This chapter discusses how solar geoengineering might affect different African states, with a particular focus on its impact on social justice from an African perspective.

Simon Cushing conducted the following interview with Robert Kane on 24 August 2017.

Simon Cushing conducted the following interview with Marya Schechtman on 24 June 2015.

Simon Cushing conducted the following interview with Elizabeth Anderson on 18 June 2014.

Simon Cushing conducted the following interview with Allen Buchanan on 2 June 2014.

Simon Cushing conducted the following interview with Susan Wolf on 29 July 2016.

Simon Cushing conducted the following interview with Eric Olson on 1 July 2016.

This article is an ethnographic analysis of the mutuality that is possible in relationships between caregivers and women with intellectual disabilities who live together in L'Arche homes. Creating mutuality through which both parties grow and exercise agency requires that caregivers learn to negotiate delicate power relations connected to the physics of care and to reframe dominant stereotypes of disability. This helps them to support the women with intellectual disabilities to name and achieve their desires.

Culture is a notoriously elusive concept. This fact has done nothing to hinder its popularity in contemporary analytic political philosophy among writers like John Rawls, Will Kymlicka, Michael Walzer, David Miller, Iris Marion Young, Joseph Raz, Avishai Margalit and Bikhu Parekh, among many others. However, this should stop, both for the metaphysical reason that the concept of culture, like that of race, is itself either incoherent or lacking a referent in reality, and for several normative reasons. I focus on the (...) following interconnected points: • The vagueness of the term allows a myriad of candidates to claim rights, and typically to the detriment of increased equality and environmental goals . • Cultural capital cannot be regulated in the way that political capital must be regulated without undermining the cultures supposedly being protected. And the possession of cultural capital is almost never democratically regulated. In particular, granting cultures political status creates intergenerational conflict, rewarding the elders and creating incentives to be conservative and restrict cultural mobility of the younger generation. •The notion of a group owning “its” culture is conceptually suspect and corrupted by the foregoing points about unequal cultural capital. In defending a group’s right to preserve its culture we do not defend equally the rights of the individuals that make it up , and we ignore altogether the rights of those who may be unfairly denied recognition as “members” of the culture. (shrink)

Simon Schama's Dead Certainties is assessed in the light of the complex relationship between history and fiction, which share some limited common territory. Examples are cited from Mary Chesnut, Oscar Handlin, Georg Lukács, Herman Melville, Robert Penn Warren, P. D. James, and Wallace Stegner.Schama's book has some kinship to the skepticism found in "the new historicism" and "deconstruction," but also has its own differences from the fashionable "inverted positivism" which concludes that since evidence is not an open window on reality, (...) it must be a wall precluding access to it. Only two of Schama's three narratives cohere, and while uncertainty may be a common theme, his historian's judgment tends to dissipate much of the mystery his fictionalizing technique creates. His idea of historical uncertainty arises from a fallacy that a "communion with the dead" , possible only for a time-traveler, represents authentic knowledge.Affirming that asking questions and relating narratives are not mutually exclusive, Schama joins the company of philosophers and historians who have also made this case. (shrink)

Why does one theory "succeed" while another, possibly clearer interpretation, fails? By exploring two observationally equivalent yet conceptually incompatible views of quantum mechanics, James T. Cushing shows how historical contingency can be crucial to determining a theory's construction and its position among competing views. Since the late 1920s, the theory formulated by Niels Bohr and his colleagues at Copenhagen has been the dominant interpretation of quantum mechanics. Yet an alternative interpretation, rooted in the work of Louis de Broglie in the (...) early 1920s and reformulated and extended by David Bohm in the 1950s, equally well explains the observational data. Through a detailed historical and sociological study of the physicists who developed different theories of quantum mechanics, the debates within and between opposing camps, and the receptions given to each theory, Cushing shows that despite the preeminence of the Copenhagen view, the Bohm interpretation cannot be ignored. Cushing contends that the Copenhagen interpretation became widely accepted not because it is a better explanation of subatomic phenomena than is Bohm's, but because it happened to appear first. Focusing on the philosophical, social, and cultural forces that shaped one of the most important developments in modern physics, this provocative book examines the role that timing can play in the establishment of theory and explanation. (shrink)

Perry Hendricks’ ‘impairment argument’, which he has defended in this journal, is intended to demonstrate that the generally conceded wrongness of giving a fetus fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) shows that abortion must also be immoral, even if we allow that the fetus is not a rights-bearing moral person. The argument fails because the harm of causing FAS is extrinsic but Hendricks needs it to be intrinsic for it to show anything about abortion. Either the subject of the wrong of causing (...) FAS is a person who does not exist in the case of abortion or the wrong is negligible. (shrink)

From the beginning, the implications of quantum theory for our most general understanding of the world have been a matter of intense debate. Einstein argues that the theory had to be regarded as fundamentally incomplete. Its inability, for example, to predict the exact time of decay of a single radioactive atom had to be due to a failure of the theory and not due to a permanent inability on our part or a fundamental indeterminism in nature itself. In 1964, John (...) Bell derived a theorem which showed that any deterministic theory which preserved locality would have certain consequences for measurements performed at a distance from one another. An experimental check seems to show that these consequences are not, in fact, realized. The correlation between the sets of events is much stronger than any local deterministic theory could allow. What is more, this stronger correlation is precisely that which is predicted by quantum theory. The astonishing result is that local deterministic theories of the classical sort seem to be permanently excluded. Not only can the individual decay not be predicted, but no future theory can ever predict it. The contributors in this volume wrestle with this conclusion. Some welcome it; others leave open a return to at lease some kind of deterministic world, one which must however allow something like action-at-a distance. How much lit it? And how can one avoid violating relativity theory, which excludes action-at-a-distance? How can a clash between the two fundamental theories of modern physics, relativity and quantum theory, be avoided? What are the consequences for the traditional philosophic issue of causality explanation and objectivity? One thing is certain; we can never return to the comfortable Newtonian world where everything that happened was, in principle, predictable and where what happened at one measurement site could not affect another set of measurements being performed light-years away, at a distance that a light-signal could not bridge. Contributors: James T. Cushing, Abner Shimony, N. David Mermin, Jon P. Jarrett, Linda Wessels, Bas C. van Fraassen, Jeremy Butterfield, Michael L. G. Redhead, Henry P. Stapp, Arthur Fine, R. I. G. Hughes, Paul Teller, Don Howard, Henry J. Folse, and Ernan McMullin. (shrink)

Pragmatic Revolt in American History: Carl Becker and Charles Beard by Cushing Strout: ONE of the most striking characteristics of the modern mind, has been its preoccupation with history. In earlier times the historical sense was neither sophisticated nor pervasive, but now even science and religion, long-revered guardians of timeless truths, are approached historically. "To regard all things in their historical setting appears, indeed," as Carl Becker has said, "to be an instructive procedure of the modern mind. We do it (...) without thinking, because we can scarcely think at all without doing it." This relatively new intellectual awareness of the historical dimension of life has been paralleled by the modern tendency toward secularization, the acceptance of the concrete world of human history as the source of ultimate values and fulfillment. The modern mind has looked to history not only as a mode of understanding but also as a final destiny. It has been primarily concerned with the secular problems posed by the workings of the historical process, and it has had the confidence to believe that those problems could be solved in and through the very process which generated them. LIBERALISM, among modern historical forces, has characteristically expressed this secular commitment to control of the historical process, though, paradoxically, its confidence has been based less on the development of historical thought than on the new powers, which natural science and technology have produced. Because man has learned to control nature, liberals have believed that men could achieve progress in history. (shrink)

Why Plantinga's updated (2009) version of the Free Will Defense does not work, and consequently the Logical Argument From Evil against the God of Theism is undefeated.

Ego psychology, more existential than scientific in tone, has made psychoanalytic theory more congenial to historical studies, especially when they deal with creative and conflicted leaders. Erikson's concept of the identity crisis points to the intersection of family-centered conflicts with social and cultural history. It also orients the historian to the reanimation of problems in earlier stages of the life-cycle, the importance of work to identity formation, and the neurotic function of over-identification with a troublesome parent. Phenomenologically descriptive rather than (...) causally explanatory, psycho-biography mediates between Freud's naturalism and Collingwood's idealism by relating conscious and unconscious purposes. It establishes congruences and resonances, helping to explain in narrative form the meaning, timing, and urgency of a leader's characteristic ideas. (shrink)

In the last years of his life, Gerald C. MacCallum, Jr., defied illness to continue his work on the philosophy of law. This book is a monument to MacCallum’s effort, containing fourteen of his essays, five of them published here for the first time. Two of those previously published are widely admired and reprinted: “Legislative Intent,” certainly one of the best papers ever published on its topic, and “Negative and Positive Freedom,” which offered a new way of looking at a (...) distinction that had been canonical for the last two centuries. To complete MacCallum’s unfinished pieces, Marcus G. Singer and Rex Martin painstakingly consulted MacCallum’s notes for planned revisions. MacCallum discusses legal reasoning, the application of rules, the interpretation of statutes and constitutional provisions, and the relation of these matters to morality and justice. In the last decade of his working life, he became greatly concerned with the interrelated themes of integrity, autonomy, conscience, and violence. He wished to relate competition to morality and justice to adversarial systems of law. These themes are woven together in Legislative Intent and constitute the main subject of some of the essays. MacCallum was engaged in a constant search for truth and understanding, and in his life and work lived up to Emerson’s vision of the “American Scholar” as a “human being thinking.” These essays are informed by the author’s deep curiosity, penetrating intelligence, wide knowledge, and outstanding character. They will be treasured wherever these characteristics and true philosophy are treasured. (shrink)

This book examines a selection of philosophical issues in the context of specific episodes in the development of physical theories. Advances in science are presented against the historical and philosophical backgrounds in which they occurred. A major aim is to impress upon the reader the essential role that philosophical considerations have played in the actual practice of science. The book begins with some necessary introduction to the history of ancient and early modern science, with major emphasis being given to the (...) two great watersheds of twentieth-century physics: relativity and, especially, quantum mechanics. At times the term 'construction' may seem more appropriate than 'discovery' for the way theories have developed and, especially in the later chapters, the question of the influence of historical, philosophical and even social factors on the very form and content of scientific theories is discussed. (shrink)

We are often told that quantum phenomena demand radical revisions of our scientific world view and that no physical theory describing well defined objects, such as particles described by their positions, evolving in a well defined way, let alone deterministically, can account for such phenomena. The great majority of physicists continue to subscribe to this view, despite the fact that just such a deterministic theory, accounting for all of the phe nomena of nonrelativistic quantum mechanics, was proposed by David Bohm (...) more than four decades ago and has arguably been around almost since the inception of quantum mechanics itself. Our purpose in asking colleagues to write the essays for this volume has not been to produce a Festschrift in honor of David Bohm or to gather together a collection of papers simply stating uncritically Bohm's views on quantum mechanics. The central theme around which the essays in this volume are arranged is David Bohm's version of quantum mechanics. It has by now become fairly standard practice to refer to his theory as Bohmian mechanics and to the larger conceptual framework within which this is located as the causal quantum theory program. While it is true that one can have reservations about the appropriateness of these specific labels, both do elicit distinc tive images characteristic of the key concepts of these approaches and such terminology does serve effectively to contrast this class of theories with more standard formulations of quantum theory. (shrink)

One of the major philosophical problems in physical sciences is what criteria should determine how scientific theories are selected and justified in practice and whether, in describing observable physical phenomena, such theories are effectively constrained to be unique. This book studies the example of a particular theory, the S-matrix theory. The S-matrix program was initiated by Heisenberg to deal with difficulties encountered in quantum field theories in describing particular phenomena. Since then, each theory has at different times been favored as (...) the explanation of observed phenomena. Certainly the S-matrix theory was adequate, feasible and fertile. However, the quantum field theory interpretation is now widely accepted and the study of alternative theories is all but abandoned. By examining the philosophy which influenced the turns in this story, the author explains how an adequate and viable theory fell out of favor and concludes with a critique of different methodologies in the history of science. (shrink)

The fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) was published in 2013 containing the following changes from the previous edition: gone are the subcategories ‘Autistic Disorder,’ ‘Asperger Syndrome’ and ‘PDD-NOS,’ replaced by the single diagnosis ‘Autism Spectrum Disorder,’ and there is a new category ‘Social Communication Disorder.’ In this paper I consider what kind of reasons would justify these changes if one were (a) a realist about autism, or (b) one were a constructivist. I explore (...) various analyses of autism in the research literature that portray it as essentially either a psychological, neurological or genetic phenomenon, and discuss these by reference to the diagnostic criteria and by analogy with the way we understand race and sex categories. I conclude that no realist reasons are available to justify the changes in the diagnostic criteria, and further, that the only way the changes could be justified is if one takes the position that the DSM categories are social constructs. I conclude by exploring what implications follow from this. (shrink)

Empirical adequacy, formal explanation and understanding are distinct goals of science. While no a priori criterion for understanding should be laid down, there may be inherent limitations on the way we are able to understand explanations of physical phenomena. I examine several recent contributions to the exercise of fashioning an explanatory discourse to mold the formal explanation provided by quantum mechanics to our modes of understanding. The question is whether we are capable of truly understanding (or comprehending) quantum phenomena, as (...) opposed to simply accepting the formalism and certain irreducible quantum correlations. The central issue is that of understanding versus merely redefining terms to paper over our ignorance. (shrink)

A short play wherein three pregnant (previously) anti-abortion men consider the arguments for and against abortion.

A case study of the development of quantum field theory and of S-matrix theory, from their inceptions to the present, is presented. The descriptions of science given by Kuhn and by Lakatos are compared and contrasted as they apply to this case study. The episodes of the developments of these theories are then considered as candidates for competing research programs in Lakatos' methodology of scientific research programs. Lakatos' scheme provides a reasonable overall description and a plausible assessment of the relative (...) value of these two programs in terms of progressive and degenerating problem shifts. Also discussed are the roles of various types of models as they have been used in these areas of theoretical high-energy physics. (shrink)

I begin by sketching the Epicurean position on death - that it cannot be bad for the one who dies because she no longer exists - which has struck many people as specious. However, alternative views must specify who is wronged by death (the dead person?), what is the harm (suffering?), and when does the harm take place (before death, when you’re not dead yet, or after death, when you’re not around any more?). In the second section I outline the (...) most sophisticated anti-Epicurean view, the deprivation account, according to which someone who dies is harmed to the extent that the death has deprived her of goods she would otherwise have had. In the third section I argue that deprivation accounts that use the philosophical tool of possible worlds have the counterintuitive implication that we are harmed in the actual world because counterfactual versions of us lead fantastic lives in other possible worlds. In the final section I outline a neo-Epicurean position that explains how one can be wronged by being killed without being harmed by death and how it is possible to defend intuitions about injustice without problematic appeal to possible worlds. (shrink)

By far the most respected response by theists to the problem of evil is some version of the free will defense, which rests on the twin ideas that God could not create humans with free will without them committing evil acts, and that freedom is of such value that it is better that we have it than that we be perfect yet unfree. If we assume that the redeemed in heaven are impeccable, then the free will defense faces what I (...) call the Heaven Dilemma: either the redeemed in heaven are free, in which case it is false that you cannot be free without doing evil, or they are not, in which case (heaven being better than earth) it is false that we are better off with freedom and evil than without either. James Sennett has tried to defend a view of freedom that effectively allows us to be impeccable in heaven so long as we are not on earth, while claiming that we are free in both. I argue that this view leads to a new dilemma: either there is no point to earth at all, and given its miseries, it is wrong for God to make us pass through it to get to heaven (especially if we face the risk of ending up in hell), or Sennett’s view consigns millions who die tragically young to an eternity of unfreedom. (shrink)

Love has been a topic of interest to philosophy since at least the time of Plato’s Symposium, but with a few notable exceptions, it was unduly neglected in the twentieth century, at least by writers in the analytic tradition that predominates in the English-speaking world. However, in the past quarter century, writing on the topic has exploded. In this volume, we touch on most of the currently hot debates and also introduce some fascinating tangents. The main threads of discussion reflected (...) in this volume are as follows: the relationship between love and morality ; whether love is rational, subject to reasons for or against it, or a force that is not under our intentional control; and whether love affects the way we perceive the world or the way we value things in the world. More singular topics include: whether love would be affected by disputes in the literature on free will; whether we could be mistaken about being in love; whether our pets are capable of loving us back; whether a relationship of the kind shown in the movie her between a human and an artificial intelligence could be either loving or ethical; and whether the difference between patriotism and nationalism hinges on how each instances a different kind of love. Along the way we will see analyses of the work of philosophical greats like Immanuel Kant as well as the work of more contemporary writers, in particular Iris Murdoch, and philosophers actively engaged in the current revival, notably Harry Frankfurt, J. David Velleman, and Niko Kolodny. (shrink)