Festchrift in honor of John Vattanky, Indian philosopher; Includes contributed articles on Hindu philosophy.

Nyana is the most rational and logical of all the classical Indian philosophical systems. In the study of Nyana philosophy, Karikavali with its commentary Muktavali, both by Visvanatha Nyayapancanana, with the commentaries Dinakari and Ramarudri, have been of decisive significance for the last few centuries as advanced introductions to this subject. The present work concentrates on inference in Karikavali, Muktavali and Dinakari, carefully divided into significant units according to the subject, and translates and interprets them. Its commentary makes use of (...) the primary interpretation in Sanskrit contained especially in the Ramarudri and Subodhini. The book begins with the Sanskrit texts of Karikavali and Muktavali; followed by English translation of these texts. Next is given the Sanskrit text of Dinakari which comments on the first two texts, followed by its English translation. Lastly, the book contains a commentary on all the texts included. (shrink)

One of the classical systems of Indian Philosophy is specially concerned with the problems of logic c This system is called Nyaya which has a long history of about two thousand years. In the extent of the literature it has produced and in the depth of the philosophical problems it discusses, it is of considerable interest and importance. However, the spirit of pure rationality in which Nyaya discusses these problems and the techniques it makes use of in handling them are (...) quite different from other systems of Indian thought and at once renders it a unique achievement of the Indian mind. The term Nyaya means the method of coming to a conclusion with certainty and the system of Indian philosophy in which philosophical problems are discussed according to this method came to be called Nyayadarsana or just Nyaya. Nyaya has been sedulously cultivated in restricted circles of traditional learning. Nyaya and in particular, Navyanyaya studies with unparalleled rigour and exactitude the nature, the dimensions and conditions of human knowledge. And by common consent the philosophical problem par excellence is the problem of knowledge. With rare insight, both the old and modern Nyaya analyse the problems connected with human knowledge and sets forth in detail the exact conditions in which valid knowledge is possible. This essay highlights the nature and scope of Nyaya logic comparing and contrasting it with other systems of logic especially the Buddhist and Aristotelian. (shrink)

Both in the East and in the West, there is, apart from the religious approach to God, also a purely rational one. Although in India philosophical speculation on God was mostly inextricably bound to religion, there have also been purely rational developments in Indian theodicy. This is the case above all in the Nyayavaisesika system, where we find a purely rational and logical approach to the question of the existence and nature of God. It is the specific contribution of the (...) Nyayavaisesika system to have developed a purely logical and rational argument for the existence of God. My purpose here is to take this proof in its developed form, as it is found in Gasgesa, and investigate its philosophical and logical implications. (shrink)

One of the classical systems of Indian Philosophy is specially concerned with the problems of logic c This system is called Nyaya which has a long history of about two thousand years. In the extent of the literature it has produced and in the depth of the philosophical problems it discusses, it is of considerable interest and importance. However, the spirit of pure rationality in which Nyaya discusses these problems and the techniques it makes use of in handling them are (...) quite different from other systems of Indian thought and at once renders it a unique achievement of the Indian mind. The term Nyaya means the method of coming to a conclusion with certainty and the system of Indian philosophy in which philosophical problems are discussed according to this method came to be called Nyayadarsana or just Nyaya. Nyaya has been sedulously cultivated in restricted circles of traditional learning. Nyaya and in particular, Navyanyaya studies with unparalleled rigour and exactitude the nature, the dimensions and conditions of human knowledge. And by common consent the philosophical problem par excellence is the problem of knowledge. With rare insight, both the old and modern Nyaya analyse the problems connected with human knowledge and sets forth in detail the exact conditions in which valid knowledge is possible. This essay highlights the nature and scope of Nyaya logic comparing and contrasting it with other systems of logic especially the Buddhist and Aristotelian. (shrink)

-- v. 5. Nyāya philosophy of language : analysis, text, translation, and interpretation of Upamāna and Śabda sections of Kārikāvalī, Muktāvalī, and Dinakarī.

From this detailed analysis, comparison and study of the treatises of G. and S., we are in a position to arrivent certain conclusions. The similarity between the treatises of G. and S. is so close, both in structure and content, that we cannot explain it in any way other than to conclude that G. depends on S. for the composition of his work. It can further be concluded that, in the present state of research, there is no reason to suppose (...) that both S. and G. depended on a third source. There is no other work on the proof for the existence of God which has come down to us and which shows any structural similarity with the work of S. In fact it can be asserted with a fair amount of certainty that the work of S. is the first treatise on the existence of God in Post-Udayana Navyanyāya which exhibits the systematic plan of first discussing the pak $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s}$$ a, sādhya and hetu of the syllogism proving the existence of God in the pūrvapak $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s}$$ a and then establishing in the uttarapak $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s}$$ a, the author's own pak $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s}$$ a, sādhya and hetu of the syllogism. Further, the similarities in the expressions and often of argument in G. to those of S. lead us to conclude with reasonable certainty that G. depends directly on S. However, this does not at all mean that both G. and S. do not belong to the long Nyāya tradition of philosophers and hence many of the concepts of these thinkers do not have long and often complicated background. We only mean to assert that in the present state of research, we seem to be justified in saying that S. is the first philosopher in the Nyāya tradition who developed the treatise on the existence of God in this systematic way of first discussing the pak $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{s}$$ a, sādhya and hetu of the syllogism, which was brought forward to prove the existence of God. We also assert that G. depends on S. for the composition of this part of his work. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Review of Stephen Phillips' Jewel of Reflection on the Truth about Epistemology:A Complete and Annotated Translation of the Tattva-cintā-maṇiMichael Williams (bio)Stephen Phillips presents a translation and commentary on Gaṅgeśa Upādhyāya's Tattvacintāmaṇi, which is widely regarded as the foundational text of the Navya-Nyāya tradition. The importance of Gaṅgeśa's work to subsequent philosophy in India can hardly be overstated. In the centuries after his death, countless commentaries and dissertations were written (...) on the Tattvacintāmaṇi by Nyāya scholars in Mithila and Bengal. Recent [End Page 510] scholarship (David and Duquette 2021) has highlighted how the work of the Navya-Naiyāyikas came to influence intellectuals from all over the Indian subcontinent. The theories of Gaṅgeśa and his followers shaped discussions in diverse scientific fields, including Vedānta, Mīmāṃsā, grammatical science, and literary theory.Despite its pervasive impact on Indian thought, Navya-Nyāya has frequently been portrayed in a negative light by scholars. The Indologist Arthur Berriedale Keith (1921, p. 35) described the commentaries on Gaṅgeśa's work as "a vast mass of perverted ingenuity worthy of the most flourishing days of mediaeval scholasticism." Meanwhile, Swami Vivekananda bemoaned the "never ending Avacchinnas and Avacchedakas" of Navya-Nyāya prose.1Jonardon Ganeri (2011) has discussed how these negative stereotypes reach back to the political agenda of the British colonial government in India during the nineteenth century, and his work highlights the vitality and diversity of the discussion of metaphysics in the Bengali tradition of Navya-Nyāya. Nevertheless, there is no denying that much Navya-Nyāya work is extremely difficult to discuss and translate comprehensibly. Many scholars still think of Navya-Nyāya works as untranslatable, at least in the sense that their meaning could not be effectively communicated to a modern audience who are not already deeply familiar with the tradition. This would be tragic, given the potential of Navya-Nyāya philosophy to contribute to the growing cross-cultural conversation in philosophy.Phillips is the first scholar to translate the entire Tattvacintāmaṇi into another language. His work attempts to communicate the foundational text of the Navya-Nyāya tradition to a broad audience. In his introduction, Phillips says that his work aims to speak to analytic philosophers, Sanskritists, and "specialists whose interests span issues in contemporary philosophy and Gaṅgeśa's achievements" (2020, vol. 1, p. 1). Phillips worked with the late Ramanuja Tatacharya to read the Tattvacintāmaṇi's chapters on perception and inference. Tatacharya was recognized as one of the leading experts on Navya-Nyāya philosophy in the world during his lifetime, and Phillips' translation distils many of his insights into the text.Phillips' goal is to translate the Tattvacintāmaṇi into lucid English. He eschews what he terms the "error of literalism" (2020, 1:xvi), instead using idiomatic translations that draw on concepts from contemporary analytic philosophy. Unlike Daniel Ingalls (1951) and Cornelius Goekoop (1967), Phillips uses formalization in Property Predicate Logic comparatively rarely, deploying it selectively in contexts such as the discussion of the nature of pervasion (the Vyāptivāda) and the discussion of the "inferential undercutter" (the Upādhivāda), for instance. The introduction to the work is extremely clear and explains the translation using terms of modern analytic philosophy. Phillips presents a perspicuous introduction to the theory of inference, [End Page 511] which is necessary to understanding Gaṅgeśa's work, which constantly employs inferential arguments.Phillips' introductions to the individual chapters of the text are also very illuminating, and often contain original insights into the philosophy of the Tattvacintāmaṇi. For instance, his introduction to the Īśvaravāda argues, contra John Vattanky ([1989] 2011), that Gaṅgeśa himself was not entirely persuaded of the strength of the proofs for the existence of god (īśvara) that he puts forward in that chapter. Phillips argues that Gaṅgeśa may actually have sympathized to some extent with the Mīmāṃsā views he ultimately critiques there, detecting on Gaṅgeśa's part a "sympathy for certain atheistic... (shrink)

Loneliness in medicine is a serious problem not just for patients, for whom illness is intrinsically isolating, but also for physicians in the contemporary condition of medicine. We explore this problem by investigating the ideal physician-patient relationship, whose analogy with friendship has held enduring normative appeal. Drawing from Talbot Brewer and Nir Ben-Moshe, we argue that this appeal lies in a dynamic form of companionship incompatible with static models of friendship-like physician-patient relationships: a mutual refinement of embodied virtue that draws (...) both persons together. The ideal physician-patient relationship has a dialectical character that fosters each member's improvement of phenomenologically recognizing and embodying moral virtues. A key component of this dynamic is a commitment to the common goal of the patient's health, realized through joint interactivities and conversations over time. The physician's presence to the patient's suffering—understood best as an alienating phenomenological condition for the patient—orients and discloses possibilities for virtuous caregiving by structuring the meanings of the goals, conversations, and joint narrative constitutive of their relationship. Presence to suffering, paradoxically, is perhaps an important prerequisite for this dynamic partnership. These activities dialectically build an interpretive horizon of understanding through which moral goods and character refinement—in and for the other—may become revealed for both persons in their shared being-in-the-world. This analysis of suffering, mood, and revealing of (possible) moral goods has implications for addressing the modern problem of loneliness for patients and physicians, who are increasingly inhibited from building flourishing relationships with each other. (shrink)

Many real-world agents recognise that they impose harms by choosing to emit carbon, e.g., by flying. Yet many do so anyway, and then attempt to make things right by offsetting those harms. Such offsetters typically believe that, by offsetting, they change the deontic status of their behaviour, making an otherwise impermissible action permissible. Do they succeed in practice? Some philosophers have argued that they do, since their offsets appear to reverse the adverse effects of their emissions. But we show that (...) they do not. In practice, standard carbon offsetting does not reverse the harms of the original action, nor does it even benefit the same group as was harmed. Standard moral theories hence deny that such offsetting succeeds. Indeed, we show that any moral theory that allows offsetting in this setting faces a dilemma between allowing any wrong to be offset, no matter how grievous, and recognising an implausibly sharp discontinuity between offsettable actions and non-offsettable actions. The most plausible response is to accept that carbon offsetting fails to right our climate wrongs. (shrink)

John Hyman explores central problems in philosophy of action and the theory of knowledge, and connects these areas of enquiry in a new way. His approach to the dimensions of human action culminates in an original analysis of the relation between knowledge and rational behaviour, which provides the foundation for a new theory of knowledge itself.

A Norton Library edition of Locke's Second Treatise of Government, edited by A. John Simmons.

Following his recently expanded _The Problem of the Essential Indexical and Other Essays,_ John Perry develops a reflexive-referential' account of indexicals, demonstratives and proper names. On these issues the philosophy of language in the twentieth century was shaped by two competing traditions, descriptivist and referentialist. Oddly, the classic referentialist texts of the 1970s by Kripke, Donnellan, Kaplan and others were seemingly refuted almost a century earlier by co-reference and no-reference problems raised by Russell and Frege. Perry's theory, borrowing ideas (...) from both traditions as well as from Burks and Reichenbach, diagnoses the problems as stemming from a fixation on a certain kind of content, coined referential or fully incremental. Referentialist tradition is portrayed as holding that indexicals contribute content that involves individuals without identifying conditions on them; descriptivist tradition is portrayed as holding that referential content does not explain all of the identifying conditions conveyed by names and indexicals. Perry reveals a coherent and structured family of contents — from reflexive contents that place conditions on their actual utterance to fully incremental contents that place conditions only on the objects of reference — reconciling the legitimate insights of both traditions. (shrink)

Is the science of moral cognition usefully modelled on aspects of Universal Grammar? Are human beings born with an innate 'moral grammar' that causes them to analyse human action in terms of its moral structure, with just as little awareness as they analyse human speech in terms of its grammatical structure? Questions like these have been at the forefront of moral psychology ever since John Mikhail revived them in his influential work on the linguistic analogy and its implications for (...) jurisprudence and moral theory. In this seminal book, Mikhail offers a careful and sustained analysis of the moral grammar hypothesis, showing how some of John Rawls' original ideas about the linguistic analogy, together with famous thought experiments like the trolley problem, can be used to improve our understanding of moral and legal judgement. (shrink)

"The world's leading expert on the unconscious mind reveals the hidden mental processes that secretly govern every aspect of our behavior. For more than three decades, Dr. John Bargh has been conducting revolutionary research into the unconscious mind--not Freud's dark, malevolent unconscious but the new unconscious, a helpful and powerful part of the mind that we can access and understand through experimental science. Now Dr. Bargh presents an engaging and enlightening tour of the influential psychological forces that are at (...) work as we go about our daily lives--checking a dating app, holding a cup of hot coffee, or getting a flu shot. Dr. Bargh takes you into his labs at New York University and Yale where his ingenious experiments have shown how the unconscious guides our actions, goals and motivations in areas like race relations, parenting, business, consumer behavior, and addiction. He reveals the pervasive influence of the unconscious mind on who we choose to date or vote for, what we buy, where we live, how we perform on tests and in job interviews, and much more. Before You Know It is full of surprising and entertaining revelations as well as tricks to help you remember to-do items, shop smarter, and sleep better. Before You Know It will profoundly change the way you understand yourself by introducing you to a fascinating world only recently discovered, the world that exists below the surface of your awareness and yet is the key to unlocking new ways of thinking, feeling and behaving."--Jacket. (shrink)

Many philosophers claim that interesting forms of epistemic evaluation are insensitive to truth in a very specific way. Suppose that two possible agents believe the same proposition based on the same evidence. Either both are justified or neither is; either both have good evidence for holding the belief or neither does. This does not change if, on this particular occasion, it turns out that only one of the two agents has a true belief. Epitomizing this line of thought are thought (...) experiments about radically deceived “brains in vats.” It is widely and uncritically assumed that such a brain is equally justified as its normally embodied human “twin.” This “parity” intuition is the heart of truth-insensitive theories of core epistemological properties such as justification and rationality. Rejecting the parity intuition is considered radical and revisionist. In this paper, I show that exactly the opposite is true. The parity intuition is idiosyncratic and widely rejected. A brain in a vat is not justified and has worse evidence than its normally embodied counterpart. On nearly every ordinary way of evaluating beliefs, a false belief is significantly inferior to a true belief. Of all the evaluations studied here, only blamelessness is truth-insensitive. (shrink)

Rapid advances in AI-based automation have led to a number of existential and economic concerns. In particular, as automating technologies develop enhanced competency they seem to threaten the values associated with meaningful work. In this article, we focus on one such value: the value of achievement. We argue that achievement is a key part of what makes work meaningful and that advances in AI and automation give rise to a number achievement gaps in the workplace. This could limit people’s ability (...) to participate in meaningful forms of work. Achievement gaps are interesting, in part, because they are the inverse of the (negative) responsibility gaps already widely discussed in the literature on AI ethics. Having described and explained the problem of achievement gaps, the article concludes by identifying four possible policy responses to the problem. (shrink)

This book presents the framework for a new, comprehensive approach to cognitive science. The proposed paradigm, enaction, offers an alternative to cognitive science's classical, first-generation Computational Theory of Mind. _Enaction_, first articulated by Varela, Thompson, and Rosch in _The Embodied Mind_, breaks from CTM's formalisms of information processing and symbolic representations to view cognition as grounded in the sensorimotor dynamics of the interactions between a living organism and its environment. A living organism enacts the world it lives in; its embodied (...) action in the world constitutes its perception and thereby grounds its cognition. _Enaction_ offers a range of perspectives on this exciting new approach to embodied cognitive science. Some chapters offer manifestos for the enaction paradigm; others address specific areas of research, including artificial intelligence, developmental psychology, neuroscience, language, phenomenology, and culture and cognition. Three themes emerge as testimony to the originality and specificity of enaction as a paradigm: the relation between first-person lived experience and third-person natural science; the ambition to provide an encompassing framework applicable at levels from the cell to society; and the difficulties of reflexivity. Taken together, the chapters offer nothing less than the framework for a far-reaching renewal of cognitive science. Contributors: Renaud Barbaras, Didier Bottineau, Giovanna Colombetti, Diego Cosmelli, Hanne De Jaegher, Ezequiel A. Di Paolo. Andreas K. Engel, Olivier Gapenne, Véronique Havelange, Edwin Hutchins, Michel Le Van Quyen, Rafael E. Núñez, Marieke Rohde, Benny Shanon, Maxine Sheets-Johnstone, Adam Sheya, Linda B. Smith, John Stewart, Evan Thompson. (shrink)

Human values seem to vary across time and space. What implications does this have for the future of human value? Will our human and (perhaps) post-human offspring have very different values from our own? Can we study the future of human values in an insightful and systematic way? This article makes three contributions to the debate about the future of human values. First, it argues that the systematic study of future values is both necessary in and of itself and an (...) important complement to other future-oriented inquiries. Second, it sets out a methodology and a set of methods for undertaking this study. Third, it gives a practical illustration of what this ‘axiological futurism’ might look like by developing a model of the axiological possibility space that humans are likely to navigate over the coming decades. (shrink)

In this paper, we delve into the significant impact of recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the future landscape of work. We discuss the looming possibility of mass unemployment triggered by AI and the societal repercussions of this transition. Despite the challenges this shift presents, we argue that it also unveils opportunities to mitigate social inequalities, combat global poverty, and empower individuals to follow their passions. Amidst this discussion, we also touch upon the existential question of the purpose of (...) human life in a world where machines predominantly perform work. Additionally, we explore the contentious issue of the moral status and rights of AI entities, contemplating the scenario where machines evolve to become sapient and sentient. The paper concludes with a call to action, emphasizing the necessity to acknowledge these potential outcomes and proactively seek solutions, as part of an inevitable journey through the evolution of human society shared with intelligent machines. (shrink)

One of the most important and influential philosophers of the last 30 years, John Searle has been concerned throughout his career with a single overarching question: how can we have a unified and theoretically satisfactory account of ourselves and of our relations to other people and to the natural world? In other words, how can we reconcile our common-sense conception of ourselves as conscious, free, mindful, rational agents in a world that we believe comprises brute, unconscious, mindless, meaningless, mute (...) physical particles in fields of force? The essays in this collection are all related to the broad overarching issue that unites the diverse strands of Searle's work. Gathering in an accessible manner essays available only in relatively obscure books and journals, this collection will be of particular value to professionals and upper-level students in philosophy as well as to Searle's more extended audience in such fields as psychology and linguistics. (shrink)

The idea that technologies can change moral beliefs and practices is an old one. But how, exactly, does this happen? This paper builds on an emerging field of inquiry by developing a synoptic taxonomy of the mechanisms of techno-moral change. It argues that technology affects moral beliefs and practices in three main domains: decisional (how we make morally loaded decisions), relational (how we relate to others) and perceptual (how we perceive situations). It argues that across these three domains there are (...) six primary mechanisms of techno-moral change: (i) adding options; (ii) changing decision-making costs; (iii) enabling new relationships; (iv) changing the burdens and expectations within relationships; (v) changing the balance of power in relationships; and (vi) changing perception (information, mental models and metaphors). The paper also discusses the layered, interactive and second-order effects of these mechanisms. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted immense work on the investigation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Rapid, accurate, and consistent interpretation of generated data is thereby of fundamental concern. Ontologies––structured, controlled, vocabularies––are designed to support consistency of interpretation, and thereby to prevent the development of data silos. This paper describes how ontologies are serving this purpose in the COVID-19 research domain, by following principles of the Open Biological and Biomedical Ontology (OBO) Foundry and by reusing existing ontologies such as the Infectious Disease Ontology (...) (IDO) Core, which provides terminological content common to investigations of all infectious diseases. We report here on the development of an IDO extension, the Virus Infectious Disease Ontology (VIDO), a reference ontology covering viral infectious diseases. We motivate term and definition choices, showcase reuse of terms from existing OBO ontologies, illustrate how ontological decisions were motivated by relevant life science research, and connect VIDO to the Coronavirus Infectious Disease Ontology (CIDO). We next use terms from these ontologies to annotate selections from life science research on SARS-CoV-2, highlighting how ontologies employing a common upper-level vocabulary may be seamlessly interwoven. Finally, we outline future work, including bacteria and fungus infectious disease reference ontologies currently under development, then cite uses of VIDO and CIDO in host-pathogen data analytics, electronic health record annotation, and ontology conflict-resolution projects. (shrink)

What constitutes a “good” life—not necessarily a morally good life, but a life that is good for the person who lived it? In response to this question of “well-being," philosophers have offered three significant answers: A good life is one in which a person can satisfy their desires (“Desire-Satisfaction” or “Preferentism”), one that includes certain good features (“Objectivism”), or one in which pleasurable states dominate or outweigh painful ones (“Hedonism”). To adjudicate among these competing theories, moral philosophers traditionally gather data (...) from thought experiments and intuition. In this chapter, we supplement that traditional approach with a pair of experimental studies that examine whether the three theories reflect laypeople’s intuitions about well-being. The empirical studies yield two primary findings. First, they provide evidence for lay "well-being pluralism": laypeople treat desire satisfaction, positive objective conditions, and happiness as all constitutive of well-being. Second, the studies provide evidence of "hedonic dominance": laypeople evaluate an individual’s happiness as more important to an individual’s overall well-being than desire satisfaction or objective conditions. (shrink)

John Hospers' _Introduction to Philosophical Analysis_ has sold over 150,000 copies since its first publication. This new edition ensures that its success will continue into the twenty-first century. It remains the most accessible and authoritative introduction to philosophy available using the full power of the problem-based approach to the area to ensure that philosophy is not simply taught to students but practised by them. The most significant change to this edition is to respond to criticisms regarding the omission in (...) the third edition of the famous opening chapter. A brand new chapter, Words and the World, replaces this in the fourth edition - which now features a large number of examples and illustrative dialogues. The rest of the text has been thoroughly revised and updated to take account of recent developments in some areas of philosophy. (shrink)

Rigorous proof is supposed to guarantee that the premises invoked imply the conclusion reached, and the problem of rigor may be described as that of bringing together the perspectives of formal logic and mathematical practice on how this is to be achieved. This problem has recently raised a lot of discussion among philosophers of mathematics. We survey some possible solutions and argue that failure to understand its terms properly has led to misunderstandings in the literature.

This paper briefly describes process metaphysics, and argues that it is better suited for describing life than the more standard thing, or substance, metaphysics. It then explores the implications of process metaphysics for conceptualizing evolution. After explaining what it is for an organism to be a process, the paper takes up the Hull/Ghiselin thesis of species as individuals and explores the conditions under which a species or lineage could constitute an individual process. It is argued that only sexual species satisfy (...) these conditions, and that within sexual species the degree of organization varies. This, in turn, has important implications for species' evolvability. One important moral is that evolution will work differently in different biological domains. (shrink)

Our self-conception derives mostly from our own experience. We believe ourselves to be conscious, rational, social, ethical, language-using, political agents who possess free will. Yet we know we exist in a universe that consists of mindless, meaningless, unfree, nonrational, brute physical particles. How can we resolve the conflict between these two visions? In _Freedom and Neurobiology_, the philosopher John Searle discusses the possibility of free will within the context of contemporary neurobiology. He begins by explaining the relationship between human (...) reality and the more fundamental reality as described by physics and chemistry. Then he proposes a neurobiological resolution to the problem by demonstrating how various conceptions of free will have different consequences for the neurobiology of consciousness. In the second half of the book, Searle applies his theory of social reality to the problem of political power, explaining the role of language in the formation of our political reality. The institutional structures that organize, empower, and regulate our lives-money, property, marriage, government-consist in the assignment and collective acceptance of certain statuses to objects and people. Whether it is the president of the United States, a twenty-dollar bill, or private property, these entities perform functions as determined by their status in our institutional reality. Searle focuses on the political powers that exist within these systems of status functions and the way in which language constitutes them. Searle argues that consciousness and rationality are crucial to our existence and that they are the result of the biological evolution of our species. He addresses the problem of free will within the context of a neurobiological conception of consciousness and rationality, and he addresses the problem of political power within the context of this analysis. A clear and concise contribution to the free-will debate and the study of cognition, _Freedom and Neurobiology_ is essential reading for students and scholars of the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The phenomenon of commitment is a cornerstone of human social life. Commitments make individuals' behavior predictable, thereby facilitating the planning and coordination of joint actions involving multiple agents. Moreover, commitments make people willing to rely upon each other, and thereby contribute to sustaining characteristically human social institutions such as jobs, money, government and marriage. However, it is not well understood how people identify and assess the level of their own and others' commitments. The Philosophy and Psychology of Commitment explores and (...) explains the philosophical and cognitive issues that underpin commitment. John Michael considers how commitments motivate us and their often implicit and tacit nature. To flesh out the philosophical framework of his argument he draws on experimental work with young children, adults and human-robot interaction within the context of joint action, considering the role of the emotions and whether very young children are capable of joint action. Providing an important account of the nature and operation of commitment, this book is essential reading for those working in philosophy of psychology, cognitive science, experimental philosophy, and social and developmental psychology. It will also be of interest to those working in emerging fields such as human-robot interaction and behavioural economics. (shrink)

This paper considers the formulation of the moral requirement against hypocrisy, paying particular attention to the logical scope of ‘requires’ in that formulation. The paper argues (i) that we should prefer a wide-scope formulation to a narrow-scope formulation, and (ii) this result has some advantages for our normative theorizing about hypocrisy – in particular, it allows us to resist several of Daniela Dover’s (2019) recent arguments against the anti-hypocrisy requirement.

This paper seeks to clarify one of the deepest questions about the source or ground of normativity, while also presenting an essence-based approach to answering it. We call it the ‘Arché Question.’ Though all metanormative theories must address this question, very few realists have explicitly grappled with the challenge it poses; those who have appear to deny any need to give an answer. After critically discussing extant realist responses, this paper outlines an essence-based approach to answering the Arché Question that (...) draws on theoretical resources forged in recent advances in post-modal metaphysics. (shrink)

Abstract The last two decades have witnessed a vast expansion in research and writing on the sociology of the body and on issues of embodiment. Indeed, both sociology in general and the sociology of sport specifically have well heeded the long-standing and vociferous calls ‘to bring the body back in’ to social theory. It seems particularly curious therefore that the sociology of sport has to-date addressed this primarily at a certain abstract, theoretical level, with relatively few accounts to be found (...) that are truly grounded in the corporeal realities of the lived sporting body; a ‘carnal sociology’ of sport, to borrow Crossley’s (1995) expression. To portray and understand more fully this kind of embodied perspective, it is argued, demands engaging with the phenomenology of the body, and this article seeks to contribute to a small but growing literature providing this particular form of ‘embodied’ analysis of the body in sport. Here we identify some useful intellectual resources for developing a phenomenology of sporting experience, specifically its sensory elements, and also subsequently examine the potential for its evocative portrayal and effective analysis via different kinds of textual forms. (shrink)

In this note, we cast doubt on the requirement of spacetime inextendibility; it is not at all clear that our universe is “as large as it can be.”.

This book contains important technical innovations, including comparative measures for the testable content, depth, and unity of scientific theories. Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich (...) scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Principlism : the Borg of bioethics -- A common morality for hedgehogs : Bernard Gert -- Getting down to cases : the revival of casuistry in bioethics -- Nice story but so what : narrative and justification in ethics -- Dewey and Rorty's pragmatism and bioethics -- Freestanding pragmatism in bioethics and law -- A method in search of a purpose : the internal morality of medicine -- Method to rule them all? Reflective equilibrium in bioethics -- Concluding reflections : (...) method in bioethics : the very idea. (shrink)

Although the last decade has seen a proliferation of ontological approaches to arguments, many of them employ ad hoc solutions to representing arguments, lack interoperability with other ontologies, or cover arguments only as part of a broader approach to evidence. To provide a better ontological representation of arguments, we present the Arguments Ontology (ArgO), a small ontology for arguments that is designed to be imported and easily extended by researchers who work in different upper-level ontology frameworks, different logics, and different (...) approaches to argument evaluation. Unlike most ontological approaches to arguments, ArgO utilizes Basic Formal Ontology (BFO) as an upper-level ontology, and may be used alongside other commonly used ontologies in the BFO framework, including boththe Information Artifact Ontology (IAO), and the Information Entity Ontology (INFO). Critically, our proposal is principled, based on rigorous definitions and formal axioms out of which characterizations of arguments naturally fall. It is our hope that ArgO may assist researchers in many projects, including: integrating heterogeneous sources of evidence, structuring the content of semantic wikis, and enhancing semantic reasoning. (shrink)