The environmental elbow room model of free will posits the unshared proportion of environmental variance in twins is a measure of the degree to which free will may be exercised with respect to one’s life outcomes for a trait. This model attempts to unify the behavioral genetic study of socially important psychological characteristics such as intelligence and academic achievement with Dennett’s broadly compatibilist elbow room notion of free will. We demonstrate that the philosophy and genetics underlying the environmental elbow room (...) model are both fundamentally flawed. Philosophically the degree to which an outcome might be predicted in a given situation does not give any sense of whether the course of action to achieve an outcome was free or unfree. With respect to genetics, quantities such as heritability and its environmental complement, even when they do reflect the actions of independently identifiable causes are not indicative of the chain of decisions one would have to evaluate to judge if an action was freely chosen. We show the contemporary human behavioral genetics focus on heritability is wholly misplaced for purposes of making decisions about policy and free will alike. Variance components sample a single instance of the distribution of variation arising from different sources and do not constrain outcomes in other contexts. The claim that the high heritability of a trait, life outcomes included, makes us less free to change it is similar in key ways to Jensenism’s contention that high heritability makes social change impossible. (shrink)

Recent, well-publicized accounting scandals have shown that the penalties outsiders impose on those found culpable of earnings management can be severe. However, less is known about how colleagues within internal labor markets respond when they believe fellow managers have managed earnings. Designers of responsibility accounting systems need to understand the reputational costs managers impose on one another within internal labor markets. In an experimental study, 159 evening MBA students were asked to assume the role of a manager in a company (...) and respond to a scenario in which another manager (the target manager) has the opportunity to engage in earnings management. Participants provided causal attributions, assessed the morality of the target manager, and indicated whether they would change their judgments about the target manager's reputation. The study manipulated three between-subjects factors: (1) whether the target manager chose to engage in earnings management, (2) whether the company's budgetary control system was rigid or flexible, and (3) whether the target manager's work history was average or above average. We found that causal attributions are affected more by the budgetary systems when the target did not manage earnings than when the manager did. We also found that morality judgments were significantly associated with the target manager's behavior, but not with the budgetary system. In addition, participants' judgments about the target manager's reputation were more strongly associated with morality judgments than with causal attributions. We discuss implications of the role of reputation in management control systems design. (shrink)

Background: Nurses, social workers, and medical residents are ethically mandated to engage in policy advocacy to promote the health and well-being of patients and increase access to care. Yet, no instrument exists to measure their level of engagement in policy advocacy. Research objective: To describe the development and validation of the Policy Advocacy Engagement Scale, designed to measure frontline healthcare professionals’ engagement in policy advocacy with respect to a broad range of issues, including patients’ ethical rights, quality of care, culturally (...) competent care, preventive care, affordability/accessibility of care, mental healthcare, and community-based care. Research design: Cross-sectional data were gathered to estimate the content and construct validity, internal consistency, and test–retest reliability of the Policy Advocacy Engagement Scale. Participants and context: In all, 97 nurses, 94 social workers, and 104 medical residents were recruited from eight acute-care hospitals in Los Angeles County. Ethical considerations: Informed consent was obtained via Qualtrics and covered purposes, risks and benefits; voluntary participation; confidentiality; and compensation. Institutional Review Board approval was obtained from the University of Southern California and all hospitals. Findings: Results supported the validity of the concept and the instrument. In confirmatory factor analysis, seven items loaded onto one component with indices indicating adequate model fit. A Pearson correlation coefficient of.36 supported the scale’s test–retest stability. Cronbach’s α of.93 indicated strong internal consistency. Discussion: The Policy Advocacy Engagement Scale demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties in this initial test. Findings should be considered within the context of the study’s limitations, which include a low response rate and limited geographic scope. Conclusion: The Policy Advocacy Engagement Scale appears to be the first validated scale to measure frontline healthcare professionals’ engagement in policy advocacy. With it, researchers can analyze variations in professionals’ levels of policy advocacy engagement, understand what factors are associated with it, and remedy barriers that might exist to their provision of it. (shrink)

Over the last decade, numerous interventions and techniques that aim to engender, strengthen, and expand compassion have been created, proliferating an evidence base for the benefits of compassion meditation training. However, to date, little research has been conducted to examine individual variation in the learning, beliefs, practices, and subjective experiences of compassion meditation. This mixed-method study examines changes in novice meditators’ knowledge and contemplative experiences before, during, and after taking an intensive course in CBCT®, a contemplative intervention that is increasingly (...) used for both inter- and intrapersonal flourishing. The participants in this study were Christian healthcare chaplains completing a 1-year residency in Clinical Pastoral Education who learned CBCT as part of their professional chaplaincy training curriculum. Prior to and upon completion of training, we surveyed participants to assess their beliefs about the malleability of compassion, types of engagement in compassion meditation, and perceptions of the impact of taking CBCT. We also conducted in-depth interviews with a subset of participants to gain a qualitative understanding of their subjective experiences of learning and practicing compassion meditation, a key component of CBCT. We found that participants reported increases in the extent to which they believed compassion to be malleable after studying CBCT. We also found high levels of variability of individual ways of practicing and considered the implications of this for the study of contemplative learning processes. This multi-methodological approach yielded novel insights into how compassion practice and compassion-related outcomes interrelate, insights that can inform the basic scientific understanding of the experience of learning and enacting compassion meditation as a means of strengthening compassion itself. (shrink)

This anthology on creativity represents a lifetime of reading and study by the late Charles Dewey Tenney, a philosopher who had been a student of Alfred North Whitehead at Harvard. In a series of fourteen essays Tenney considers the various factors that can be identified in creativity, followed by the recorded testimony of philosophers, artists, historians, explorers, scientists and others, both theorists and practitioners. The contributors extend in time from Aristotle and Sophocles to Buckminster Fuller and May Sarton. They (...) include such diverse thinkers as Martin Luther, Karl Marx, Lewis Carroll, Julian Huxley, Albert Einstein, Abraham Lincoln, Gertrude Stein, Henry Nelson Wieman and Alfred North Whitehead. In all, more than 300 of the world's most creative individuals are included. Contents: Discovery, Invention and Creation; Roots of Discovery; Environs of Discovery; Agents of Discovery; Hinderances to Discovery; Observation and Discovery; Reason in Discovery; Reverie Discovery; Imagination in Discovery; Sensibility and Discovery; Method in Discovery; Artistry in Discovery; Diffusion; and Foresight and Discovery. (shrink)

In [2] Hempel and Oppenheim give a definition of “explanation” for a certain formal language. In [1] Eberle, Kaplan, and Montague prove five theorems demonstrating that the Hempel and Oppenheim definition is not restrictive enough. In [3] Kim proposes two further conditions to supplement the Hempel and Oppenheim definition in order to avoid the objections posed in [1]. In this paper it is shown that the definition of Hempel and Oppenheim supplemented by Kim's conditions is open to a trivialization (...) very analogous to that given in [1]. (shrink)

Sahip olduğu akademik imkânların ve başta İngilizce olmak üzere birçok dilde uluslararası yayınların çokluğu nedeniyle Amerika Birleşik Devletleri’ndeki İslam çalışmaları yoğun, üretken ve dünya genelinde ilgiyle takip edilen bir alandır. Ancak Batı’daki üniversitelerin genelinde olduğu gibi Amerikan üniversitelerinde de İslam felsefesi/tarihi çalışmaları oldukça zayıftır. Bu makalede öncelikle geçmişten günümüze İslam çalışmalarının ABD’deki durumu tasviri bir metotla ortaya konulmakta ve İslam Felsefesinin ABD’deki İslam çalışmaları içerisindeki zayıf konumu sorgulanmaktadır. İkinci olarak Post-Oryantalist süreçte İslam Felsefesi çalışmalarında öne çıkan isimler ve çalışmaları değerlendirilmektedir. (...) Sonuç olarak ABD üniversite sisteminin genel yapısının gereği olarak İslam Felsefesi çalışmaları nicelik bakımından Avrupa ve İslam coğrafyasından daha zayıf olduğu görülmektedir. Bu durumu iki şekilde açıklamak mümkündür. Birincisi alanın Amerikan devlet felsefesinin temel ilkesi olan bilgi-güç hedefi ve alanın politik çıkarlarıyla ilişkisinin zayıflığıdır. Bu durum Post-Oryantalist eğilimin arka planını da oluşturmaktadır. İkincisi ise fenomenolojist yönteme olan ilginin artması ve Amerikan yükseköğretim sisteminde hâkim olan kozmopolitanizm ve interdisiplinerci yaklaşımlardır.Özet: Dünyanın önde gelen üniversitelerinde İslam çalışmaları ve bu çalışmalar içerisinde yer alan İslam felsefesi çalışmalarının önemli bir akademik ilgi alanı olduğu görülmektedir. Bu ilgi ABD’de de yaklaşık 150 yıllık bir geçmişe sahiptir. Son yıllarda Amerika Birleşik Devletleri’nde İslam çalışmalarında sadece ciddi bir artış değil aynı zamanda çeşitlenme de söz konusu olmuştur. ABD’deki İslam çalışmaları ve özelde İslam felsefesi çalışmalarının durumunu birlikte ele alan akademik araştırmalar ise henüz bulunmamaktadır. Son gelişmeleri de dikkate alarak alanla ilgili araştırmaların sürdürülmesi ve İslam felsefesi çalışmalarının da noksan bırakılan izinin sürülmesi gerekmektedir. Bu noktadan hareketle bu makale çalışması, üniversite müfredatlarıyla ilgili araştırmalar, web taramaları ve yazılı materyaller üzerinden gerçekleştirilecek ve ilgili kitaplar, makaleler ve diğer kaynaklar taranarak konu hakkında deskriptif bilgiler sunulacaktır. Bu yöntemin tercih edilme nedeni derinlemesine bir araştırmadan daha çok genel resmi ortaya koymak ve mevcut durum hakkında bilgi vermektir. Sahanın genişliği ve kaynakların çeşitliliği ve konunun daha özel ve yoğun bir çalışma gerektiren yapısı nedeniyle diğer yöntemler tercih edilmemiştir Çalışma iki ana başlıktan oluşmaktadır. Birincisi ABD’deki İslam çalışmalarının konumu ile ilgilidir. Bu başlık altında 18. yüzyıldan itibaren İslam çalışmalarının ABD’deki seyri hakkında bilgi verilmekte ve İslam çalışmalarının günümüzdeki konumu detaylandırılmaktadır. İkinci başlık İslam Felsefesi çalışmalarının İslam çalışmaları içerisindeki ve ABD akademilerindeki konumuyla ilgilidir. Bu başlık altında İslam Felsefesi çalışmalarının geçmişten günümüze kadar gelinen süreçte geçirdiği evreler tasvir edilmekte ve bazı isimlerin ve eserlerinin değerlendirmesi yapılmaktır. İncelemeler sonucunda ABD’deki İslam çalışmalarının geçmişinin yaklaşık 150 yıla tekabül etmesine rağmen yeterli seviyeye ulaşmadığı görüldü. Hâlbuki sahip olduğu Müslüman nüfus, akademik imkânlar ve başta İngilizce olmak üzere birçok dilde uluslararası yayınların çokluğu nedeniyle ABD’deki İslam çalışmalarının beklenenden daha yoğun, üretken olması beklenirdi. Ancak buna rağmen Daha çok Fenomenolojist ve İnterdisipliner yaklaşımın tercih edildiği Amerikan üniversitelerinin akademik kadro çeşitliliği ve başta İngilizce olmak üzere farklı dillerdeki yayın yelpazesinin genişliği ve son yıllarda yeni bir durum olan sosyal medyaya açık akademik faaliyetler ABD’nin İslam çalışmaları alanındaki etkinliğini giderek arttırmaktadır. Geçmişte İslam çalışmalarında öncü rolü oynayan İngiltere, Fransa, Almanya ve Hollanda gibi ülkelerde öteden beri oryantalist eğilimi temsil eden bu tür çalışmalar günümüz ABD üniversitelerinde interdisipliner ve multidisipliner bir format kazarak devam etmektedir. ABD’deki İslam çalışmaları üzerinde yoğunlaşan akademik çalışmalara göre İslam çalışmalarına yön veren en önemli etken oryantalist eğilimlerdir. Bunun yanında 11 Eylül olaylarının sonucunda da artan bir ilgiden söz etmek gerekmektedir. Bu ilgi sadece alanda yeni istihdam imkânlarının oluşmasına değil aynı zamanda araştırmacı sayısının da artmasına neden olmuştur. Çalışmamın ikinci kısmını oluşturan ABD üniversitelerindeki İslam felsefesi çalışmalarının genel durumuna bakılacak olursa bu çalışmaların sosyoloji, antropoloji ve kültür çalışmaları gibi alanlarda görülen çeşitliliğe de sahip olduğunu söylemek oldukça zordur. ABD üniversitelerindeki İslam felsefesi çalışmaları İslam çalışmaları genel çatısı altında sürdürülmektedir. Bu alandaki çalışmalar başlarda daha çok oryantalist eğilimi temsil eden Philip Hittî, Leo Strauss, Muhsin Mehdî, Fazlurrahmân, İsmâil Râci Fârukî, Mâcid Haddûrî, Moshe Pearlmann, gibi önemli isimler tarafından sürdürülmekteydi. Günümüzde Charles Butterworth, Seyyid Hüseyin Nasr, Oliver Leaman, Dimitri Gutas, Robert Wisnovsky, Frank Griffel, John Walbridge ve daha birçok isim yeni eğilimin temsilcileri olarak alanla ilgili çalışmalarını sürdürmektedir. Bu araştırmacılar, Amerikan akademik siteminin bir sonucu olarak sadece İslam felsefesi değil aynı zamanda İslam bilim tarihi, İslam tarihi ve medeniyeti, İslam ve Batı vb. alanlarda da yayınlar yapmakta ve İslam çalışmalarının sürdürüldüğü çeşitli üniversitelerde dersler vermekte ve lisansüstü seviyede öğrenciler yetiştirmektedir. Bu noktadan hareketle diyebiliriz ki İslam felsefesi çalışmaları ise diğer İslam çalışmalarına kıyasla daha da zayıftır. Bu durumun sebeplerini şu şekilde açıklamak mümkündür:1-Amerikan devlet felsefesinin temel ilkesi olan bilgi-güç hedefi ve alanın politik çıkarlarıyla ilişkisinin zayıflığı. Bilimlerle kurulan bu politik çıkar ilişkisi Post-Oryantalist eğilimin arka planını da oluşturmaktadır. 2-Amerikan Üniversitelerinde fenomenolojist yönteme olan ilginin artması ve Amerikan yükseköğretim sisteminde hâkim olan kozmopolitanizm ve interdisiplinerci yaklaşımlar.3-Amerikan üniversitelerindeki Yakın Doğu, Ortadoğu ve İslam Çalışmalarında İslam felsefesi dersleri felsefenin ya da felsefe tarihinin bir parçası olarak müfredatta yer alması. Amerikan üniversitelerinde standart müfredat sistemi yaygın olmadığından İslam felsefesi ile ilgili dersler bölümden daha çok ders veren hocanın ilgisine ve isteğine bağlı olarak verilmektedir.4-Kıta Avrupası’nda görülen katı oryantalist eğilimlerin nisbeten azlığı ve ABD devlet politikalarının gereği olarak şekillenen havuz usulü müfredat.5-Bazı İslam felsefesi uzmanlarının alanı terk ederek daha çok aktüel tartışmalara yönelmesi ve daha çok Müslümanların geri kalmışlığı sorunundan hareketle üretilen problemlere odaklanması. Son olarak İslam felsefesi çalışmaları Müslümanların genelinin ilgilendiği bir disiplin olmadığı için üniversite dışında İslam felsefesi çalışmalarının yürütüldüğü kurumsal yapılar ABD’de de henüz teşekkül etmemiştir. Bazı bölümlerde İslam Felsefesi İslam düşüncesi tarihinin bir alt dalı olarak varlığını sürdürmektedir. Ancak İslam felsefesi müstakil bir alan olarak kendisine henüz ABD üniversitelerinde yer bulamamıştır. USA’da artan İslam çalışmalarının yeterli düzeyde olmasa da dünyadaki islam çalışmalarına yön verebilecek noktaya ulaştığını söylemek mümkündür. (shrink)

The Description for this book, Sacred Tears: Sentimentality in Victorian Literature, will be forthcoming.

The principal question asked in this paper is: in the case of attributive usage, is the definite description to be analyzed as Russell said or is it to be treated as a referring expression, functioning semantically as a proper name? It answers by defending the former alternative.

In The Origin of Species (1859) Darwin challenged many of the most deeply-held beliefs of the Western world. Arguing for a material, not divine, origin of species, he showed that new species are achieved by "natural selection." The Origin communicates the enthusiasm of original thinking in an open, descriptive style, and Darwin's emphasis on the value of diversity speaks more strongly now than ever. As well as a stimulating introduction and detailed notes, this edition offers a register of the many (...) writers referred to by Darwin in the text. (shrink)

The central aim of this paper is to shed light on the nature of explanation in computational neuroscience. I argue that computational models in this domain possess explanatory force to the extent that they describe the mechanisms responsible for producing a given phenomenon—paralleling how other mechanistic models explain. Conceiving computational explanation as a species of mechanistic explanation affords an important distinction between computational models that play genuine explanatory roles and those that merely provide accurate descriptions or predictions of phenomena. It (...) also serves to clarify the pattern of model refinement and elaboration undertaken by computational neuroscientists. (shrink)

Familiarity with Charles Darwin's treatise on evolution is essential to every well-educated individual. One of the most important books ever published--and a continuing source of controversy, a century and a half later--this classic of science is reproduced in a facsimile of the critically acclaimed first edition.

Since the late 1970s, theologians have been attempting to integrate mimetic theory into different fields of theology, yet a distrust of mimetic theory persists in some theological camps. In" Rene Girard, Unlikely Apologist: Mimetic Theory and Fundamental Theology," Grant Kaplan brings mimetic theory into conversation with theology both to elucidate the relevance of mimetic theory for the discipline of fundamental theology and to understand the work of Rene Girard within a theological framework. Rather than focus on Christology or atonement (...) theory as the locus of interaction between Girard and theology, Kaplan centers his discussion on the apologetic quality of mimetic theory and the impact of mimetic theory on fundamental theology, the subdiscipline that grew to replace apologetics. His book explores the relation between Girard and fundamental theology in several keys. In one, it understands mimetic theory as a heuristic device that allows theological narratives and positions to become more intelligible and, by so doing, makes theology more persuasive. In another key, Kaplan shows how mimetic theory, when placed in dialogue with particular theologians, can advance theological discussion in areas where mimetic theory has seldom been invoked. On this level the book performs a dialogue with theology that both revisits earlier theological efforts and also demonstrates how mimetic theory brings valuable dimensions to questions of fundamental theology. "Grant Kaplan's" Rene Girard, Unlikely Apologist: Mimetic Theory and Fundamental Theology" is an accessible and original work advancing the discussion of Girard and theology. Kaplan claims mimetic theory for Catholic theology and shows how it can strengthen Catholic theology by providing a powerful apologetic. Immensely helpful, too, is his situating of Girard's work alongside formative theologians and other thinkers." Scott Cowdell, author of "Rene Girard and Secular Modernity: Christ, Culture, and Crisis" ". (shrink)

Should engineering ethics be taught? Despite the obvious truism that we all want our students to be moral engineers who practice virtuous professional behavior, I argue, in this article that the question itself obscures several ambiguities that prompt preliminary resolution. Upon clarification of these ambiguities, and an attempt to delineate key issues that make the question a philosophically interesting one, I conclude that engineering ethics not only should not, but cannot, be taught if we understand “teaching engineering ethics” to mean (...) training engineers to be moral individuals (as some advocates seem to have proposed). However, I also conclude that there is a justification to teaching engineering ethics, insofar as we are able to clearly identify the most desirable and efficacious pedagogical approach to the subject area, which I propose to be a case study-based format that utilizes the principle of human cognitive pattern recognition. (shrink)

Is the relationship between psychology and neuroscience one of autonomy or mutual constraint and integration? This volume includes new papers from leading philosophers seeking to address this issue by deepening our understanding of the similarities and differences between the explanatory patterns employed across these domains.

David Charles presents a major new study of Aristotle's views on meaning, essence, necessity, and related topics. These interconnected views are central to Aristotle's metaphysics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of science, and are also highly relevant to current philosophical debates. Charles aims to reach a clear understanding of Aristotle's claims and arguments, to assess their truth, and to evaluate their importance to ancient and modern philosophy.

As healthcare institutions expand and vertically integrate, healthcare delivery is less constrained by geography, nationality, or even by institutional boundaries. As part of this trend, some aspects of the healthcare process are shifted from medical centers back into the home and communities. Telehealth applications intended for health promotion, social services, and other activitiesprovide services outside clinical settings in homes, schools, libraries, and other governmental and community sites. Such developments include health information web sites, on-line support groups, automated telephone counseling, interactive (...) health promotion programs, and electronic mail exchanges. Concomitant with these developments is the growth of consumer health informatics, in which individuals seeking medical care or information are able to find various health information resources that take advantage of new information technologies. (shrink)

Expressivism in logic is the view that logical vocabulary plays a primarily expressive role: that is, that logical vocabulary makes perspicuous in the object language structural features of inference and incompatibility (Brandom, 1994, 2008). I present a precise, technical criterion of expressivity for a logic (§2). I next present a logic that meets that criterion (§3). I further explore some interesting features of that logic: first, a representation theorem for capturing other logics (§3.1), and next some novel logical vocabulary for (...) expressing structural features of inference (§4). (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Background Incentives and guidance from the criminal law Other regulatory incentives and guidance Civil incentives Conclusion.

The essays collected in this volume all explore the problem of the relation between moral philosophy and modernity. Charles Larmore addresses this problem by attempting to define the way distinctive forms of modern experience should orientate our moral thinking. Charles Larmore wonders whether the dominant forms of modern philosophy have not become blind to important dimensions of the moral life. The book argues against recent attempts to return to the virtue-centered perspective of ancient Greek ethics. As well as (...) exploring the differences between ancient and modern ethics, the author examines such topics as the roles of reason and history in our moral understanding, the inadequacy of philsophical naturalism, and the foundations of modern liberalism. There are also extended discussions of a number of leading contemporary philosophers: Rawls, Habermas, Williams and Rorty. (shrink)

This book proposes a new paradigm for the interpretation of Plato's early and middle dialogues. Rejecting the usual assumption of a distinct 'Socratic' period in the development of Plato's thought, this view regards the earlier works as deliberate preparation for the exposition of Plato's mature philosophy. Differences between the dialogues do not represent different stages in Plato's own thinking but rather different aspects and moments in the presentation of a new and unfamiliar view of reality. Once the fictional character of (...) the Socratic genre is recognised, there is no reason to regard Plato's early dialogues as representing the philosophy of the historical Socrates. The result is a unified interpretation of all of the dialogues down to the Republic and the Phaedrus. (shrink)

This wide-ranging anthology of philosophical writings on the concept of God presents a systematic overview of the chief conceptions of deity as well as skeptical and atheistic critiques of theological ideas. The selections cover key philosophic developments in this subject area from ancient times to modern in both the East and West. Editors Hartshorne and Reese-two of the most highly respected scholars in the philosophy of religion-have not only selected many arresting passages from the world's great thinkers but have also (...) analyzed and evaluated the underlying ideas, showing how they fit into major, overarching systems of thought. Part One, "Classical Views," includes passages from ancient Egyptian, Indian, Chinese, and Judeo-Christian scriptures as well as philosophical writings from ancient Greece, the medieval church, and the Enlightenment. Part Two, "Modern Views," considers the ideas of more recent influential thinkers from diverse cultures and philosophical schools: Schelling, Peirce, Whitehead, Schweitzer, Buber, Radhakrishnan, and Watts, among others, are represented and discussed. Part Three, "Skeptical or Atheistic Views: Ancient and Modern," examines various kinds of skepticism and includes selections from Carneades, Buddha, Hume, Schopenhauer, Feuerbach, Nietzsche, Dennes, and Freud. Throughout their presentation the editors analyze and contrast theistic, atheistic, pantheistic, and panentheistic systems of thought. Philosophers Speak of God is a richly varied selection of high-quality writing on a perennial subject that will provide the serious student a thorough foundation in the philosophy of religion. (shrink)

The propensity interpretation of fitness (PIF) is commonly taken to be subject to a set of simple counterexamples. We argue that three of the most important of these are not counterexamples to the PIF itself, but only to the traditional mathematical model of this propensity: fitness as expected number of offspring. They fail to demonstrate that a new mathematical model of the PIF could not succeed where this older model fails. We then propose a new formalization of the PIF that (...) avoids these (and other) counterexamples. By producing a counterexample-free model of the PIF, we call into question one of the primary motivations for adopting the statisticalist interpretation of fitness. In addition, this new model has the benefit of being more closely allied with contemporary mathematical biology than the traditional model of the PIF. (shrink)

Perhaps the most readable and accessible of the great works of scientific imagination, The Origin of Species sold out on the day it was published in 1859. Theologians quickly labeled Charles Darwin the most dangerous man in England, and, as the Saturday Review noted, the uproar over the book quickly "passed beyond the bounds of the study and lecture-room into the drawing-room and the public street." Yet, after reading it, Darwin's friend and colleague T. H. Huxley had a different (...) reaction: "How extremely stupid not to have thought of that." Based largely on Darwin's experience as a naturalist while on a five-year voyage aboard H.M.S. Beagle, The Origin of Species set forth a theory of evolution and natural selection that challenged contemporary beliefs about divine providence and the immutability of species. A landmark contribution to philosophical and scientific thought, this edition also includes an introductory historical sketch and a glossary Darwin later added to the original text. Charles Darwin grew up considered, by his own account, "a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard of intellect." A quirk of fate kept him from the career his father had deemed appropriate--that of a country parson--when a botanist recommended Darwin for an appointment as a naturalist aboard H.M.S. Beagle from 1831 to 1836. Darwin is also the author of the five-volume work Zoology of the Voyage of the Beagle (1839) and The Descent of Man (1871). (shrink)

Completeness is an important but misunderstood norm of explanation. It has recently been argued that mechanistic accounts of scientific explanation are committed to the thesis that models are complete only if they describe everything about a mechanism and, as a corollary, that incomplete models are always improved by adding more details. If so, mechanistic accounts are at odds with the obvious and important role of abstraction in scientific modelling. We respond to this characterization of the mechanist’s views about abstraction and (...) articulate norms of completeness for mechanistic explanations that have no such unwanted implications. _1_ Introduction _2_ A Balancing Act: When Do Details Matter? _3_ The Norms of Causal Explanation _4_ The Norms of Constitutive Explanation _5_ Salmon-Completeness _6_ From More Details to More Relevant Details _7_ Non-explanatory Virtues of Abstraction _8_ From Explanatory Models to Explanatory Knowledge _9_ Mechanistic Completeness Reconsidered _10_ Conclusion. (shrink)

Nearly everyone has wronged another. Who among us has not longed to be forgiven? Who has not struggled to forgive? Charles Griswold has written the first comprehensive philosophical book on forgiveness in both its interpersonal and political contexts, as well as its relation to reconciliation. Having examined the place of forgiveness in ancient philosophy and in modern thought, he discusses what forgiveness is, what conditions the parties to it must meet, its relation to revenge and hatred, when it is (...) permissible and whether it is obligatory, and why it is a virtue. Griswold argues that forgiveness is inappropriate in politics, and analyzes the nature and limits of political apology with reference to historical examples. The book concludes with an examination of the relation between memory, narrative, and truth. (shrink)

In Part 1, I contend (using Coriolanus as my mouthpiece) that Keeley and Clarke have failed to show that there is anything intellectually suspect about conspiracy theories per se. Conspiracy theorists need not commit the ‘fundamental attribution error’ there is no reason to suppose that all or most conspiracy theories constitute the cores of degenerating research programs, nor does situationism - a dubious doctrine in itself - lend any support to a systematic skepticism about conspiracy theories. In Part 2. I (...) argue (in propria persona) that the idea that there is something suspect about conspiracy theories is one of the most dangerous and idiotic superstitions to disgrace our political culture. (shrink)

Louis Althusser remained until his death in 1990 the most controversial of the “master thinkers” who emerged from the turbulent Parisian intellectual scene of the 1960s. The publication of his bestselling posthumous “autobiography”, L'avenir dure longtemps, has now refueled some of these controversies. Hugely influential, whether lauded or vilified, Althusser occupies a unique place in contemporary philosophy. What is certain is that Althusserian themes and motifs continue to constitute a vital region in materialist thought. The Althusserian Legacy is the first (...) collective attempt to draw up a balance sheet, not on Althusser alone but on the questions that his work helped to bring to the forefront of Marxist theory. The volume brings together work in history, philosophy, economics, sociology, and literary criticism, all of it derived from or significantly inflected by Althusser. Taken together, the essays assess soberly, critically, but always generously, the full extent of his legacy. The volume contains a lengthy interview with Jacques Derrida, a long-time friend and colleague of Althusser at the Ecole Normale in Paris, and concludes with obituaries by Derrida and Gregory Elliott. Perhaps only now, more than a decade after his active intellectual life has come to a close, is it possible to render sound, just judgments on the meaning and significance of this much-debated body of work. The Althusserian Legacy is a rich beginning to that important task. (shrink)

Divided into three parts, this book's purpose, as given in the introduction, is to consider whether or not man is descended from a pre-existing form, his manner ...

This book presents a thorough overview of a model of human functioning based on the idea that behavior is goal-directed and regulated by feedback control processes. It describes feedback processes and their application to behavior, considers goals and the idea that goals are organized hierarchically, examines affect as deriving from a different kind of feedback process, and analyzes how success expectancies influence whether people keep trying to attain goals or disengage. Later sections consider a series of emerging themes, including dynamic (...) systems as a model for shifting among goals, catastrophe theory as a model for persistence, and the question of whether behavior is controlled or instead 'emerges'. Three chapters consider the implications of these various ideas for understanding maladaptive behavior, and the closing chapter asks whether goals are a necessity of life. Throughout, theory is presented in the context of diverse issues that link the theory to other literatures. (shrink)