This article begins with a consideration of the `pure' unmediated relation between the human body and nature, exemplified, in different ways, by environmental expressivism, and Ingold's subtle analysis of affordance and the taskscape. It is argued that perspectives fail properly to incorporate the role of mundane technology in the mediation of human-nature relations. Drawing upon the work of Michael Serres, and, in particular, his concept of the parasite, I explore how these mundane technological artefacts - specifically, walking boots - (...) intervene in the circuits of communication between humans and the natural environment. This re-orientation traces how the local relation between bodies and environments is a complex movement between the material and semiotic, the local and the global. In the process, I draw upon four aspects of walking boots: first, there is the role of boots as mechanical technologies that can cause pain, dissolving identity and the relation between humans and nature; second, there is the role of boots as signifying style and identity; third, there is the role of boots as embodiments of procedures of standardization and objectification; and fourth, there is the role of boots as technological means of damage to nature. Finally, in concluding, I tentatively consider some of the political implications of this way of theorizing the relation between bodies and environments. (shrink)

This paper has two broad objectives. First, the paper aims to treat roadkill as a topic of serious social scientific inquiry by addressing it as a cultural artifact through which various identities are played out. Thus, the paper shows how the idea of roadkill-as-food mediates contradictions and ironies in American identities concerned with hunting, technology, and relationships to nature. At a second, more abstract, level, the paper deploys the example of roadkill to suggest a par ticular approach to theorizing broader (...) relationships between humans, nonhuman animals, and technology. This paper draws on recent developments in science and technology studies, in particular, the work of Latour and Serres , to derive a number of prepositional metaphors. The paper puts these forward tentatively as useful tools for exploring and unpicking some of the complex connections and heterogeneous relationalities between humans, animals, and the technology from which roadkill emerges. (shrink)

On Three Appearances of Difference in Mathematics. This article proposes to examine three types of relations between man and equality, as they are embodied in the relation to the minimal condition of the mathematical: the sentence of identity: I=I. Starting our examination from the current common conception of science and mechanism, we aim to reveal that behind the dominating logic of identity there are two other systems of logic, which have arisen during the history of humanity and that of mathematics. (...) Following Serres, the first one might be revealed during the passage from the Babylonian mathematics to the interaction between Thales and the Greek gnomon. The Babylonian epoch marks an era, in which the logic of sameness operates; logic which offers a place for the mathematician. This era is followed by a science, working under the second logic: the logic of identity, which consecrates an axiomatic definition‐based approach, at the expense of the human being. The third logic looms after the discovery of Gödel's incompleteness theorems: that an undecidable statement can be derived within every arithmetical system. Under this logic, the roles of man and the allegedly mathematical automatic machine become even more intertwined: the newly found logic promises instability not only for man, but also for the machinic‐mathematics. (shrink)

In this article we explore how two enactments of HIV – the UN’s AIDS Clock and clinical trials for an HIV biomedical prevention technology or pre-exposure prophylaxis – entail particular globalizing and localizing dynamics. Drawing on Latour’s and Whitehead’s concept of proposition, and Serres’ call for a philosophy of prepositions, we use the composite notion of pre/pro-positions to trace the shifting topological status of HIV. For example, we show how PrEP emerges through topological entwinements of globalizing biomedical standardization, localizing protests (...) against PrEP trials and globalizing ethical principles. We go on to examine how our own analysis manifests a parallel topological pattern in which we deploy a globalizing argument about the localizing of the globalizing found in the AIDS Clock and the PrEP trails. Finally, we consider how the movement of ‘topology’ into the social sciences might itself benefit from a topological treatment. (shrink)

The paper deals with different spatiotemporal relations within different collectives and the attitudes towards places and the ground arising from them. Drawing resources from Latour, Serres and ethnologists/anthropologists Viveiros de Castro and Descola, it follows up Haudricourt's opposition between direct positive and indirect negative action towards domesticated species and the further consequences that might derive from these different modes of operation. It concludes with an outlook on affinities between the security-mode of power as described by Foucault and the Eastern distribution (...) of agency as described by Haudricourt and Jullien. (shrink)

The paper deals with different spatiotemporal relations within different collectives and the attitudes towards places and the ground arising from them. Drawing resources from Latour, Serres and ethnologists/anthropologists Viveiros de Castro and Descola, it follows up Haudricourt’s opposition between direct positive and indirect negative action towards domesticated species and the further consequences that might derive from these different modes of operation. It concludes with an outlook on affinities between the security-mode of power as described by Foucault and the Eastern distribution (...) of agency as described by Haudricourt and Jullien. (shrink)

These original essays offer new perspectives for science educators, curriculum theorists, and cultural critics on science education, French post-structural thought, and the science debates. Included in this book are chapters on the work of Bruno Latour, Michel Serres, and Jean Baudrillard, plus chapters on postmodern approaches to science education and critiques of modern scientific assumptions in curriculum development.

How is hope to be found amid the ethical and political dilemmas of modern life? Writer and philosopher Mary Zournazi brought her questions to some of the most thoughtful intellectuals at work today. She discusses "joyful revolt" with Julia Kristeva, the idea of "the rest of the world" with Gayatri Spivak, the "art of living" with Michel Serres, the "carnival of the senses" with Michael Taussig, the relation of hope to passion and to politics with Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto (...) Laclau. A dozen stimulating minds weigh in with their visions of a better social and political order. The result is a collaboration - of writing, of thinking, and of politics - that demonstrates more clearly than any single-authored project could how ideas encountering one another can produce the vision needed for social change. (shrink)

Ecopolitics is a study of environmental awareness--or non-awareness--in contemporary French theory. Arguing that it is now impossible not to think in an ecological way, Verena Andermatt Conley traces the roots of today's concern for the environment back to the intellectual climate of the late '50s and '60s. Major thinkers of 1968, the author argues, changed the way we think the world; this owes much to an ecological awareness that remains at the heart of issues concerning cultural theory in general. The (...) book points to critiques of ecology in the work of Luc Ferry and Jean Baudrillard before turning to more complicated ecological awareness primarily in French thought. The author considers key texts by influential figures such as Michael Serres, Paul Virilio, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, Michel de Certeau, Helene Cixous and Luce Irigaray. (shrink)

We are material beings in a material world, but we are also beings who have experiences and feelings. How can these subjective states be just a matter of matter? To defend materialism, philosophical materialists have formulated what is sometimes called "the phenomenal-concept strategy," which holds that we possess a range of special concepts for classifying the subjective aspects of our experiences. In Consciousness Revisited, the philosopher Michael Tye, until now a proponent of the the phenomenal-concept strategy, argues that the (...) strategy is mistaken. A rejection of phenomenal concepts leaves the materialist with the task of finding some other strategy for defending materialism. Tye points to four major puzzles of consciousness that arise: How is it possible for Mary, in the famous thought experiment, to make a discovery when she leaves her black-and-white room? In what does the explanatory gap consist and how can it be bridged? How can the hard problem of consciousness be solved? How are zombies possible? Tye presents solutions to these puzzles -- solutions that relieve the pressure on the materialist created by the failure of the phenomenal-concept strategy. In doing so, he discusses and makes new proposals on a wide range of issues, including the nature of perceptual content, the conditions necessary for consciousness of a given object, the proper understanding of change blindness, the nature of phenomenal character and our awareness of it, whether we have privileged access to our own experiences, and, if we do, in what such access consists. (shrink)

The two dominant theories of consciousness argue it appeared in living beings either suddenly, or gradually. Both theories face problems. The solution is the realization that a foundational consciousness was always here, yet varying conscious states were not, and appeared gradually. Michael Tye explores this idea and the key questions it raises.

In _Reconstructing the Cognitive World_, Michael Wheeler argues that we should turn away from the generically Cartesian philosophical foundations of much contemporary cognitive science research and proposes instead a Heideggerian approach. Wheeler begins with an interpretation of Descartes. He defines Cartesian psychology as a conceptual framework of explanatory principles and shows how each of these principles is part of the deep assumptions of orthodox cognitive science. Wheeler then turns to Heidegger's radically non-Cartesian account of everyday cognition, which, he argues, (...) can be used to articulate the philosophical foundations of a genuinely non-Cartesian cognitive science. Finding that Heidegger's critique of Cartesian thinking falls short, even when supported by Hubert Dreyfus's influential critique of orthodox artificial intelligence, Wheeler suggests a new Heideggerian approach. He points to recent research in "embodied-embedded" cognitive science and proposes a Heideggerian framework to identify, amplify, and clarify the underlying philosophical foundations of this new work. He focuses much of his investigation on recent work in artificial intelligence-oriented robotics, discussing, among other topics, the nature and status of representational explanation, and whether cognition is computation rather than a noncomputational phenomenon best described in the language of dynamical systems theory. Wheeler's argument draws on analytic philosophy, continental philosophy, and empirical work to "reconstruct" the philosophical foundations of cognitive science in a time of a fundamental shift away from a generically Cartesian approach. His analysis demonstrates that Heideggerian continental philosophy and naturalistic cognitive science need not be mutually exclusive and shows further that a Heideggerian framework can act as the "conceptual glue" for new work in cognitive science. (shrink)

Dire précisément ce que signifient littéralement certaines expressions est souvent important. La compréhension satisfaisante de nombreuses expressions normatives en effet, qu’elles soient juridiques, morales, religieuses, poétiques ou autres, suppose de comprendre ce qu’elles signifient à la fois littéralement et non littéralement. Malgré des recherches pourtant sérieuses et durables sur la nature du « sens littéral », depuis les anciennes théories religieuses jusqu’aux théories linguistiques et philosophiques contemporaines, une explication généralement satisfaisante des significations supposées littérales des phrases normatives peut s’avérer étonnamment (...) insaisissable. À partir des échanges serrés entre Donald Davidson, Michael Dummett et Ian Hacking, j’aborde un cas de compréhension du littéral dans un discours normatif artistiquement représenté qui est tout aussi difficile à éclaircir. À la différence de Davidson, toutefois, je ne me concentrerai pas sur les aspects qui sont les conditions de vérité des significations littérales supposées des contenus propositionnels de phrases bien assurées et présentées de manière littéraire. J’aimerais plutôt attirer une attention renouvelée sur plusieurs aspects problématiques des significations présumées littérales, spécialement dans des phrases interrogatives présentées sous un jour littéraire lors de conversations normatives lourdes d’un poids éthique.Saying just what some expressions mean literally is often important. For understanding satisfactorily many normative expressions, whether legal moral religious poetic or whatever, requires understanding what these normative expressions mean both literally and non-literally. Despite however serious, protracted investigations of the nature of “the literal sense” from ancient religious theories to contemporary linguistic and philosophical theories, a generally satisfactory account of what the supposed literal meanings of normative sentences might come to remains surprisingly elusive. Taking my cue from Donald Davidson’s closely argued exchanges with Michael Dummett and Ian Hacking, I take up a puzzling instance of understanding the literal in artistically represented normative discourse. Unlike Davidson, however, I will focus not on the truth-conditional aspects of the supposed literal meanings of the propositional contents of literarily represented assertive sentences. Rather, I would like to call renewed attention to several puzzling communicative aspects of supposed literal meanings, especially in literarily represented interrogative sentences in ethically charged normative conversations. (shrink)

In Unnatural Doubts, Michael Williams constructs a masterly polemic against the very idea of epistemology, as traditionally conceived.

Was leistete der Gedanke der selbstandigen Auswahl (Eklektik) in der Geschichte der Philosophie von Aristoteles bis zum 20. Jahrhundert, wo liegen die Anwendungsgebiete, wo seine Grenzen und warum kam der Begriff der Eklektik schon im 18. Jahrhundert zur Bezeichnung unselbstandiger Vermischung herunter? Der Schwerpunkt der umfangreichen Arbeit liegt in der Philosophie und Naturwissenschaft des 17. Jahrhunderts; sie reicht aber bis zur eklektischen Psychotherapie der Gegenwart.

A consideration of some of the most common questions about animal minds.Do birds have feelings? Can fish feel pain? Could a honeybee be anxious? For centuries, the question of whether or not animals are conscious like humans has prompted debates among philosophers and scientists. While most people gladly accept that complex mammals - such as dogs - share emotions and experiences with us, the matter of simpler creatures is much less clear. Meanwhile, the advent of the digital age and artificial (...) intelligence has created an added dimension to questions about non-human consciousness. In Tense Bees and Shell-Shocked Crabs, Michael Tye offers answers to some of today's most pressing questions about nonhuman consciousness. Blending the latest research about animal sensation with theories about the nature of consciousness, Tye develops a methodology for addressing the mysteries of the animal mind. Without endorsing any specific theory on the nature of consciousness, Tye tackles issues such as the animal experience of pain and fear, and the role of brain anatomy in determining consciousness. He then turns his attention to the artificial realm, considering whether complex robots could ever be considered conscious. Tye concludes with a discussion of how, if we consider animals conscious, this might impact our ethical obligations to them. From insects to crabs, fish to birds, Tense Bees and Shell-Shocked Crabs offers an insightful exploration of the ways in which animals relate to the world. Tense Bees and Shell-Shocked Crabs will appeal to students and scholars of philosophy and neuroscience, as well as general readers with an interest in animal and environmental ethics. (shrink)

Published very shortly before his death in February 1976, Meaning is the culmination of Michael Polanyi's philosophic endeavors.

The Chomskian revolution in linguistics gave rise to a new orthodoxy about mind and language. Michael Devitt throws down a provocative challenge to that orthodoxy. What is linguistics about? What role should linguistic intuitions play in constructing grammars? What is innate about language? Is there a 'language faculty'? These questions are crucial to our developing understanding of ourselves; Michael Devitt offers refreshingly original answers. He argues that linguistics is about linguistic reality and is not part of psychology; that (...) linguistic rules are not represented in the mind; that speakers are largely ignorant of their language; that speakers' intuitions do not reflect information supplied by the language faculty and are not the main evidence for grammars; that the rules of 'Universal Grammar' are largely, if not entirely, innate structure rules of thought; indeed, that there is little or nothing to the language faculty. Devitt's controversial theses will prove highly stimulating to anyone working on language and the mind. (shrink)

_Paradoxes from A to Z, Third edition_ is the essential guide to paradoxes, and takes the reader on a lively tour of puzzles that have taxed thinkers from Zeno to Galileo, and Lewis Carroll to Bertrand Russell. Michael Clark uncovers an array of conundrums, such as Achilles and the Tortoise, Theseus’ Ship, and the Prisoner’s Dilemma, taking in subjects as diverse as knowledge, science, art and politics. Clark discusses each paradox in non-technical terms, considering its significance and looking at (...) likely solutions. This third edition is revised throughout, and adds nine new paradoxes that have important bearings in areas such as law, logic, ethics and probability. Paradoxes from A to Z, Third edition is an ideal starting point for those interested not just in philosophical puzzles and conundrums, but anyone seeking to hone their thinking skills. (shrink)

Three leading philosopher-logicians present a clear and concise overview of formal theories of truth, explaining key logical techniques. Truth is as central topic in philosophy: formal theories study the connections between truth and logic, including the intriguing challenges presented by paradoxes like the Liar.

Michael Wedin argues against the prevailing notion that Aristotle's views on the nature of reality are fundamentally inconsistent. According to Wedin's new interpretation, the difference between the early theory of the Categories and the later theory of the Metaphysics reflects the fact that Aristotle is engaged in quite different projects in the two works--the earlier focusing on ontology, and the later on explanation.

Do firms benefit from their voluntary efforts to alleviate the many problems confronting society? A vast literature establishing a “business case” for corporate social responsibility appears to find that usually they do. However, as argued herein, the business case literature has established only that firms usually benefit from responding to the demands of their primary stakeholders. The nature of the relationship between the interests of business and those of broader society, beyond a subset of powerful primary stakeholders, remains an open (...) question despite this vast literature. This article develops a set of propositions that highlight constraints on firms’ ability to profit from CSR and outlines a set of managerial challenges on which researchers must focus their attention to truly determine whether and when firms can profit by responding to the needs of society. (shrink)

One recurrent objection to the idea that the right kind of reasons for or against an attitude are object-given reasons for or against that attitude is that object-given reasons for or against belief and disbelief are incapable of explaining certain features of epistemic normativity. Prohibitive balancing, the behaviour of bare statistical evidence, information about future or easily available evidence, pragmatic and moral encroachment, as well as higher-order defeaters, are all said to be inexplicable in terms of those object-given reasons. In (...) this paper, I provide a rebuttal to all these challenges by drawing attention to the object-given reasons for and against the third doxastic state, namely the suspension of judgement. First, I introduce an original picture of how suspension relates to belief and disbelief – as ways of being decided – which yields a novel weighing model of the corresponding reasons. Second, I demonstrate that this new take on doxastic deliberation can accommodate all five features of epistemic normativity. Finally, I extend the weighing model to cover practical deliberation and the suspension of intentions. The resulting theory provides an explanation of why epistemic and practical normativity differ in certain respects in terms of a significant difference between doxastic and conative suspension. (shrink)

The structure of the brain and the nature of evolution suggest that, despite its uniqueness, language likely depends on brain systems that also subserve other functions. The declarative / procedural model claims that the mental lexicon of memorized word- specific knowledge depends on the largely temporal-lobe substrates of declarative memory, which underlies the storage and use of knowledge of facts and events. The mental grammar, which subserves the rule-governed combination of lexical items into complex representations, depends on a distinct neural (...) system. This system, which is composed of a network of specific frontal, basal - ganglia, parietal and cerebellar structures, underlies procedural memory, which supports the learning and execution of motor and cognitive skills, especially those involving sequences. The functions of the two brain systems, together with their anatomical, physiological and biochemical substrates, lead to specific claims and predictions regarding their roles in language. These predictions are compared with those of other neurocognitive models of language. Empirical evidence is presented from neuroimaging studies of normal language processing, and from developmental and adult- onset disorders. It is argued that this evidence supports the DP model. It is additionally proposed that “ language ” disorders, such as specific language impairment and non-fluent and fluent aphasia, may be profitably viewed as impairments primarily affecting one or the other brain system. Overall, the data suggest a new neurocognitive framework for the study of lexicon and grammar. (shrink)

Michael J. Loux here presents a fresh reading of two of the most important books of the Metaphysics, Books Z and H, in which Aristotle presents his mature ...

In this provocative book, Michael Tye presents his unique account of the metaphysical foundations of psychological discourse. In place of token identity theory or eliminative materialism, he advocates a generalisation of the adverbial approach to sensory experience, the 'operator theory'. He applies this to the analysis of prepositional attitudes, arguing that mental statements cannot involve reference to mental events or objects and that therefore causal statements about the mental cannot be regarded as asserting relations between events. This adverbial theory (...) has the virtue of being both simple and systematic and is an important contribution to the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

Apophaticism -- the view that God is both indescribable and inconceivable -- is one of the great medieval traditions of philosophical thought about God, but it is largely overlooked by analytic philosophers of religion. This paper attempts to rehabilitate apophaticism as a serious philosophical option. We provide a clear formulation of the position, examine what could appropriately be said and thought about God if apophaticism is true, and consider ways to address the charge that apophaticism is self-defeating. In so doing (...) we draw on recent work in the philosophy of language, touching on issues such as the nature of negation, category mistakes, fictionalism, and reductionism. (shrink)

The idea of a virtue has traditionally been important in ethics, but only recently has gained attention as an idea that can explain how we ought to form beliefs as well as how we ought to act. Moral philosophers and epistemologists have different approaches to the idea of intellectual virtue; here, Michael DePaul and Linda Zagzebski bring work from both fields together for the first time to address all of the important issues. It will be required reading for anyone (...) working on either side of the debate. (shrink)

Possibility offers a new analysis of the metaphysical concepts of possibility and necessity, one that does not rely on any sort of "possible worlds." The analysis proceeds from an account of the notion of a physical object and from the positing of properties and relations. It is motivated by considerations about how we actually speak of and think of objects. Michael Jubien discusses several closely related topics, including different purported varieties of possible worlds, the doctrine of "essentialism," natural kind (...) terms and alleged examples of necessity a posteriori. The book also offers a new theory of the functioning of proper names, both actual and fictional, and the discussion of natural kind terms and necessity a posteriori depends in part on this theory. (shrink)

What is knowledge? What, if anything, can we know? Michael Ayers initiates a fresh approach to these questions by recovering the insight in the distinction between 'knowledge' and 'belief' that was common philosophical currency for two millennia after Plato. He argues that knowledge comes only with direct cognitive contact with reality or truth.

Theorizing in ecology and evolution often proceeds via the construction of multiple idealized models. To determine whether a theoretical result actually depends on core features of the models and is not an artifact of simplifying assumptions, theorists have developed the technique of robustness analysis, the examination of multiple models looking for common predictions. A striking example of robustness analysis in ecology is the discovery of the Volterra Principle, which describes the effect of general biocides in predator-prey systems. This paper details (...) the discovery of the Volterra Principle and the demonstration of its robustness. It considers the classical ecology literature on robustness and introduces two individual-based models of predation, which are used to further analyze the Volterra Principle. The paper also introduces a distinction between parameter robustness, structural robustness, and representational robustness, and demonstrates that the Volterra Principle exhibits all three kinds of robustness. *Received September 2006; revised May 2007. ‡Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the Australasian Association of Philosophy, the London School of Economics, and the University of Bristol. The authors wish to thank those audiences as well as Patrick Forber, Ken Waters, Deena Skolnick Weisberg, Uri Wilensky, and Bill Wimsatt for many helpful comments. Special thanks to Giacomo Sillari for his assistance in translating Volterra's original paper and his insightful thoughts about Volterra's aims and methods. Some of the research in this paper was supported by NSF grant SES-0620887 to MW. †To contact the authors, please write to: Michael Weisberg, Department of Philosophy, University of Pennsylvania, 433 Logan Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19104; e-mail: [email protected]; Kenneth Reisman, Pluribo, Inc., 100 Park Avenue, Suite 1600, New York, NY 10017; e-mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

What are biological species? Aristotelians and Lockeans agree that they are natural kinds; but, evolutionary theory shows that neither traditional philosophical approach is truly adequate. Recently, Michael Ghiselin and David Hull have argued that species are individuals. This claim is shown to be against the spirit of much modern biology. It is concluded that species are natural kinds of a sort, and that any 'objectivity' they possess comes from their being at the focus of a consilience of inductions.

Conditionals has at its center an extended essay on this problematic and much-debated subject in the philosophy of language and logic, which the widely respected Oxford philosopher Michael Woods had been preparing for publication at the time of his death in 1993. It appears here edited by his eminent colleague David Wiggins, and is accompanied by a commentary specially written by a leading expert on the topic, Dorothy Edgington. This masterly and original treatment of conditionals will demand the attention (...) of all philosophers working in this area. (shrink)

_Pragmatism: An Introduction _provides an account of the arguments of the central figures of the most important philosophical tradition in the American history of ideas, pragmatism. This wide-ranging and accessible study explores the work of the classical pragmatists Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and John Dewey, as well as more recent philosophers including Richard Rorty, Richard J. Bernstein, Cheryl Misak, and Robert B. Brandom. Michael Bacon examines how pragmatists argue for the importance of connecting philosophy to practice. In so (...) doing, they set themselves in opposition to many of the presumptions that have dominated philosophy since Descartes. The book demonstrates how pragmatists reject the Cartesian spectator theory of knowledge, in which the mind is viewed as seeking accurately to represent items in the world, and replace it with an understanding of truth and knowledge in terms of the roles they play within our social practices. The book explores the diverse range of positions that have engendered marked and sometimes acrimonious disputes amongst pragmatists. Bacon identifies the themes underlying these differences, revealing a greater commonality than many commentators have recognized. The result is an illuminating narrative of a rich philosophical movement that will be of interest to students in philosophy, political theory, and the history of ideas. (shrink)

This thought provoking book uncovers a crisis in the political imagination, a wide-spread failure to provide the passionate sense of community "in which our need for belonging can be met." Seeking the answers to fundamental questions, Michael Ignatieff writes vividly both about ideas and about the people who tried to live by them—from Augustine to Bosch, from Rosseau to Simone Weil. Incisive and moving, The Needs of Strangers returns philosophy to its proper place, as a guide to the art (...) of being human. (shrink)

What are biological species? Aristotelians and Lockeans agree that they are natural kinds; but, evolutionary theory shows that neither traditional philosophical approach is truly adequate. Recently, Michael Ghiselin and David Hull have argued that species are individuals. This claim is shown to be against the spirit of much modern biology. It is concluded that species are natural kinds of a sort, and that any 'objectivity' they possess comes from their being at the focus of a consilience of inductions.

Proponents of zetetic encroachment claim that certain zetetic or inquiry-related considerations can have a bearing on the epistemic rationality of one’s belief formation. Since facts about the interestingness or importance of a topic can be the right kind of reasons for inquisitive attitudes, such as curiosity, and inquisitive attitudes are ways to suspend judgement, these facts also amount to reasons against believing. This mechanism is said to explain several contentious phenomena in epistemology, such as the occurrence of pragmatic encroachment. In (...) this paper, I provide two lines of reasoning against zetetic encroachment. First, on any contrastivist understanding of epistemic reasons, the case in favour of zetetic encroachment loses all its motivational force. Second, the thesis of zetetic encroachment is incompatible with the most promising way to understand degrees of inquisitive attitudes. (shrink)

_Pragmatism: An Introduction _provides an account of the arguments of the central figures of the most important philosophical tradition in the American history of ideas, pragmatism. This wide-ranging and accessible study explores the work of the classical pragmatists Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and John Dewey, as well as more recent philosophers including Richard Rorty, Richard J. Bernstein, Cheryl Misak, and Robert B. Brandom. Michael Bacon examines how pragmatists argue for the importance of connecting philosophy to practice. In so (...) doing, they set themselves in opposition to many of the presumptions that have dominated philosophy since Descartes. The book demonstrates how pragmatists reject the Cartesian spectator theory of knowledge, in which the mind is viewed as seeking accurately to represent items in the world, and replace it with an understanding of truth and knowledge in terms of the roles they play within our social practices. The book explores the diverse range of positions that have engendered marked and sometimes acrimonious disputes amongst pragmatists. Bacon identifies the themes underlying these differences, revealing a greater commonality than many commentators have recognized. The result is an illuminating narrative of a rich philosophical movement that will be of interest to students in philosophy, political theory, and the history of ideas. (shrink)

If I say that Alice is everything Oscar hopes to be, I seem to be quantifying over properties. That suggestion faces an immediate difficulty, however: though Alice may be wise, she surely is not the property of being wise. This problem can be framed in terms of a substitution failure: if a predicate like ‘happy’ denoted a property, we would expect pairs like ‘Oscar is happy’ and ‘Oscar is the property of being happy’ to be equivalent, which they clearly are (...) not. I argue that a Fregean response that draws a distinction between objects and concepts faces serious difficulties, and that a syntactic solution to the substitution problem likewise fails. I propose to account for the substitution failure by instead distinguishing different ways that expressions can stand for properties: whereas ‘the property of being happy’ refers to a property, ‘happy’ expresses or ascribes that property. I go on to compare this view to proposals made by Wright and Liebesman, and end by drawing out a consequence my proposal has for a debate about the ontological commitments of predicatively quantified sentences. (shrink)

Although few of Charles Sanders Peirce's writings were devoted explicitly to religious topics, Michael L. Raposa demonstrates that religious ideas played a central role in shaping Peirce's philosophy and are manifest throughout his corpus, in scientific and mathematical papers as well as in his writings on metaphysics, cosmology, and the normative sciences. Because Peirce's religious ideas are continuous with and integral to his reflections on these and other issues, they must be identified and understood if his work as a (...) whole is to be interpreted properly. An organizing perspective for Raposa's study and the subject of extended commentary is Peirce's most famous essay in the philosophy of religion, "A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God." Although very few of Peirce's commentators have devoted serious attention to the religious dimension of his thought, Raposa concludes that Peirce's writings are an important resource for contemporary scholars of religion and points to those of his ideas that might be most fruitfully entertained and developed. (shrink)

_Pragmatism: An Introduction _provides an account of the arguments of the central figures of the most important philosophical tradition in the American history of ideas, pragmatism. This wide-ranging and accessible study explores the work of the classical pragmatists Charles Sanders Peirce, William James and John Dewey, as well as more recent philosophers including Richard Rorty, Richard J. Bernstein, Cheryl Misak, and Robert B. Brandom. Michael Bacon examines how pragmatists argue for the importance of connecting philosophy to practice. In so (...) doing, they set themselves in opposition to many of the presumptions that have dominated philosophy since Descartes. The book demonstrates how pragmatists reject the Cartesian spectator theory of knowledge, in which the mind is viewed as seeking accurately to represent items in the world, and replace it with an understanding of truth and knowledge in terms of the roles they play within our social practices. The book explores the diverse range of positions that have engendered marked and sometimes acrimonious disputes amongst pragmatists. Bacon identifies the themes underlying these differences, revealing a greater commonality than many commentators have recognized. The result is an illuminating narrative of a rich philosophical movement that will be of interest to students in philosophy, political theory, and the history of ideas. (shrink)

In this paper I investigate ‘the confessional’ as an aspect of Wittgenstein's style both as a mode of philosophising and as a mode of ‘writing the self’, tied explicitly to pedagogical practices. There are strong links between Wittgenstein's confessional mode of philosophising and his life—for him philosophy is a way of life —and interesting theoretical connections between confessional practices and pedagogy, usefully explored in the writings of the French philosopher, Michel Foucault. The Investigations provides a basis and springboard for understanding (...) the notion of ‘writing the self’ as a pedagogical practice which encourages a confessional mode compelling us to tell the truth about ourselves and, thus, creating the conditions for ethico-poetical self-constitution. (shrink)