Cesario argues that experiments cannot illuminate real group disparities because they leave out factors that operate in ordinary life. But what Cesario calls flaws are, in fact, the point of the experimental method. Of all the topics in science, we have to wonder why racial discrimination would be uniquely unsuited for investigating with experiments. The argument to give up the most powerful scientific method to study one of the hardest problems we confront is laughable.

In the preceding article, Buchner and Wippich used a guessing-corrected, multinomial process-dissociation analysis to test whether a gender bias in fame judgments reported by Banaji and Greenwald was unconscious. In their two experiments, Buchner and Wippich found no evidence for unconscious mediation of this gender bias. Their conclusion can be questioned by noting that the gender difference in familiarity of previously seen names that Buchner and Wippich modeled was different from the gender difference in criterion for fame judgments reported (...) by Banaji and Greenwald, the assumptions of Buchner and Wippich's multinomial model excluded processes that are plausibly involved in the fame judgment task, and the constructs of Buchner and Wippich's model that corresponded most closely to Banaji and Greenwald's gender-bias interpretation were formulated so as to preclude the possibility of modeling that interpretation. Perhaps a more complex multinomial model can model the Banaji and Greenwald interpretation. (shrink)

Marxist notions of the origins of capitalism are still largely structured by the famous debate on the transition from feudalism to capitalism. This essay suggests that that tradition of historiography locates capitalism too late and sees it in essentially national terms. It argues that capitalism began, on a European scale, in the important transformations that followed the great revival of the eleventh century and the role played by mercantile élites in innovating new forms of business organisation. However, with this starting (...) point, it becomes important to bring Islam into the picture in a central way, since the Mediterranean was the common heritage of many cultural and religious groups. Islam shaped the tradition of early capitalism both by preserving monetary economy and through its own precocious development of the partnership form. The essay periodises this early capitalism into a 'Mediterranean' and an 'Atlantic' phase, and concludes by looking briefly at the ways in which merchants dominate labour. (shrink)

The twelve essays in this book demonstrate the importance of bringing history back into historical materialism.

Anievas and Nişancıoğlu’s attempt to shift the terms of the debate about early modern capitalism by a major widening of its perspectives is a welcome move. Accepting this, the paper suggests that their argument can be more forcefully made if the theoretical residues of earlier traditions of Marxist historical explanation are purged from the way they expound that argument. The most ambivalent of these relates to their continued use of the idea of a ‘coexistence of modes of production’. This permeates (...) the confused way they present Atlantic slavery. A second, comparable source of confusion concerns their description of the relationship between merchant capital and the absolutist state. The alliance between the modern state and mercantile capital is radically misrecognised thanks to an uncritical espousal of Anderson’s view of absolutism. The paper suggests that Anievas and Nişancıoğlu might have written a stronger book had they reconceptualised the economic history of capitalism by allowing for a whole epoch dominated by powerful groups of merchant capitalists. In conclusion, I argue that the commercial capital of the later middle ages/early modern period was the first form in which production began to be subordinated to capital. (shrink)

This reply defends the need for a specifically materialist historiography of modes of production other than capitalism; argues that Marxists should see history as being driven by the state as much as it is by classes; defends the scientific value of the category ‘merchant capitalism’; and explains why Marx came around to seeing the slave plantations as part of ‘total capital’. It concludes by suggesting both that Marx allowed for different levels of determination when thinking about the origins of capitalism, (...) and that Brenner’s account of the transition in English agriculture has now been seriously weakened by Jane Whittle’s critique of it. (shrink)

This Introduction to Rosenberg’s essay starts with a brief synopsis of his life, then summarises the key arguments of the essay itself before looking briefly at the twin issues of the social base of the fascist parties and the passive complicity/compliance of ‘ordinary Germans’, as the literature now terms whole sectors of the civilian population that were defined by their apathy or moral indifference to the horrors of the Nazi state.

The stereotype of slave-run latifundia being turned into serf-worked estates is no longer credible as a model of the transition from antiquity to the middle ages, but Chris Wickham’s anomalous characterisation of the Roman Empire as ‘feudal’ is scarcely a viable alternative to that. If a fully-articulated feudal economy only emerged in the later middle ages, what do we make of the preceding centuries? By postulating a ‘general dominance of tenant production’ throughout the period covered by his book, Wickham fails (...) to offer any basis for a closer characterisation of the post-Roman rural labour-force and exaggerates the degree of control that peasants enjoyed in the late Empire and post-Roman world. A substantial part of the rural labour-force of the sixth to eighth centuries comprised groups who, like Rosamond Faith’s inland-workers in Anglo-Saxon England, were more proletarian than peasant-like. The paper suggests the likely ways in which that situation reflected Roman traditions of direct management and the subordination of labour, and outlines what a Marxist theory of the so-called colonate might look like. After discussing Wickham’s handling of the colonate and slavery, and looking briefly at the nature of estates and the fate of the Roman aristocracy, I conclude by criticising the way Wickham uses the category of ‘mode of production’. (shrink)

To grasp current trends within capitalism without abandoning the framework of Marx’sCapitalwe need to return to the category of ‘fictitious capital’ and make it central to our explanations. Based on the 2012 Isaac and Tamara Deutscher Memorial Lecture, this essay combines reflections on Marx’s account of ‘fictitious capital’; an investigation of the role of bills of exchange; and an analysis of the recent turmoil in British and US banking. It looks at the way the opium trade, financed through the London (...) bill market, integrated a constellation of interests in the City with the labour of peasant households in India as parts of a unified accumulation process. Opium was vital to the fortunes of British capitalism for most of the nineteenth century. The merchant banks that were the mainstay of Britain’s form of capitalism were also the key element in the re-emergence of global finance in the postwar period. The concluding part of the paper deals with the current banking crisis and follows Hilferding in arguing that by providing liquidity to the markets for fictitious capital, speculation plays a crucial role in sustaining profitability for the bigger capitals. (shrink)

"Williams's masterful translation satisfies (at last!) a long-standing need. There are lots of good translations of Augustine's great work, but until now we have been forced to choose between those that strive to replicate in English something of the majesty and beauty of Augustine's Latin style and those that opt instead to convey the careful precision of his philosophical terminology and argumentation. Finally, Williams has succeeded in capturing both sides of Augustine's mind in a richly evocative, impeccably reliable, elegantly readable (...) presentation of one of the most impressive achievements in Western thought--Augustine's Confessions." --Scott MacDonald, Professor of Philosophy and Norma K. Regan Professor in Christian Studies, Cornell University. (shrink)

The Moral Nexus develops and defends a new interpretation of morality—namely, as a set of requirements that connect agents normatively to other persons in a nexus of moral relations. According to this relational interpretation, moral demands are directed to other individuals, who have claims that the agent comply with these demands. Interpersonal morality, so conceived, is the domain of what we owe to each other, insofar as we are each persons with equal moral standing. The book offers an interpretative argument (...) for the relational approach. Specifically, it highlights neglected advantages of this way of understanding the moral domain; explores important theoretical and practical presuppositions of relational moral duties; and considers the normative implications of understanding morality in relational terms. The book features a novel defense of the relational approach to morality, which emphasizes the special significance that moral requirements have, both for agents who are deliberating about what to do and for those who stand to be affected by their actions. The book argues that relational moral requirements can be understood to link us to all individuals whose interests render them vulnerable to our agency, regardless of whether they stand in any prior relationship to us. It also offers fresh accounts of some of the moral phenomena that have seemed to resist treatment in relational terms, showing that the relational interpretation is a viable framework for understanding our specific moral obligations to other people. (shrink)

This book provides a collection of sources, many of them fragmentary and previously scattered and hard to access, for the development of Peripatetic philosophy in the later Hellenistic period and the early Roman Empire. It also supplies the background against which the first commentator on Aristotle from whom extensive material survives, Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. c. AD 200), developed his interpretations which continue to be influential even today. Many of the passages are here translated into English for the first time, (...) including the whole of the summary of Peripatetic ethics attributed to 'Arius Didymus'. (shrink)

R.I.G. Hughes presents a series of eight philosophical essays on the theoretical practices of physics. The first two essays examine these practices as they appear in physicists' treatises (e.g. Newton's Principia and Opticks ) and journal articles (by Einstein, Bohm and Pines, Aharonov and Bohm). By treating these publications as texts, Hughes casts the philosopher of science in the role of critic. This premise guides the following 6 essays which deal with various concerns of philosophy of physics such as laws, (...) disunities, models and representation, computer simulation, explanation, and the discourse of physics. (shrink)

We should approach this topic with great fear and respect. It is not a merely “academic” issue. Human rights are trampled upon in the East as in the West, in the North as in the South of our planet. Granting the part of human greed and sheer evil in this universal transgression, could it not also be that Human Rights are not observed because in their present form they do not represent a universal symbol powerful enough to elicit understanding and (...) agreement? (shrink)

Chemical structures are among the trademarks of our profession, as surely chemical as flasks, beakers and distillation columns. When someone sees one of us busily scribbling formulas or structures, he or she has no trouble identifying a chemist. Yet these familiar objects, which accompany our work from start to end, from the initial doodlings (Fig. I) to the final polished artwork in a publication (Fig. II), are deceptively simple. They raise interesting and difficult questions about representation. It is the intent (...) of this article to reflect upon molecular graphics. (shrink)

Ethics and Decision Making in Counseling and Psychotherapy has a distinct and timely focus on counseling as a profession. Chapters address the mental health professions, values in counseling, decision making, ethical principles, ethical standards, technology, ethical climate, and office/administrative practices. The early chapters present a foundation for ethical practice of the profession and provides solid building blocks to the more advanced perspectives in later chapters. Chapters on specialty practice are lively and contemporary overviews of these practice areas in counseling that (...) reflect more recent trends to increased differentiation of these areas of practice. Each specialty has its own chapter to allow for an extended discussion of the unique aspects of the field that provide clarity to understanding the particular ethical issues and standards that apply in each specialty. The specialty areas recognized by CACREP are included: mental health counseling; school counseling; couple, marital, and family counseling; rehabilitation counseling; addictions counseling; career counseling; and group counseling. This book is broad in its coverage of the most practiced specialties in mental health practice, and provides an efficient and effective overview of the broad scope of particular areas addressed in counseling. (shrink)

How do we explain violence? What is so significant of modern forms of violence that it has produced such large-scale destruction in its wake? This volume builds on the political philosophy of Wittgenstein, his notions of peace and violence, to explore how violence in any form is contained within culturally or ideologically formed institutions. Drawing on Wittgenstein's work on language, it explores the link between language and violence, everydayness, culture. It examines everyday instances of micro-violence which we sometimes forget to (...) recall. This book puts forth the claim that any theory of violence will have to touch upon the many myriad - both micro and macro -- political, social and cultural interactions that make up the human condition. The author further comments on the unseen ways in which violence has been instrumentalized in modern history's many stages to create a spectacle of power so as to reinforce authority. The volume will be of great interest to students and scholars of peace and conflict studies, political philosophy, linguistics and modern history. (shrink)

I investigate the consequences of Nietzsche's perspectivism for notions of truth and objectivity, and show how the metaphor of visual perspective motivates an epistemology that avoids self-referential difficulties. Perspectivism's claim that every view is only one view, applied to itself, is often supposed to preclude the perspectivist's ability to offer reasons for her epistemology. Nietzsche's arguments for perspectivism depend on “internal reasons”, which have force not only in their own perspective, but also within the standards of alternative perspectives. Internal reasons (...) allow a perspectivist argument against dogmatism without presupposing aperspectival criteria for theory choice. Nietzsche also offers “internal” conceptions of truth and objectivity which reduce them to a matter of meeting our epistemic standards. This view has pluralistic implications, which conflict with common sense, but it is nevertheless consistent and plausible. Nietzsche's position is similar to Putnam's recent internalism, and this is due to their common Kantian heritage. (shrink)

Aesthetics in philosophy of mathematics is too narrowly construed. Beauty is not the only feature in mathematics that is arguably aesthetic. While not the highest aesthetic value, being interesting is a sine qua non for publishability. Of the many ways to be interesting, being explanatory has recently been discussed. The motivational power of what is interesting is important for both directing research and stimulating education. The scientific satisfaction of curiosity and the artistic desire for beautiful results are complementary but both (...) aesthetic. (shrink)

Karl Raimund Poppers (1902-1994) Hauptwerk, die Logik der Forschung (1934), gilt als Grundlagenwerk des kritischen Rationalismus. Der kritische Rationalismus zeigt, warum unser Wissen fehlbar ist und versteht den Erkenntnisfortschritt als Resultat von Hypothesenbildung und -widerlegung. Der Sammelband orientiert sich an der Gliederung der Logik der Forschung. Seine Beiträge kommentieren die jeweiligen Themen nach aktueller Forschungslage.