A formalism is developed that treats a robot as a subject that can interpret its own experience rather than an object that is interpreted within our experience. A regulative definition of a meaningful experience in robots is proposed in which the present sensible experience is considered meaningful to the agent, as the subject of the experience, if it can be related to the agent's temporal horizons. This definition is validated by demonstrating that such an experience in evolutionary autonomous agents is (...) embodied, contextual and normative, as is required for the maintenance of phenomenological accuracy. With this formalism it is shown how a dialectic similar to that described in Hegelian phenomenology can emerge in the robotic experience and why the presence of such a dialectic can serve as a constraint in the further development of cognitive agents. (shrink)

The study reported here, building on the research methods of Conversation Analysis, Politeness Theory, and Relevance Theory, attempts to examine the distribution of Mandarin qishi and shishishang across two different discourse modes in formal speech settings: formal lectures and TV panel news discussions. The results indicate that qishi is prevalent in TV panel news discussion data, which fall into the interactional mode, whereas shishishang is more prevalent in formal speech data, which fall into the transactional mode. The study shows that (...) in interaction, qishi is addressee-oriented and signals alignment or divergence, whereas shishishang is message-oriented and asserts a proposition with a tone of certainty. In addition, the study suggests that although the literal meanings of qishi and shishishang, which are concerned with factuality, are seemingly unrelated to emotive expressivity, they offer a rhetorical strategy for expressing the speaker’s attitudinal position, and can both serve to indicate the speaker’s epistemic inference. (shrink)

In the Western media, stories about China seem to fall into one of two categories: China’s astounding economic development or its human rights abuses. As human rights discourses follow increasingly hegemonic conventions, especially with regard to China, many of their key assumptions remain unexamined. This special issue—the second in a two-part series beginning with “Cosmologies of the Human”—critically investigates the relationship between China and the human as it plays out in law, politics, biopolitics, political economy, labor, medicine, and culture. The (...) contributors interrogate the evolving meanings of “China” and “the human,” both inside China and internationally. The issue tracks the ways in which global discourses treat China—still officially socialist—as similar to, different from, and alternative to Western capitalist modernities. Several essays probe the modern theoretical underpinnings of human rights abuses in China, including a crucial distinction between “the human” and “the people.” Others review the impact of Maoism on Marxist debates in China and in the West, as well as the specific influences of Mao’s writings on French politics and theory in the 1960s. A visual dossier compares eight contemporary Chinese artists, directors, and public image-makers in order to discuss the figure of the human from Tiananmen Square to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. While many contributors discuss China and the West comparatively, the issue interrogates the universalizing claims of both Western and Chinese norms of the human by privileging the local, particular, and eccentric. Contributors: Ackbar Abbas, Michael Dutton, David L. Eng, Doug Howland, Petrus Liu, Camille Robcis, Teemu Ruskola, Shuang Shen, Shu-mei Shih, Wang Xiaoming David L. Eng is Professor of English, Comparative Literature, and Asian American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of _The Feeling of Kinship: Queer Liberalism and the Racialization of Intimacy_ and _Racial Castration: Managing Masculinity in Asian America_, both also published by Duke University Press. Teemu Ruskola is Professor of Law at Emory University and Visiting Professor of Law at Georgetown University. Shuang Shen is Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature and Chinese at Pennsylvania State University. (shrink)

The mystery of existence and our place in that mystery--as expressed in a single Chinese landscape painting: a new work of meditative philosophy by the renowned translator of the Chinese classics and author of Hunger Mountain. Join David Hinton, the premier modern translator of the Chinese classics, as he stands before a single landscape painting, discovering in it the wondrous story of existence—and as part of that story, the magical nature of consciousness. What he coaxes from the image is (...) nothing less than a revelation: the dynamic interweaving of mind and Cosmos, and the glorious dance of Absence and Presence that is the secret of that Cosmos. The painting called Peaceful-Distance Pavilion by Shih-t'ao (1642-1707) is, like other paintings in that genre, mostly space: one tiny figure, accompanied by an attendant, looks out over a vast landscape of mountains and clouds. But start looking into that space and, with the right guidance, what you end up seeing is profound. David Hinton is the perfect guide. He uses his knowledge of Chinese philosophy, poetry, art, language, and writing system to illuminate this painting's message, which is ultimately the story of the glorious dance between nothing and everything, between emptiness and existence. It's an enthralling journey that can change the way you look at the world, a journey for which David is a wise and eloquent guide. (shrink)

Here the philosopher and physicist David Z Albert argues, among other things, that the difference between past and future can be understood as a mechanical phenomenon of nature and that quantum mechanics makes it impossible to present the entirety of what can be said about the world as a narrative of “befores” and “afters.”.

In this monograph I propose to interpret John Locke's view of central metaphysical notions such as substance, essence and identity to the backdrop of his distinction between distinct and confused ideas. I show that Locke draws this traditional distinction in a novel way—as a distinction pertaining only to the way ideas are related to our use of language. This distinction, I argue, allows him to radically rethink traditional questions of metaphysics and to mount a linguistic criticism of traditional metaphysical views (...) about substance, essence and identity. Furthermore, I propose that taking into account the linguistic dimension of Locke's metaphysical thought helps recognize the coherence of his overall picture of substance, essence and identity. (shrink)

Once upon a time, the twentieth-century investigations of the behaviors of sub-atomic particles were thought to have established that there can be no such thing as an objective, observer-independent, scientifically realist, empirically adequate picture of the physical world.

Are demands for equality motivated by envy? Nietzsche, Freud, Hayek, and Nozick all thought so. Call this the Envy Objection. For egalitarians, the Envy Objection is meant to sting. Many egalitarians have tried to evade the Envy Objection.. But should egalitarians be worried about envy? In this paper, I argue that egalitarians should stop worrying and learn to love envy. I argue that the persistent unwillingness to embrace the Envy Objection is rooted in a common misunderstanding of the nature of (...) the charge, what it reveals, and what can be said in response to it. I develop what Bernard Williams might call a vindicatory genealogy of envy, thereby allowing us to see that envy, rather than undermining egalitarian intuitions, can in fact play a distinct justificatory role (when it is fitting), which undermines the Envy Objection. (shrink)

Part I Introduction -/- Passion at a Distance (Don Howard) -/- Part II Philosophy, Methodology and History -/- Balancing Necessity and Fallibilism: Charles Sanders Peirce on the Status of Mathematics and its Intersection with the Inquiry into Nature (Ronald Anderson) -/- Newton’s Methodology (William Harper) -/- Whitehead’s Philosophy and Quantum Mechanics (QM): A Tribute to Abner Shimony (Shimon Malin) -/- Bohr and the Photon (John Stachel) -/- Part III Bell’s Theorem and Nonlocality A. Theory -/- Extending the Concept of an (...) “Element of Reality” to Work with Inefficient Detectors (Daniel M. Greenberger) -/- A General Proof of Nonlocality without Inequalities for Bipartite States (GianCarlo Ghirardi and Luca Marinatto) -/- On the Separability of Physical Systems (Jon P. Jarrett) -/- Bell Inequalities: Many Questions, a Few Answers (Nicolas Gisin) -/- B. Experiment -/- Do Experimental Violations of Bell Inequalities Require a Nonlocal Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics? II: Analysis a la Bell (Edward S. Fry, Xinmei Qu, and Marlan O. Scully) -/- The Physics of 2 = 1 + 1 (Yanhua Shih) -/- Part IV Probability, Uncertainty, and Stochastic Modifications of Quantum Mechanics -/- Interpretations of Probability in Quantum Mechanics: A Case of “Experimental Metaphysics” (Geoffrey Hellman) -/- “No Information Without Disturbance”: Quantum Limitations of Measurement (Paul Busch) -/- How Stands Collapse II (Philip Pearle) -/- Is There a Relation Between the Breakdown of the Superposition Principle and an Indeterminacy in the Structure of the Einsteinian Space-Time? (Andor Frenkel) -/- Indistinguishability or Stochastic Dependence? (D. Costantini and U. Garibaldi) -/- Part V Relativity -/- Plane Geometry in Spacetime (N. David Mermin) -/- The Transient nows (Steven F. Savitt) -/- Quantum in Gravity? (Michael Horne) -/- A Proposed Test of the Local Causality of Spacetime (Adrian Kent) -/- Quantum Gravity Computers: On the Theory of Computation with Indefinite Causal Structure (Lucien Hardy) -/- “Definability,” “Conventionality,” and Simultaneity in Einstein–Minkowski Space-Time (Howard Stein) -/- Part VI Concluding Words -/- Bistro Banter: A Dialogue with Abner Shimony and Lee Smolin -/- Unfinished Work: A Bequest (Abner Shimony) -/- Bibliography of Abner Shimony. (shrink)

Presentists, who believe that only present objects exist, face a problem concerning truths about the past. Presentists should (but cannot) locate truth-makers for truths about the past. What can presentists say in response? We identify two rival factions ‘upstanding’ and ‘nefarious’ presentists. Upstanding presentists aim to meet the challenge, positing presently existing truth-makers for truths about the past; nefarious presentists aim to shirk their responsibilities, using the language of truth-maker theory but without paying any ontological price. We argue that presentists (...) should be nefarious presentists. (shrink)

David Bohm was one of the foremost scientific thinkers and philosophers of our time. Although deeply influenced by Einstein, he was also, more unusually for a scientist, inspired by mysticism. Indeed, in the 1970s and 1980s he made contact with both J. Krishnamurti and the Dalai Lama whose teachings helped shape his work. In both science and philosophy, Bohm's main concern was with understanding the nature of reality in general and of consciousness in particular. In this classic work he (...) develops a theory of quantum physics which treats the totality of existence as an unbroken whole. Writing clearly and without technical jargon, he makes complex ideas accessible to anyone interested in the nature of reality. (shrink)

Both utilitarian and deontological moral theories locate the source of our moral beliefs in the wrong sorts of considerations. One way this failure manifests itself, we argue, is in the ways these theories analyze the proper human relationship toward the non-human environment. Another, more notorious, manifestation of this failure is found in Derek Parfit's Repugnant Conclusion. Our goal is to explore the connection between these two failures, and to suggest that they are failures of act-centered moral theories in general. As (...) such, they cannot be fixed by simply developing a better version of such a theory. Virtue-based theories, we suggest, provide a more promising alternative. (shrink)

It is argued that certain recent advances in the construction of a theory of the collapses of Quantum Mechanical wave functions suggest the possibility of new and improved foundations for statistical mechanics, foundations in which epistemic considerations play no role.

This book uncovers the lost history of Christianity's encounters with Pythagorean ideas before the Renaissance. David Albertson skillfully examines ancient and medieval theologians, particularly Thierry of Chartres and Nicholas of Cusa, who successfully reconceived the Trinity and the Incarnation within the framework of Greek number theory. David Albertson challenges modern assumptions about the complex relationship between religion and science.

This paper argues that higher-order doubt generates an epistemic dilemma. One has a higher-order doubt with regards to P insofar as one justifiably withholds belief as to what attitude towards P is justified. That is, one justifiably withholds belief as to whether one is justified in believing, disbelieving, or withholding belief in P. Using the resources provided by Richard Feldman’s recent discussion of how to respect one’s evidence, I argue that if one has a higher-order doubt with regards to P, (...) then one is not justified in having any attitude towards P. Otherwise put: No attitude towards the doubted proposition respects one’s higher-order doubt. I argue that the most promising response to this problem is to hold that when one has a higher-order doubt about P, the best one can do to respect such a doubt is to simply have no attitude towards P. Higher-order doubt is thus much more rationally corrosive than non-higher-order doubt, as it undermines the possibility of justifiably having any attitude towards the doubted proposition. (shrink)

David Braddon-Mitchell and Frank Jackson’s popular introduction to philosophy of mind and cognition is now available in a fully revised and updated edition. Ensures that the most recent developments in the philosophy of mind and cognitive science are brought together into a coherent, accessible whole. Revisions respond to feedback from students and teachers and make the volume even more useful for courses. New material includes: a section on Descartes’ famous objection to materialism; extended treatment of connectionism; coverage of the (...) view that psychology is autonomous; fuller discussion of recent debates over phenomenal experience; and much more. (shrink)

David and Mary Norton present the definitive scholarly edition of Hume's Treatise, one of the greatest philosophical works ever written. This set comprises the two volumes of texts and editorial material, which are also available for purchase separately. David Hume is one of the greatest of philosophers. Today he probably ranks highest of all British philosophers in terms of influence and philosophical standing. His philosophical work ranges across morals, the mind, metaphysics, epistemology, religion, and aesthetics; he had broad (...) interests not only in philosophy as it is now conceived but in history, politics, economics, religion, and the arts. He was a master of English prose. The Clarendon Hume Edition will include all of his works except his History of England and minor historical writings. It is the only thorough critical edition, and will provide a far more extensive scholarly treatment than any previous editions. This edition offers authoritative annotation, bibliographical information, and indexes, and draws upon the major advances in textual scholarship that have been made since the publication of earlier editions - advances both in the understanding of editorial principle and practice and in knowledge of the history of Hume's own texts. (shrink)

David B. Wong proposes that there can be a plurality of true moralities, moralities that exist across different traditions and cultures, all of which address facets of the same problem: how we are to live well together. Wong examines a wide array of positions and texts within the Western canon as well as in Chinese philosophy, and draws on philosophy, psychology, evolutionary theory, history, and literature, to make a case for the importance of pluralism in moral life, and to (...) establish the virtues of acceptance and accommodation. Wong's point is that there is no single value or principle or ordering of values and principles that offers a uniquely true path for human living, but variations according to different contexts that carry within them a common core of human values. We should thus be modest about our own morality, learn from other approaches, and accommodate different practices in our pluralistic society. (shrink)

“What do you see when you look at your face in the mirror?” asks J. David Velleman in introducing his philosophical theory of action. He takes this simple act of self-scrutiny as a model for the reflective reasoning of rational agents: our efforts to understand our existence and conduct are aided by our efforts to make it intelligible. Reflective reasoning, Velleman argues, constitutes practical reasoning. By applying this conception, Practical Reflection develops philosophical accounts of intention, free will, and the (...) foundation of morals. This new edition of Practical Reflection contains the original 1989 text along with a new introduction and is the latest entry in The David Hume Series of Philosophy and Cognitive Science Reissues, which keeps in print previously published indispensable works in the area of cognitive science. (shrink)

We discuss two recent attempts two solve Schrodinger's cat paradox. One is the modal interpretation developed by Kochen, Healey, Dieks, and van Fraassen. It allows for an observable which pertains to a system to possess a value even when the system is not in an eigenstate of that observable. The other is a recent theory of the collapse of the wave function due to Ghirardi, Rimini, and Weber. It posits a dynamics which has the effect of collapsing the state of (...) macroscopic systems. We argue that the modal interpretation cannot account for non-accurate measurements and that both accounts have the consequence that in ordinary measurement situations the observables that ends up well defined are not quite the ones that we want to be well defined. (shrink)

Contrary to what many philosophers believe, Calvinism neither makes the problem of evil worse nor is it obviously refuted by the presence of evil and suffering in our world. Or so most of the authors in this book claim. While Calvinism has enjoyed a resurgence in recent years amongst theologians and laypersons, many philosophers have yet to follow suit. The reason seems fairly clear: Calvinism, many think, cannot handle the problem of evil with the same kind of plausibility as other (...) more popular views of the nature of God and the nature of God's relationship with His creation. This book seeks to challenge that untested assumption. With clarity and rigor, this collection of essays seeks to fill a significant hole in the literature on the problem of evil. (shrink)

I distinguish between two conceptually different kinds of physical space: a space of ordinary material bodies, which is the space of points at which I could imaginably place the tip of my finger, or the center of a billiard-ball, and a space of elementary physical determinables, which is the smallest space of points such that stipulating what is happening at each one of those points, at every time, amounts to an exhaustive physical history of the universe. In all classical physical (...) theories, these two spaces happen to coincide – and what we mean by calling a theory “classical”, and all we mean by calling a theory “classical”, is precisely that these two spaces coincide. But once the distinction between these two spaces in on the table, it becomes clear that there is no logical or conceptual reason why they must coincide – and it turns out that a very simple way of pulling them apart from one another gives us quantum mechanics. (shrink)

[David Papineau] This paper disputes the common assumption that the normativity of conceptual judgement poses a problem for naturalism. My overall strategy is to argue that norms of judgement derive from moral or personal values, particularly when such values are attached to the end of truth. While there are philosophical problems associated with both moral and personal values, they are not special to the realm of judgement, nor peculiar to naturalist philosophies. This approach to the normativity of judgement is (...) made possible by naturalist views of truth, that is, views which do not presuppose normativity in explaining truth. /// [Julia Tanney] This paper attempts to describe why it is not possible to account for normative phenomena in non-normative terms. It argues that Papineau's attempt to locate norms of judgement 'outside' content, grounded in an individual's desires or reasons, mislocates the normativity that is thought to resist appropriation within a 'world that conceives nature as the realm of law'. It agrees, however, that a theory of content that locates norms 'inside' content will not be forthcoming-at least if this is to require fashioning the norms that in some sense govern judgment or thought into individually necessary conditions for contentful states. (shrink)

Aron Gurwitsch’s theory of the structure and dynamics of consciousness has much to offer contemporary theorizing about consciousness and its basis in the embodied brain. On Gurwitsch’s account, as we develop it, the field of consciousness has a variable sized focus or "theme" of attention surrounded by a structured periphery of inattentional contents. As the field evolves, its contents change their status, sometimes smoothly, sometimes abruptly. Inner thoughts, a sense of one’s body, and the physical environment are dominant field contents. (...) These ideas can be linked with (and help unify) contemporary theories about the neural correlates of consciousness, inattention, the small world structure of the brain, meta-stable dynamics, embodied cognition, and predictive coding in the brain. (shrink)

Food is a challenging subject. There is little consensus about how and what we should produce and consume. It is not even clear what food is or whether people have similar experiences of it. On one hand, food is recognized as a basic need, if not a basic right. On the other hand, it is hard to generalize about it given the wide range of practices and cuisines, and the even wider range of tastes. This book is an introduction to (...) the philosophical dimensions of food. David M. Kaplan examines the nature and meaning of food, how we experience it, the social role it plays, its moral and political dimensions, and how we judge it to be delicious or awful. He shows how the different branches of philosophy contribute to a broader understanding of food: what food is (metaphysics), how we experience food (epistemology), what taste in food is (aesthetics), how we should make and eat food (ethics), how governments should regulate food (political philosophy), and why food matters to us (existentialism). Kaplan embarks on a series of philosophical investigations, considering topics such as culinary identity and authenticity, tasting and food criticism, appetite and disgust, meat eating and techno-foods, and consumerism and conformity. He emphasizes how different narratives help us navigate the complex world of food -- yet we all have responsibilities to ourselves, to others, and to animals. An original treatment of a timely subject, Food Philosophy is suitable for undergraduates while making a significant contribution to scholarly debates. (shrink)

David Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, first published in 1779, is one of the most influential works in the philosophy of religion and the most artful instance of philosophical dialogue since the dialogues of Plato. It presents a fictional conversation between a sceptic, an orthodox Christian, and a Newtonian theist concerning evidence for the existence of an intelligent cause of nature based on observable features of the world. This new edition presents it together with several of Hume's other, shorter (...) writings about religion, and with brief selections from the work of Pierre Bayle, who influenced both Hume's views on religion and the dialectical style of the Dialogues. The volume is completed by an introduction which sets the Dialogues in its philosophical and historical contexts. (shrink)

Terry Eagleton is the foremost Marxist cultural theorist of our time. In the first book-length study of this highly influential figure, David Alderson provides detailed discussions of Eagleton's Marxism and his engagements with postmodernism, as well as an evaluation of his interventions in Irish Studies. Each of the chapters in this important intervention in current theoretical debates offers accessible contextualization of the key issues and provides detailed analyses of Eagleton's literary criticism. Alderson shows that the complex relations between nature, (...) culture and ideology, body, subjectivity and authority are at the heart of Eagleton's ethical and political concerns. He goes on to demonstrate that these relations inform the theorist's critical examinations of such literary works as Wuthering Heights and The Merchant of Venice, and his treatment of W.B. Yeats and Oscar Wilde. (shrink)

This chapter develops Moral Occasionalism, according to which moral facts are grounded in certain natural facts, which are called sub-moral grounds, and these sub-moral grounds influence us in such a way as to induce largely correct moral beliefs. Moral Occasionalism is designed to explain the correlation of moral beliefs with the moral facts—and to do so in a way that is consistent with non-interactionist views, according to which moral facts neither influence nor are influenced by moral beliefs. It is argued (...) that moral non-naturalists and others who are committed to non-interactionist views ought to be in the business of defending Moral Occasionalism. The chapter shows that Moral Occasionalism has major advantages over its chief non-interactionist rival, namely David Enoch’s “godless pre-established harmony” view. The chapter anticipates and responds to several objections. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) 155-157 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Buddhist Peacework: Creating Cultures of Peace Buddhist Peacework: Creating Cultures of Peace. Edited by David W. Chappell. Somerville, Massachusetts: Wisdom Publications, 1999. 253 pp. This earnest book demonstrates the continuing vitality of Buddhism in many parts of the world. The contributing authors are the leading figures of contemporary engaged Buddhism, and they write from firsthand experience. The (...) Dalai Lama outlines methods for promoting harmony among different religious traditions. Thich Nhat Hanh shows how the principle of nonviolence was tested in the rescue ofVietnamese boat people during the 1970s. A.T. Ariyaratne presents the work of the influential Sarvodaya movement in Sri Lanka. Shih Cheng-yen, sometimes called "the Mother Theresa of Asia," describes the relief work ofTzu Chi, the largest charitable organization in Taiwan. Dhammachari Lokamitra documents the impact of an adopted Buddhism among former "untouchables" in India. Robert Aitken surveys engaged Buddhist activity in North America, including hospice work, prison reform, and sustainable farming. Many of the writers have personally suffered the deprivations of war and oppression; in some cases they continue their work amid threats of violence or arrest.An aim ofBuddhist Peacework is to offer a Buddhist response to a declaration that emerged from a 1994 meeting of world religious leaders organized by UNESCO. This document, "Declaration of the Role of Religion in the Promotion of a Culture of Peace," is included as an appendix. Two of the book's contributors, the Dalai Lama and the senior Cambodian monk Maha Ghosananda, participated in the UNESCO meeting. Indeed, some of the declaration's language has an engaged Buddhist ring: "We must be at peace with ourselves; we strive to achieve inner peace through personal reflection and spiritual growth, and to cultivate a spirituality which manifests itself in action."One of Buddhism's distinctive teachings on the subject of peace is the practice of "internal disarmament," the term used by the Dalai Lama in his essay. Unless individuals are able to tame the forces of greed, anger, and delusion in their own minds, the prospects for peace between communities and between nations are slim. For an engaged Buddhist, there must be alignment between "inner" and "outer" disarmament. One cannot work for peace--or any other worthy social goal--in an agitated, antagonistic way. In this collection, peacework is something one does as spiritual practice.Shakyamuni Buddha approached the existential problem of suffering by analyzing the causes of suffering. In a similar spirit, engaged Buddhists have embarked on a Buddhistic analysis of the causes of war and peace. Contributor José Ignacio Cabezón writes: "Peace cannot arise simply by wishing it into existence, but only by the cultivation of its causes.Viewing peace in this way has the salutary effect of shifting the emphasis of peacework from result to causes." Somewhere in that mix of causes we [End Page 155] eventually encounter ourselves. If the world is truly interdependent, we share responsibility for violence and atrocities occurring "elsewhere."Thich Nhat Hanh, in his essay, declares: "If we look deeply, we will observe that the roots of war are in the unmindful ways we have been living. We have not sown enough seeds of peace and understanding in ourselves and others, therefore we are co-responsible: 'Because I have been like this, they are like that.'" The notion of sowing "seeds of peace" is reinforced in the image on the book's cover: two hands tenderly plant a seedling in receptive soil.But internal disarmament is not enough. As editor David Chappell asserts, "Today there is a new urgency for that [inner] peacework to be manifest socially, ecologically, and materially."Witness the plight of several Buddhist (and formerly Buddhist) nations in Asia. "Recently, Buddhist countries have become notorious arenas of genocide and brutality," writes Karma Lekshe Tsomo. Citing Burma, Cambodia, China, Sri Lanka, and Tibet, Tsomo asks, "What went wrong?" Peacework also has new meanings in an age of ecocrisis. For Stephanie Kaza, "a first step in keeping peace with nature calls for contact with ecological suffering." Kaza highlights four ways to... (shrink)

David Egan offers an original comparative study of Wittgenstein and Heidegger, identifying a similar concern with authenticity in their work. By examining their divergent ideas on how to exist and philosophize authentically, Egan demonstrates Wittgenstein and Heidegger's continued relevance to contemporary thought in a novel way.

[David Charles] Aristotle, it appears, sometimes identifies well-being with one activity, sometimes with several, including ethical virtue. I argue that this appearance is misleading. In the Nicomachean Ethics, intellectual contemplation is the central case of human well-being, but is not identical with it. Ethically virtuous activity is included in human well-being because it is an analogue of intellectual contemplation. This structure allows Aristotle to hold that while ethically virtuous activity is valuable in its own right, the best life available (...) for humans is centred around, but not wholly constituted by, intellectual contemplation. /// [Dominic Scott] In Nicomachean Ethics X 7-8, Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of eudaimonia, primary and secondary. The first corresponds to contemplation, the second to activity in accordance with moral virtue and practical reason. My task in this paper is to elucidate this distinction. Like Charles, I interpret it as one between paradigm and derivative cases; unlike him, I explain it in terms of similarity, not analogy. Furthermore, once the underlying nature of the distinction is understood, we can reconcile the claim that paradigm eudaimonia consists just in contemplation with a passage in the first book requiring eudaimonia to involve all intrinsic goods. (shrink)

First published in 1749, Hartley's great work was abridged by Priestley in 1775 and reissued as a whole by Joseph Johnson in 1791. To Priestley, who founded his Unitarianism on the Observations, it seemed that Hartley was the greatest of human beings with the single exception of Jesus. Coleridge adopted his associationist theology in the mid 1790s, naming his eldest son David Hartley Coleridge, and passing on to Wordsworth the theory of mind that underlies 'Tintern Abbey', the early Prelude (...) and the 1800 Preface to Lyrical Ballads. An indispensable book. (shrink)

Constellations, Volume 28, Issue 3, Page 450-452, September 2021.

Contents:Acknowledgements Foreword (Lt. Ervin J. Rokke)Preface (Davis S. Alberts and Thomas Czerwinski)SETTING THE SCENEThe Simple and the Complex (Murray Gell-Mann)America in the World Today (Zbigniew Brzezinski)COMPLEXITY THEORY and NATIONAL SECURITY POLICYComplex Systems: The Role of Interactions (Robert Jervis)Many Damn Things Simultaneously: Complexity Theory and World Affairs (James N. Rosenau)Complexity, Chaos, and National Security Policy: Metaphors or Tools? (Alvin M. Saperstein)The Reaction to Chaos (Steven R. Mann)COMPLEXITY THEORY, STRATEGY, and OPERATIONSClausewitz, Nonlinearity, and the Importance of Imagery (Alan D. Beyerchen)Complexity and Organization (...) Management (Robert R. Maxfield)Command and (Out of) Control: The Military Implications of Complexity Theory (John F. Schmitt)Complexity Theory and Air Power (Steven M. Rinaldi)Chaos Theory and U. S. Military Strategy: A "Leapfrog" Strategy for U.S. Defense Policy (Michael J. Mazarr)Contributors EditorsBibliography. (shrink)

It is inquired how much an observer can ascertain of the quantum state of a system of which he and his measuring apparatus form a part; how much, for example, observers like ourselves can ascertain of the quantum state of the Universe. It turns out that no practicable experiment (and: perhaps, no experiment whatever) can establish that that state is not the vacuum. Some of the implications of this curious result are discussed.