Against authenticity -- Weimar Years -- In America -- Adorno's cultural criticism -- Return -- Aftermath -- Art and culture -- Adorno and popular music -- The aesthetics of music -- Modernism or avant-garde? -- History and truth-content -- The culture industry -- Aesthetic theory and ideology-critique -- Freedom and society -- Wrong life : Adorno's minima moralia -- Adorno and Kant -- Freedom and society -- Dialectic of enlightenment -- The morality of thinking -- Living with guilt -- Philosophy (...) and history -- Writing the disaster -- Crisis of reason -- Against historicism -- The task of philosophy -- Adorno and Marxism. (shrink)

(2013). A History of the Electron: J. J. and G. P. Thomson. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science: Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 104-107. doi: 10.1080/02698595.2013.783973.

Human conflict and its resolution is obviously a subject of great practical importance. Equally obviously, it is a vast subject, ranging from total war at one end of the spectrum to negotiated settlement at its other end. The literature on the subject is correspondingly vast and, in recent times, technical, thanks to the valuable contributions made to it by game theorists, economists, and writers on industrial and international relations. In this essay, however, I shall discuss only one familiar form of (...) conflict-resolution. There is room for such a discussion, because philosophers have lately neglected compromise, despite the interest shown in it by the aforementioned experts, and despite the classic treatments of it by Halifax, Burke and Morley. Truly, ‘…compromise is not so widely discussed by philosophers as one might expect’, and ‘…the idea of compromise has been largely neglected by Anglo-American jurisprudence’. (shrink)

Part I: WHAT IS ETHICS? Plato: Socratic Morality: Crito. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part II: ETHICAL RELATIVISM VERSUS ETHICAL OBJECTIVISM. Herodotus: Custom is King. Thomas Aquinas: Objectivism: Natural Law. Ruth Benedict: A Defense of Ethical Relativism. Louis Pojman: A Critique of Ethical Relativism. Gilbert Harman: Moral Relativism Defended. Alan Gewirth: The Objective Status of Human Rights. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part III: MORALITY, SELF-INTEREST AND FUTURE SELVES. Plato: Why Be Moral? Richard Taylor: On the Socratic Dilemma. David Gauthier: Morality and (...) Advantage. Gregory Kavka: A Reconciliation Project. Derek Parfit: Later Selves and Moral Principles. Bernard Williams: Persons, Character, and Morality. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part IV: VALUE. Jeremy Bentham: Classical Hedonism. Robert Nozick: The Experience Machine. Richard Taylor: Value and the Origin of Right and Wrong. Friedrich Nietzsche: The Transvaluation of Values. Derek Parfit: What Makes Someone’s Life Go Best? Thomas Nagel: Value: The View from Nowhere. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part V: UTILITARIANISM AND CONSEQUENTIALISM. John Stuart Mill: Utilitarianism. J.J.C. Smart: Extreme and Restricted Utilitarianism. Kai Nielsen: Against Moral Conservatism. Bernard Williams: Against Utilitarianism. John Hospers: Rule-Utilitarianism. Robert Nozick: Side Constraints. Peter Singer: Famine, Affluence and Morality. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part VI: KANTIAN AND DEONTOLOGICAL SYSTEMS. Immanuel Kant: Foundation for the Metaphysic of Morals. W. D. Ross: What Makes Right Acts Right? Onora O’Neill: Kantian Formula of the End in Itself and World Hunger. Thomas Nagel: Moral Luck. Philippa Foot: Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives. Judith Jarvis Thomson: Killing, Letting Die, and the Trolley Problem. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part VII: CONTRACTARIAN ETHICAL SYSTEMS. Thomas Hobbes: The Leviathan. David Gauthier: Why Contractarianism? John Rawls: Contractualism: Justice as Fairness. T.M. Scanlon: Contractualism and Utilitarianism. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part VIII: VIRTUE-BASED ETHICAL SYSTEMS. Aristotle: The Ethics of Virtue. Bernard Mayo: Virtue and the Moral Life. William Frankena: A Critique of Virtue-Based Ethics. Walter Schaller: Are Virtues No More than Dispositions to Obey Moral Rules? Alasdair MacIntyre: The Nature of the Virtues. Susan Wolf: Moral Saints. Louis P. Pojman: In Defense of Moral Saints. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part IX: THE FACT/VALUE PROBLEM: METAETHICS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY. David Hume: On Reason and the Emotions: The Fact/Value Distinction. G. E. Moore: Non-Naturalism. A. J. Ayer: Emotivism. R. M. Hare: Prescriptivism: The Structure of Ethics and Morals. Geoffrey Warnock: The Object of Morality. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part X: MORAL REALISM AND THE CHALLENGE OF SKEPTICISM. J.L. Mackie: The Subjectivity of Values. Jonathan Harrison: A Critique of Mackie’s Error Theory. Gilbert Harman: Moral Nihilism. Nicholas Sturgeon: Moral Explanations. Bernard Williams: Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Bruce Russell: Two Forms of Ethical Skepticism. Michael Smith: A Defense of Moral Realism. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part XI: RELIGION AND ETHICS. Plato: Morality and Religion. Immanuel Kant: God and Immortality as Necessary Postulates of Morality. George Mavrodes: Religious and the Queerness of Morality. Kai Nielson: Ethics Without God. Suggestions for Further Reading. Part XII: CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES TO CLASSICAL ETHICAL THEORY. Part A. Sociobiology and the Question of Moral Responsibility. Charles Darwin: Ethics and the Descent of Man. E.O.Wilson: Sociobiology and Ethics. Michael Ruse: Evolution and Ethics: The Sociobiological Approach. Elliot Sober: Prospects for an Evolutionary Ethics. J.L. Mackie: The Law of the Jungle, Evolution and Morality. Suggestions for Further Readingon Sociobiology. Part B. The Challenge of Determinism to Moral Responsibility and Desert. Galen Strawson: The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility. Louis Pojman: Free Will, Determinism, and Moral Responsibility:A Response to Galen Strawson. Richard Taylor: A Libertarian Defense of Free Will and Responsibility. Suggestions for Further Reading on Moral Responsibility. Glossary of Ethical Terms. (shrink)

The use of tensed language and the metaphor of set ‘formation’ found in informal descriptions of the iterative conception of set are seldom taken at all seriously. Both are eliminated in the nonmodal stage theories that formalise this account. To avoid the paradoxes, such accounts deny the Maximality thesis, the compelling thesis that any sets can form a set. This paper seeks to save the Maximality thesis by taking the tense more seriously than has been customary (although not literally). A (...) modal stage theory, MST, is developed in a bimodal language, governed by a tenselike logic. Such a language permits a very natural axiomatisation of the iterative conception, which upholds the Maximality thesis. It is argued that the modal approach is consonant with mathematical practice and a plausible metaphysics of sets and shown that MST interprets a natural extension of Zermelo set theory less the axiom of Infinity and, when extended with a further axiom concerning the extent of the hierarchy, interprets Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory. (shrink)

The philosophical problems of liberty may be classified as those of definition, of justification and of distribution. They are so complex that there is a danger of being unable to see the wood for the trees. It may be helpful, therefore, to provide an aerial photograph of a large part of the wood, namely, the liberty of individual persons . But it is, of course, a photograph taken from an individual point of view, as Leibniz would have put it.

Almost no systematic theorizing is generality-free. Scientists test general hypotheses; set theorists prove theorems about every set; metaphysicians espouse theses about all things of any kind. But do we ever succeed in theorizing about absolutely everything? Not according to generality relativism, which J.P. Studd defends in this book.

In The Construction of Social Reality, John Searle develops a theory of institutional facts and objects, of which money, borders and property are presented as prime examples. These objects are the result of us collectively intending certain natural objects to have a certain status, i.e. to ‘count as’ being certain social objects. This view renders such objects irreducible to natural objects. In this paper we propose a radically different approach that is more compatible with standard economic theory. We claim that (...) such institutional objects can be fully understood in terms of actions and incentives, and hence the Searlean apparatus solves a non-existent problem. (shrink)

Context The conduct of medical research led by Northern countries in developing countries raises ethical questions. The assessment of research protocols has to be twofold, with a first reading in the country of origin and a second one in the country where the research takes place. This reading should benefit from an independent local ethical review of protocols. Consequently, ethics committees for medical research are evolving in Africa. Objective To investigate the process of establishing ethics committees and their independence. Method (...) Descriptive study of 25 African countries and two North American countries. Data were recorded by questionnaire and interviews. Two visits of ethics committee meetings were conducted on the ground: over a period of 3 months in Kigali (Rwanda) and 2 months in Washington DC (USA). Results 22 countries participated in this study, 20 from Africa and two from North America. The response rate was 80%. 75% of local African committees developed into national ethics committees. During the last 5 years, these national committees have grown on a structural level. The circumstances of creation and the general context of underdevelopment remain the major challenges in Africa. Their independence could not be ensured without continuous training and efficient funding mechanisms. Institutional ethics committees are well established in USA and in Canada, whereas ethics committees in North America are weakened by the institutional affiliation of their members. Conclusion The process of establishing ethics committees could affect their functioning and compromise their independence in some African countries and in North America. (shrink)

Divided into two parts, the first concentrates on the logical properties of propositions, their relation to facts and sentences, and the parallel objects of commands and questions. The second part examines theories of intentionality and discusses the relationship between different theories of naming and different accounts of belief.

Neologicists have sought to ground mathematical knowledge in abstraction. One especially obstinate problem for this account is the bad company problem. The leading neologicist strategy for resolving this problem is to attempt to sift the good abstraction principles from the bad. This response faces a dilemma: the system of ‘good’ abstraction principles either falls foul of the Scylla of inconsistency or the Charybdis of being unable to recover a modest portion of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with its intended generality. This article (...) argues that the bad company problem is due to the ‘static’ character of abstraction on the neologicist's account and develops a ‘dynamic’ account of abstraction that avoids both horns of the dilemma. 1 Introduction2ion Reconstructed3 From Bad to Worse4 Abstraction Reconceived5 Bad Company Made GoodA AppendixA.1SemanticsA.2LogicA.3ConsistencyA.4Strength. (shrink)

Contemporary discussion concerning institutions focus on, and mostly accept, the Searlean view that institutional objects, i.e. money, borders and the like, exist in virtue of the fact that we collectively represent them as existing. A dissenting note has been sounded by Smit et al. (Econ Philos 27:1–22, 2011), who proposed the incentivized action view of institutional objects. On the incentivized action view, understanding a specific institution is a matter of understanding the specific actions that are associated with the institution and (...) how we are incentivized to perform these actions. In this paper we develop the incentivized action view by extending it to institutions like property, promises and complex financial organisations like companies. We also highlight exactly how the incentivized action view differs from the Searlean view, discuss the method appropriate to such study and discuss some of the virtues of the incentivized action view. (shrink)

The authors of this lively and thorough introduction to philosophy from a Christian perspective introduce you to the principal subdisciplines of philosophy, including epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of science, ethics and philosophy ...

In our earlier work, we argued, contra Searle, that institutional facts can be understood in terms of non-institutional facts about actions and incentives. Butchard and D’Amico claim that we have misinterpreted Searle, that our main argument against him has no merit and that our positive view cannot account for institutional facts created via joint action. We deny all three charges.

Declarations like “this meeting is adjourned” make certain facts the case by representing them as being the case. Yet surprisingly little attention has been paid to the mechanism whereby the utterance of a declaration can bring about a new state of affairs. In this paper, we use the incentivization account of institutional facts to address this issue. We argue that declarations can serve to bring about new states of affairs as their utterance have game theoretical import, typically in virtue of (...) the utterer signaling a commitment to act in an incentive-changing way. (shrink)

In _Consciousness and the Existence of God_, J.P. Moreland argues that the existence of finite, irreducible consciousness provides evidence for the existence of God. Moreover, he analyzes and criticizes the top representative of rival approaches to explaining the origin of consciousness, including John Searle’s contingent correlation, Timothy O’Connor’s emergent necessitation, Colin McGinn’s mysterian ‘‘naturalism,’’ David Skrbina’s panpsychism and Philip Clayton’s pluralistic emergentist monism. Moreland concludes that these approaches should be rejected in favor of what he calls ‘‘the Argument from Consciousness.’’.

Universals begins with a taxonomy of extreme nominalist, moderate nominalist, and realist positions on properties, outlining the way each handles the phenomena of predication, resemblance, and abstract reference. The debate about properties and philosophical naturalism is also examined. Different forms of extreme nominalism and minimalist realism are critiqued. Later chapters defend a traditional realist view of universals and examine the objections to realism from various infinite regresses, the difficulties in stating identity conditions for properties, and problems with realist accounts of (...) knowledge of abstract objects. The debate between Platonists and Aristotelians is examined in the context of the relationship between properties and an adequate theory of existence. The book's final chapter explores the problem of individuating particulars. Universals makes a difficult topic accessible while maintaining the sophistication of argument required by a more advanced readership, providing an authoritative treatment of the subject for both students and scholars. (shrink)

Semantic theories that violate semantic innocence, i.e. require reference-shifts when terms are embedded in ‘that’ clauses and the like, are often challenged by producing sentences where an anaphoric expression, while not itself embedded in a context in which reference shifts, is anaphoric on an antecedent expression that is embedded in such a context. This, in conjunction with a widely accepted principle concerning unproblematic anaphora, is used to show that such reference shifting has absurd consequences. We show that it is the (...) (...) widely accepted principle concerning anaphora that is to be blamed for these consequences, and not the supposed sin of reference shifting. (shrink)

What does being money consist in? We argue that something is money if, and only if, it is typically acquired in order to realise the reduction in transaction costs that accrues in virtue of agents coordinating on acquiring the same thing when deciding what thing to acquire in order to exchange. What kinds of things can be money? We argue against the common view that a variety of things (notes, coins, gold, cigarettes, etc.) can be money. All monetary systems are (...) best interpreted as implementing the same basic protocol. Money, i.e. the thing that we coordinate on acquiring in order to lower our transaction costs, is, in all cases, a set of positions on an abstract mathematical object, namely a relative ratio scale. The things that we ordinarily call ‘money’ are merely records of positions on such a scale. (shrink)