Chronological explanation of physics from early history through current studies geared to lay readers with limited mathematical training.

In 1896 William James published an essay entitled The Will to Believe, in which he defended the legitimacy of religious faith against the attacks of such champions of scientific method as W.K. Clifford and Thomas Huxley. James's work quickly became one of the most important writings in the philosophy of religious belief. James Wernham analyses James's arguments, discusses his relation to Pascal and Renouvier, and considers the interpretations, and misinterpretations, of James's major critics. Wernham shows (...) convincingly that James was unaware of many destructive ambiguitities in his own doctrines and arguments, although clear and consistent in his view that our obligation to believe in theism is not a moral but a prudential obligation -- a foolish-not-to-believe doctrine, rather than a not-immoral-to-believe one. Wernham also shows that the doctrine is best read as affirming the wisdom of gambling that God exists, a notion which James failed to distinguish from believing and which, among other things, he explicitly identified with faith. James's pragmatism, a theory concerning the meaning of truth, is shown to be quite distinct from the doctrine of The Will to Believe. In concentrating on a careful analysis of this doctrine of the will-to-believe, Wernham not only makes a major contribution to understanding James's philosophy, but also clarifies issues in the philosophy of religion and in the analysis of belief and faith. (shrink)

This paper examines the potential role of deliberative democracy in constitutional processes of higher law-making, either for the founding of constitutions or for constitutional change. It defines deliberative democracy as the combination of political equality and deliberation and situates this form of democracy in contrast to a range of alternatives. It then considers two contrasting processes—elite deliberation and plebiscitary mass democracy (embodied in referenda) as approaches to higher law-making that employ deliberation without political equality or political equality without deliberation. It (...) finally turns to some institutional designs that might achieve both fundamental values at the same time, or in the process of realizing a sequence of choices. (shrink)

Limited Aggregation is the view that when there are competing moral claims that demand our attention, we should sometimes satisfy the largest aggregate of claims, depending on the strength of the claims in question. In recent years, philosophers such as Patrick Tomlin and Alastair Norcross have argued that Limited Aggregation violates a number of rational choice principles such as Transitivity, Separability, and Contraction Consistency. Current versions of Limited Aggregation are what may be called Comparative Approaches because they involve assessing the (...) relative strengths of various claims. In this paper, we offer a non-comparative version of Limited Aggregation, what we call the Threshold Approach. It states that there is a non-relative threshold that separates various claims. We demonstrate that the Threshold Approach does not violate rational choice principles such as Transitivity, Separability, and Contraction Consistency, and we show that potential concerns regarding such a view are surmountable. (shrink)

We only see Mars from Earth's perspective in the first season of The Expanse, but Season 2 changes that by introducing Gunnery Sergeant Bobbie Draper, a Martian Congressional Republic Navy (MCRN) marine. Mars as seen by Martians resembles our Mars: ruddy, rocky, dusty, inhospitable, and cold. This chapter focuses on Draper and the Mars Congressional Republic (MCR). What is striking about the culture of the MCR is how naturally it flows from contemporary visions of space exploration, especially those from the (...) Apollo era forward. For somewhat more specific examples, the chapter considers the “Statement of Philosophy” of the National Space Society, another well‐known space advocacy organization in the US. The MCR's commitment to terraforming Mars demonstrates that its future depends “upon the progress of science and technology.”. (shrink)

It is argued here that understanding John Dewey's thought as that of a prodigal liberal or a fellow traveller does not capture the complexity of his work. It is also important to recognise the portion of his work that is historie morale. In the very best sense it is epic, encapsulating the hopes and dreams of a history of the American people in the early 1900s. It is a work that simultaneously pursues modernity and the past — for the sake (...) of coping with the present. It also calls attention to an unnoticed element in his work 'inexperience'. (shrink)

The Handbook of the Study of Play brings together, in two volumes, thinkers whose diverse interests at the leading edge of scholarship and practice define the current field. Because play is an activity that humans have shared across time, place, and culture, and in their personal developmental timelines - and because this behavior stretches deep into the evolutionary past - no single discipline can lay claim to exclusive rights to study the subject. Thus, this handbook features the thinking of evolutionary (...) psychologists; ethologists and biologists; neuroscientists; developmental psychologists; psychotherapists and play therapists; historians; sociologists and anthropologists; cultural psychologists; philosophers; theorists of music, performance, and dance; specialists in learning and language acquisition; and playground designers. Together, but out of their varied understandings, the incisive contributions to The Handbook of the Study of Play take on vital questions of educational policy, literacy, fitness, the role of play in brain development, spotaneity and pleasure, well-being and happiness, fairness, and the fuller realization of the self. These volumes also comprise an intellectual history, offering retrospective looks at the great thinkers who have made possible the modern study of play. -- from back cover. (shrink)

While Nietzsche's works and ideas are relevant across the many branches of philosophy, the themes of contest and conflict have been mostly overlooked. Conflict and Contest in Nietzsche's Philosophy redresses this situation, arguing for the importance of these issues throughout Nietzsche's work. The volume has three key lines of inquiry: Nietzsche's ontology of conflict; Nietzsche's conception of the agon; and Nietzsche's warrior-philosophy. Under these three umbrellas is a collection of insightful and provocative essays considering, among other topics, Nietzsche's understanding of (...) resistance; his engagement with classical thinkers alongside his contemporaries, including Jacob Burckhardt; his views on language, metaphor and aphorism; and war, revolt and terror. In bringing together such topics, Conflict and Contest in Nietzsche's Philosophy seeks to correct the one-sided tendencies within the existing literature to read simply 'hard' and 'soft' analyses of conflict. Written by scholars across the Anglophone and the European traditions, within and beyond philosophy, this collection emphasises the entire problematic of conflict in Nietzsche's thought and its relation to his philosophical and literary practice. (shrink)

This volume -- a companion to Thomas Reid: Selected Philosophical Writings (2012) -- makes available material from Thomas Reid's autograph manuscripts and student notes of his lectures. It includes an introductory essay by Nicholas Wolterstorff.

Does philosophy have any value for our faith? James Spiegel insists that Christians need philosophy to discern wrong ideas and shows us how it can enhance biblical faith and living.

In the recent history of philosophy few works have appeared which favorably portray Idealism as a plausible philosophical view of the world. Considerably less has been written about Idealism as a viable framework for doing theology. While the most recent and significant works on Idealism, composed by the late John Foster (Case for Idealism and A World for Us: The Case for Phenomenological Idealism), have put this theory back on the philosophical map, no such attempt has been made to re-introduce (...) Idealism to contemporary Christian theology. Idealism and Christian Theology is such a work, retrieving ideas and arguments from its most significant modern exponents (especially George Berkeley and Jonathan Edwards) in order to assess its value for present and future theological construction. As a piece of constructive philosophical-theology itself, this volume considers the explanatory power an Idealist ontology has for contemporary Christian theology. (shrink)

It is nearly 10 years since Patrick Haggard and colleagues first reported the ‘intentional binding’ effect . The intentional binding effect refers to the subjective compression of the temporal interval between a voluntary action and its external sensory consequence. Since the first report, considerable interest has been generated and a fascinating array of studies has accumulated. Much of the interest in intentional binding comes from the promise to shed light on human agency. In this review we survey studies on intentional (...) binding, focusing, in particular, on the link between intentional binding and the sense of agency . We suggest that, whilst it is yet to be fully explicated, the link between intentional binding and the sense of agency is compelling. We conclude by considering outstanding questions and future directions for research on intentional binding. (shrink)

A brief self-report scale was developed to assess everyday performance failures arising directly or primarily from brief failures of sustained attention . The ARCES was found to be associated with a more direct measure of propensity to attention lapses and to errors on an existing behavioral measure of sustained attention . Although the ARCES and MAAS were highly correlated, structural modelling revealed the ARCES was more directly related to SART errors and the MAAS to SART RTs, which have been hypothesized (...) to directly reflect the lapses of attention that lead to SART errors. Thus, the MAAS and SART RTs appear to directly reflect attention lapses, whereas the ARCES and SART errors reflect the mistakes these lapses are thought to cause. Boredom proneness was also assessed by the BPS, as a separate consequence of a propensity to attention lapses. Although the ARCES was significantly associated with the BPS, this association was entirely accounted for by the MAAS, suggesting that performance errors and boredom are separate consequences of lapses in attention. A tendency to even extraordinarily brief attention lapses on the order of milliseconds may have far-reaching consequences not only for safe and efficient task performance but also for sustaining the motivation to persist in and enjoy these tasks. (shrink)

It has become orthodox to read Nietzsche as proposing the ‘sublimation’ of troublesome behavioural impulses. On this interpretation, he is said to denigrate the elimination of our impulses, preferring that we master them by pressing them into the service of our higher goals. My thesis is that this reading of Nietzsche’s conception of self-cultivation does not bear scrutiny. Closer examination of his later thought reveals numerous texts that show him explicitly recommending an eliminatory approach to self-cultivation. I invoke his theory (...) of the will to power in order to explain why he persistently valorises both elimination and sublimation as preconditions of healthy subjective unity. I conclude that which of these two approaches he recommends in a given situation depends on whether or not the impulse in question can be put to use within the overall economy of our drives. (shrink)

We examine the writings of Adam Smith and Milton Friedman regarding their interpretation and use of the concept of self-interest.We argue that neither Smith nor Friedman considers self-interest to be synonymous with selfishness and thus devoid of ethicalconsiderations. Rather, for both writers self-interest embodies an other-regarding aspect that requires individuals to moderate theiractions when others are adversely affected. The overriding virtue for Smith in governing individual actions is justice; for Friedman it isnon-coercion.

The moral obligation to support space exploration follows from our obligations to protect the environment and to survive as a species. It can be justified through three related arguments: one supporting space exploration as necessary for acquiring resources, and two illustrating the need for space technology in order to combat extraterrestrial threats such as meteorite impacts. Three sorts of objections have been raised against this obligation. The first are objections alleging that supporting space exploration is impractical. The second is the (...) widely held notion that space exploration and environmentalism are at odds with one another. Finally, there are two objections to using space resources that Robert Sparrow has raised on the topic of terraforming. The obligation to support space exploration can be defended in at least three ways: (1) the "argument from resources," that space exploration is useful for amplifying our available resources; (2) the "argument from asteroids," that space exploration is necessary for protecting the environment and its inhabitants from extraterrestrial threats such as meteorite impacts; and (3) the "argument from solar burnout," that we are obligated to pursue interstellar colonization in order to ensure long-term human survival. (shrink)

Examines recent changes in technology and social organization and shows how social theory can inform the construction of social organization and help provide avenues of future social development.

Terraforming is a process of planetary engineering by which the extant environment of a planetary body is transformed into an environment capable of supporting human inhabitants. The question I would like to consider in this paper is whether there is any reason to believe that the terraforming of another planet—for instance, the terraforming of Mars—is morally problematic. Topics related to the human exploration of space are not often discussed in philosophical circles. Nevertheless, there exists a growing body of philosophical literature (...) dedicated to sorting out the moral implications of the use of resources from (and in) space. Most of this literature is produced as environmental philosophy. Questions of .. (shrink)

In this paper, we will consider the neuro-cognitive systems involved in mediating morality. Five main claims will be made. First, that there are multiple, partially separable neuro-cognitive architectures that mediate specific aspects of morality: social convention, care-based morality, disgust-based morality and fairness/justice. Second, that all aspects of morality, including social convention, involve affect. Third, that the neural system particularly important for social convention, given its role in mediating anger and responding to angry expressions, is ventrolateral prefrontal cortex. Fourth, that the (...) neural systems particularly important for care-based morality are the amygdala and medial orbital frontal cortex. Fifth, that while Theory of Mind is not a prerequisite for the development of affect-based 'automatic moral attitudes', it is critically involved in many aspects of moral reasoning. (shrink)

The sounds that make up spoken words are heard in a series and must be mapped rapidly onto words in memory because their elements, unlike those of visual words, cannot simultaneously exist or persist in time. Although theories agree that the dynamics of spoken word recognition are important, they differ in how they treat the nature of the competitor set—precisely which words are activated as an auditory word form unfolds in real time. This study used eye tracking to measure the (...) impact over time of word frequency and 2 partially overlapping competitor set definitions: onset density and neighborhood density. Time course measures revealed early and continuous effects of frequency (facilitatory) and on set based similarity (inhibitory). Neighborhood density appears to have early facilitatory effects and late inhibitory effects. The late inhibitory effects are due to differences in the temporal distribution of similarity within neighborhoods. The early facilitatory effects are due to subphonemic cues that inform the listener about word length before the entire word is heard. The results support a new conception of lexical competition neighborhoods in which recognition occurs against a background of activated competitors that changes over time based on fine-grained goodness-of-fit and competition dynamics. (shrink)

This book reveals and discusses the foundations of law and justice. Fifteen leading lawyers and philosophers of law, representing thirteen nations and fifteen different philosophical schools examine the value and purpose of law, and the nature and requirements of law and justice. Some of the world's most learned and provocative legal scholars address the ultimate questions of legal and social philosophy from all angles and the broadest possible perspective, with special reference to the work of Mortimer Newlin Stead Sellers, and (...) the republican, liberal, and analytical schools of legal thought. The conclusions reached here are not fully unanimous, congruent or conclusive, but they represent the pinnacle of legal scholarship as it exists today and furnish the necessary basis for any future study of law, justice, or the ultimate requirements of just, effective and legitimate law and society. (shrink)

The sounds that make up spoken words are heard in a series and must be mapped rapidly onto words in memory because their elements, unlike those of visual words, cannot simultaneously exist or persist in time. Although theories agree that the dynamics of spoken word recognition are important, they differ in how they treat the nature of the competitor set—precisely which words are activated as an auditory word form unfolds in real time. This study used eye tracking to measure the (...) impact over time of word frequency and 2 partially overlapping competitor set definitions: onset density and neighborhood density. Time course measures revealed early and continuous effects of frequency (facilitatory) and on set based similarity (inhibitory). Neighborhood density appears to have early facilitatory effects and late inhibitory effects. The late inhibitory effects are due to differences in the temporal distribution of similarity within neighborhoods. The early facilitatory effects are due to subphonemic cues that inform the listener about word length before the entire word is heard. The results support a new conception of lexical competition neighborhoods in which recognition occurs against a background of activated competitors that changes over time based on fine-grained goodness-of-fit and competition dynamics. (shrink)

This article addresses the issue of moral compunction among a sample of senior managers set against the background of their routine organizational participation. In considering what factors influence their moral sensibilities these managers were interviewed using an approach designed to elicit their perceptions concerning both the ethical and commercially imperative dimensions of their working lives. The qualitative data resulting from this inquiry, while tentative, indicates the primacy of the normative appeal of shareholder value, conditioned by the exigencies of engagement in (...) corporate bureaucracies, including the maintenance of career and livelihood responsibilities. These conclusions indicate the magnitude of the obstacle that the normative business ethics project requires to overcome in order to fulfil its promise. (shrink)

This article addresses the issue of moral compunction among a sample of senior managers set against the background of their routine organizational participation. In considering what factors influence their moral sensibilities these managers were interviewed using an approach designed to elicit their perceptions concerning both the ethical and commercially imperative dimensions of their working lives. The qualitative data resulting from this inquiry, while tentative, indicates the primacy of the normative appeal of shareholder value, conditioned by the exigencies of engagement in (...) corporate bureaucracies, including the maintenance of career and livelihood responsibilities. These conclusions indicate the magnitude of the obstacle that the normative business ethics project requires to overcome in order to fulfil its promise. (shrink)