Free logic, an alternative to traditional logic, has been seen as a useful avenue of approach to a number of philosophical issues of contemporary interest. In this collection, Karel Lambert, one of the pioneers in, and the most prominent exponent of, free logic, brings together a variety of published essays bearing on the application of free logic to philosophical topics ranging from set theory and logic to metaphysics and the philosophy of religion. The work of such distinguished philosophers as (...) Bas van Fraassen, Dana Scott, Tyler Burge, and Jaakko Hintikka is represented. Lambert provides an introductory essay placing free logic in the logical tradition beginning with Aristotle, developing it as the natural culmination of a trend begun in the Port Royal logic of the 1600s, and continuing through current predicate logic--the trend to rid logic of existence assumptions. His Introduction also provides a useful systematic overview of free logic, including both a standard syntax and some semantical options. (shrink)

Bare plural generic sentences pervade ordinary talk. And yet it is extremely controversial what semantics to assign to such sentences. In this paper, I achieve two tasks. First, I develop a novel classification of the various standard uses to which bare plurals may be put. This “variety data” is important—it gives rise to much of the difficulty in systematically theorizing about bare plurals. Second, I develop a novel account of bare plurals, the radical account. On this account, all bare plurals (...) fail to express propositions. The content of a bare plural has to be pragmatically “completed” by a speaker in order for her to make an assertion. At least the content of a quantifier expression has to be supplied. But sometimes, the content of a sentential operator or modal verb is also supplied. The radical account straightforwardly explains the variety data: Speakers’ communicative intentions vary wildly across different contexts. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the difficult task of balancing access to misinformation with respect for patient decision-making. Due to its innate antagonism, the paradigm of “physician paternalism” versus “patient autonomy” may not adequately capture the clinical relationship. The authors hypothesized that most patients would, in fact, prefer significant physician input as opposed to unopinionated information when making medical decisions. There is a lack of empirical data corroborating this in the United States. To that end, a survey was distributed to (...) 650 individuals through Amazon Mechanical Turk, of which 499 responses met pre-determined quality criteria. Most respondents believed their doctor's insight would be better than their own if injured or gravely ill. When asked to affirm preferences separately, a significantly higher proportion of respondents preferred guidance from their doctor when making medical decisions compared to being presented with unopinionated information ( p < 0.001). Encouragingly, 93.1% believed that the doctor's primary goal was their health. When asked directly to compare physician guidance to unopinionated information, 69.1% respondents stated they would prefer physician guidance. We found a consistent association between educational/economic background and affirmative responses ( p < 0.001), suggesting particular attention should be paid to patients that are disadvantaged with respect to these demographic factors. The belief in a shared goal, and a consistent preference for physician input, suggests that patients endorse a more collaborative view of the clinical dynamic than is suggested by the paternalism-autonomy paradigm. This pilot study suggests physicians should not be afraid to communicate conviction with regard to treatment decisions. (shrink)

Molecular Revolution in BrazilFélix Guattari and Suely Rolniktranslated by Karel Clapshow and Brian HolmesYes, I believe that there is a multiple people, a people of mutants, a people of potentialities that appears and disappears, that is embodied in social, literary, and musical events.... I think that we're in a period of productivity, proliferation, creation, utterly fabulous revolutions from the viewpoint of this emergence of a people. That's molecular revolution: it isn't a slogan or a program, it's something that I (...) feel, that I live....--from Molecular Revolution in BrazilFollowing Brazil's first democratic election after two decades of military dictatorship, French philosopher Félix Guattari traveled through Brazil in 1982 with Brazilian psychoanalyst Suely Rolnik and discovered an exciting, new political vitality. In the infancy of its new republic, Brazil was moving against traditional hierarchies of control and totalitarian regimes and founding a revolution of ideas and politics. Molecular Revolution in Brazil documents the conversations, discussions, and debates that arose during the trip, including a dialogue between Guattari and Brazil's future President Luis Ignacia Lula da Silva, then a young gubernatorial candidate. Through these exchanges, Guattari cuts through to the shadowy practices of globalization gone awry and boldly charts a revolution in practice.Assembled and edited by Rolnik, Molecular Revolution in Brazil is organized thematically; aphoristic at times, it presents a lesser-known, more overtly political aspect of Guattari's work. Originally published in Brazil in 1986 as Micropolitica: Cartografias do desejo, the book became a crucial reference for political movements in Brazil in the 1980s and 1990s. It now provides English-speaking readers with an invaluable picture of the radical thought and optimism that lies at the root of Lula's Brazil. Félix Guattari, post-'68 French psychoanalyst and philosopher, is the author of Anti-Oedipus, The Anti-Oedipus Papers, 2006), and other books. Semiotext has published the first two volumes of his complete essays, Chaosophy and Soft Subversions, and will publish the final volume, Chaos and Complexity, in 2008. Suely Rolnik is a psychoanalyst, cultural critic, and curator who lives and works in São Paulo, Brazil. She was a close collaborator of Guattari during her exile in Paris from the military dictatorship in Brazil. (shrink)

Background: Mobbing and burnout can cause serious consequences, especially for health workers and managers. Level of burnout and exposure to mobbing may trigger each other. There is a need to conduct additional and specific studies on the topic to develop some strategies. Research objectives: The purpose of this study is to determine the relationship between level of burnout and exposure to mobbing of the managers at the Ministry of Health hospitals. Research design: The “Leymann Inventory of Psychological Terrorization” scale was (...) used to measure the level of exposure to mobbing and the “Maslach Burnout Inventory” scale was used to measure the level of burnout of hospital managers. The relationship between level of burnout and exposure to mobbing was analyzed by Pearson’s Correlation Analysis. Participants and research context: The population of this study included managers at the Ministry of Health hospitals in the metropolitan area of Ankara between September 2010 and May 2011. All the managers were tried to conduct, but some managers did not want to reply to the questionnaire and some managers were not found at their workplace. Consequently, using a convenience sampling, 54% of the managers replied to the questionnaire. Ethical consideration: The approval of the study was granted by the Ministry of Health in Turkey. Furthermore, the study was evaluated and accepted by the Education, Planning and Coordination Council of one of the education and research hospitals in the study. Findings: Positive relationships were found among each subdimension of the mobbing and emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. A negative relationship was found between each subdimension of the mobbing and personal accomplishment. Discussion: In hospitals, by detecting mobbing actions, burnout may be prevented. Conclusion: Exposure to mobbing and burnout could be a serious problem for head nurses who are responsible for both the performance of the nurses and organization. Additionally, head nurses who are faced with mobbing and burnout are more likely to provide suboptimal services which could potentially result in negative outcomes. Therefore, this study draws attention to the importance of preventing these attitudes in the organization. (shrink)

En lisant la République et le Timée de Platon, ce livre propose une enquête sur les deux formes de temporalité irréductibles (celle de la cité armée, celle de l'âme immortelle) pour éclairer la question principale, celle de la nature et de la structure de l'âme, de la cité et du cosmos.

Public debate on acceptable farm animal husbandry suffers from a confusion of tongues. To clarify positions of various stakeholder groups in their joint search for acceptable solutions, the concept of animal welfare was split up into three notions: no suffering, respect for intrinsic value, and non-appalling appearance of animals. This strategy was based on the hypothesis that multi-stakeholder solutions should be based on shared values rather than on compromises. The usefulness of such an artificial value distinction strategy was tested in (...) a small series of experiments. The results demonstrate that the chosen concept to distinguish between values is effective in a stakeholder context. Farmers’ views on doing good to animals appeared to be largely based on their value to prevent suffering and predominantly focused on the provision of regular care. Their priority for this value is clearly shared with other stakeholders, providing a basis for joint solutions. The concept of intrinsic value does not play a discernable role in farmers’ considerations. Based on the varying views on welfare, it can be inferred that there is a gradual rather than a principal difference between government legislation and farmers’ values, whereas public perception and acceptance of farm practices remains complicated. Distinction between value groups and focusing on a selected notion (such as no suffering) proved to be effective in bringing representatives of stakeholder groups together, but is unlikely to bridge the emotional gap between commercial farm practices and public ideals. (shrink)

First published in 1973, Sir Anthony Kenny’s classic introduction to Wittgenstein was widely praised for offering a lucid and historically informed account of the philosopher’s core concerns. Kenny's study is also remarkable for demonstrating the continuity between Wittgenstein’s early and late writings. Focusing on Wittgenstein’s philosophy of mind and language, Kenny closely examines the works of the middle years. He exposes apparent conflicts and then goes on to reconcile them, providing a persuasive argument for the unity of Wittgenstein’s thought. (...) This revised edition includes an extensive new introduction in which Kenny outlines developments in Wittgenstein scholarship since the book was first published and assesses Wittgenstein’s influence in the latter part of the twentieth century. (shrink)

Dostoevsky wrote that love in action is a harsh and terrible thing compared to love in dreams. That reality is particularly evident in medicine, where there is an almost universal, involuntary participation of physicians and other healthcare workers in the suffering of their patients. This paper explores this phenomenon through the paradigm of ‘mystery’ as explained by the French existentialist philosopher Gabriel Marcel. A mystery is different from a problem in the sense that the former requires the active immersion of (...) the person involved in order to be truly experienced. It is a ‘meta-problem’ that cannot be analyzed objectively and separately from the person that it affects, without changing the nature of the thing experienced. The authors contend that the human suffering encountered in medicine is one such phenomenon, and the paper draws on illustrations of this concept in art and literature. Awareness of the subtle but important difference between mystery and problem may help physicians better understand their personal entanglement with the suffering of patients. (shrink)

In Liberalism’s religion, Laborde defends a liberal egalitarian position and tackles, from a new perspective, some issues dealt with in his republican writings. This article examines some of these issues, paying attention to the place that the recognition of identities occupies both in her republican and in her liberal theories, as well as the type of justification advanced in both cases. The article shows that the recognition of identities has gone from having a peripheral and instrumental role in her republican (...) writings to having a central role in her liberal theory. (shrink)

This paper provides a finer analysis of the well-known form of the Local Deduction Theorem in contraction-free logics . An infinite hierarchy of its natural strengthenings is introduced and studied. The main results are the separation of its initial four members and the subsequent collapse of the hierarchy.

Cognitive Science, Volume 46, Issue 1, January 2022.

I introduce a new version of Moral Error Theory, which I call Type-B Moral Error Theory. According to a Type-B theorist there are no facts of the kind required for there to be morality in stricto sensu, but there can be irreducible ‘normative’ properties which she deems, strictly speaking, to be morally irrelevant. She accepts that there are instrumental all things considered oughts, and categorical pro tanto oughts, but denies that there are categorical all things considered oughts on pain of (...) requiring ‘queer’ facts to obtain. I detail the most central motivation of this version of the theory against its more traditional rival, according to which there are no irreducible normative properties at all. The motivation is that it, unlike its rival, can successfully be defended against the notorious charge of self-defeat. (shrink)

Sir Anthony Kenny's engaging new multi-volume history of Western philosophy now advances into the modern era. The Rise of Modern Philosophy captures the fascinating story of the emergence, from the early sixteenth to the early nineteenth century, of the great ideas and intellectual systems that shaped modern thought. Kenny introduces us to some of the world's most original and influential thinkers and helps us gain an understanding of their famous works. The great minds we meet include Rene Descartes, traditionally (...) seen as the founder of modern philosophy; the great British philosophers Hobbes, Locke, and Hume; continental thinkers such as Spinoza, Liebniz, and Hegel; and the towering figure of Immanuel Kant, who perhaps more than any other made philosophy what it is today. Kenny first tells the story of modern philosophy chronologically: his lively, accessible narrative brings the philosophers to life and fills in the historical and intellectual background to their work. It is ideal as the first thing to read for someone new to this wonderfully creative period. Kenny then backtracks to look closely at each of the main areas of philosophical exploration in this period: knowledge and understanding; the nature of the physical universe; metaphysics (the most fundamental questions there are about existence); mind and soul; the nature and content of morality; political philosophy; and God. The book also features many intriguing and beautiful illustrations which evoke the human and social side of philosophy. Anyone who is interested in the evolution of modern thought will find this a book a treasure. (shrink)

While philosophers of mind have been arguing over the status of mental representations in cognitive science, cognitive scientists have been quietly engaged in studying perception, action, and cognition without explaining them in terms of mental representation. In this book, Anthony Chemero describes this nonrepresentational approach, puts it in historical and conceptual context, and applies it to traditional problems in the philosophy of mind. Radical embodied cognitive science is a direct descendant of the American naturalist psychology of William James and (...) John Dewey, and follows them in viewing perception and cognition to be understandable only in terms of action in the environment. Chemero argues that cognition should be described in terms of agent-environment dynamics rather than in terms of computation and representation. After outlining this orientation to cognition, Chemero proposes a methodology: dynamical systems theory, which would explain things dynamically and without reference to representation. He also advances a background theory: Gibsonian ecological psychology, "shored up" and clarified. Chemero then looks at some traditional philosophical problems through the lens of radical embodied cognitive science and concludes that the comparative ease with which it resolves these problems, combined with its empirical promise, makes this approach to cognitive science a rewarding one. "Jerry Fodor is my favorite philosopher," Chemero writes in his preface, adding, "I think that Jerry Fodor is wrong about nearly everything." With this book, Chemero explains nonrepresentational, dynamical, ecological cognitive science as clearly and as rigorously as Jerry Fodor explained computational cognitive science in his classic work The Language of Thought. (shrink)

Shaftesbury's Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times was published in 1711. It ranges widely over ethics, aesthetics, religion, the arts (painting, literature, architecture, gardening), and ancient and modern history, and aims at nothing less than a new ideal of the gentleman. Together with Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding and Addison and Steele's Spectator, it is a text of fundamental importance for understanding the thought and culture of Enlightenment Europe. This volume presents a new edition of the text together with an (...) introduction, explanatory notes and a guide to further reading. (shrink)

What is the relationship between contemporary intellectual culture and the European Enlightenment it claims to reject? In Consequences of Enlightenment, Anthony Cascardi revisits the arguments advanced in Horkheimer and Adorno's seminal work Dialectic of Enlightenment. Cascardi argues against the view that postmodern culture has rejected Enlightenment beliefs and explores instead the continuities contemporary theory shares with Kant's failed ambition to bring the project of Enlightenment to completion. He explores the link between aesthetics and politics in thinkers as diverse as (...) Habermas, Derrida, Arendt, Nietzsche, Hegel, and Wittgenstein in order to reverse the tendency to see works of art simply in terms of the worldly practices among which they are situated. (shrink)

Buying and selling are the most natural activities common to human beings. In a society where profit overrides personal dignity and human rights, many people see market as a virtue-free zone. They do not believe that one can buy and sell without dishonest gains. Consequently, they are ready to do anything in the name of business: manufacturing and selling fake and substandard goods and services for originals. Today, markets are flooded with fake medical drugs, fake foods, fake drinks/water, fake motor (...) parts and fake building materials. Thus market exhibits exploitative and negative impacts on customer satisfaction. Its impact on human life and property leads to increased deaths because of poisoning, building collapses and even increased road accidents. Such market transaction lacks mutual benefit which is its telos. This paper seeks to establish that market is not a virtue-free zone. It has moral standards of excellence internal to it. (shrink)

Intentionally or not, our clinical practice is informed by our philosophical premises. A subtle misunderstanding can have frequent, though insidious, implications in day-to-day clinical encounters....

This concise, authoritative encyclopedia from one of the world's most renowned theologians explores all the major themes in the philosophy of religion.

This new edition keeps the same successful format, with each chapter providing a self-contained introduction to the topic it discusses, rewritten to include ...

Aquinas needs no introduction as one of the greatest minds of the middle ages. Highly influential on the development of Christian doctrine, his ideas are still of fundamental philosophical importance. This new critique of his natural law theory discusses the theory's background in Aristotle and advances new interpretations of contemporary legal issues which hark back to Aquinas.