Mathematicians tend to think of themselves as scientists investigating the features of real mathematical things, and the wildly successful application of mathematics in the physical sciences reinforces this picture of mathematics as an objective study. For philosophers, however, this realism about mathematics raises serious questions: What are mathematical things? Where are they? How do we know about them? Offering a scrupulously fair treatment of both mathematical and philosophical concerns, Penelope Maddy here delineates and defends a novel version of mathematical (...) realism. She answers the traditional questions and poses a challenging new one, refocusing philosophical attention on the pressing foundational issues of contemporary mathematics. (shrink)

Naturalism in Mathematics investigates how the most fundamental assumptions of mathematics can be justified. One prevalent philosophical approach to the problem--realism--is examined and rejected in favor of another approach--naturalism. Penelope Maddy defines this naturalism, explains the motivation for it, and shows how it can be successfully applied in set theory. Her clear, original treatment of this fundamental issue is informed by current work in both philosophy and mathematics, and will be accessible and enlightening to readers from both disciplines.

Mathematics depends on proofs, and proofs must begin somewhere, from some fundamental assumptions. For nearly a century, the axioms of set theory have played this role, so the question of how these axioms are properly judged takes on a central importance. Approaching the question from a broadly naturalistic or second-philosophical point of view, Defending the Axioms isolates the appropriate methods for such evaluations and investigates the ontological and epistemological backdrop that makes them appropriate. In the end, a new account of (...) the objectivity of mathematics emerges, one refreshingly free of metaphysical commitments. (shrink)

Since the introduction of mathematical population genetics, its machinery has shaped our fundamental understanding of natural selection. Selection is taken to occur when differential fitnesses produce differential rates of reproductive success, where fitnesses are understood as parameters in a population genetics model. To understand selection is to understand what these parameter values measure and how differences in them lead to frequency changes. I argue that this traditional view is mistaken. The descriptions of natural selection rendered by population genetics models are (...) in general neither predictive nor explanatory and introduce avoidable conceptual confusions. I conclude that a correct understanding of natural selection requires explicitly causal models of reproductive success. *Received May 2006; revised December 2006. †To contact the author, please write to: Department of Philosophy, Kansas State University, 201 Dickens Hall, Manhattan, KS 66506; e‐mail: [email protected] . (shrink)

It is widely agreed that possession of consciousness contributes to an entity’s moral status, even if it is not necessary for moral status (Levy and Savulescu 2009). An entity is considered to have...

The most successful theory in all of science--and the basis of one third of our economy--says the strangest things about the world and about us. Can you believe that physical reality is created by our observation of it? Physicists were forced to this conclusion, the quantum enigma, by what they observed in their laboratories. Trying to understand the atom, physicists built quantum mechanics and found, to their embarrassment, that their theory intimately connects consciousness with the physical world. Quantum Enigma explores (...) what that implies and why some founders of the theory became the foremost objectors to it. Schrodinger showed that it "absurdly" allowed a cat to be in a "superposition" simultaneously dead and alive. Einstein derided the theory's "spooky interactions." With Bell's Theorem, we now know Schrodinger's superpositions and Einstein's spooky interactions indeed exist. Authors Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner explain all of this in non-technical terms with help from some fanciful stories and bits about the theory's developers. They present the quantum mystery honestly, with an emphasis on what is and what is not speculation. Physics' encounter with consciousness is its skeleton in the closet. Because the authors open the closet and examine the skeleton, theirs is a controversial book. Quantum Enigma's description of the experimental quantum facts, and the quantum theory explaining them, is undisputed. Interpreting what it all means, however, is controversial. Every interpretation of quantum physics encounters consciousness. Rosenblum and Kuttner therefore turn to exploring consciousness itself--and encounter quantum physics. Free will and anthropic principles become crucial issues, and the connection of consciousness with the cosmos suggested by some leading quantum cosmologists is mind-blowing. Readers are brought to a boundary where the particular expertise of physicists is no longer a sure guide. They will find, instead, the facts and hints provided by quantum mechanics and the ability to speculate for themselves. (shrink)

The effort to fit simple logical truths–like `if it's either red or green and it's not red, then it must be green'–into Kant's account of knowledge turns up a position more subtle and intriguing than might be expected at first glance.

This paper explores women's accounts of prostitution in terms of the lived experience of the body, drawing on life story narratives and arts images created by women in the sex industry. These narratives show that women's experiences of prostitution constitute a spectrum of (dis)embodiment that is inflected, not determined, by settings and contexts. Theoretical approaches to embodiment were sought that acknowledged tensions between violation and a sense of empowerment. Therefore, the ontology of selling sex, and associated experiences such as violence, (...) drug use and self-harm are explored using feminist applications of Merleau-Ponty's notion of the `habit body'. A key focus is how the body is constituted by embodied experiences of abuse (e.g. the work of Parkins and of Weiss), and how women negotiate ownership of the body within commercial sex transactions. This highlights the process of repositioning the body by selling sex, in accordance with the accumulated experiences of the habit body. Thus, to borrow from Wendy Parkins, women perceive that they are acting meaningfully through the body, even when reproducing dynamics of objectification and dissociation. (shrink)

This collection brings together previously unpublished works by well-known philosophers on the philosophy of action, the metaphysics of causality, and the philosophy of psychology. Nine of the essays directly discuss Donald Davidson's work on these topics, while three others challenge a Davidsonian approach through discussion of independent but related issues. These essays are followed by replies from Davidson, including a previously unpublished essay, "Adverbs of Action.".

This paper outlines a second-philosophical account of arithmetic that places it on a distinctive ground between those of logic and set theory.

Offers a compelling vision of how to achieve and conduct a liberal but democratic society through the ideal of Neutrality--between people and ideas of the good--and using the tool of Neutral dialogue.

Prabhpal Singh has recently defended a relational account of the difference in moral status between fetuses and newborns as a way of explaining why abortion is permissible and infanticide is not. He claims that only a newborn can stand in a parent–child relation, not a fetus, and this relation has a moral dimension that bestows moral value. We challenge Singh’s reasoning, arguing that the case he presents is unconvincing. We suggest that the parent–child relation is better understood as an extension (...) of an existing relationship formed during the gestational period. The change in this relation at birth is not sufficient to justify the radical change in moral status required to rule out infanticide while accepting the permissibility of abortion. Given that the moral status of orphans is also problematic under Singh’s account, we conclude that Singh has not shown that a newborn has greater moral worth than a fetus. (shrink)

The second edition of The Great Psychotherapy Debate has been updated and revised to include a history of healing practices, medicine, and psychotherapy, an expanded theoretical presentation of the contextual model, an examination of therapist effects, and a thorough review of the research on common factors such as the alliance, expectations, and empathy.

Feminist scholars have long critiqued the fashion industry’s ultra-thin beauty standards as harmful to women. Combining data from three qualitative studies of women’s clothing retailers—of bras, plus-size clothing, and bridal wear—we shift the analytical focus away from glamorized media images toward the seemingly mundane realm of clothing size standards, examining how women encounter, understand, and navigate these standards in their daily lives. We conceptualize clothing size standards as “floating signifiers,” given their lack of consistency within and across brands and the (...) extent to which women engage in identity work and body work in relation to them. Our findings indicate that the instability of these unregulated standards allows some women—particularly those with bodies located closest to the boundaries between size categories—to claim conformity to body ideals and to access some of the associated psychological, social, and material privileges. However, even as individual women may benefit by distancing themselves from stigmatized size categories, this pattern renders women’s body acceptance tenuous while simultaneously reinforcing hierarchies among women based on body size and shape. (shrink)

Este artículo considera dos perspectivas de Kierkegaard en relación con el matrimonio, una en favor y otra en contra del mismo. El texto se centra en los principales argumentos del filósofo danés en torno a los motivos para elegir el estado conyugal (entre otros, la procreación de los hijos y la evasión de la soledad) como a las razones que induzcan a alguien a permanecer definitivamente soltero (por ejemplo, si tiene una vocación religiosa o si no quiere perder su libertad). (...) El artículo presenta también otras dos ideas importantes del pensador escandinavo sobre la institución matrimonial: su origen divino y la relación entre el amor y el vínculo nupcial. This article focuses on two perspectives of Kierkegaard regarding marriage, one in favour and one against it. Te text concentrates on the principal arguments of the danish philosopher about the choice for marriage (some reasons are the procreation of children and escaping from solitude) as the election of the reasons that may lead somebody to remain single (for example, if someone has a religious calling or if someone prefers to continue without losing their freedom). The text also presents other two ideas of this philosopher over the marriage institution: his divine origin and the relationship between love and the bond of matrimony. (shrink)

The Great Psychotherapy Debate: Models, Methods, and Findings comprehensively reviews the research on psychotherapy to dispute the commonly held view that the benefits of psychotherapy are derived from the specific ingredients contained in a given treatment (medical model). The author reviews the literature related to the absolute efficacy of psychotherapy, the relative efficacy of various treatments, the specificity of ingredients contained in established therapies, effects due to common factors, such as the working alliance, adherence and allegiance to the therapeutic protocol, (...) and effects that are produced by different therapists. In each case, the evidence convincingly corroborates the contextual model and disconfirms the prevailing medical model. (shrink)

Don Marquis’ future-like-ours account argues that abortion is seriously immoral because itdeprives the embryo or fetus of a valuable future much like our own. Marquis was mindful ofcontraception being reductio ad absurdum of his reasoning, and argued that prior tofertilisation, there is not an identifiable subject of harm. Contra Marquis, Tomer Chaffercontends that the ovum is a plausible subject of harm, and therefore contraception deprives theovum of a future-like-ours. In response, I argue that being an identifiable subject of harm is (...) notsufficient for Marquis’ argument to succeed. In addition, we must also share our identity withan ovum. I show that on the account of personal identity utilised by Marquis’ defenders, weare not identical with an ovum. As a result, Chaffer’s reductio fails. (shrink)

Many philosophers these days consider themselves naturalists, but it's doubtful any two of them intend the same position by the term. In Second Philosophy, Penelope Maddy describes and practices a particularly austere form of naturalism called "Second Philosophy". Without a definitive criterion for what counts as "science" and what doesn't, Second Philosophy can't be specified directly ("trust only the methods of science" for example), so Maddy proceeds instead by illustrating the behaviors of an idealized inquirer she calls the (...) "Second Philosopher". mhis Second Philosopher begins from perceptual common sense experimentation, theory formation and testing, working all the while to asses, correct and improve her methods as she goes. Second Philosophy is then the result of the Second Philosopher's investigations. Maddy delineates the Second Philosopher's approach by tracing her reactions to various familiar skeptical and transcendental views (Descartes, Kant, Carnap, late Putnam, van Fraassen), comparing her methods to those of other self-described naturalists (especially Quine), and examining a prominent contemporary debate (between disquotationalists and correspondence theorists in the theory of truth) to extract a properly second-philosophical line of thought. She then undertakes to practice Second Philosophy in her reflections on the ground of logical truth, the methodology, ontology and epistemology of mathematics, and the general prospects for metaphysics naturalized. (shrink)

Many philosophers claim to be naturalists, but there is no common understanding of what naturalism is. Maddy proposes an austere form of naturalism called 'Second Philosophy', using the persona of an idealized inquirer, and she puts this method into practice in illuminating reflections on logical truth, philosophy of mathematics, and metaphysics.

This highly original history of ideas considers the impact of Hegel on French philosophy from the 1920s to the present. As Baugh's lucid narrative makes clear, Hegel's influence on French philosophy has been profound, and can be traced through all the major intellectual movements and thinkers in France throughout the 20th Century from Jean Wahl, Sartre, and Bataille to Foucault, Deleuze, and Derrida. Baugh focuses on Hegel's idea of the "unhappy consciousness," and provides a bold new account of Hegel's early (...) reception in French intellectual history. (shrink)

It is a truism that where one starts from and the direction one goes determines where one ends up. This is no less true in philosophy than elsewhere, and certainly no less true in matters dealing with the relationship between God’s foreknowledge and human free actions. In what follows I will argue that the incompatibilist view that Fischer and others stalwartly defend results from the particular starting point they choose, and that if one adopts a different starting point about divine (...) knowledge the logical incompatibility they envision and philosophically anguish over evaporates. (shrink)

As the applied field of social work attempts to become more of a sciencebased profession, it is relying more on the findings from empirical research studies. Withinsocial work there is little discussion of the philosophy of science underlying conventional research inquiry. This paper introduces some major philosophical principles that undergird scientific investigations of the causes of societal and psychosocial problems and of the effectiveness of structured programs, policies and practices to ameliorate social ills. Among the principles introduced are the philosophical (...) concepts of determinism, empiricism, realism, operationalism, scientific materialism, parsimony, logic, and positivism. Together these philosophical assumptions provide a pragmatic framework to design and conduct scientific research of value to the social work profession and other fields. (shrink)

Ranging from Joseph Bellamy to Hilary Putnam, and from early New England Divinity Schools to contemporary university philosophy departments, historian Bruce Kuklick recounts the story of the growth of philosophical thinking in the United States. Readers will explore the thought of early American philosphers such as Jonathan Edwards and John Witherspoon and will see how the political ideas of Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson influenced philosophy in colonial America. Kuklick discusses The Transcendental Club (members Henry David Thoreau, (...) Ralph Waldo Emerson) and describes the rise of pragmatism centered on Metaphysical Club of Cambridge (and members William James, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Charles Peirce). He examines the profound impact Darwinism had on American philosophy and looks at Idealists such as the Kantian Josiah Royce and the Hegelian John Dewey. The book shows how, in the twentieth century, the Nazi conquest of Europe unleashed a flood of European intellectuals onto these shores, including such major thinkers as Theodore Adorno, Erich Fromm, Rudolph Carnap, and Alfred Tarski. Finally, Kuklick examines the contributions of such contemporary philosophers as Sidney Hook and Willard Quine and such books as John Rawl's A Theory of Justice and Herbert Marcuse's One Dimensional Man. Kuklick pulls no punches in portraying the state of American philosophy today and its contested role in the intellectual life of the nation and the world. The range of philosophical thought in our nation's history has been great, from Edwards's Religious Affections to Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, and Bruce Kuklick has captured it all in a book that blends intricate details with sweeping vision. (shrink)

Mass literacy, mass communication, and the Internet have all increased the amount of information available. But false knowledge still abounds. Taking cues from Sir Thomas Browne, the English Renaissance skeptic, this title examines a host of contemporary errors in thinking and offers a powerful explanation of why they occur.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Philosophy, Dissent, and Nonconformity, 1689–1920Bruce KuklickAlan P. F. Sell. Philosophy, Dissent, and Nonconformity, 1689–1920. Cambridge: James Clark & Co., 2004. Pp. 296. Cloth, £50.00This is a competent, clearly written, and authoritative exploration of its topic, in some respects a labor of love, for the author is both a pastor and a student of theology. Sell comprehensively examines the proliferation of dissenting academies and nonconformist colleges of England and (...) Wales, with some excursions into the Scottish scene, from the Toleration Act of 1689 through the early twentieth century. For the 230 years of this study, a great variety of schools, many of which had only a brief moment of existence, and most of which were barely funded, offered training for the ministers of over a dozen protestant denominations in Britain. Often one man provided instruction in subjects as diverse as mathematics, science, and literature—as well as religious fields.Sell does not focus on ministerial training or even theology, but the way in which the nonconforming religious élite expounded on and was taught philosophy. Thus, one sees how a diverse group that surely had sectarian needs in mind was also interested in grasping how thinkers outside its belief system approached basic problems of human existence. Over time Descartes and other continental rationalists, Locke and the Cambridge Platonists, Kant and Hegel, and the nineteenth-century British idealists were taught by the dissenting professoriate. In summarizing its interpretation, Sell presents a history of modern Anglo-European philosophy as it was refracted in the minds of (some) English-speaking Protestants. Their emphases are not unexpected: empiricism is somewhat devalued, and rationalistic and a priori modes of thinking perhaps inflated. The ethical implications of epistemology and metaphysics are most carefully explicated, and what is taken to be most strategic for [End Page 211] Reformed theology is underscored. Overall, if one is tempted to generalize (as Sell himself does not), the positions reached are credible and not out of line with the philosophical cutting edge of each era.For the most part the dissenters were not themselves creative philosophers of the first rank, but Sell rightly puts forward (206) a short list of thinkers at these schools who have genuine claims to merit, and my own very short list would include Richard Price, James Martineau, and Robert Mackintosh.The author uses diverse strategies to give readers a sense of the effort of these mostly forgotten men. To some extent the book is a biographical compendium, with brief sections on individual or paired thinkers. But Sell also offers coverage by denomination, and he adds a series of discussions by topics—on an assortment of recurring dilemmas in moral philosophy and on apologetics. A final and most useful feature of the book is a trio of indices, in addition to the very full notes and a complete bibliography, mainly of the writings of the many authors cited. Two of the indices are standard, but helpful, lists of persons and topics; the third one is a compendium of all the academies Sell treats, as well as their denominational affiliation, and the duration of their existences.Philosophy, Dissent, and Nonconformity has the defects of its virtues. It is encyclopedic in nature, available for reference but unlikely to be read as a synthetic book, except by devotees of a certain kind of historical philosophical theology. The author also presumes his readers are unlikely to tackle the volume unless they have a prior attraction. That is, the book is written without much contextual explication, and attention to the needs of the non-specialist certainly would have made the volume of wider interest. The work is still relatively brief, under 300 pages, and because of its character, I would have liked to have seen a series of maps that pinpointed the whereabouts of the dissenting schools, giving the reader a visual sense of when and where they arose and declined among particular denominations, and that informed us of what the relations were among the successive professors who defined the learning.Bruce KuklickUniversity of PennsylvaniaCopyright © 2005 Journal of the History of Philosophy, Inc.... (shrink)

Looking at the new and often disputed science of epigenetics, we examined the challenges faced by scientists when they communicate scientific research to the public. We focused on the use of metaphors to illustrate notions of epigenetics and genetics. We studied the “encoding” by epigeneticists and “decoding” in focus groups with diverse backgrounds. We observed considerable overlap in the dominant metaphors favored by both researchers and the lay public. However, the groups differed markedly in their interpretations of which metaphors aided (...) understanding or not. We conclude by discussing the role of metaphors and their interpretations in the context of a shift from pre-deterministic genomic metaphors to more active, dynamic and nuanced epigenetic metaphors. These reflections on the choice of metaphors and differences in encoding/decoding are important for science communication and scientific boundary-maintenance. (shrink)

Since its publication in 1982, _Beyond Positivism _has become established as one of the definitive statements on economic methodology. The book’s rejection of positivism and its advocacy of pluralism were to have a profound influence in the flowering of work methodology that has taken place in economics in the decade since its publication. This edition contains a new preface outlining the major developments in the area since the book’s first appearance. The book provides the first comprehensive treatment of twentieth century (...) philosophy of science which emphasizes the issues relevant to economics. It proceeds to demonstrate this relevance by reviewing some of the key debates in the area. Having concluded that positivism has to be rejected, the author examines possible alternative bases for economic methodology. Arguing that there is no best method, he advocates methodological pluralism. (shrink)