Barnes focuses and examines Plato’s ideals on life through “Allegory of the Cave”. The nature of selfhood, moral/ political issues, and enlightenment demonstrate in any classroom the alternatives to a dry session on philosophy to young children through an engaging discussion.

Here H.G. Callaway offers us a new reading edition of the oft-cited, commonly-studies, and widely-enjoyed Emerson text The Conduct of Life. This edition provides an introduction by Callaway, annotations throughout, a chronology, a bibliography, and index, and modern spellings throughout. And it does its job well.

Aristotle's Politics is widely recognized as one of the classics of the history of political philosophy, and like every other such masterpiece, it is a work about which there is deep division.

This article considers the theme of discernment in the tradition of Ignatian spirituality emanating from the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus. After a brief introduction which addresses the central problematic of bad influences that manifest themselves as good, the article turns to the life and work of two Jesuits, the 16th C English missionary to India, Thomas Stephens and the 20th C French historian and cultural critic, Michel de Certeau. Both kept (...) up a constant dialogue with local culture in which they sought authenticity in their response to ‘events’, whether a hideous massacre which shaped the pastoral commitment and writing of Stephens in the south of the Portuguese enclave of Goa or the 1968 student-led protests in Paris that so much affected the thinking of de Certeau. Very different in terms of personal background and contemporary experience, they both share in a tradition of discernment as a virtuous response to what both would understand as the ‘wisdom of the Spirit’ revealed in their personal interactions with ‘the other’. (shrink)

Throughout his career as an academic theologian, Karl Rahner never explicitly set himself the task of working out a theory of language. Nonetheless, the seminal insights for such a theory were formulated in his extensive corpus as functions of other, more properly theological concerns. These consist chiefly of the development of religious doctrine and the cult of the Sacred Heart (See DD, BH, ST, TM, ULM). Other important insights appear in his treatment of the hermeneutics of eschatological statements and the (...) relation between Christianity and poetry (See HES, PC, PP). All these theological concerns have received scholarly attention (See Barnes 1994, Bonsor 1987, Callahan 1985, Corduan 1978, Doud 1983, Hines 1989, Phan 1988, Thompson 1992, Walsh 1977). As for Rahner’s theory of language, scholarship has shown how a coherent system can be constructed from the disparate sources that contain it (See Masson 1979, 224–33; and 1980, 266–72). In developing this previous work, the present article will ex plain how Rahner’s theory is derived from his distinctive meta physics of the symbol. Scholarship is only beginning this discussion, although the centrality of symbolism in Rahner’s thought has been well treated. [See Callahan 1982, Fields 2000 (esp. 6–16, 92–97), Motzko 1976, H. Rahner 1964, Wong 1984.] In addition, this paper will also suggest that an origin of Rahner’s symbolic view of language lies in Heidegger’s aesthetics. Bringing this origin to the fore will lead to a concluding discussion about the debt that Rahner owes his mentor at Freiburg University. (shrink)

This is a comment on the paper by Barnes and the responses from Scerri and Worrall, debating the thesis that a fact successfully predicted by a theory is stronger evidence than a similar fact known before the prediction was made. Since Barnes and Scerri both use evidence presented in my paper on Mendeleev’s periodic law to support their views, I reiterate my own position on predictivism. I do not argue for or against predictivism in the normative sense that philosophers of (...) science employ, rather I describe how scientists themselves use facts and predictions to support their theories. I find wide variations, and no support for the assumption that scientists use a single ‘Scientific Method’ in deciding whether to accept a proposed new theory.Keywords: Predictivism; Novel predictions; Accommodation; Periodic law; Periodic table; Dmitri Mendeleev. (shrink)

Michael Frede in The Historiography of Philosophy, or in the Nellie Wallace lectures that are the core of the book, addresses a great many issues about the historiography of philosophy. He has thin...

This article considers the theme of discernment in the tradition of Ignatian spirituality emanating from the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus. After a brief introduction which addresses the central problematic of bad influences that manifest themselves as good, the article turns to the life and work of two Jesuits, the 16th C English missionary to India, Thomas Stephens and the 20th C French historian and cultural critic, Michel de Certeau. Both kept (...) up a constant dialogue with local culture in which they sought authenticity in their response to ‘events’, whether a hideous massacre which shaped the pastoral commitment and writing of Stephens in the south of the Portuguese enclave of Goa or the 1968 student-led protests in Paris that so much affected the thinking of de Certeau. Very different in terms of personal background and contemporary experience, they both share in a tradition of discernment as a virtuous response to what both would understand as the ‘wisdom of the Spirit’ revealed in their personal interactions with ‘the other’. (shrink)

In epistemology, fake-barn thought experiments are often taken to be intuitively clear cases in which a justified true belief does not qualify as knowledge. We report a study designed to determine whether non-philosophers share this intuition. The data suggest that while participants are less inclined to attribute knowledge in fake-barn cases than in unproblematic cases of knowledge, they nonetheless do attribute knowledge to protagonists in fake-barn cases. Moreover, the intuition that fake-barn cases do count as knowledge is negatively correlated with (...) age; older participants are less likely than younger participants to attribute knowledge in fake-barn cases. We also found that increasing the number of defeaters (fakes) does not decrease the inclination to attribute knowledge. (shrink)

Traces the rise and fall of successive international systems from medieval times to the present, showing how international order is created, how it is maintained, and why it breaks down.

This quirky monograph focuses on comments on logic made by Marcus Aurelius, who is said to "introduce the comedy," Seneca, who "features in the second act," and Epictetus, who is "the hero." Barnes denies that the ethical part of philosophy was the only part which was of any account in the social and intellectual debates of their time. Since he views logic as in itself neutral, Seneca is portrayed as a logical utilitarian and so a philistine (21). Despite casting Epictetus (...) as a "hero," Barnes tendentiously characterizes him as offering a "pin-striped cynicism." Other offhand quips, gibes hurled at professional philosophers, stylistic idiosyncracies, and a host of type-setting errors pepper this generally meticulous study and make for bumpy reading. This is a useful study of logic in the imperial Stoa but it does little to illuminate the thought of Epictetus, or imperial Stoicism, as a whole. (shrink)

The author’s aim in this quirky monograph is not to reconstruct all that can be surmised about Stoic logic in the first two centuries A.D. of the Roman empire, but rather to concentrate on the three Stoic authors whose extant texts contain remarks on logic. These imperial Stoics, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius, are known for their emphasis on ethics and not for their contributions in either logic or physics. So it comes as some surprise that Barnes can find much (...) to say about what these philosophers thought about logic. As Barnes presents it (defying chronology), “Marcus introduces the comedy; Seneca features in the second act; and Epictetus is the hero” (ix). (shrink)

Well over five thousand languages are known to exist or to have existed in the world, but hundreds of these are no longer living languages used by speakers and speech communities in their day-to-day activities and lives. Some of them lead a pseudolife as revered monuments of the past which still have some restricted and specialised roles to play today, such as Latin, Ancient Greek, Church Slavonic and others, but most of them are of interest and concern only to a (...) small group of linguists, historians and some other experts who look at the past. Many languages have disappeared without being known to us in any great detail, with only some fragmentary materials in them - written or noted down by speakers or observers of them hundreds or even thousands of years ago - at our disposal to give us some idea as to what those languages were like. Others have disappeared without even that scanty information about their nature being available to us; only their names are known from historical records, or perhaps some remarks were written down by someone many years ago and were preserved over the ages to tell us something about some special features of such a language or such languages and who and what kind of people their speakers were. Many other languages, certainly a much larger number than the dead languages about which we know something, have disappeared without our knowing anything of or about them. (shrink)

Pidgin languages are generally languages which are more or less rudimentary languages developing in situations of contacts between two different cultures, one of them dominant in the contact situation, with the use of such languages restricted to certain limited contacts such as trading, plantation work involving the employment of indigenous labour, master-servant relationships, and similar types of contact situations. Much of the vocabulary of a pidgin language consists of elements of the language of the dominant culture in a more or (...) less distorted, and often semantically changed, form with elements from the language of the non-dominant culture playing a less important part in its vocabulary. Its structural features do not as a rule reflect structural characteristics of the language of the dominant culture, unless the languages of both the dominant and the non-dominant culture are closely related and structurally very similar, though even in such situations quite significant deviations from the structural set-up of the language of the dominant culture can be observed in the pidgin language. Some to many of the structural features of a pidgin language may reflect features of the language of the non-dominant culture but, in pidgin languages, a number of unique structural and grammatical features can be observed which appear to reflect some basic simplifications in language use in contact situations between speakers of different languages. In any event, in the usual type of pidgin language, the overall vocabulary is small and limited in its usefulness to the specific types of contact situations in which the language is used and its grammatical complexity is greatly reduced when compared with both the language of the dominant culture and the nondominant culture. Also, as a rule, the sound system of a pidgin language constitutes a considerable simplification when compared with the sound system of both these languages. (shrink)

This work is the latest contribution to the Clarendon Later Ancient Philosophers series edited by Jonathan Barnes and A. A. Long. As with the earlier volumes (John Dillon's Alcinous, The Handbook of Platonism , R. J. Hankinson's Galen, On the Therapeutic Method Books I and II, Richard Bett's Sextus Empiricus, Against the Ethicists , and D. L. Blank's Sextus Empiricus, Against the Grammarians ), D(obbin) provides an introduction, an English translation, and a critical commentary predominantly focused on the philosophical content (...) of the text of an author from the period ranging from the first century BC to the fifth century AD. A bibliography of a dozen earlier editions of E(pictetus), a painstaking bibliography of secondary literature, an index nominum, a generous index locorum, and a brief subject index are also included. Overall this edition maintains the high standards characteristic of the CLAP series. (shrink)

This work is the latest contribution to the Clarendon Later Ancient Philosophers series edited by Jonathan Barnes and A. A. Long. As with the earlier volumes (John Dillon's Alcinous, The Handbook of Platonism , R. J. Hankinson's Galen, On the Therapeutic Method Books I and II, Richard Bett's Sextus Empiricus, Against the Ethicists, and D. L. Blank's Sextus Empiricus, Against the Grammarians), D(obbin) provides an introduction, an English translation, and a critical commentary predominantly focused on the philosophical content of the (...) text of an author from the period ranging from the first century BC to the fifth century AD. A bibliography of a dozen earlier editions of E(pictetus), a painstaking bibliography of secondary literature, an index nominum, a generous index locorum, and a brief subject index are also included. Overall this edition maintains the high standards characteristic of the CLAP series. (shrink)

What could someone represent that would enable her to track, at least within limits, others' perceptions, knowledge states and beliefs including false beliefs? An obvious possibility is that she might represent these very attitudes as such. It is sometimes tacitly or explicitly assumed that this is the only possible answer. However, we argue that several recent discoveries in developmental, cognitive, and comparative psychology indicate the need for other, less obvious possibilities. Our aim is to meet this need by describing the (...) construction of a minimal theory of mind. Minimal theory of mind is rich enough to explain systematic success on tasks held to be acid tests for theory of mind cognition including many false belief tasks. Yet minimal theory of mind does not require representing propositional attitudes, or any other kind of representation, as such. Minimal theory of mind may be what enables those with limited cognitive resources or little conceptual sophistication, such as infants, chimpanzees, scrub-jays and human adults under load, to track others' perceptions, knowledge states and beliefs. (shrink)

Ethical issues are pivotal to the practice of psychiatry. Anyone involved in psychiatric practice and mental healthcare has to be aware of the range of ethical issues relevant to their profession. An increased professional commitment to accountability, in parallel with a growing "consumer" movement has paved the way for a creative engagement with the ethical movement. The bestselling 'Psychiatric Ethics' has carved out a niche for itself as the major comprehensive text and core reference in the field, covering a range (...) of complex ethical dilemmas which face clinicians and researchers in their everyday practice. This new edition takes a fresh look at recent trends and developments at the interface between ethics and psychiatric practice. Coming ten years after the third edition, the editors have observed several emerging aspects of psychiatric practice requiring coverage, as a result, 5 new chapters have been added, including cutting edge topics - such as neuroethics. All other chapters have been fully revised and updated. The book will continue to be essential reading for psychiatrists, psychologists, other mental health professionals, and bioethicists, as well as of interest to policy makers, managers and lawyers. (shrink)

A new formulation of the Fine-Tuning Argument (FTA) for the existence of God is offered, which avoids a number of commonly raised objections. I argue that we can and should focus on the fundamental constants and initial conditions of the universe, and show how physics itself provides the probabilities that are needed by the argument. I explain how this formulation avoids a number of common objections, specifically the possibility of deeper physical laws, the multiverse, normalisability, whether God would fine-tune at (...) all, whether the universe is too fine-tuned, and whether the likelihood of God creating a life-permitting universe is inscrutable. (shrink)

Presents close analysis of eight of Francis Bacon's texts in order to investigate the relation of his religious views to his instauration. Attempts to correct the persistent misconception of Bacon as a secular modern who dismissed religion in order to promote the human advancement of knowledge"--Provided by publisher.

What could someone represent that would enable her to track, at least within limits, others' perceptions, knowledge states and beliefs including false beliefs? An obvious possibility is that she might represent these very attitudes as such. It is sometimes tacitly or explicitly assumed that this is the only possible answer. However, we argue that several recent discoveries in developmental, cognitive, and comparative psychology indicate the need for other, less obvious possibilities. Our aim is to meet this need by describing the (...) construction of a minimal theory of mind. Minimal theory of mind is rich enough to explain systematic success on tasks held to be acid tests for theory of mind cognition including many false belief tasks. Yet minimal theory of mind does not require representing propositional attitudes, or any other kind of representation, as such. Minimal theory of mind may be what enables those with limited cognitive resources or little conceptual sophistication, such as infants, chimpanzees, scrub‐jays and human adults under load, to track others' perceptions, knowledge states and beliefs. (shrink)

Three experiments investigated response times for remember and know responses in recognition memory. RTs to remember responses were faster than RTs to know responses, regardless of whether the remember–know decision was preceded by an old/new decision or was made without a preceding old/new decision . The finding of faster RTs for R responses was also found when remember–know decisions were made retrospectively. These findings are inconsistent with dual-process models of recognition memory, which predict that recollection is slower and more effortful (...) than familiarity. Word frequency did not influence RTs, but remember responses were faster for words than for nonwords. We argue that the difference in RTs to remember and know responses reflects the time taken to make old/new decisions on the basis of the type of information activated at test. (shrink)

Many of the things we do are, or could be, done with others. Mundane examples favoured by philosophers include painting a house together (Bratman 1992), lifting.

In this paper I offer an analysis of, and suggest some methods for dealing with, a quite particular and peculiar problem in teaching philosophy. It is, perhaps,not a problem essential to the discipline or to its teaching, but it is nevertheless one of the most serious, pervasive, and frustrating problems confronting mostphilosophy teachers today. I speak of the problem of student relativism-or, SR for short.

Scientific peer reviewers play an integral role in the grant selection process, yet very little has been reported on the levels of participation or the motivations of scientists to take part in peer review. The American Institute of Biological Sciences developed a comprehensive peer review survey that examined the motivations and levels of participation of grant reviewers. The survey was disseminated to 13,091 scientists in AIBS’s proprietary database. Of the 874 respondents, 76% indicated they had reviewed grant applications in the (...) last 3 years; however, the number of reviews was unevenly distributed across this sample. Higher review loads were associated with respondents who had submitted more grant proposals over this time period, some of whom were likely to be study section members for large funding agencies. The most prevalent reason to participate in a review was to give back to the scientific community and the most common reason to decline an invitation to review was lack of time. Interestingly, few suggested that expectation from the funding agency was a motivation to review. Most felt that review participation positively influenced their careers through improving grantsmanship and exposure to new scientific ideas. Of those who reviewed, respondents reported dedicating 2–5% of their total annual work time to grant review and, based on their self-reported maximum review loads, it is estimated they are participating at 56–87% of their capacity, which may have important implications regarding the sustainability of the system. Overall, it is clear that participation in peer review is uneven and in some cases near capacity, and more needs to be done to create new motivations and incentives to increase the future pool of reviewers. (shrink)

The unique discourse of Confucian ritual practice encompasses a powerful and sophisticated way of talking about individual fulfillment within the context of more substantive or universal conceptions of the good life. To make this case, I will consider both the text of the "Analects" and the influential readings of the "Analects" offered by Fingarette in "Confucius: The Secular as Sacred" and by Hall and Ames in "Thinking through Confucius". Though the two interpretive works are helpful in articulating the classical Confucian (...) contribution to the problem of balancing conformity and individuality, I will argue that an alternative reading is required to appreciate fully how values thought to embody and express the fullest humanity might be inculcated in ethical agents without undoing their individuality. Such an alternative is developed here. (shrink)

Over the last twenty-five years, Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff have developed a groundbreaking interpretation of Marxian theory generally and of Marxian economics in particular. This book brings together their key contributions and underscores their different interpretations. In facing and trying to resolve contradictions and lapses within Marxism, the authors have confronted the basic incompatibilities among the dominant modern versions of Marxian theory, and the fact that Marxism seemed cut off from the criticisms of determinist modes of thought offered (...) by post-structuralism and post-modernism and even by some of Marxisms greatest theorists. (shrink)

The development of children’s minds raises fundamental psychological and scientific questions, from how we are able to know about and describe basic aspects of the world such as words, numbers and colours to how we come to grasp causes, actions and intentions. This is the first book to properly introduce and examine philosophical questions concerning children’s cognitive development and considers the implications of scientific breakthroughs for the philosophy of developmental psychology. Each chapter explores a central topic in developmental psychology from (...) a philosophical perspective: social interaction and the developing mind children's awareness of objects and the question of 'object permanence' knowledge of numbers children and the acquisition of knowledge of colour language acquisition and the 'mapping problem' children's knowledge of the relation between actions and goals belief acquisition and the developing mind. Throughout the book Stephen Butterfill draws on several important case studies, including experiments with children on memory, ‘false belief tasks’, and the process by which children come to see other people, not just themselves, as capable of experience. He shows how these questions can illuminate some fundamental debates in philosophy of mind, such as the mind’s possession of concepts, rationality and the mind, the possibility of objective thought, and the nature of perceptual experience. Additional features, such as chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary provide helpful tools for those coming to the subject for the first time. (shrink)

In Silence et langage Stephen A. Noble offers a new interpretation of the development of Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology which analyses the central position of language within a philosophy of perception predicated upon the interdependence of seeing and speaking.

In this response to the commentary by Michael and Christensen, we first explain how minimal mindreading is compatible with the development of increasingly sophisticated mindreading behaviours that involve both executive functions and general knowledge, and then sketch one approach to a minimal account of goal ascription.

Fine-tuning in physics and cosmology is often used as evidence that a theory is incomplete. For example, the parameters of the standard model of particle physics are “unnaturally” small, which has driven much of the search for physics beyond the standard model. Of particular interest is the fine-tuning of the universe for life, which suggests that our universe’s ability to create physical life forms is improbable and in need of explanation, perhaps by a multiverse. This claim has been challenged on (...) the grounds that the relevant probability measure cannot be justified because it cannot be normalized, and so small probabilities cannot be inferred. We show how fine-tuning can be formulated within the context of Bayesian theory testing in the physical sciences. The normalizability problem is seen to be a general problem for testing any theory with free parameters, and not a unique problem for fine-tuning. Physical theories in fact avoid such problems in one of two ways. Dimensional parameters are bounded by the Planck scale, avoiding troublesome infinities, and we are not compelled to assume that dimensionless parameters are distributed uniformly, which avoids non-normalizability. (shrink)