Most students of Tocqueville know of his remark, “There are three men with whom I live a little every day; they are Pascal, Montesquieu, and Rousseau.” In this paper I trace out the contours of Pascal’s influence upon Tocqueville’s understanding of the human condition and our appropriate response to it. Similar temperaments lead both Tocqueville and Pascal to emphasize human limitations and contingency, as Peter Lawler rightly emphasizes. Tocqueville and Pascal both emphasize mortality, ignorance of the most important subjects, the (...) effects of historical contingency on what we take to be human nature, and both represent the complex internal dynamic of human nature in terms of the interplay of “angel” and “brute.” The most important difference between them concerns their relative estimates of human power and the significance of human action. Whereas the motif of human weakness is fundamental for Pascal, Tocqueville repeatedly affirms that, under the right conditions, human beings are “powerful and free.” Beginning from Pascalian premises, and endeavoring to be more faithful to some of those premises than Pascal himself was, Tocqueville aims to illuminate the possibility of an amelioration of the human condition through a “new political science” that redeems the political realm without divinizing it. -/- . (shrink)

One of the most distinctive features of Fear and Trembling is Kierkegaard’s use of narrative variations in order to isolate, develop, and highlight the relevant features of his principal theme, the story of Abraham and Isaac, especially Abraham’s final test of faith. The book begins with a preface and ends with an epilogue; immediately within these, Kierkegaard has his pseudonym, Johannes de Silentio, provide such variations in the “Attunement” or Stemning, just following the Preface, and in Problema III, just before (...) the Epilogue. What is the purpose of these narrative variations? How are they intended to prepare the reader to understand Abraham? How, in short, do they clarify the nature and difficulty of faith? I argue, on the basis of the account of "mood" given in Concept of Anxiety, that the variations of the Attunement function to modulate the "mood" of the work by converting a fixed narrative into a possibility field, thereby giving the work a mood of anguish or anxiety rather than a detached or scholarly mood, while the variations of Problema III function to callapse this mood into interested admiration. I conclude with some remarks about what this suggests for a reader that wishes to "go further" than Johannes de Silentio. (shrink)

Before committing suicide, Othello says, "Speak of me as I am; . . . speak of one who loved not wisely, but too well." Thinking of his love for Desdemona, we are not likely to agree with his assessment that he loved her "too well," especially if loving well is supposed to require some kind of dependability or concern for her well-being; we would be loath even to grant that he loved her "too much." Othello's love for his wife seems, (...) rather, to have been firmly subordinated to his love for his honor. Perhaps, then, his statement could be saved by saying that it was his honor that he loved too well, and that in devoting himself so completely to it, he did not love wisely. He needed a better way of coordinating his two concerns, one that wouldn't give him cause for regret—a way of loving well that was also wise. (shrink)

The recent debate over “republican” conceptions of freedom as non-domination has re- invigorated philosophical discussions of freedom. However, “neo-Roman” republicanism, which has been characterized as republicanism that respects equality, has largely ignored the work of Alexis de Tocqueville, although he too took his task to be crafting a republicanism suited to equality. I therefore provide a philosophical treatment of the heart of Tocqueville’s republicanism, including an analysis of his conception of freedom as freedom in combined action and a philosophical reconstruction (...) of his primary argument for the importance of this kind of freedom. A comparison of Philip Pettit’s and Tocqueville’s republicanism exposes limitations in the neo-Roman conception of freedom as non-domination and its ideal of the free citizen and shows why neo-Roman republicanism, to live up to its motivating ideals, should accommodate elements of “neo- Athenian” republicanism and freedom in combined action. (shrink)

Katherine Dormandy aims both to classify possible modes of relating faith to epistemic norms in terms of three broad viewpoints: evidentialism, epistemological partialism, and anti-epistemological partialism. I advance two related claims: first, her categorization flattens the epistemological terrain by treating epistemic norms that operate at different levels as if they operated on the same level and thereby distorts the views she categorizes under Anti-Epistemological Partiality; and second, when rightly described, the noetic conflict involved in this view can be understood as (...) waged between epistemic norms of different types and function. To advance this claim, I examine Pascal’s conception of faith. For Pascal, we require first principles to establish an interpretive framework for understanding the universe and interpreting evidence, but outside of statements whose negations are self-contradictory, we cannot distinguish between “natural” principles and fantasies; faith is then understood as a relation to the Divine that allows the believer to receive, through grace, more accurate first principles. Faith therefore has a special cognitive status: (a) it has the right to influence how we interpret the world, including our epistemic norms and how to accommodate apparently disconfirming evidence, and (b) it is resilient to being reinterpreted in ways that would hinder it from fulfilling this function of stabilizing our epistemic situation—in the manner, for example, that such functioning would be hindered by negative beliefs concerning whether God exists, is good, and is faithful. The Pascalian believer is therefore involved in a much more subtle type of struggle than one between evidence and belief. Her conflict is waged between evidence and the interpretive framework through which she understands the world, including that evidence. I use the example of Job as a paradigm of how such a believer responds to apparently disconfirming evidence, treating doubt as grounds for frankly asking, or even demanding, God to answer one’s doubts, for the sake of his justice and love. (shrink)

What is the nature of our reasons for loving something? Why does a particular person or activity stimulate our imagination and hopes more deeply than others do? Is the reason in the object of our affection or in ourselves? Much philosophical debate revolves around this dichotomy between objective and subjective reasons for loving. In this paper I will instead propose that our reasons are primarily relational, having to do with the concept of affinity. Affinity, defined as “fitness” between two parties, (...) allows us to analyze loving activity in terms of a practical inference concerned with a long-term engagement in activities and relationships that are worthwhile and suitable to oneself. This approach does justice to the considerations on both sides of the debate. (shrink)

The original version of this article unfortunately contained an error. In footnote 1, the “[My 2013]” and “[My other 2013]” should be updated.

The goal of Fear and Trembling is to illuminate the difficulty of faith. At an important juncture, he claims that both types of knight are dancers, but only the knight of faith can dance perfectly, doing what perhaps no dancer can do: he does not “hesitate” in the moment between landing from his leap and assuming the position from which to reengage with finitude. This analogy has been given small attention in the literature. Given Kierkegaard’s surprisingly precise grasp of classical (...) ballet’s vocabulary and aesthetic, I examine how these provide him additional power to clarify the difference between faith and resignation. (shrink)

There is widespread disagreement about Tocqueville's conception of human nature, some going so far as to say that Tocqueville possessed no unified conception of human nature at all. In this paper, I aim to provide the essential principles of Tocqueville's conception of human nature through an examination of the way in which he describes the power of human circumstances, such as physical environment, social state, and religion, to shape human character by extracting the principles underlying these transformations. There is no (...) “natural man” or man “in the state of nature” but instead a set of psychic operations that reveal a picture of human nature in which human freedom, or the ability to initiate action in pursuit of important objects, lies at the heart of human life. (shrink)

This paper concerns a feature of the deontic landscape that, although pervasive, has hitherto escaped notice. None of the current categorizations of duties adequately capture a common and important form of duty, the “open duty.” The difference between open and closed duties, whether perfect or imperfect, rests not on the side of the end or action enjoined by the duty, but on that of the agents who are enjoined to act. An open duty belongs to more than one person, not (...) all of whose performance of the action is required to fulfill the duty. An example would be the situation faced by American doctors following Hurricane Katrina, when it was imperative that some of them provide aid, but when it was just as necessary that many remain where they were to treat local patients. In this paper, I examine these duties’ nature and structure, and explain several of their more unusual features. -/- . (shrink)

Thaddeus Metz’s Meaning in Life is like a magnificent castle, covering vast ground, with towers high into the heavens, and astoundingly intricate architecture. It covers the literature on meaning with enviable completeness and weaves together the many and various strands within that literature, ‘towering’ over the debates and issues and provides a wide and inclusive perspective on them. Meaning in Life is a striking achievement and, just as the intricacy of those fortresses testified to the growing maturity of architecture, so (...) Metz’s book is a testament to the growing maturity of the literature on the meaning of life. But such castles had a dual purpose, which did not always cohere. They were fortresses intended to withstand armed assault, yet they were also supposed to manifest and project the aristocratic loftiness, status, and elegance of their masters. These purposes conflicted, especially in the design of a castle’s central tower, the keep or donjon, where elegant ornamentation was most necessary, but which could hamper or compromise its defensive functions. Meaning in Life likewise seeks to fulfil a dual purpose: on the one hand, to weave all the literature together into a coherent conception of meaning, including supernaturalist conceptions of meaning; and, on the other, to neutralize supernaturalist claims that only the existence of God or of an immortal soul could provide the necessary conditions for meaning. Does Metz’s synthesis stand, or has it compromised its defence? I argue in this Symposium piece that Metz’s methodology, as developed and deployed in Parts I and III of his book, is a poor weapon against supernaturalist skeptics, and develop an argument in the work of Blaise Pascal to explain why he, and those endorsing similar positions, would not be convinced by this type of argumentation. (shrink)

“No lies": The Hurricane Notebook, found on a Wilmington beach after a storm, contains the thoughts, artistic experiments, vignettes, and recorded dialogues of an unknown author calling herself "Elizabeth M." Its entries record the inner life of a soul in crisis, perpetually returning to the moment she learned of her sister's suicide and making an unrelenting attempt to understand herself and the human condition. Whether engaged in introspective soul-searching, or reconstructing her discussions with friends, mentors, and acquaintances, she challenges herself (...) to accept "No lies" that would mask or hide her own responsibility for evil in the world. The notebook ends abruptly; having traversed subjects as diverse as God, childhood, chess, philosophy, ballet, self-hood, conscience, guilt, and friendship, Elizabeth's questions are left uncertain and hanging in the air, just like her hope that she might find "one person on earth who understands me," and unanswered, like her plea "Having understood me, would you grieve on my behalf, my friend?". (shrink)

Love is practical, having to do with how we live our lives, and a central aspect of its practical orientation is the wish for union. Union is often considered in two forms—as a union of affections and as union in relationship. This paper considers both sorts of union and argues for their connection. I first discuss the union of interests in terms of the idea of attentive awareness that is focused upon the beloved individual and his or her concerns, life, (...) and history. I then discuss union in relationship and show how this emerges from the attentive awareness in a desire to specify a determinate way of responding to the concerns that attentive awareness opens us to. I use the example of Jane Austen’s Emma throughout; the conduct of Austen’s heroine, who fails badly at loving well, shows by means of anti-example what is at stake in pursuing union as well as illustrating the close connection between the two aspects of union. (shrink)

Harry G. Frankfurt’s work on agency and reflexivity represents one of the most important attempts in the current philosophical literature to elaborate the structure of agency. Frankfurt wishes to provide an account of what I call the “deep structures” of agency—those features of agency, such as care and love, in virtue of which the surface features, such as desire, are to be explained and understood. These deep structures are important because of their power to explain unified diachronic patterns in our (...) lives rather than just individual actions. In doing so, Frankfurt seeks to be a Humean in Aristotelian clothing: he desires the richness of a broadly Aristotelian moral psychology–specifically, an Augustinian variant of this—built out of the resources of a Humean human nature in which the “passions,” or here, those objects we care about, are fundamental. -/- Thus Frankfurt develops concepts such as second-order desire, identification and dissociation, wholeheartedness, and love without incurring significant metaphysical costs. Through these concepts Frankfurt provides an account with extraordinary richness. However, I argue that Frankfurt’s minimalism conflicts with his attempts to provide so rich an account of our moral lives. In particular, his attempt to make caring foundational for practical reason undermines his conception of identification and dissociation. Frankfurt’s Humeanism commits him to a tragic moral universe in which the dissociation of desire is little more than an exercise in self-deception rather than a means of guaranteeing psychic unity. -/- I then argue that a superior account of moral life and the moral self can be constructed through greater reliance upon Augustinian ideas concerning the nature of love that is rooted in two concepts: affinity and peace. The concept of affinity provides a basis for evaluating what is worth loving and the concept of peace, central to Augustine’s moral psychology, is used to analyze the structure of love itself in its many manifestations. This account is less minimalist than Frankfurt’s but is more faithful to our moral experience and provides a more powerful and nuanced analysis of moral life and the self. (shrink)

Education and Human Values provides valuable (if narrow) contributions to the philosophy of education and the ethics of care. The ethics of care, or care ethics, is distinguished from the three main schools of normative ethics—Kantianism and other forms of deontological rationalism, consequentialism of various kinds, and Neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics—because it takes the importance of empathy and caring relationships as its starting point. Slote has provided the outlines of such a philosophy in his earlier work, especially The Ethics of Care (...) and Empathy and Moral Sentimentalism, and here develops new ideas and arguments that are worthwhile reading for those interested in the ethics of care or the philosophy of education, and might be assigned in classes on those topics. It may also have value to those interested in moral sentimentalism in general. Those in the aforementioned groups, however, should take the time to read it and consider its arguments. (shrink)

While it might seem prima facie plausible that divine foreknowledge is all that is needed for prophecy, this seems incorrect. To issue a prophecy, God hasto know not just how someone will act, but how someone would act were the prophecy issued. This makes some think that Middle Knowledge is required.I argue that Thomas Flint’s two Middle Knowledge based accounts of prophecy are unsatisfactory, but one of them can be repaired. However the resources needed for repair also yield a sketch (...) of a foreknowledge-only account of prophecy. (shrink)

We investigate classes of Boolean algebras related to the notion of forcing that adds Cohen reals. A Cohen algebra is a Boolean algebra that is dense in the completion of a free Boolean algebra. We introduce and study generalizations of Cohen algebras: semi-Cohen algebras, pseudo-Cohen algebras and potentially Cohen algebras. These classes of Boolean algebras are closed under completion.

Professional philosophers and advanced students working in metaphysics and the philosophy of science will find this book both provocative and stimulating.

Reviewed Works:John R. Steel, A. S. Kechris, D. A. Martin, Y. N. Moschovakis, Scales on $\Sigma^1_1$ Sets.Yiannis N. Moschovakis, Scales on Coinductive Sets.Donald A. Martin, John R. Steel, The Extent of Scales in $L$.John R. Steel, Scales in $L$.

The present study investigated whether individual differences between psychologists in thinking styles are associated with accuracy in diagnostic classification. We asked novice and experienced clinicians to classify two clinical cases of clients with two co-occurring psychological disorders. No significant difference in diagnostic accuracy was found between the two groups, but when combining the data from novices and experienced psychologists accuracy was found to be negatively associated with certain decision making strategies and with a higher self-assessed ability and preference for a (...) rational thinking style. Our results underscore the idea that it might be fruitful to look for explanations of differences in the accuracy of diagnostic judgments in individual differences between psychologists (such as in thinking styles or decision making strategies used), rather than in experience level. (shrink)

For a novice this book is a mathematically-oriented introduction to modal logic, the discipline within mathematical logic studying mathematical models of reasoning which involve various kinds of modal operators. It starts with very fundamental concepts and gradually proceeds to the front line of current research, introducing in full details the modern semantic and algebraic apparatus and covering practically all classical results in the field. It contains both numerous exercises and open problems, and presupposes only minimal knowledge in mathematics. A specialist (...) can use the book as a source of references. Results and methods of many directions in propositional modal logic, from completeness and duality to algorithmic problems, are collected and systematically presented in one volume. (shrink)

Whether or not quantum physics can account for molecular structure is a matter of considerable controversy. Three of the problems raised in this regard are the problems of molecular structure. We argue that these problems are just special cases of the measurement problem of quantum mechanics: insofar as the measurement problem is solved, the problems of molecular structure are resolved as well. In addition, we explore one consequence of our argument: that claims about the reduction or emergence of molecular structure (...) cannot be settled independently of the choice of a particular resolution to the measurement problem. Specifically, we consider how three standard putative solutions to the measurement problem inform our under- standing of a molecule in isolation, as well as of chemistry’s relation to quantum physics. (shrink)

This Is A New Release Of The Original 1868 Edition.

Thomas Samuel Kuhn (1922–1996) is one of the most influential philosophers of science of the twentieth century, perhaps the most influential. His 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is one of the most cited academic books of all time. Kuhn’s contribution to the philosophy of science marked not only a break with several key positivist doctrines, but also inaugurated a new style of philosophy of science that brought it closer to the history of science. His account of the development (...) of science held that science enjoys periods of stable growth punctuated by revisionary revolutions. To this thesis, Kuhn added the controversial ‘incommensurability thesis’, that theories from differing periods suffer from certain deep kinds of failure of comparability. (shrink)

Thomas Kuhn transformed the philosophy of science. His seminal 1962 work "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" introduced the term 'paradigm shift' into the vernacular and remains a fundamental text in the study of the history and philosophy of science. This introduction to Kuhn's ideas covers the breadth of his philosophical work, situating "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions" within Kuhn's wider thought and drawing attention to the development of his ideas over time. Kuhn's work is assessed within the context of other (...) philosophies of science notably logical empiricism and recent developments in naturalized epistemology. The author argues that Kuhn's thinking betrays a residual commitment to many theses characteristic of the empiricists he set out to challenge. Kuhn's influence on the history and philosophy of science is assessed and where the field may be heading in the wake of Kuhn's ideas is explored. (shrink)

Provability, Computability and Reflection.

This article investigates the weak distributivity of Boolean σ-algebras satisfying the countable chain condition. It addresses primarily the question when such algebras carry a σ-additive measure. We use as a starting point the problem of John von Neumann stated in 1937 in the Scottish Book. He asked if the countable chain condition and weak distributivity are sufficient for the existence of such a measure.Subsequent research has shown that the problem has two aspects: one set theoretic and one combinatorial. Recent results (...) provide a complete solution of both the set theoretic and the combinatorial problems. We shall survey the history of von Neumann's Problem and outline the solution of the set theoretic problem. The technique that we describe owes much to the early work of Dorothy Maharam to whom we dedicate this article.§1. Complete Boolean algebras and weak distributivity. ABoolean algebrais a setBwith Boolean operationsa˅b,a˄b and −a, partial orderinga≤bdefined bya˄b=aand the smallest and greatest element,0and1. By Stone's Representation Theorem, every Boolean algebra is isomorphic to an algebra of subsets of some nonempty setS, under operationsa∪b,a∩b,S−a, ordered by inclusion, with0= ∅ and1=S.Complete Boolean algebras and weak distributivity.A Boolean algebrais a setBwith Boolean operationsa˅b,a˄b and -a, partial orderinga≤bdefined bya˄b=aand the smallest and greatest element.0and1. By Stone's Representation Theorem, every Boolean algebra is isomorphic to an algebra of subsets of some nonempty setS, under operationsa∪b,a∩b,S-a, ordered by inclusion, with0= ϕ and1=S. (shrink)

' But, although such a being (a purely intellectual being) might perhaps be conceived to exist, and although, in studying our internal frame, ...

Achieving space situational awareness requires, at a minimum, the identification, characterization, and tracking of space objects. Leveraging the resultant space object data for purposes such as hostile threat assessment, object identification, and conjunction assessment presents major challenges. This is in part because in characterizing space objects we reference a variety of identifiers, components, subsystems, capabilities, vulnerabilities, origins, missions, orbital elements, patterns of life, operational processes, operational statuses, and so forth, which tend to be defined in highly heterogeneous and sometimes inconsistent (...) ways. The Space Domain Ontologies are designed to provide a consensus-based realist framework for formulating such characterizations in a way that is both consistent and computable. Space object data are aligned with classes and relations in a suite of ontologies built around the existing Space Object Ontology. They are stored in a dynamically updated Resource Description Framework triple store, which can be queried to support space situational awareness and the needs of spacecraft operators and analysts. This paper provides an overview of the Space Domain Ontologies and their development and use. It presents the motivation for and advantages of the Space Domain Ontologies, including the benefits they provide for enhancing and maintaining long-term space situational awareness. (shrink)

Achieving space domain awareness requires the identification, characterization, and tracking of space objects. Storing and leveraging associated space object data for purposes such as hostile threat assessment, object identification, and collision prediction and avoidance present further challenges. Space objects are characterized according to a variety of parameters including their identifiers, design specifications, components, subsystems, capabilities, vulnerabilities, origins, missions, orbital elements, patterns of life, processes, operational statuses, and associated persons, organizations, or nations. The Space Object Ontology provides a consensus-based realist framework (...) for formulating such characterizations in a computable fashion. Space object data are aligned with classes and relations in the Space Object Ontology and stored in a dynamically updated Resource Description Framework triple store, which can be queried to support space domain awareness and the needs of spacecraft operators. This paper presents the core of the Space Object Ontology, discusses its advantages over other approaches to space object classification, and demonstrates its ability to combine diverse sets of data from multiple sources within an expandable framework. Finally, we show how the ontology provides benefits for enhancing and maintaining longterm space domain awareness. (shrink)

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.