter sebut bukanlah hal yang baru di kalangan akademisi Nietzschean yang berkembang pesat dalam satu dekade terakhir ini. Misalnya, tafsir yang memprioritaskan nilai-nilai aristokratis ketimbang institusi/tatanan politik aristokratis sekurang-kurangnya telah muncul sejak tahun 1990-an seperti yang dipaparkan oleh Ted Sadler dalam buku Nietzsche: Truth and Redemption (London: Athlone Press, 1995). Dalam buku tersebut, Sadler mengistilahkannya dengan roh aristokratis yang dibedakan dengan dua jenis roh lainnya: roh kelas jelata dan roh kelas menengah. Selain itu, format NPE sebagai kumpulan esai-esai Clark lebih menekankan kekayaan sudut pandang ataupun kritik atas tafsiran umum mengenai etika dan politik Nietzschean ketimbang kedalaman argumentasi akan suatu isu tertentu. Penekanan tersebut tampak ketika Clark membahas pandangan-pandangan para komentator Nietzsche kontemporer (khususnya Anglo-Amerika), seperti: Lawrence J. Hatab, Bernard Williams, Allan Bloom, Keith Ansell-Pearson, Julian Young, dan Brian Leiter. Meski demikian, NPE menawarkan posisi tafsir yang cukup kokoh karena Clark menunjukkan secara langsung teks-teks Nietzsche yang menjadi sumber rujukannya. Tentu saja iklim tersebut baik guna membuka polemik dan variasi pemahaman yang lebih teruji seiring waktu. (Yulius Tandyanto, Mahasiswa, Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat Driyarkara, Jakarta.). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.3 (2003) 425-426 [Access article in PDF] Martin Heidegger. The Essence of Human Freedom: An Introduction to Philosophy. Translated by Ted Sadler. London: Continuum, 2002. Pp. xiv + 216. Paper, $29.95.Of the recently translated volumes comprising Heidegger's Gesamtausgabe, perhaps the volume whose importance is most underestimated contains his lectures from the summer semester of 1930 (Vom Wesen der menschlichen Freiheit), which now (...) appears in English under the title On the Essence of Human Freedom. In this work, Heidegger complements his other attempts to retrieve Kant's transcendental philosophy—which primarily focused on reinterpreting the Critique of Pure Reason—by offering the fullest treatment of practical reason to be found in the Gesamtausgabe. As such, this translation of Band 31 of the Gesamtausgabe proves invaluable because it (1) provides another side to Heidegger's critical exchange (Auseinandersetzung) with Kant (198) and (2) yields some tantalizing clues as to a vestige of a Heideggerian ethic which can be developed by examining human freedom.In a lecture course from the winter semester of 1925-26 (Logik: Die Frage nach der Wahrheit), Heidegger turned to Kant's doctrine of schematism in order to distinguish finitude as the key dimension of temporality. From that point until the publication of "Kants These über das Sein" (1961), the importance of retrieving transcendental philosophy surfaces at strategic places in Heidegger's thought, although he devotes most of his attention to unraveling the issue of temporality couched in the Transcendental Analytic of the first Critique. What sets The Essence of Human Freedom apart, however, is that it identifies freedom as a new locus from which to address the possibility of being's disclosure through time, which remains unthought in the Greek concept of ousia as "permanent presence": "The question of human freedom is the fundamental question of philosophy, in which is rooted even the question of being" (203). Human freedom, and the questioning of its finite origin in human existence (Dasein), thereby yields a wider topography within which to re-ask the question of being in light of its connection to time. The topography takes this form: the traditional, or "leading question of philosophy" (what are beings as such?), gives way to the "fundamental question of philosophy" (why is being disclosed through time?), which can be developed only by addressing freedom as the ground of human existence (23).In Part I of The Essence of Human Freedom, Heidegger shows how Kant's modern effort to define freedom epistemically as a form of causation must be recast in light of the ontological concern of the ancients to define movement as a determination of the dynamism of being. In Part II, Heidegger outlines Kant's attempt to establish the possibility of freedom in the Transcendental Dialectic, the enigma of how two apparently incompatible forms of causation—the determinism of nature and the spontaneity of will—can stand in a "double [End Page 425] relation to the same effect" (172). Heidegger offers his own resolution of the third antinomy. He argues that the apparent incompatibility of the preceding causalities can be resolved when reason reconciles itself with its own finitude: leaving open its possibility of serving as a spontaneous cause in the intelligible realm of morality, while restricting the scope of natural causality to the sensible realm of appearances. The need to establish the possibility of freedom must then give way to establishing its actuality as the self-legislative power of the will in the practical domain. "Pure willing is the willing of one's own essence as will.... Thus the fundamental law of a finite pure willing, i.e., of a pure practical reason, is a categorical imperative (190-1). Having then distinguished the occurrence of freedom in its practical domain, Heidegger identifies ethical praxis as the source of actuality for the spontaneous causality of a will, the self-legislation of the categorical imperative. "The factuality corresponding to the idea of freedom is that of praxis" (185). In one of the strongest statements to be found anywhere in his writings in... (shrink)

The volume under review contains manuscript-based texts of two courses offered by Martin Heidegger, “The Idea of Philosophy and the Problem of Worldview” and “Phenomenology and Transcendental Philosophy of Value,” as well as a student’s transcript of a third course given by Heidegger, “On the Nature of the University and Academic Study,” for which there is no extant autograph manuscript. All of the courses were given in 1919, Heidegger’s first year as a teacher at the University of Freiburg, where he (...) had completed his doctorate six years earlier. The first course was given in place of a previously scheduled course on Kant during the university’s special academic session for returning World War I veterans. The other two courses were part of Freiburg’s regular summer semester offerings. Heidegger wrote out these and all subsequent courses he gave in his career although, as the student transcripts with which the original manuscripts were compared for the first two courses show, he often extemporized in his presentation of the written texts. The manuscript of the text of the second course is incomplete, but the second edition of the book in which these three courses were first published in German in 1987 includes an excerpt of a student’s transcript of the last two lectures of the course. According to the editor of the German edition, for the first two courses “collations of manuscript with transcription have allowed lacunae to be filled and errors to be corrected” in Heidegger’s text. The extensive titles of “divisions and sub-headings [within the texts] were made by the editor.... The overall title of the volume was also provided by the editor”. This follows a practice established by the publisher of the Heidegger Gesamtausgabe that is said to be based on Heidegger’s directives. The translator, Ted Sadler, has added a brief “Foreword” and a short 35-item English-German glossary to this, the first volume of a projected Collected Works of Heidegger in English announced by the publisher. (shrink)

We must suffer, suffer into truth. –AeschylusThe outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 in late 2019 along with the ensuing shutdowns and scramble for a vaccine provided unprecedented soil for various conspiracy t...

Few philosophers have been as widely misunderstood as Nietzsche. His detractors and followers alike have often fundamentally misinterpreted him, distorting his views and intentions and criticizing or celebrating him for reasons removed from the views he actually held. Now available in paper, Nietzsche assesses his place in European thought, concentrating upon his writings in the last decade of his productive life. Nietzsche emerges in this comprehensive study as a philosopher of considerable sophistication who diverged sharply from traditional and ordinary ways (...) of thinking, but whose criticism, departures, and alternative views and strategies deserve to be given the most serious attention by philosophers. (shrink)

William Roche and Elliott Sober argue that explanatoriness is evidentially irrelevant. This conclusion is surprising since it conflicts with a plausible assumption—the fact that a hypothesis best explains a given set of data is evidence that the hypothesis is true. We argue that Roche and Sober's screening-off argument fails to account for a key aspect of evidential strength: the weight of a body of evidence. The weight of a body of evidence affects the resiliency of probabilities in the light of (...) new evidence. Thus, Roche and Sober are mistaken. Explanatoriness is evidentially relevant. (shrink)

Taste sensitivity and liking drive food choices and ingestive behaviors from childhood to adulthood, yet their longitudinal association with dietary intake and BMI is largely understudied. Here, we examined the longitudinal relationship between sugar and fat sensitivity, sugar and fat liking, habitual dietary intake, and BMI percentiles in a sample of 105 healthy-weight adolescents over a 4-year period. Taste sensitivity was assessed via a triangle fat and sweet taste discrimination test. Taste liking were rated on a visual analog scale for (...) four milkshakes that varied in sugar and fat contents, low-fat/high-sugar, high-fat/low-sugar, low-fat/low-sugar milkshakes). A modified version of the reduced Block Food Frequency Questionnaire was used to assess dietary intake. All measurements were repeated annually. Repeated measures correlations and linear mixed effects models were used to model the associations between the variables. Sugar sensitivity was negatively associated with liking for the LF/HS milkshake over the 4-year period. Low sugar sensitivity at baseline predicted increases in BMI percentile over time, but this association didn’t survive a correction for multiple comparisons. Percent daily intake from fat was positively associated with liking for the HF/HS milkshake and negatively associated with liking for the LF/LS milkshake over 4 years. Together, these results demonstrate that lower sensitivity to sweet taste is linked to increased hedonic response to high-sugar foods and increased energy intake from fat seems to condition adolescents to show increased liking for high-fat/high-sugar foods. (shrink)

PART I The superpower and asymmetry PART II Jus ad bellum, jus in bello, jus post bellum PART III Leadership and accountability PART IV Soldiersa (TM) ...

We are often uncertain how to behave morally in complex situations. In this controversial study, Ted Lockhart contends that moral philosophy has failed to address how we make such moral decisions. Adapting decision theory to the task of decision-making under moral uncertainly, he proposes that we should not always act how we feel we ought to act, and that sometimes we should act against what we feel to be morally right. Lockhart also discusses abortion extensively and proposes new ways to (...) deal with the ethical and moral issues which surround it. (shrink)

The public, mental health consumers, as well as mental health practitioners wonder about what kinds of values mental health professionals hold, and what kinds of values influence psychiatric diagnosis. Are mental disorders socio-political, practical, or scientific concepts? Is psychiatric diagnosis value-neutral? What role does the fundamental philosophical question "How should I live?" play in mental health care? In his carefully nuanced and exhaustively referenced monograph, psychiatrist and philosopher of psychiatry John Z. Sadler describes the manifold kinds of values and (...) value judgements involved in psychiatric diagnosis and classification systems like the DSM. Professor Sadler takes the reader on a fascinating conceptual tour of the inner workings of psychiatric diagnosis, considering the role of science, culture, sexuality, politics, gender, technology, human nature, patienthood, and professions in building his vision of a more humane psychiatric diagnostic process. (shrink)

Ted T. Aoki, the most prominent curriculum scholar of his generation in Canada, has influenced numerous scholars around the world. Curriculum in a New Key brings together his work, over a 30-year span, gathered here under the themes of reconceptualizing curriculum; language, culture, and curriculum; and narrative. Aoki's oeuvre is utterly unique--a complex interdisciplinary configuration of phenomenology, post-structuralism, and multiculturalism that is both theoretically and pedagogically sophisticated and speaks directly to teachers, practicing and prospective. Curriculum in a New Key: The (...) Collected Works of Ted T. Aoki is an invaluable resource for graduate students, professors, and researchers in curriculum studies, and for students, faculty, and scholars of education generally. (shrink)

In this paper, we compare and contrast two methods for the revision of qualitative beliefs. The first method is generated by a simplistic diachronic Lockean thesis requiring coherence with the agent’s posterior credences after conditionalization. The second method is the orthodox AGM approach to belief revision. Our primary aim is to determine when the two methods may disagree in their recommendations and when they must agree. We establish a number of novel results about their relative behavior. Our most notable finding (...) is that the inverse of the golden ratio emerges as a non-arbitrary bound on the Bayesian method’s free-parameter—the Lockean threshold. This “golden threshold” surfaces in two of our results and turns out to be crucial for understanding the relation between the two methods. (shrink)

This paper investigates links between social capital and symbolic capital and responsible entrepreneurship in the context of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The source of the primary data was 144 ‘Business Profiles’, written by the owner-managers of small businesses in application for a Small Business Awards competition in 2005. Included in each of these narratives were claims relating to the firms’ contributions to wider society, relationships with customers, employees and stakeholders. These narratives were coded and classified in a framework drawn (...) from Nahapiet and Ghoshal’s (1998, Academy of Management Review 23(2), 242–266) categorisation of social capital. The analysis revealed a range of strategic orientations towards the development of social and symbolic capital, along a conceptual continuum ranging from being responsible for oneself to being responsible for others. Overall, the evidence demonstrates the significance of the power inherent in the social relations of SMEs as a force for ethical behaviour, and suggests that normative theories of the development of social capital may provide ‘competitive advantage’ through responsible behaviour for small business in the global economy. (shrink)

Hallucination: the perception of an impossible image. That which can never appear suddenly does so anyways - a private world that appears only to the eye of the one imagining it... until now. Ted Serios, psychic photographer, claimed he could project images directly from his mind onto photographic film. Under the sign of the psychic photograph, “Hallucinating Ted Serios” is a theorization of the dominant forms of uncertainty that persist in postmodern evaluations of representation, interpretation and identity. The central thesis (...) of this paper is that the imaginary and the real have collapsed into the spectral hallucination of one another, rendering impossible the rhetorical separation of hallucination from image. With the collapse of the boundary between the fictive and the real, the world of representation becomes intelligible only as an imaginary phenomenon; with the collapse between the object and the observer, interpretation is rendered deceptively magical; and, with the collapse between the self and its anonymous double, identity itself is relegated to a state of impossibility. Consequently, under the persisting signs of the imaginary, the magical and the impossible, “Hallucinating Ted Serios” asserts that in our contemporary world there no longer exists the possibility of failed performativity – psychic, imaginary or otherwise. (shrink)

North by Northwest -- Metaphor and the cultivation of intimacy -- Notes on metaphor -- What's special about photography? -- Sports and art -- Clay for contemplation -- There are no ties at first base -- A driving examination -- Objects of appreciation -- And what if they don't laugh? -- Liking what's good: why should we? -- Language games -- Ethics class -- Kings and salesmen -- One way to think about popular art -- Caring -- The idea of (...) absolute gin -- Playing by the rules -- Freedom from rules. (shrink)

Abe and his friend Sol are out for a walk together in a part of town they haven't been in before. Passing a Christian church, they notice a curious sign in front that says "$1,000 to anyone who will convert." "I wonder what that's about," says Abe. "I think I'll go in and have a look. I'll be back in a minute; just wait for me." Sol sits on the sidewalk bench and waits patiently for nearly half an hour. Finally, (...) Abe reappears. "Well," asks Sol, "what are they up to? Who are they trying to convert? Why do they care? Did you get the $1,000?" Indignantly Abe replies, "Money. That's all you people care about." Ted Cohen thinks that's not a bad joke. But he also doesn't think it's an easy joke. For a listener or reader to laugh at Abe's conversion, a complicated set of conditions must be met. First, a listener has to recognize that Abe and Sol are Jewish names. Second, that listener has to be familiar with the widespread idea that Jews are more interested in money than anything else. And finally, the listener needs to know this information in advance of the joke, and without anyone telling him or her. Jokes, in short, are complicated transactions in which communities are forged, intimacy is offered, and otherwise offensive stereotypes and cliches lose their sting—at least sometimes. _Jokes_ is a book of jokes and a book about them. Cohen loves a good laugh, but as a philosopher, he is also interested in how jokes work, why they work, and when they don't. The delight at the end of a joke is the result of a complex set of conditions and processes, and Cohen takes us through these conditions in a philosophical exploration of humor. He considers questions of audience, selection of joke topics, the ethnic character of jokes, and their morality, all with plenty of examples that will make you either chuckle or wince. _Jokes:_ more humorous than other philosophy books, more philosophical than other humor books. "Befitting its subject, this study of jokes is... light, funny, and thought-provoking.... [T]he method fits the material, allowing the author to pepper the book with a diversity of jokes without flattening their humor as a steamroller theory might. Such a book is only as good as its jokes, and most of his are good.... [E]ntertainment and ideas in one gossamer package."—_Kirkus Reviews_ "One of the many triumphs of Ted Cohen's Jokes-apart from the not incidental fact that the jokes are so good that he doesn't bother to compete with them-is that it never tries to sound more profound than the jokes it tells.... [H]e makes you feel he is doing an unusual kind of philosophy. As though he has managed to turn J. L. Austin into one of the Marx Brothers.... Reading Jokes makes you feel that being genial is the most profound thing we ever do-which is something jokes also make us feel-and that doing philosophy is as natural as being amused."—Adam Phillips, _London Review of Books_ "[A] lucid and jargon-free study of the remarkable fact that we divert each other with stories meant to make us laugh.... An illuminating study, replete with killer jokes."—Kevin McCardle, _The Herald_ "Cohen is an ardent joke-maker, keen to offer us a glimpse of how jokes are crafted and to have us dwell rather longer on their effects."—Barry C. Smith, _Times Literary Supplement_ "Because Ted Cohen loves jokes, we come to appreciate them more, and perhaps think further about the quality of good humor and the appropriateness of laughter in our lives."—Steve Carlson, _Christian Science Monitor_. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Biological, brain, and behavioral sciences offer strong and growing support for the virtue ethics account of moral judgment and ethical behavior in business organizations. The acquisition of moral agency in business involves the recognition, refinement, and habituation through the processes of reflexion and reflection of a moral sense encapsulated in innate modules for compassion, hierarchy, reciprocity, purity, and affiliation adaptive for communal life both in ancestral and modern environments. The genetic and neural bases of morality exist independently of institutional frameworks (...) and social structures. The latter not only shape moral behaviors within circumscribed limits, they also imply a plurality and compartmentalization of roles which may enable or impede the habituation of virtue. Becoming a virtuous agent entails the practical refinement of predispositionsin situas a member of a community of practitioners rather than entailing a normative ethical educational project seeking an intellectual resolution of abstract moral questions. (shrink)

The Four ages contains a brief explicit discussion of the issue of Christian philosophy, referencing the Middle Ages and the 1930s French debates about Christian philosophy. Closer attention to the debates reveals a plurality of positions rather than unanimous agreement on Christian philosophy, indicating that the quite complex issues were not resolved. In this review article, I contest Deely’s interpretation of Maritian’s position, provide an exegesis of Maritain’s position, argue that Deely’s explicit position is identifiable as very close to Neo-Scholastic (...) opponents of Christian philosophy during the debates, and briefly discuss Gilson’s and Blondel’s criticisms of such positions articulated during the 1930s debates. I also indicate that despite his opposition to Christian philosophy, Deely shares several key insights with its proponents, and I end by suggesting but not developing a few ways Deely’s semiotic approach could bear additional fruit for postmodern Christian philosophy’s ongoing projects of self-understanding. (shrink)

'Review from previous edition 'the arguments for free will and determinism are lucidly laid out... A primer that is serviceable, enjoyable and rather mischievous.'' - The Observer 1993 ''refreshing, provocative and original work'' - Times Literary Supplement 1994 ''a readable and engaging introduction to the determinism controversy... Honderich's book is well worth reading... the view he presents is provocative and he has written a very challenging and enlightening introduction to 'the determinism problem' that should be widely read.'' - Times Educational (...) Supplement 1994 ''If you feel strong enough read this book; if not be glad that it has been written; this is main stream philosophy and its conclusions are encouraging.'' -New Directions July 2002This second edition of the best-known and most translated introduction to the great philosophical problem of determinism and freedom has been fully revised and enlarged to take account of debates emerging since the first edition was published. In the first edition Ted Honderich went beyond two traditions of philosophical thought, whilst in this edition he indicates that the nature of the debate must change. (shrink)

Do you know who you are? If the question seems unclear, it might owe to the notion of ‘knowing-wh’ (knowing-who, knowing-what, knowing-when, etc.). Such knowledge contrasts with ‘knowing-that’, the more familiar topic of epistemologists. But these days, knowing-wh is receiving more attention than ever, and here we will survey three current debates on the nature of knowing-wh. These debates concern, respectively, (1) whether all knowing-wh is reducible to knowing-that (‘generalized intellectualism’), (2) whether all knowing-wh is relativized to a contrast proposition (...) (‘contrastivism about knowing-wh’), and (3) whether the context-sensitivity of knowing-wh is a semantic or purely pragmatic phenomenon (‘contextualism vs. invariantism about knowing-wh’). (shrink)

Aristotle figures significantly in the recent boom of literature on forgiveness, particularly accounts wishing to construe forgiveness as a virtue. While his definition of anger is often invoked, he is also a foil for accounts valuing forgiveness more than did Aristotle. I argue through interpretive exegesis of Aristotle’s texts that, while there are definite limits on forgiveness in his thought, so that his notion of forgiveness does not extend as far as in Christian ethics, it does play a significant role (...) in his ethics. Forgiveness is particularly connected with the emotion and dynamic of anger, and my paper examines Aristotle’s discussions of anger, hatred and righteous indignation, indicating how forgiveness fits into these. Finally, I express my suspicions of recent accounts attempting to construe forgiveness itself as a virtue, arguing it is traditionally and more adequately understood as governed by virtues, in particular mildness (praōtēs) as Aristotle articulates it. (shrink)

I offer ten arguments to demonstrate why student plagiarism is unethical. In sum, plagiarism may be theft; involve deception that treats professors as a mere means; violate the trust upon which the professor-student relationship depends; be unfair to other students in more than one way; diminish the student’s education; indulge vices such as indolence and cowardice; foreclose access to the internal goods of the discipline; diminish the value of a university degree; undercut creative self-expression and acceptance of epistemic limitations; and (...) undermine the vital interpersonal component of higher education. Plagiarism warrants severe penalties that effectively combat the student’s presumptive competitive strategy for individual success. (shrink)

In this book, Ted Peters explores the fallacies of the "gene myth" and presents a resounding array of arguments against this kind of all-encompassing genetic determinism. On the scientific side, he correctly points out that genetic influences on behavior are in most instances relatively modest. Does anyone deny that identical twins are still able to practice individual free will? After dispatching some of the sweepingly deterministic conclusions of the "science" of evolutionary psychology with a particularly effective set of rebuttals, Peters (...) arrives at the conclusion that the nature of humanness is an interaction of three things- not one, not two, but three: genetics, environment, and free will. Neglecting any one of these three leads down a path of fuzzy thinking and dangerous consequences. (shrink)

_Can attitudes like those that have seemed welded to indeterminism and free will_ _actually go with determinism? Is it not a contradiction to suppose so? The little_ _Oxford University Press book_ _How Free Are You?_ _in its first edition, much_ _translated, was a summary of the indigestible or anyway not widely digested_.

This thematic bibliography provides a narrative account of the most important literature comprising, and about, the 1930s debates about Christian carried out by Etienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, Maurice Blondel, Emile Brehier, Gabriel Marcel, and many others. It functions as a companion piece to my book Reason Fulfilled By Revelation: The 1930s Christian Philosophy Debates In France.

Science’s theory of evolution purports to explain life and its historical dynamics in a physics/material-only fashion. But this entails a broad reliance on DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) for inheritance (and thus blueprints), which appears to be implausible for a number of unusual innate behaviors. The immediate unfolding challenge, though, is that the inheritance role is conveniently testable via searches for the DNA origins of a number of human behavioral and health tendencies, and despite enormous efforts those searches have thus far largely (...) failed (i.e., the “absolutely beyond belief” missing heritability problem). This existing case for DNA’s inadequacies will be briefly reviewed herein. The subsequent main analysis considers some big challenges facing DNA associated with some evolutionary dynamics—the acquisition of color vision in primates; instinctive behaviors including the egg-laying practices of emerald jewel wasps; kin selection; and our natural religious beliefs. Together these challenges strongly suggest that the acceptance of DNA as the (complete) language of life was premature. The haphazard and ambiguous nature of DNA/genetic specifications is very unlikely to have provided a vehicle for the exacting blueprints required for the many instinctive behaviors or capacities. Life appears to be more complex than biologists believe. Two possible alternative explanations are briefly considered in the wake of these discussions. Finally, does anyone—beginning with academics—care about this unfolding foundational failure? (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Biological, brain, and behavioral sciences offer strong and growing support for the virtue ethics account of moral judgment and ethical behavior in business organizations. The acquisition of moral agency in business involves the recognition, refinement, and habituation through the processes of reflexion and reflection of a moral sense encapsulated in innate modules for compassion, hierarchy, reciprocity, purity, and affiliation adaptive for communal life both in ancestral and modern environments. The genetic and neural bases of morality exist independently of institutional frameworks (...) and social structures. The latter not only shape moral behaviors within circumscribed limits, they also imply a plurality and compartmentalization of roles which may enable or impede the habituation of virtue. Becoming a virtuous agent entails the practical refinement of predispositionsin situas a member of a community of practitioners rather than entailing a normative ethical educational project seeking an intellectual resolution of abstract moral questions. (shrink)

Why are we conscious? What does consciousness enable us to do that cannot be done by zombies in the dark? This paper argues that introspective consciousness probably co-evolved as a "spandrel" along with our more useful ability to represent the mental states of other people. The first part of the paper defines and motivates a conception of consciousness as a kind of "double vision" – the perception of how things seem to us as well as what they are – along (...) lines recently explored by Peter Carruthers. The second part explains the basic socioepistemic function of consciousness and suggests an evolutionary pathway to this cognitive capacity that begins with predators and prey. The third part discusses the relevance of these considerations to the traditional problem of other minds. (shrink)