Is the view supported that consciousness is a mysterious phenomenon and cannot succumb, even with much effort, to the standard methods of cognitive science? The lecture, using the analogy of the magician’s praxis, attempts to highlight a strong but little supported intuition that is one of the strongest supporters of this view. The analogy can be highly illuminating, as the following account by LEE SIEGEL on the reception of her work on magic can illustrate it: “I’m writing a book (...) on magic”, I explain, and I’m asked, “Real magic?” By real magic people mean miracles, thaumaturgical acts, and supernatural powers. “No”, I answer: “Conjuring tricks, not real magic”. Real magic, in other words, refers to the magic that is not real, while the magic that is real, that can actually be done, is not real magic. I suggest that many, e.g., DAVID CHALMERS has perpetrated the same feat of conceptual sleight-of-hand in declaring to the world that he has discovered “The Hard Problem” of consciousness. It is, however, possible that what appears to be the Hard Problem is simply the large bag of tricks that constitute what CHALMERS calls the Easy Problems of Consciousness. These all have mundane explanations, requiring no revolutions in physics, no emergent novelties. I cannot prove that there is no Hard Problem, and CHALMERS cannot prove that there is. He can appeal to your intuitions, but this is not a sound basis on which to found a science of consciousness. The “magic” of consciousness, like stage magic, defies explanation only so long as we take it at face value. Once we appreciate all the non-mysterious ways in which the brain can create benign “userillusions”, we can begin to imagine how the brain creates consciousness. (shrink)

The author replies to a letter to the editor from Felicitas Sofia Holzer concerning Wenner’s article “The Social Value Requirement in Research: From the Transactional to the Basic Structure Model of Stakeholder Obligations,” in the Hastings Center Report’s January‐February 2019 issue.

John Dewey's classical pragmatism, Daniel M. Savage asserts, can be used to provide a self-development-based justification of liberal democracy that shows the current debate between liberal individualism and republican communitarianism to ...

This essay surveys a number of prominent, recurring, and new directions in the growing scholarly discourse on the theme “Heidegger and Judaism” arranged under three headings. The first, the contrastive framing, encompasses cases in which the relationship between Heidegger and Judaism is perceived as antithetical. The second, the conjunctive framing, encompasses views claiming the existence of affinities and parallels between Heidegger and Judaism, grouped under three subheadings: “Heidegger and biblical thinking,” “Heidegger and Kabbalah,” and “Heidegger and the Jewish nation.” The (...) third, historical perspectives, uses the approach of intellectual history to explore visions of Judaism that are developed as part of engagements with Heidegger’s philosophy. (shrink)

In this book Daniel Wegner offers a novel understanding of the relation of consciousness, the will, and our intentional and voluntary actions. Wegner claims that our experience and common sense view according to which we can influence our behavior roughly the way we experience that we do it is an illusion.

Human moral judgement may have evolved to maximize the individual's welfare given parochial culturally constructed moral systems. If so, then moral condemnation should be more severe when transgressions are recent and local, and should be sensitive to the pronouncements of authority figures (who are often arbiters of moral norms), as the fitness pay-offs of moral disapproval will primarily derive from the ramifications of condemning actions that occur within the immediate social arena. Correspondingly, moral transgressions should be viewed as less objectionable (...) if they occur in other places or times, or if local authorities deem them acceptable. These predictions contrast markedly with those derived from prevailing non-evolutionary perspectives on moral judgement. Both classes of theories predict purportedly species-typical patterns, yet to our knowledge, no study to date has investigated moral judgement across a diverse set of societies, including a range of small-scale communities that differ substantially from large highly urbanized nations. We tested these predictions in five small-scale societies and two large-scale societies, finding substantial evidence of moral parochialism and contextual contingency in adults' moral judgements. Results reveal an overarching pattern in which moral condemnation reflects a concern with immediate local considerations, a pattern consistent with a variety of evolutionary accounts of moral judgement. (shrink)

It is extraordinary, when one thinks about it, how little attention has been paid by theorists of the nature and justification of punishment to the idea that punishment is essentially a matter of self-defense. H. L. A. Hart, for example, in his famous “Prolegomenon to the Principles of Punishment,” is clearly committed to the view that, at bottom, there are just three directions in which a plausible theory of punishment can go: we can try to justify punishment on purely consequentialist (...) grounds, which for Hart, I think, would be to try to construct a purely utilitarian justification of punishment; we can try to justify punishment on purely retributive grounds; or we can try to justify punishment on grounds that are some sort of shrewd combination of consequentialist and retributive considerations. Entirely absent from Hart's discussion is any consideration of the possibility that punishment might be neither a matter of maximizing the good, nor of exacting retribution for a wrongful act, nor of some imaginative combination of these things, but, rather, of something altogether different from either of them: namely, the exercise of a fundamental right of self-protection. Similarly, but much more recently, R. A. Duff, despite the fact that he himself introduces and defends an extremely interesting fourth possibility, begins his discussion by writing as though, apart from his contribution, there are available to us essentially just the options previously sketched by Hart. Again, there is no mention here, any more than in Hart's or any number of other recent discussions, of the possibility that we might be able to justify the institution of punishment on grounds that are indeed forward-looking, to use Hart's famous term, but that are not at all consequentialist in any ordinary sense of the word. (shrink)

If rhetoric is the art of speaking, who is listening? In Being-Moved, Daniel M. Gross provides an answer, showing when and where the art of speaking parted ways with the art of listening-and what happens when they intersect once again. Much in the history of rhetoric must be rethought along the way. And much of this rethinking pivots around Martin Heidegger's early lectures on Aristotle's Rhetoric, where his famous topic, Being, gives way to being-moved. The results, Gross goes on (...) to show, are profound. Listening to the gods, listening to the world around us, and even listening to one another in the classroom-all of these experiences become different when rhetoric is reoriented from the voice to the ear. (shrink)

Includes a foreword by Kevin M. Gilmartin, PhD, author of the bestselling Emotional Survival for Law Enforcement: A Guide for Officers and Their Families. This book offers practical, research-based strategies to help police officers improve wellness, strengthen ethical commitments, and boost resilience both on and off-duty. Your power as a police officer does not come from your badge, gear, or tactical skills. It comes from your POWER: police officer wellness, ethics, and resilience. This book offers a research-based approach to dealing (...) with the daily challenges you face in your law enforcement job. It describes personal and professional steps you can take, on-duty and off-duty, to optimize your health and maintain your performance. When you proactively practice the skills, tips, and exercises outlined in this book, you will be better prepared to defuse crisis situations before they happen, and more capable of coping with them when they do. As a law enforcement officer, you deal with enormous challenges on a daily basis. Policing involves daily risks and stressors that can compromise your health, shorten your career, and make life harder on your loved ones. Even if you have a gym or access to counseling at work, you need a personal plan to maintain your overall wellness-physical, cognitive, emotional, social, and spiritual. (shrink)

In “The Bioethics of Environmental Injustice: Ethical, Legal, and Clinical Implications of Unhealthy Environments,” Keisha Ray and Jane Cooper (2024) assert that bioethicists have an obligation to...

In ordinary circumstances, human actions have a myriad of unintended and often unforeseen consequences for the lives of other people. Problems of pollution are serious examples, but spillovers and side effects are the rule, not the exception. Who knows what consequences this essay may have? This essay is concerned with the problems of justice created by spillovers. After characterizing such spillovers more precisely and relating the concept to the economist's notion of an externality, I shall then consider the moral conclusions (...) concerning spillovers that issue from a natural rights perspective and from the perspective of welfare economics supplemented with theories of distributive justice. I shall argue that these perspectives go badly awry in taking spillovers to be the exception rather than the rule in human interactions. I. Externalities Economists have discussed spillovers under the heading of “externalities.” To say this is not very helpful, since there is so much disagreement concerning both the definition and significance of externalities. (shrink)

This study argues that the bond between ‘secularization’ and ‘de-legitimation’ is not only borne out in debates over grand historical narratives relating to the status of modernity, as argued by Hans Blumenberg, but in debates over the appraisal of specific modern philosophical programs as well. It does this by examining how the category of ‘secularization' is used to delegitimize Martin Heidegger's thought, from both theological and secular perspectives, by two of his former students, Hans Jonas and Karl Löwith. By analysing (...) their interpretation of Heidegger and their understanding of secularization, legitimacy, and the philosophy-theology relationship, this study sheds light on the intellectual projects of these three thinkers – master and two students – and demonstrates the application of secularization as a hermeneutical category of de-legitimization on the basis of ‘insufficiency’ – either insufficiently secular or insufficiently religious. (shrink)

The connection between early yogācāras, or practitioners of yoga, and later Yogācāra-vijñānavāda philosophy has long preoccupied scholars. But these connections remain obscure. This article suggests that a text that has received little attention in modern scholarship, the Saddharmasmṛtyupasthānasūtra, may shed light on aspects of early yogācāra contemplative cultures that gave rise to some of the formative dynamics of Yogācāra-vijñānavāda thought. I show how traditional Buddhist meditative practice and engagement with Abhidharma theoretics come together in the Saddharmasmṛtyuasthānasūtra to produce a novel (...) theory of mind that mirrors many of the philosophical problematics that early and late Yogācāra-vijñānavādins confronted and attempted to work out in śāstric detail. (shrink)

Shipped but Not Sold: Material Culture and the Social Protocols of Trade during Yemen’s Age of Coffee. By Nancy Um. Perspectives on the Global Past. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2017. Pp. xiv + 198, illus. $64.

Multicultural theory and practice have in recent years been subjected to substantial criticism. While some of these criticisms can be dismissed as grounded in discriminatory attitudes, others are less easily swept aside, as they are underwritten by values that multiculturalists tend to affirm. A harm reduction approach, that recognizes that reasonable citizens can disagree about some multicultural practices while at the same time acknowledging that attempts at prohibition are either exceedingly costly or contrary to the very values that opponents subscribe (...) to, can provide an alternative foundation for some multicultural accommodations to which both opponents and advocates can subscribe. It involved permitting contested behaviours while imposing regulations aimed at minimizing the harms relative to shared values that they can give rise to. (shrink)

Volume 19, Issue 9, September 2019, Page 60-62.

Most methodological writing on economics is by economists. Although the bulk is produced by lesser members of the profession, almost all leading economists have at one time or another tried their hand at methodological reflection. The results are usually poor. If one read only their methodology, one would have a hard time understanding how Milton Friedman or Paul Samuelson could possibly win Nobel Prizes. It thus is less surprising that the economics profession professes such scorn for philosophizing than that its (...) members spend so much of their time doing it.Methodological reflections on economics pose other puzzles, too. Although this literature is heavily influenced by philosophy—both current and, especially, out-dated—, it is cut off from philosophical discourse. This quasi-autonomy is puzzling, since this literature is concerned with questions that appear to be instances of, if not the same as the questions with which philosophers of science are concerned. (shrink)

This article uses the framework of “traditions of thought” and “dilemmas” to problematize and revise the English School’s Expansion Narrative of international relations history in the crucial ninet...

In his painting of Martha and Mary Magdalene, Caravaggio depicted the two sisters of Lazarus as engaged in a serious conversation. On the one hand Martha is rebuking Mary Magdalene. On the other hand, Mary is responding in that she turns a mirror towards her older sister. The aim of this article is to elucidate how this reciprocal conversation reflects post-Trent propaganda. Martha represents a group of believers that remained within the Catholic Church but did not embrace the changes implemented (...) by the leaders of the Catholic Reformation. Mary Magdalene represents the reformed church that acknowledged, accepted, and implemented the decisions of the Council of Trent. The difference between the two sisters is not in their faith. They differ in their reaction. For Martha, faith was blind. For Mary Magdalene faith is an outcome of the deeds of Christ. Martha believed in Christ and continued to act according to tradition. Magdalene’s reaction is related to gaining knowledge and change, which is what the Catholic Reformation is all about. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Economics and Philosophy of Economics Six Central Methodological Problems Inexactness, Ceteris Paribus Clauses, and “Unrealistic Assumptions” Contemporary Directions in Economic Methodology Conclusion References.

Dan Haybron presents an illuminating examination of well-being, drawing on important recent work in the science of happiness. He shows that we are remarkably prone to error in judgements of our own personal welfare, and suggests that we should rethink traditional assumptions about the good life and the good society.

It has long been taken for granted that clinical research involving human subjects is ethical only if it holds out the prospect of producing socially valuable knowledge. Recently, this social value requirement has come under scrutiny, with prominent ethicists arguing that the social value requirement cannot be substantiated as an ethical limit on clinical research, and others attempting to offer new support. In this paper, I argue that both criticisms and existing defenses of the social value requirement are predicated on (...) what I call the “transactional model of stakeholder obligations”. I go on to problematize this framework, and to introduce an alternative framework for conceptualizing ethical obligations within clinical research. In defending this framework, which I call the “basic structure model of stakeholder obligations”, I also demonstrate how it provides a stronger grounding for the social value requirement that is not vulnerable to critiques grounded in the transactional model. (shrink)

This book offers a comprehensive overview of the structure, strategy and methods of assessment of orthodox theoretical economics. In Part I Professor Hausman explains how economists theorise, emphasising the essential underlying commitment of economists to a vision of economics as a separate science. In Part II he defends the view that the basic axioms of economics are 'inexact' since they deal only with the 'major' causes; unlike most writers on economic methodology, the author argues that it is the rules that (...) economists espouse rather than their practice that is at fault. Part III links the conception of economics as a separate science to the fact that economic theories offer reasons and justifications for human actions, not just their causes. With its lengthy appendix introducing relevant issues in philosophy of science, this book is a major addition to philosophy of economics and of social science. (shrink)

This book discusses the Apostolic Letter Novo millennio ineunte , wherein John Paul II outlined the path the Church should adopt in the third millennium. Peters highlights the Blessed Virgin Mary as educator from the teachings of John Paul II and Father Joseph Kentenich, founder of the Schoenstatt Movement.