Short-term limb immobilization results in skeletal muscle decline, but the underlying mechanisms are incompletely understood. This study aimed to determine the neurophysiologic basis of immobilization-induced skeletal muscle decline, and whether repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation could prevent any decline. Twenty-four healthy young males underwent unilateral limb immobilization for 72 h. Subjects were randomized between daily rTMS using six 20 Hz pulse trains of 1.5 s duration with a 60 s inter-train-interval delivered at 90% resting Motor Threshold, or Sham rTMS throughout (...) immobilization. Maximal grip strength, EMG activity, arm volume, and composition were determined at 0 and 72 h. Motor Evoked Potentials were determined daily throughout immobilization to index motor excitability. Immobilization induced a significant reduction in motor excitability across time. The rTMS intervention increased motor excitability at 0 h. Despite daily rTMS treatment, there was still a significant reduction in motor excitability, loss in EMG activity, and a loss of maximal grip strength after immobilization. Interestingly, the increase in biceps and posterior forearm skinfold thickness with immobilization in Sham treatment was not observed following rTMS treatment. Reduced MEPs drive the loss of strength with immobilization. Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation cannot prevent this loss of strength but further investigation and optimization of neuroplasticity protocols may have therapeutic benefit. (shrink)

The United Kingdom’s approach to encouraging environmentally positive behaviour has been three-pronged, through voluntarism, incentives and regulation, and the balance between the approaches has fluctuated over time. Whilst financial incentives and regulatory approaches have been effective in achieving some environmental management behavioural change amongst farmers, ultimately these can be viewed as transient drivers without long-term sustainability. Increasingly, there is interest in ‘nudging’ managers towards voluntary environmentally friendly actions. This approach requires a good understanding of farmers’ willingness and ability to take (...) up environmental activities and the influences on farmer behavioural change. The paper aims to provide insights from 60 qualitative farmer interviews undertaken for a research project into farmers’ willingness and ability to undertake environmental management, particularly focusing on social psychological insights. Furthermore, it explores farmers’ level of engagement with advice and support networks that foster a genuine interest, responsibility and a sense of personal and social norm to sustain high quality environmental outcomes. Two conceptual frameworks are presented for usefully exploring the complex set of inter-relationships that can influence farmers’ willingness to undertake environmental management practices. The research findings show how an in-depth understanding of farmer’s willingness and ability to adopt environmental management practices and their existing level of engagement with advice and support are necessary to develop appropriate engagement approaches to achieve sustained and durable environmental management. (shrink)

This paper reports on an exploration of Boolos’ Curious Inference, using higher-order automated theorem provers (ATPs). Surprisingly, only suitable shorthand notations had to be provided by hand for ATPs to find a short proof. The higher-order lemmas required for constructing a short proof are automatically discovered by the ATPs. Given the observations and suggestions in this paper, full proof automation of Boolos’ and related examples now seems to be within reach of higher-order ATPs.

Whether we recognise it or not, virtually every aspect of our life today has been influenced in part by the aesthetic legacy of Modernism. In this Very Short Introduction Christopher Butler examines how and why Modernism began, explaining what it is and showing how it has gradually informed all aspects of 20th and 21st century life.

: T.L. Short's book argues that Peirce's early theory of signs was flawed, and that the development of his mature theories required a new start and the rejection of some fundamental doctrines from the earlier view. While agreeing that Peirce's view of signs changed and agreeing on the new developments that were of most significance, I express some doubts about Short's diagnosis of why such changes were required. I argue that the changes were required, not by internal inconsistencies (...) in the earlier position, but rather by the need to come up with an adequate account of the role of experience in cognition. (shrink)

Socrates is one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy, but also one of the least known, since he wrote nothing himself, and is known to us only via the writings of others. This book examines the relation of these portrayals, especially Plato's, to the historical person, and also discusses the significance of Socrates' thought to the development of Western philosophy as we know it today.

Schopenhauer is considered to be the most readable of German philosophers. This book gives a succinct explanation of his metaphysical system, concentrating on the original aspects of his thought, which inspired many artists and thinkers including Nietzsche, Wagner, Freud, and Wittgenstein. Schopenhauer's central notion is that of the will--a blind, irrational force that he uses to interpret both the human mind and the whole of nature. Seeing human behavior as that of a natural organism governed by the will to life, (...) Schopenhauer developed radical insights concerning the unconscious and sexuality which influenced both psychologists and philosophers. (shrink)

With the goal of understanding how Christopher Southgate communicates his in-depth knowledge of both science and theology, we investigated the many roles he assumes as a teacher. We settled upon wide-ranging topics that all intertwine: (1) his roles as author and coordinating editor of a premier textbook on science and theology, now in its third edition; (2) his oral presentations worldwide, including plenaries, workshops, and short courses; and (3) the team teaching approach itself, which is often needed by (...) others because the knowledge of science and theology do not always reside in the same person. Southgate provides, whenever possible, teaching contexts that involve students in experiential learning, where they actively participate with other students.We conclude that Southgate’s ultimate goal is to teach students how to reconcile science and theology in their values and beliefs, so that they can take advantage of both forms of rational thinking in their own personal and professional lives. The co-authors consider several examples of models that have been successfully used by people in various fields to integrate science and religion. (shrink)

This paper critically examines the proliferation of conflicts of interest discourse and how the most common conceptions of COI presuppose a hierarchy of primary and secondary interests. I show that a form of professional virtue or duty is commonly employed to give the primary interest normative force. However, I argue that in the context of increasingly commercialized healthcare neither virtue nor duty can do the normative work expected of them. Furthermore, I suggest that COI discourse is symptom of rather than (...) solution to the problems of market forces in contemporary medicine. I contend that COI, as it is commonly conceived, is an inadequate concept through which to attend to these problems. It is used as a procedural short-cut to address ethico-political problems. That is, it is an economic and policy concept expected to do significant moral and political work. Like most short-cuts, this one also leads to entanglements and winding roads that fail to reach the destination. As such, I suggest that we need a different set of ethico-political tools to address normative fluidity of medical practice in the absence on a primary interest. (shrink)

The Roman Empire was a remarkable achievement. With a population of sixty million people, it encircled the Mediterranean and stretched from northern England to North Africa and Syria. This Very Short Introduction covers the history of the empire at its height, looking at its people, religions and social structures. It explains how it deployed violence, 'romanisation', and tactical power to develop an astonishingly uniform culture from Rome to its furthest outreaches.

Truth, Christopher Norris reminds us, is very much out of fashion at the moment whether at the hands of politicians, media pundits, or purveyors of postmodern wisdom in cultural and literary studies. Across a range of disciplines the idea has taken hold that truth-talk is either redundant or the product of epistemic might. Questions of truth and falsehood are always internal to some specific language-game; history is just another kind of fiction; philosophy is only a kind of writing; law (...) is a wholly rhetorical practice. In _Reclaiming Truth_, Norris critiques these fashionable trends of thought and mounts a specific challenge to cultural relativist doctrines in epistemology, philosophy of science, ethics, and political theory. Norris presents his case in a series of closely argued chapters that take issue with the relativist position. He attempts to rehabilitate the value of truth in philosophy of science by restoring a lost distinction between concept and metaphor and argues that theoretical discourse, so far from being an inconsequential activity, has very real consequences, particularly in ethics and politics. This debate has become skewed, he suggests, through the widespread and typically postmodern idea that truth-claims must always go along with a presumptive or authoritarian bid to silence opposing views. On the contrary, there is nothing as dogmatic—or as silencing—as a relativism that acknowledges no shared truth conditions for valid or responsible discourse. Norris also offers a timely reassessment of several thinkers—Althusser and Derrida among them—whose reception history has been distorted by the vagaries of short-term intellectual fashion. _Reclaiming Truth _will be welcomed by readers concerned with the uses and abuses of theory at a time when such questions are in urgent need of sustained and serious debate. (shrink)

In this short article, we articulate a position that organ recovery from uncontrolled DCD — primarily patients who have suffered a cardiac arrest — is unlikely to result in a significant number of organs, and this small gain must be balanced against significant risk of unduly influencing resuscitation provider decision-making, and jeopardizing public trust in the propriety of organ donation and transplantation.

Serious actualism is the view that it is metaphysically impossible for an entity to have a property, or stand in a relation, and not exist. Fine (1985) and Pollock (1985) influentially argue that this view is false. In short, there are properties like the property of nonexistence, and it is metaphysically possible that some entity both exemplifies such a property and does not exist. I argue that such arguments are indeed successful against the standard formulation of serious actualism. However, (...) I also argue that we should distinguish a weaker formulation of serious actualism using the actualist distinction between truth in, and truth at, a possible world. This weaker formulation is then shown to be consistent with the existence and possible exemplification of properties like the property of nonexistence. I end with a novel argument for the truth of the weaker formulation. (shrink)

This chapter serves as an introduction to the edited collection of the same name, which includes chapters that explore digital well-being from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including philosophy, psychology, economics, health care, and education. The purpose of this introductory chapter is to provide a short primer on the different disciplinary approaches to the study of well-being. To supplement this primer, we also invited key experts from several disciplines—philosophy, psychology, public policy, and health care—to share their thoughts on what (...) they believe are the most important open questions and ethical issues for the multi-disciplinary study of digital well-being. We also introduce and discuss several themes that we believe will be fundamental to the ongoing study of digital well-being: digital gratitude, automated interventions, and sustainable co-well-being. (shrink)

With the death of Ernst Mach on February 19, 1916, one day after his seventy-eighth birthday, a question finally became explicit that had been looming for some time. It was as simple as it was fundamental: who, in the end, was this man, a scientist or a philosopher? The importance of this question for contemporaries can easily be gleaned from the obituaries that appeared in the weeks following Mach's death: one in the Physikalische Zeitschrift, written by Albert Einstein, and another (...) in the Archiv für die Geschichte der Philosophie, written by Mach's former student Heinrich Gomperz. They both addressed this critical issue in plain words. Einstein stressed that Mach “was not a philosopher who chose the natural sciences as the object of his speculation, but a many-sided, interested, diligent scientist who also took visible pleasure in detailed questions outside the burning issues of general interest”. Gomperz in turn first emphasized the great loss science had experienced with Mach's death, asking subsequently whether “the suffering science is physics or philosophy?”. His answer broadly followed Einstein's conclusion; relying on Mach's own words, he reminded his readers that Mach never claimed to be a philosopher, but merely was looking for a viewpoint that transcended the disciplinary constraints of particular scientific activities. (shrink)

When evaluating theories of causation, intuitions should not play a decisive role, not even intuitions in flawlessly-designed thought experiments. Indeed, no coherent theory of causation can respect the typical person’s intuitions in redundancy (pre-emption) thought experiments, without disrespecting their intuitions in threat-and-saviour (switching/short-circuit) thought experiments. I provide a deductively sound argument for these claims. Amazingly, this argument assumes absolutely nothing about the nature of causation. I also provide a second argument, whose conclusion is even stronger: the typical person’s causal (...) intuitions are thoroughly unreliable. This argument proceeds by raising the neglected question: in what respects is information about intermediate and enabling variables relevant to reliable causal judgment? (shrink)

In this re-titled and substantially revised update of his _Classical Philosophy_, Christopher Shields expands his coverage to include the Hellenistic era, and now offers an introduction to more than 1,000 years of ancient philosophy. From Thales and other Pre-Socratics through Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and on to Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Scepticism, _Ancient Philosophy_ traces the important connections between these periods and individuals without losing sight of the novelties and dynamics unique to each. The coverage of Plato and Aristotle also (...) has been expanded. It now includes, for example, updated coverage of Plato's allegories of the cave and the divided line and the metaphor of the sun as well as features of Plato's epistemology. Shields also adds new discussion on Aristotle's theory of virtue and his approach to the Socratic problem of _akrasia_, or weakness of will. In terms of its structure, _Ancient Philosophy_ is presented so that each philosophical position receives: a brief introduction, a sympathetic review of its principal motivations and primary supporting arguments, and a short assessment, inviting readers to evaluate its plausibility. The result is a book that brings the ancient arguments to life, making the introduction truly contemporary. It will serve as both a first stop and a well visited resource for any student of the subject. _Ancient Philosophy_ offers a vivid picture of the ideas that flourished at philosophy's long birth and considers their relevance, both to the historical development of the Western philosophical tradition, and to philosophy today. (shrink)

This chapter serves as an introduction to the edited collection of the same name, which includes chapters that explore digital well-being from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including philosophy, psychology, economics, health care, and education. The purpose of this introductory chapter is to provide a short primer on the different disciplinary approaches to the study of well-being. To supplement this primer, we also invited key experts from several disciplines—philosophy, psychology, public policy, and health care—to share their thoughts on what (...) they believe are the most important open questions and ethical issues for the multi-disciplinary study of digital well-being. We also introduce and discuss several themes that we believe will be fundamental to the ongoing study of digital well-being: digital gratitude, automated interventions, and sustainable co-well-being. (shrink)

Grice coined the term ‘conventional implicature’ in a short passage in ‘Logic and conversation’. The description is intuitive and deeply intriguing. The range of phenomena that have since been assigned this label is large and diverse. I survey the central factual motivation, arguing that it is loosely uni- fied by the idea that conventional implicatures contribute a separate dimen- sion of meaning. I provide tests for distinguishing conventional implicatures from other kinds of meaning, and I briefly explore ways in (...) which one can incorporate multiple dimensions of meaning into a single theory. (shrink)

Why cantoribus? The reference of the phrase cantores Euphorionis has been much discussed, by the author of this note among others. But what is the sense of cantores? The Thesaurus Linguae Latinae, Lewis and Short, and the Oxford Latin Dictionary variously classify Tusc. 3.45 as an instance of cantor in the special sense of ‘supporter’, ‘imitator’, or ‘eulogist’. Recently, however, W. Allen suggested that this may be to read too much into the word: ‘… cantor could well have the (...) standard meaning of personal and private recitation of poetry. Since sometime cantare and legere have a semantic identity, however, it may be possible that the word cantores in hi cantores Euphorionis has a meaning no more momentous than that of lector. ’. (shrink)

Since 2023, the UK government's response to the “migrant crisis” has revolved around two controversial flagship policies: the deportation of asylum seekers to Rwanda, and the detention of migrants aboard a giant barge. In this short article, I examine the colonial and gendered dimensions of the two policies, finding them to be examples of the coloniality of gender. What this indicates, I suggest, is that the purpose of these policies is not merely to deter potential migrants—particularly LGBTQIA+ migrants—but also (...) to create a political narrative that allows the Conservative Party to garner right-wing votes by participating in high-profile culture wars; namely, the debate over transgender rights and the debate over how the UK should reckon with its imperial past. (shrink)

In simple terms, psychological dualism purports that there is an underlying complementary, non-material/physical cognitive component associated with a living organism. Thus mind would not simply be an expression of brain function. Science embraces materialism and generally views any form of dualism with disdain. Yet there are a number of accepted phenomena that are suggestive of dualism and in particular are consistent with the existence of souls. One such phenomenon is terminal lucidity, in which people inexplicably return to mental coherence shortly (...) before death after appearing to be lost to “dull, unconscious, or mentally ill” conditions, sometimes for years. The physical/neural plausibility of such rejuvenation is difficult to imagine. Discussions herein introduce terminal lucidity primarily based on some clinal reports. Next, the medium-based communications reviewed in Chris Carter’s Science and the After Life Experience are used to introduce the concept of a soul. Further, a dynamic suggested in Carter’s coverage is then used to offer a simple explanation for terminal lucidity. Finally, for additional context, the state of neuroscience is considered and some brief conclusions are given. (shrink)

In a recent paper, “Incompatiblism, Sin, and Free Will in Heaven,” Timothy Pawl and Kevin Timpe discuss and propose a novel solution to a problem posed for traditional Christian theism that they call the Problem of Heavenly Freedom. In short, Christian tradition contains what seems to be a contradiction, namely, the redeemed in heaven are free but nonetheless can’t sin. Pawl and Timpe’s solution to the Problem of Heavenly Freedom is particularly attractive for two reasons: it shows great respect (...) for the Christian tradition’s teaching on heaven, and it entails that the redeemed in heaven act with morally weighty libertarian free will. Nonetheless, I think their solution can be improved upon. By drawing on some of the teachings of the Catholic tradition on heaven, particularly those of St. Thomas Aquinas, I raise three objections to Pawl and Timpe’s solution and introduce a modified version of their solution. In doing so, I have attempted to make their “best” solution to the Problem of Heavenly Freedom even better. (shrink)

Aristotle’s Metaphysics Λ.7 features an argumentative progression from the unwavering actuality of the unmoved mover through its necessity to its goodness, which goodness in turn grounds the manner in which it serves as the ultimate principle of motion, namely, by being an object of love and desire (1072b4-12). One link in this progression is especially brief and startling, namely the second of two inferences in this short sentence: “It is a being of necessity, therefore, and in so far as (...) [it exists] necessarily, [it exists] finely, and it is in this way a principle” (1072b10-11). Aristotle slides smoothly from: x exists necessarily (ex anagkēs) to x exists finely (kalōs), without any intervening step. The seamless speed of this step is bound to give us pause—we naturally read it as enthymematic and start casting about for an intervening premise set. Still more arresting is its apparent move from a descriptive to a normative proposition. From our post-Humean vantage point we may be likely to presume that whatever the missing premise set of this inference turns out to be, somewhere buried in that set will need to be something of the form: if descriptive proposition (DP), then normative proposition (NP). Otherwise, Aristotle’s conclusion will have illicitly inferred a normative proposition from a descriptive premise set, in violation of the Humean edict that one cannot infer an ought from an is. Yet, if we smuggle the norm into our premise set along the way, we have merely relocated our problem. For then we will have asserted, or assumed, that the truth of some descriptive proposition is sufficient for the truth of some normative proposition, namely the consequent of the conditional: if DP, then NP. At any rate, this obtains unless necessity itself is already a normative notion, a questionable assumption, but one we will consider in due course. In either case, though, we need some explication of the route Aristotle follows when he moves, without comment, from necessity to goodness. (shrink)

Is there or is there not a reference here to the Megarian Decree? Opinions have differed and no doubt will continue to do so. However, considerable authority has recently been thrown behind the proposition that the matter can be decided on purely linguistic grounds, that merely as a matter of use of Greek the passage cannot contain a reference to the Megarian Decree. This seems, on investigation, to be false, and since confusion appears to persist in the books about the (...) interpretation of Thucydides' text a short discussion may perhaps be of value. (shrink)

Psychological dualism (or dualism herein) purports that there is a complementary, non-material/physical, mind-active component associated with a living organism. Thus mind would not simply be an expression of brain function as confidently believed by neuroscience (and science in general). As earlier work has suggested that confidence can be brushed aside by considering some accepted unusual behaviors. One simple dualism-consistent example is terminal lucidity in which people return to psychological coherence shortly before death despite having been lost to “dull, unconscious, or (...) mentally ill” conditions, in some cases for years. Arguably framing these challenges to materialism, though, is genetics’ unfolding “missing heritability” crisis in which many expected DNA origins have not been found despite extensive searches. An associated soul-consistent explanation is that instead of DNA origins these innate characteristics reflect continuity associated with the earlier lives of incarnating souls (and of course with this some other particular explanations). Herein arguments for the existence of souls are considered for the very surprising case of multiple soul residency in a single organism. Discussions on this possibility focus on the stunning experiences of some heart transplant patients, and also the very difficult condition of Multiple Personality (or Dissociative Identity) Disorder. These two phenomena pose very difficult challenges for materialism (and brain function), and on the other hand are suggestive of the influences of additional souls. Finally, some of the implications of these extraordinary possibilities are briefly considered. (shrink)

Upon entering clinical medicine in the 1940s, antibiotic therapy seemed to complete a transformation of hospitals that originated in the late nineteenth century. Former death sinks had become harbingers of therapeutic progress. Yet this triumph was short-lived. The arrival of pathologies caused by resistant bacteria, and of nosocomial infections whose spread was helped by antibiotic therapies, seemed to be intimately related to modern anti-infective therapy. The place where such problems culminated were hospitals, which increasingly appeared as dangerous environments where (...) attempts to combat infectious diseases had instead created hothouses of disease evolution. This paper will focus on one aspect of that history. It caused clinical medicine and hospital hygiene in particular to pay attention to a dimension of infectious disease it had previously paid little attention to thus far: The evolution of infectious disease—previously a matter of mostly theoretical interest—came to be useful in explaining many phenomena observed. This did not turn hospital hygienists into geneticists, though it did give them an awareness that the evolution of infectious disease in a broad sense was something that did matter to them. The paper advances its argument by looking at three phases: The growing awareness of the hospital as a dangerous environment in the 1950s, comprehensive attempts at improving antibiotic therapy and hospital hygiene that followed from the 1960s and lastly the framing of such challenges as risk factors from the 1970s. In conclusion, I will argue that hospital hygiene, being inspired in particular by epidemiology and risk factor analysis, discussed its own specific version of disease emergence and therefore contributed to the 1980s debates around such topics. Being loosely connected to more specialized studies, it consisted of a re-interpretation of infectious disease centred around the temporality of such phenomena as they were encountered in day-to-day dealings of clinical wards. (shrink)

This paper aims to investigate the temporal content of perceptual experience. It argues that we must recognize the existence of temporal perceptions, i.e., perceptions the content of which cannot be spelled out simply by looking at what is the case at an isolated instant. Acts of apprehension can cover a succession of events. However, a subject who has such perceptions can fall short of having a concept of time. Similar arguments have been put forward to show that a subject (...) who has spatial perceptions can fall short of having a concept of space. In both cases, it is the fact that perception is from a point of view which stands in the way of it constituting an exercise of a concept of how things are objectively. However, the paper also shows that the way in which perception is perspectival takes a different form in each of the two cases. (shrink)

This short and shapely book amply delivers its main promise, to discuss and offer views on a handful of central issues concerning the nature and importance of death. It does this with dry humour, unyielding attention to clarity and conciseness, and simple but highly effective structuring throughout.An introductory chapter sets out what you will and what you will not get. It aims to defend the more or less pervasive preoccupation with metaphysics, and outlines the chapters to follow. Ch. 2 (...) contrasts animalism with the psychological view, comes down overall in favour of the former, but incorporates into it some of the teeth of the latter. In ch. 3 Johansson defends the termination thesis, or the view that with death we cease to exist. Ch. 4 considers Epicureanism about death. It gives the Epicurean a number of shots at defending the view that death is not bad, but concludes that even the best of these falls short. This is followed in ch. 5 by a discussion of Lucretius' symmetry argument – we do not regret not having been born earlier, so why regret that we shall not die later? The view put forward here is that our not being born earlier is bad, but, unlike death, bad in an ‘innocent’ way. In the final chapter Johansson asks whether we should be especially concerned about our own deaths, explores the links with reductionist/non‐reductionist debates, and concludes that whatever your stance here, special concern is irrational. For reasons of space I shall say no more about this last chapter, but I shall offer something on the others. (shrink)

Introduction Quine was born in. He studied as a graduate student at Harvard, and apart from short visits to Oxford, Paris and other centres of learning, ...

Upon entering clinical medicine in the 1940s, antibiotic therapy seemed to complete a transformation of hospitals that originated in the late nineteenth century. Former death sinks had become harbingers of therapeutic progress. Yet this triumph was short-lived. The arrival of pathologies caused by resistant bacteria, and of nosocomial infections whose spread was helped by antibiotic therapies, seemed to be intimately related to modern anti-infective therapy. The place where such problems culminated were hospitals, which increasingly appeared as dangerous environments where (...) attempts to combat infectious diseases had instead created hothouses of disease evolution. This paper will focus on one aspect of that history. It caused clinical medicine and hospital hygiene in particular to pay attention to a dimension of infectious disease it had previously paid little attention to thus far: The evolution of infectious disease—previously a matter of mostly theoretical interest—came to be useful in explaining many phenomena observed. This did not turn hospital hygienists into geneticists, though it did give them an awareness that the evolution of infectious disease in a broad sense was something that did matter to them. The paper advances its argument by looking at three phases: The growing awareness of the hospital as a dangerous environment in the 1950s, comprehensive attempts at improving antibiotic therapy and hospital hygiene that followed from the 1960s and lastly the framing of such challenges as risk factors from the 1970s. In conclusion, I will argue that hospital hygiene, being inspired in particular by epidemiology and risk factor analysis, discussed its own specific version of disease emergence and therefore contributed to the 1980s debates around such topics. Being loosely connected to more specialized studies, it consisted of a re-interpretation of infectious disease centred around the temporality of such phenomena as they were encountered in day-to-day dealings of clinical wards. (shrink)

Dialogues between companies and actors of society often start as a result of a public scandal or in a situation of crisis. They can lead to short-term public relations activism or to long-term reputation gains. On the basis of cases and of a typology of forms of dialogues, the author develops ethical criteria and conditions for a successful dialogue – the ethical basis for such criteria being values such as equality, freedom and participation. A special focus is put on (...) challenges that often result from dialogues such as the ethical judgment of compromises. This article proposes ethical criteria to evaluate compromises. This leads to a model of ethical dialogue. (shrink)

Four Phenomenological Philosophers is the first book to examine the major texts of the leading figures of phenomenology in one volume. In separate chapters, the book explores the ideas of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre and Maurice Merleau-Ponty with detailed readings of their most important texts. The constantly evolving ideas of Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology, are presented through a review of the three major periods of his work. Martin Heidegger, who made a decisive and controversial break with (...) his teacher, Husserl, set forth his own phenomenological program in Being and Time. Jean-Paul Sartre, who transplanted the tradition from its origins in Germany to the streets of Paris, set forth his existential phenomenology in Being and Nothingness. The Phenomenology of Perception was the best and most representative work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, a contemporary of Sartre whose career was cut short by his early death. A knowledge of these key thinkers and their major texts is essential to an understanding of many of the major themes of contemporary philosophy, from hermeneutics and existentialism to postmodernism and deconstructivism. This book provides the ideal introduction to this important philosophical tradition. (shrink)

This short note underscores the pivotal part that the Apostle Paul played in promoting the socio-cultural heterogeneity characteristic of early Christianity: Without his role in the extension of evangelisation also to the Gentiles, Christianity, as a Hebrew “sect”, would have remained much more uniform, adhering mostly to the traditional way of life handed down from its ancestors (liturgy, rituals). Paul‟s missionary turn opened the way to many other, and also more “gentile”, forms of being Christian.

This short note underscores the pivotal part that the Apostle Paul played in promoting the socio-cultural heterogeneity characteristic of early Christianity: Without his role in the extension of evangelisation also to the Gentiles, Christianity, as a Hebrew “sect”, would have remained much more uniform, adhering mostly to the traditional way of life handed down from its ancestors (liturgy, rituals). Paul‟s missionary turn opened the way to many other, and also more “gentile”, forms of being Christian.

Clare Batty has recently argued that the content of human olfactory experience is 'a very weak kind of abstract, or existentially quantified content', and so that 'there is no way things smell'. Her arguments are based on two claims. Firstly, that there is no intuitive distinction between olfactory hallucination and olfactory illusion. Secondly, that olfaction 'does not present smell at particular locations', and 'seems disengaged from any particular object'. The present article shows both of these claims to be false. It (...) shows that naïve subjects find it quite natural to draw a distinction between olfactory hallucination and olfactory illusion. And it argues that the phenomenology of normal olfactory experience is of particular objects as having smells. Two confusions are responsible for Batty thinking otherwise: (1) Batty's examples are cases of extreme pungency, and she mistakes a peculiarity of intense perceptions for a property of olfaction more generally; (2) Batty focuses on very short time slices and so confuses limitations on the information carried by a single sniff for a limitation on the logical form of all olfactory content. (shrink)

If Americans had to select a single symbol of their country's military might, they would do well to choose the fighter jet-a carefully constructed instrument of destruction, simultaneously powerful and nimble, stealthy and loud. This essay begins with a hunch-that if American culture illuminates the social significance of a fighter jet, then learning a little about jet propulsion might reveal something about the political culture of the nation the fighter jet has come to symbolize. One of the key features that (...) distinguishes a military aircraft from a commercial one is its remarkable thrust capacity, which comes from a component called an afterburner. The power boost that allows a jet to take off from the deck of an aircraft carrier without falling into the ocean, and is useful for combat situations is also very inefficient and suitable only for short-term use. If jet engines are boosted by afterburners, wartime states may be said to add political thrust to their everyday actions by applying something analogous that we might call afterknowledge: the intense scrutiny of, and collection of information about, enemies abroad and citizens at home. This essay examines what is at stake in how the state knows: how it identifies citizens, what it knows about them, and what difference that makes for democratic political culture. (shrink)

As noted in Part 1 of this two-part review, school attendance is an important foundational competency for children and adolescents, and school absenteeism has been linked to myriad short- and long-term negative consequences, even into adulthood. Categorical and dimensional approaches for this population have been developed. This article (Part 2 of a two-part review) discusses compatibilities of categorical and dimensional approaches for school attendance and school absenteeism and how these approaches can inform one another. The article also poses a (...) multidimensional multi-tiered system of supports pyramid model as a mechanism for reconciling these approaches, promoting school attendance (and/or prevention of school absenteeism), establishing early warning systems for nimble response to school attendance problems, assisting with global policy review and dissemination and implementation, and adapting to future changes in education and technology. (shrink)

This paper critically assesses Sosa’s normative framework for performances as well as its application to epistemology. We first develop a problem for one of Sosa’s central theses in the general theory of performance normativity according to which performances attain fully desirable status if and only if they are fully apt. More specifically, we argue that given Sosa’s account of full aptness according to which a performance is fully apt only if safe from failure, this thesis can’t be true. We then (...) embark on a rescue mission on behalf of Sosa and work towards a weakened account of full aptness. The key idea is to countenance a distinction between negligible and non-negligible types of risk and to develop an account of full aptness according to which even performances that are endangered by risk can be fully apt, so long as the risk is of a negligible type. While this alternative account of full aptness solves the problem we developed for Sosa earlier on, there is also bad news for Sosa. When applied to epistemology, the envisaged treatment of barn façade cases as cases in which the agent falls short of fully apt belief will no longer work. We show that, as a result, Sosa faces a new version of a familiar dilemma for virtue epistemology. Either he construes full aptness as strong enough to get barn façade cases right in which case his view will run right into the problem we develop. Or else he construes full aptness as weak enough to avoid this problem but then he will not be able to deal with barn façade cases in the way envisaged. (shrink)

Distributive justice is the paradigmatic philosophical position regarding matters of contemporary justice. Distributive justice often focuses on issues of resource allocation and/or welfare allocation. In this essay I argue that this paradigm has ‘the cart before the horse’ because issues of productive justice—logically and normatively—are of antecedent concern. The way in which people work, and the nature of the productive workplace, conditions the conceptual and concrete possibilities of obtaining distributive justice, thus productive justice is of antecedent concern for realizing justice (...) overall. Contra Rawls, it is productive justice which in the ‘first instance’ ought to provide ‘a conception of social justice’. But even if this claim is hasty, it remains the case that distributive justice theorists have not allowed productive justice into their considered judgments and thus are operating with something short of serious reflective equilibrium. Productive justice therefore deserves unprecedented analysis and philosophical consideration. (shrink)

Within this paper I draw on short vignettes and quotes taken from a two-year ethnographic study of boxing to think through the continuing academic merit of the notion of the male preserve. This is an important task due to evidence of shifts in social patterns of gender that have developed since the idea was first proposed in the 1970s. In aligning theoretical contributions from Lefebvre and Butler to discussions of the male preserve, we are able to add nuance to (...) our understanding of how such social spaces are engrained with and produced by the lingering grasp of patriarchal narratives. In particular, by situating the male preserve within shifting social processes, whereby certain men’s power is increasingly undermined, I highlight the production of space within which narratives connecting men to violence, aggression, and physical power can be consumed, performed, and reified in a relatively unrestricted form. This specific case study contributes to gender theory as an illustration of a way in which we might explore and understand social enclaves where certain people are able to lay claim to space and power. As such, I argue that the notion of the male preserve is still a useful conceptual, theoretical, and political device, especially when considered as produced by the tyranny of gender power through the dramatic representation and reification of behaviors symbolically linked to patriarchal narrations of manhood. (shrink)

This book examines the theoretical foundations of order ethics and discusses business ethics problems from an order ethics perspective. Order ethics focuses on the social order and the institutional environment in which individuals interact. It is a well-established paradigm in European business ethics. The book contains articles written by leading experts in the field and provides both a concise introduction to order ethics and short summary articles homing in on specific aspects of the order-ethical paradigm. It presents contributions describing (...) fundamental concepts, historical roots, and the economic, social, and philosophical background of the theory. The second part of the handbook focuses on the theory's application in business, society, and politics, casting new light on an array of topics that loom large in contemporary ethical discourse.​. (shrink)

The agents in Raphael's belong as much to antiquity as they do to the Renaissance. This is also true with respect to the large hall in which they move. Already these observations show that, while depicting a distant world of the past, Raphael also works through questions of his own time. Architecture and agents are meticulously related to one another, so that the interplay of spatiality and philosophical concepts represents the idea of a harmonic world-order. This conception of the world, (...) however, will last only for a short time – even in the work of Raphael. (shrink)

The position that Stokes’s Thinking and Perceiving aims to overthrow is committed to the idea that the facts about one’s propositional attitudes and the facts about one’s perceptual experiences are alike grounded in facts about representations (in various formats) that are being held in a short or long term memory store, so that computations can be performed upon them. Claims about modularity are claims about the distinctness of these memory stores, and of these representations. One way in which to (...) reject these claims is to deny only that distinctness. A more radical way would be to reject the underlying idea that facts about perception and facts about propositional attitudes are alike grounded in facts about stored representations. Although the more radical approach might seem to face a problem concerning causal efficacy, I suggest that the way is open for Stokes to take it. (shrink)

The sci-fi premise of the 2002 film Solaris allows director Steven Soderbergh to tell a compelling and distinctly philosophical love story. The “visitors” that appear to the characters in the film present us with a vivid thought experiment, and the film naturally prods us to dwell on the following possibility: If confronted with a duplicate (or near duplicate) of someone you love, what would your response be? What should your response be? The tension raised by such a far-fetched situation reflects (...) a tension that exists in real life: that between an attraction to qualities possessed by a person and attraction to the person in a manner that transcends such an attachment to qualities. In short, this cinematic thought-experiment challenges us to reflect on what we really attach to when we fall in love: is it the person, or is it merely the cluster of characteristics the person manifests? Which sort of attachment is appropriate? Which is philosophical defensible? The protagonist Chris Kelvin’s ambivalence at encountering this bizarre possibility is gripping because it tracks our own ambivalence about such matters. Frankly most of us don’t know just how we would react to such a situation. The thought that accepting and embracing such a “visitor” involves a violation to the original person is natural and pervasive, especially if the acceptance comes with a failure to acknowledge the distinction between the original person and the “visitor”. At the same time, a deep attraction to such a person would surely also be entirely natural and perhaps even inescapable. We, like Kelvin, are torn in different directions by this (thankfully) far-fetched possibility. One philosopher who affirms that accepting a duplicate as though it were the original is the rational thing to do is Derek Parfit. His argument for “the unimportance of identity” is both powerful and radical, and though I’ll be critical of his approach, in the final section of the paper I suggest that it does offer up the resources for an intriguing interpretation of the end of this complex and ambiguous film. (shrink)