This volume provides a guide to the discussion among biologists and philosophersabout the role of concepts such as function and design in an evolutionary understanding oflife.

Philosophers of evolutionary biology favor the so-called etiological concept of function according to which the function of a trait is its evolutionary purpose, defined as the effect for which that trait was favored by natural selection. We term this the selected effect (SE) analysis of function. An alternative account of function was introduced by Robert Cummins in a non-evolutionary and non-purposive context. Cummins''s account has received attention but little support from philosophers of biology. This paper will show that a similar (...) non-purposive concept of function, which we term causal role (CR) function, is crucial to certain research programs in evolutionary biology, and that philosophical criticisms of Cummins''s concept are ineffective in this scientific context. Specifically, we demonstrate that CR functions are a vital and ineliminable part of research in comparative and functional anatomy, and that biological categories used by anatomists are not defined by the application of SE functional analysis. Causal role functions are non-historically defined, but may themselves be used in an historical analysis. Furthermore, we show that a philosophical insistence on the primary of SE functions places practicing biologists in an untenable position, as such functions can rarely be demonstrated (in contrast to CR functions). Biologists who study the form and function of organismal design recognize that it is virtually impossible to identify the past action of selection on any particular structure retrospectively, a requirement for recognizing SE functions. (shrink)

In this country the idealists of the latter years of the nineteenth century and the early part of this century can be looked at as representing a conservative position, if the agnostics, naturalists and pragmatists of that time are taken to represent liberal movements. George Holmes Howison as an idealist was neither an isolated voice nor a member of a general school of thought that had slight influence. Howison’s published philosophical writings extend from 1861 to 1916. One reason among (...) others for Howison deserving a significant place in the history of philosophy was his participation in the “Conception of God” debate of 1895. That debate also serves as evidence of the completion of Howison’s odyssey from Hegelianism to personal idealism. (shrink)

The mystery of person is so deep that philosophers should welcome insights into that mystery from wherever they come. Literature, theater, film and psychology are a few sources that may provide help. The study of previous philosophies of person can be especially helpful. At the turn of the century there were numerous philosophical idealisms in this country. One was personal idealism and one of the most highly respected proponents of personal idealism was George Holmes Howison. If the idealists of (...) the latter half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century were compared to the pragmatists, naturalists and agnostics of that time the idealists would represent a more conservative position. Howison, whose published philosophical writings span the period from 1861 to 1916, constructed an idealism that is post-Kantian: impressed and influenced by Kant, Howison rejected what he judged to be Kant’s errors. As a reaction to and rejection of Kant’s vision, Howison’s philosophy, which in the history of philosophy is a relatively rare blend of the personalistic and the idealistic, is interesting. (shrink)

The problem of this dissertation is to answer the question, "What is the meaning of person in George Holmes Howison's philosophy?" The statement of the problem in a simple question is deceptive if it creates the illusion that the question can be answered as simply as it is asked or the problem solved as easily as it is stated. Depending on the position a problem has in relation to a man's whole philosophical outlook, the solution of the problem will (...) demand exposition of more or less of the man's philosophy. Our problem is central to Howison's philosophy. All of Howison's philosophy can be best understood in relation to his concept of person; without an understanding of his concept of person, none of his philosophy is comprehensible. Though Howison's concept of person might be indicated by extracting a description of person from one of Howison's writings, very little of his philosophy of person would be revealed by isolating such a description from the rest of his thought. To grasp Howison's concept of person is to see his notion of person as part of a whole, indeed as the core and center of all of his thinking. To see Howison's concept of person in relation to his philosophy of freedom, morality, death, immortality, eternity, God and community is to begin to grasp both the profundity and uniqueness of Howison's thinking. (shrink)

In this country the idealists of the latter years of the nineteenth century and the early part of this century can be looked at as representing a conservative position, if the agnostics, naturalists and pragmatists of that time are taken to represent liberal movements. George Holmes Howison as an idealist was neither an isolated voice nor a member of a general school of thought that had slight influence. Howison’s published philosophical writings extend from 1861 to 1916. One reason among (...) others for Howison deserving a significant place in the history of philosophy was his participation in the “Conception of God” debate of 1895. That debate also serves as evidence of the completion of Howison’s odyssey from Hegelianism to personal idealism. (shrink)

The mystery of person is so deep that philosophers should welcome insights into that mystery from wherever they come. Literature, theater, film and psychology are a few sources that may provide help. The study of previous philosophies of person can be especially helpful. At the turn of the century there were numerous philosophical idealisms in this country. One was personal idealism and one of the most highly respected proponents of personal idealism was George Holmes Howison. If the idealists of (...) the latter half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century were compared to the pragmatists, naturalists and agnostics of that time the idealists would represent a more conservative position. Howison, whose published philosophical writings span the period from 1861 to 1916, constructed an idealism that is post-Kantian: impressed and influenced by Kant, Howison rejected what he judged to be Kant’s errors. As a reaction to and rejection of Kant’s vision, Howison’s philosophy, which in the history of philosophy is a relatively rare blend of the personalistic and the idealistic, is interesting. (shrink)

In The Death of Human Capital?, Phillip Brown, Hugh Lauder, and Sin Yi Cheung demonstrate that the human capital story is one of a failed revolution that requires an alternative approach to education, jobs, and income inequalities. Rather than abandoning human capital theory, the authors seek to redefine it in a way that more accurately addresses today's challenges presented by global competition, new technologies, economic inequalities, and national debt.

Often side-lined or simplified, evil women challenge societal norms of womanhood. This volume explores how evil women have been constructed, punished, and erased within literature, culture, and film and how this contributes to our understanding of womanhood.

Following two introductory sections which deal with the search for meaning and the model of film as a form of probing, I argue that Bergman deals with a number of important philosophical issues within his film corpus. A summary account of the vision which emerges from this corpus is sketched, followed by an analysis of the central role of the artist in society as Bergman conceives it.

Critics’ praise of Woody Allen as an artist is increasing. No other comedian includes within his humour so many references to God. Philosophers interested in contemporary culture should take Allen’s comedy seriously. Accepting Albert Camus’s vision of reality, Allen has been artistically handling the absurdity of reality by use of humour. Through comedies, Allen’s films deal with important questions. His finest film may contain an argument for God.

The concept of person is a primary interest of the contemporary intellectual world. Modern literature, films, theater, theology and philosophy focus their attention increasingly on the meaning of person. The current interests of philosophers can activate and direct their reading of the history of philosophy. The rereading of the history of philosophy with a new interest can lead to new insights and discoveries. Through these insights and discoveries, philosophies of the past come to life in the present and influence the (...) future. One of the tasks of contemporary philosophers is to read and examine philosophies of the past under the light of the current interest in person so that errors of previous philosophers might be avoided and insights of previous philosophers might be assimilated. The rereading, examination and exposition of past philosophers is and must be a community project. Both the vastness of philosophical literature and importance of dialogue, if progress is to be made, necessitate that the project be undertaken by many. This exposition of William Torrey Harris’ philosophy is offered as part of the project. Though Harris’ philosophy has been identified as a personalism, it has not received adequate study as a personalism nor has Harris’ concept of person been sufficiently examined. Of Harris, Nicholas Murray Butler wrote. (shrink)

Idealist philosopher Georg Hegel defied the traditional epistemological distinction of objective from subjective and developed his own dialectical alternative. Remarkable for its breadth and profundity, this work combines aspects of psychology, logic, moral philosophy, and history to form a comprehensive view that encompasses all forms of civilization. Its three divisions consist of the subjective mind (dealing with anthropology and psychology), the objective mind (concerning philosophical issues of law and morals), and the absolute mind (covering fine arts, religion, and philosophy). Wide-ranging (...) in its influence, this survey of the evolution of consciousness is essential reading for all students of philosophy and history. (shrink)

The topic of a priori knowledge is approached through the theory of evidence. A shortcoming in traditional formulations of moderate rationalism and moderate empiricism is that they fail to explain why rational intuition and phenomenal experience count as basic sources of evidence. This explanatory gap is filled by modal reliabilism -- the theory that there is a qualified modal tie between basic sources of evidence and the truth. This tie to the truth is then explained by the theory of concept (...) possession: this tie is a consequence of what, by definition, it is to possess (i.e., to understand) one’s concepts. A corollary of the overall account is that the a priori disciplines (logic, mathematics, philosophy) can be largely autonomous from the empirical sciences. (shrink)

This important new work surveys the source and ramifications of the famed Nuremburg Code -- recognized around the world as one of the cornerstones of modern bioethics.

TRANSLATORS PREFACE THE PRESENT TRANSLATION OF GEORG SIMMEL'S Schopen- hauer und Nietzsche: Ein Vortragszyklus (1907), ...

"This book is a sorely needed corrective. Animal Spirits is an important--maybe even a decisive--contribution at a difficult juncture in macroeconomic theory.

touch 27 Thirrdly, the straining of the eye 28 The occasions which suggest distance have in their own nature no relation to it 29 A difficult case proposed by Dr. Barrow as repugnant to all the known theories 30 This case contradicts a ...

Marketing Ethics addresses head-on the ethical questions, misunderstandings and challenges that marketing raises while defining marketing as a moral activity. A substantial introduction to the ethics of marketing, exploring the integral relations of marketing and morality Identifies and discusses a series of ethical tools and the marketing framework they constitute that are required for moral marketing Considers broader meanings and background assumptions of marketing infrequently included in other marketing literature Adds direction and meaning to problems in marketing ethics through reflection (...) on concepts such as individual choice, freedom and responsibility, desire satisfaction, noncoercive exchanges, and instrumental efficiency. (shrink)

Functionalism would be mistaken if there existed a system of deviant relations (an “anti-mind”) that had the same functional roles as the standard mental relations. In this paper such a system is constructed, using “Quinean transformations” of the sort associated with Quine’s thesis of the indeterminacy of translation. For example, a mapping m from particularistic propositions (e.g., that there exists a rabbit) to universalistic propositions (that rabbithood is manifested). Using m, a deviant relation thinking* is defined: x thinks* p iff (...) x thinks m(p). Such deviant relations satisfy the commonly discussed functionalist psychological principles. Finally, a more complicated system of deviant relations is constructed, one satisfying sophisticated principles dealing with the self-conscious rational mind. (shrink)

The description for this book, Desert, will be forthcoming.

The idea of nature in medical theory and practice -- Diseases -- Health: popular concept and philosophical question -- Is a pedagogy of healing possible? -- The problem of regulation in the organism and in society.

George Berkeley (1685-1753) is the superstar of Irish Philosophy. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1700 and became a fellow in 1707. In 1724 he resigned his Fellowship to become Dean of Derry, and in 1734 he was made Bishop of Cloyne. He settled in Oxford in 1752 and died the following year. The work of George Berkeley is marked by its diversity and range. His writings take in such topics as mathematics, psychology, politics, health, economics, deism and (...) education, as well as that with which he is most associated - philosophy. Whatever topic he dealt with, his grasp of the subject matter was always impressive and his criticisms of his contemporaries often acute. Among the most noteable of the British Empiricists, he took his starting point from Locke's new 'way of ideas', but he rejected abstract ideas and the possibility of real existence outside perception. It is for this doctrine that he is most known - that there is no such thing as matter, and that things are collections of ideas which can exist only in our minds and only for so long as they are perceived. This philosophy, summed up in his phrase 'to be is to be perceived', he termed 'immaterialism'. A.C. Fraser's collection includes a series of what were previously unpublished notes by Berkeley on all the main topics of his philosophy. This, the 1901 edition, was the first complete edition of his works. (shrink)

Berkeley's Idealism both advances Berkeley scholarship and serves as a useful guide for teachers and students.

What drives much of the current philosophical interest in the idea of group cognition is its appeal to the manifestation of psychological properties—understood broadly to include states, processes, and dispositions—that are in some important yet elusive sense emergent with respect to the minds of individual group members. Our goal in this paper is to address a set of related, conditional questions: If human mentality is real yet emergent in a modest metaphysical sense only, then: (i) What would it mean for (...) a group to have emergent cognitive states? (ii) Is this even a metaphysically coherent view? (iii) Relative to which notion of emergence do we have reason to believe that certain groups in fact have emergent cognitive states? We shall argue that evidence from a wide variety of social science domains makes it plausible that there are group cognitive states and processes no less metaphysically emergent than human cognitive (and other special science) states and processes. (shrink)

Georges Sorel's Study on Vico is a revelatory document of the depths and stakes of French social thought at the end of the 19th century. What brought Sorel to the 18th century Neapolitan theorist of history? Acute awareness of the limitations of Marxist thought in his day, a profound concern with the material underpinnings of language, law, and culture, and the imperative to understand the possibilities of revolutionary change. We find here a different Sorel, one who speaks in surprising ways (...) to the 21st century. The translation is accompanied by an introduction and by a set of notes which situate the text both in Sorel's overall intellectual trajectory and in the fin de siècle debates from which it emerged. (shrink)

Hanne Darboven’s numerical practice fulfils Alain Badiou’s definition of a new artistic configuration (albeit one that the philosopher does not foretell). Darboven’s writing – like that of Isidore Ducasse – subverts ordinary thinking through the ‘alien qualities’ of mathematics. Yet, in Darboven’s grammatical oeuvre, infinity emerges as a function of number’s capacity to be thought simultaneously across an unlimited number of discursive series. Her art affirms the plasticity of number by dispersing numerical series across a continuous surface. These surface effects (...) simultaneously recall the disjunctive temporality of the Aion described by Gilles Deleuze in The Logic of Sense (2004). Finally, Darboven’s writing of number also reveals traces of broader social transformations that emerged during the 1960s in tandem with unprecedented advances in automation and computing: particularly neo-Taylorist and cybernetic approaches to the administration of workers’ time. But crises in labour practices are appropriated by Darboven as techniques of subjectivization that the artist always subverts to her own ends. (shrink)

In an economy that increasingly trades in electronic information products, the copy assumes a new reversibility, as a figure at once valued for its rapid exchangeability and vilified for of its associations with counterfeit and fraud. The incorporation of confidence measures into the design of electronic information products is symptomatic of a primary crisis of belief installed within empiricist epistemologies, of which anti-circumvention technologies and knock-off economies are merely the incorrigible children. The aesthetic strategies practiced by Albert Oehlen and N.E. (...) Thing Co., which mirror the information hiding techniques employed by steganography software and technologies of trust as well as the circumvention tactics employed to defeat them, register an emergent preoccupation in contemporary visual culture with structures of belief. They also disclose a Humean attention to processes of devivification, which figures in these artists’ work as an effect of the multiplication of the same. The trope of the ‘false bottom’ deployed in the 1930s novels of British artist and author Wyndham Lewis serves as intertext in this genealogical investigation of the politics of circumvention. (shrink)

Discusses the metaphysical themes of Bergman's films, analyzes his major works, and attempts to explain his philosophy.

Following two introductory sections which deal with the search for meaning and the model of film as a form of probing, I argue that Bergman deals with a number of important philosophical issues within his film corpus. A summary account of the vision which emerges from this corpus is sketched, followed by an analysis of the central role of the artist in society as Bergman conceives it.