Alongside other virtues like honesty, courage, integrity, and generosity, it is widely accepted that we should all strive to be humble people. But what if humility isn’t all it’s cracked up to be? Some philosophers, for example, have argued that humility can reinforce subordination and entrench exploitation. Despite some popular misconceptions, humility isn’t fundamentally about being servile. Humility doesn’t require being a doormat for whoever wants to take advantage of us. Instead, humility helps us avoid being distracted by our own (...) egos, a trait that is valuable for those from all walks of life. (shrink)

Consider the odd fact—later I will try to show how very odd it is—that the only popular views about the morality of abortion are also the most extreme. Philosophical views are no exception; indeed I will argue that this extremism has deeply philosophical roots. It follows directly from the insistence on “drawing a line” dividing persons from non persons. We can't, so the usual arguments go, draw such a line anywhere except at the very beginning or the very end of (...) fetal development. But on the practical level, as most of us know first-hand, that extremism remains problematic: it yields a factious and clumsy casuistry. It is equally difficult—and, surely, equally inhumane—to believe that a conceptus two days old is the moral equivalent of a fully functioning human being and that a fetus just prior to birth is the moral equivalent of a tumor. The division between persons and non persons, however, is linked in turn with certain others. Not only may the possibility of dividing any concept's denotation from its neighbors' seem to be at stake here; the division between persons and non persons depends more particularly—so I will argue—on the contemporary division in moral theory between moral reasons and other kinds of reasons, and in particular on the division between the moral and the self-interested “points of view.” That division in turn I trace back, in part, to the Hobbesian picture of the social world, on which the most fundamental division of all runs between persons and other persons. So one division points beyond itself to others. The critic is launched on a kind of odyssey through the theoretical presuppositions of applied ethics. (shrink)

Consider the odd fact—later I will try to show how very odd it is—that the only popular views about the morality of abortion are also the most extreme. Philosophical views are no exception; indeed I will argue that this extremism has deeply philosophical roots. It follows directly from the insistence on “drawing a line” dividing persons from non persons. We can't, so the usual arguments go, draw such a line anywhere except at the very beginning or the very end of (...) fetal development. But on the practical level, as most of us know first-hand, that extremism remains problematic: it yields a factious and clumsy casuistry. It is equally difficult—and, surely, equally inhumane—to believe that a conceptus two days old is the moral equivalent of a fully functioning human being and that a fetus just prior to birth is the moral equivalent of a tumor. The division between persons and non persons, however, is linked in turn with certain others. Not only may the possibility of dividing any concept's denotation from its neighbors' seem to be at stake here; the division between persons and non persons depends more particularly—so I will argue—on the contemporary division in moral theory between moral reasons and other kinds of reasons, and in particular on the division between the moral and the self-interested “points of view.” That division in turn I trace back, in part, to the Hobbesian picture of the social world, on which the most fundamental division of all runs between persons and other persons. So one division points beyond itself to others. The critic is launched on a kind of odyssey through the theoretical presuppositions of applied ethics. (shrink)

_Thinking Through Questions_ is an accessible and compact guide to the art of questioning, covering both the use and abuse of questions. Animated by wide-ranging and engaging exercises and examples, the book helps students deepen their understanding of how questions work and what questions do, and builds the skills needed to ask better questions. Cowritten by two of today's leading philosopher-teachers, _Thinking Through Questions_ is specifically designed to complement, connect, and motivate today’s standard curricula, especially for classes in critical thinking, (...) philosophical questioning, and creative problem- solving (called here "expansive questioning"). Offering students a wide and appreciative look at questions and questioning, this small book will also appeal to faculty and students across the disciplines: in college writing courses, creativity workshops, education schools, introductions to college thinking, design thinking projects, and humanities and thinking classes. Open-ended, creative, and critically self-possessed thinking is its constant theme—what field doesn’t need more of that? (shrink)

Memoirs and papers presented at a conference held on the occasion of the 90th birthday of the Mongolian philosopher Ts. Balkhaajav.

Logical Forms explains both the detailed problems involved in finding logical forms and also the theoretical underpinnings of philosophical logic. In this revised edition, exercises are integrated throughout the book. The result is a genuinely interactive introduction which engages the reader in developing the argument. Each chapter concludes with updated notes to guide further reading.

Книга предназначена для философов, правоведов и специалистов по естественным наукам, а также для заинтересованных читателей.

Книга предназначена для философов, правоведов и специалистов по естественным наукам, а также для заинтересованных читателей.

В монографии рассматриваются возможности применения обобщенной релевантной логики к проблеме моделирования рассуждений. Для научных работников, аспирантов, студентов, специалистов в философской логике, аргументации и компьютерной науке.

Издание посвящено проблемам образной семантики, которые затрагивают четыре явления - когнитивные модели сравнительных конструкций, метафорические структуры языка, культурно значимая фразеология и поэтический дискурс.

We investigate the class of those algebras in which is a de Morgan algebra, is a quasi-Stone algebra, and the operations \ and \ are linked by the identity x**º = x*º*. We show that such an algebra is subdirectly irreducible if and only if its congruence lattice is either a 2-element chain or a 3-element chain. In particular, there are precisely eight non-isomorphic subdirectly irreducible Stone de Morgan algebras.

We identify the \-ideals of a distributive demi-pseudocomplemented algebra L as the kernels of the boolean congruences on L, and show that they form a complete Heyting algebra which is isomorphic to the interval \ of the congruence lattice of L where G is the Glivenko congruence. We also show that the notions of maximal \-ideal, prime \-ideal, and falsity ideal coincide.

Russian-Mongolian dictionary of philosophical terms.

We consider the special and general relativistic extensions of the action principle behind the Schrödinger equation distinguishing classical and quantum contributions. Postulating a particular quantum correction to the source term in the classical Einstein equation we identify the conformal content of the above action and obtain classical gravitation for massive particles, but with a cosmological term representing off-mass-shell contribution to the energy–momentum tensor. In this scenario the—on the Planck scale surprisingly small—cosmological constant stems from quantum bound states having a Bohr (...) radius a as being \. (shrink)