We report on our experiences in a participatory design project to develop ICTs in a hospital ward working with deliberate self-harm patients. This project involves the creation and constant re-creation of socio-technical ensembles that satisfy the various, changing and often contradictory and conflicting needs in this context. Such systems are shaped in locally meaningful ways but nevertheless reach beyond their immediate context to gain wider importance and to be integrated with the larger environment.

Robin McKenna argues that we need to make space for an approach to epistemology that avoids the idealizations typical of the field. He applies this approach to topics in applied and social epistemology, such as what to do about science denial, whether we should try to be intellectually autonomous, and what our obligations are to other inquirers.

This book introduces the reader to relevant logic and provides the subject with a philosophical interpretation. The defining feature of relevant logic is that it forces the premises of an argument to be really used in deriving its conclusion. The logic is placed in the context of possible world semantics and situation semantics, which are then applied to provide an understanding of the various logical particles and natural language conditionals. The book ends by examining various applications of relevant logic and (...) presenting some interesting open problems. It will be of interest to a range of readers including advanced students of logic, philosophical and mathematical logicians, and computer scientists. (shrink)

Many of us hold false beliefs about matters that are relevant to public policy such as climate change and the safety of vaccines. What can be done to rectify this situation? This question can be read in two ways. According to the descriptive reading, it concerns which methods will be effective in persuading people that their beliefs are false. According to the normative reading, it concerns which methods we are permitted to use in the service of persuading people. Some effective (...) methods—a programme of brainwashing, say—would not be permissible. In this paper I compare “methods of rational persuasion” with what you might call “marketing methods” such as how one frames the problem of climate change. My aim is to show that “marketing methods” are preferable to “methods of rational persuasion”. My argument has two parts. First, I argue that the evidence suggests that “marketing methods” are more effective in persuading people to change their minds. Second, I argue that “marketing methods” are an acceptable response to the normative question. (shrink)

A model for the ideal state includes discussion of the nature and application of justice, the role of the philosopher in society, the goals of education, and the effects of art upon character.

This Element looks at two projects that relate logic and information: the project of using logic to integrate, manipulate and interpret information and the proect of using the notion of information to provide interpretations of logical systems. The Element defines 'information' in a manner that includes misinformation and disinformation and uses this general concept of information to provide an interpretation of various paraconsistent and relevant logics. It also integrates these logics into contemporary theories of informational updating, probability theory and (rather (...) informally) some ideas from the theory of the complexity of proofs. The Element assumes some prior knowledge of modal logic and its possible world semantics, but all the other necessary background is provided. (shrink)

This paper uses Avron’s algebraic semantics for the logic RMI to model some ideas in the philosophy of science. Avron’s relevant disjunctive structures are each partitioned into relevance domains. Each relevance domain is a boolean algebra. I employ this semantics to act as a formal framework to represent what Nancy Cartwright calls the “dappled world”. On the dappled world hypothesis, local scientific theories each represent restricted aspects and regions of the universe. I use relevance domains to represent the domains of (...) each of these local theories and I provide a formalisation of the salient relationships between so-called fundamental theories and local theories. I also examine ways in which the paraconsistent nature of RMI can be used to deal with inconsistencies within and between theories adopted by scientists. The paper ends with some suggestions about updating RDS given changes in the theories that science adopts. (shrink)

A challenging book examining issues such as biotechnology, AIDS and nuclear weapons and demonstrating that Christian ethics has something important and ...

In spite of advances in medicine and public health, malaria and other mosquito‐borne diseases are on the rise worldwide. Although vaccines, genetically modified mosquitoes and safer insecticides are under development, herein we examine a promising new approach to malaria control through better repellents. Current repellents, usually based on DEET, inhibit host finding by impeding insect olfaction, but have significant drawbacks. We discuss how comparative genomics, using data from the Anopheles genome project, allows the rapid identification of members of three protein (...) classes critical to insect olfaction: odorant‐binding proteins, G‐protein‐coupled receptors, and odorant‐degrading enzymes. A rational design approach similar to that used by the pharmaceutical industry for drug development can then be applied to the development of products that interfere with mosquito olfaction. Such products have the potential to provide more complete, safer and longer lasting protection than conventional repellents, preventing disease transmission by interrupting the parasite life cycle. BioEssays 25:1011–1020, 2003. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

A translation of Plato's dialogue on the nature of pleasure and its relation to thought and knowledge. It includes a cogent introduction, notes, and comprehensive bibliography.

This text examines the intellectual partnership of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) and Paul Rée (1849-1901), combining biography with philosophy to give an account of a friendship that made major contributions to modern thought"--Provided by publisher.

In this paper I develop a version of contextualism that I call interests contextualism. Interests contextualism is the view that the truth-conditions of knowledge ascribing and denying sentences are partly determined by the ascriber’s interests and purposes. It therefore stands in opposition to the usual view on which the truth-conditions are partly determined by the ascriber’s conversational context. I give an argument against one particular implementation of the usual view, differentiate interests contextualism from other prominent versions of contextualism and argue (...) that, unlike those versions, interests contextualism can mitigate against the epistemic descent objection put forward by Duncan Pritchard in his ‘Contextualism, Scepticism, and the Problem of Epistemic Descent’ (the objection is that, on the contextualist view, an ascriber of knowledge cannot, for some subject S and proposition p, properly ascribe knowledge that p to S if that ascriber has previously retracted an earlier ascription of knowledge that p to S). (shrink)

I develop and argue for a version of epistemic contextualism - the view that the truth-values of ‘knowledge’ ascriptions depend upon and vary with the context in which they are uttered - that emphasises the roles played by both the practical interests of those in the context and the epistemic practices of the community of which they are part in determining the truth-values of their ‘knowledge’ ascriptions. My favoured way of putting it is that the truth of a ‘knowledge’ ascription (...) of the form ‘S knows that p’ requires that the subject of the ascription can rule out the relevant alternatives in which not-p, where the relevant alternatives are the ones that those in the ascriber’s context have a reason to consider. What alternatives those in the context have a reason to consider depends on their practical situation and on what alternatives are generally considered relevant within their community. I call this ‘interests contextualism’. The thesis splits into three parts. First, I deal with what I call ‘linguistic objections’, which purport to show that there’s no linguistic evidence that the expression ‘knows’ is context-sensitive, and objections concerning the way ‘knows’ behaves in intra- and inter-contextual disagreement reports. I argue that there are a number of ways in which contextualists can deal with these objections. Consequently, they provide no reason to reject contextualism. Second, there are a number of ways of going beyond the basic contextualist thesis, and I argue that the best way is along the lines indicated above, viz. interests contextualism. In the process I articulate a number of desiderata for a contextualist account of the features of context that are responsible for contextual variation in the truth-values of ‘knowledge’ ascriptions. I argue that, unlike its main rival - which I call ‘conversational contextualism’ - interests contextualism can satisfy all of the desiderata. Consequently, interests contextualism is preferable to conversational contextualism. Third, I argue that there is good reason to prefer interests contextualism to its noncontextualist rivals, strict invariantism, sensitive invariantism and relativism. The objections dealt with in the first part are meant to provide the main reason to prefer a sort of relativism to interests contextualism. Consequently, the upshot of the first part is that relativism is off the table. The considerations that tell in favour of interests contextualism and against sensitive invariantism are of two types. First, I argue that interests contextualism can deal with a wider range of cases than sensitive invariantism. Second, I argue that the influential account of the function of ‘knowledge’ ascriptions developed in Edward Craig tells against sensitive invariantism and in favour of interests contextualism. I also argue that the second consideration tells against strict invariantism as much as sensitive invariantism. Consequently, I conclude that interests contextualism is preferable to all of its rivals. (shrink)

The trial of Socrates -- Socrates in court -- How the system worked -- The charge of impiety -- The war years -- Alcibiades, Socrates, and the aristocratic milieu -- Pestilence and war -- The rise and fall of Alcibiades -- The end of the war -- Critias and Civil War --- Crisis and conflict -- Symptoms of change -- Reactions to intellectuals -- The condemnation of Socrates -- Socratic politics -- A cock for Asclepius.

How can Christian ethics make a significant contribution to health care ethics in today's Western, pluralistic society? Robin Gill examines the 'moral gaps' in secular accounts of health care ethics and the tensions within specifically theological accounts. He explores the healing stories in the Synoptic Gospels, identifying four core virtues present within them - compassion, care, faith and humility - that might bring greater depth to a purely secular interpretation of health care ethics. Each of these virtues is examined in (...) turn, using a range of topical issues including health care rationing, genetics, HIV/AIDS, withholding/withdrawing nutrition from PVS patients, and the empirical evidence which suggests a connection between religion and health. Professor Gill also argues that these four virtues are shared by other major religious and humanistic traditions and that, together with secular principles, they can enrich health care ethics even in a pluralistic society. (shrink)

One of the most important students of Franz Brentano was Anton Marty, who made it his task to develop a philosophy of language on the basis of Brentano’s analysis of mind. It is most unfortunate that Marty does not receive the attention he deserves, primarily due to his detailed and distracting polemics. In the analysis presented here his philosophy of language and other aspects of his thought, such as his ontology , are examined first and foremost in their positive rather (...) than critical character. The analysis is moreover supplemented by translations of four important works by Marty, including his entire work On the Origin of Language. These are in fact the first English translations of any substantial writings by him. The resulting picture that emerges from the analysis and translations is that Marty has much to say that proves to be of enduring interest for the philosophy of language on a range of topics, especially the meanings of statements, of emotive expressions, and of names as regards both their communicative and their ontological aspects. The volume will be of interest not only to philosophers and historians of philosophy, but also to historians of linguistics and psychology. (shrink)

The evolving nature of armed conflict, characterized by a new emphasis on crisis management and peace support, is bringing morality to the forefront of military leadership. The challenges of today's military operations place a new imperative upon Professional Military Education (PME) to maximize the quality of instruction on ethics in terms of both content and effectiveness. This volume presents the refined proceedings of two conferences of the European Forum on Military Pedagogy dealing with ethical issues of teaching and learning in (...) PME. It explores the philosophical and scientific aspects of current ethical questions, as well as the historical, psychological, and technological dimensions of education in ethics. Further attention is given to ethical and educational implications of asymmetric conflict and warfare. (shrink)

Atheism has had a strong presence on YouTube since its founding in the mid-2000s, which coincided with the rise of the new atheism movement, and lay atheists were quick to use the platform to spread new atheist ideas. Drawing from a sample of sixty-five atheist YouTube channels located and observed through online ethnographic methods, this article views YouTube videos as educational resources for atheists. It investigates different types of educational videos and ways of thinking about science, philosophy, and religion that (...) atheist content creators utilize and promote. The analysis reveals that they consistently frame these domains of knowledge through the truth claims they make and generally construct them within a hierarchical framework, with scientific knowledge at the top and religious knowledge at the bottom. Overall, their educational content reproduces new atheist discourses around these subjects, revealing the continuing influence of new atheism, two decades after its emergence. Furthermore, the popularity of videos that debunk arguments from religious apologists suggests that the intended audience of these videos includes both atheists, who are expected to need to learn to defend their atheism in debate with religious others, and “potential atheists”, religious believers who can be deconverted using rational arguments. (shrink)

Hutchins examines a set of phenomena that have fallen between the established disciplines of psychology and anthropology, bringing to light a new set of relationships between culture and cognition.

The concept of yinyang lies at the heart of Chinese thought and culture. The relationship between these two opposing, yet mutually dependent, forces is symbolized in the familiar black and white symbol that has become an icon in popular culture across the world. The real significance of yinyang is, however, more complex and subtle. This brilliant and comprehensive analysis by one of the leading authorities in the field captures the richness and multiplicity of the meanings and applications of yinyang, including (...) its visual presentations. Through a vast range of historical and textual sources, the book examines the scope and role of yinyang, the philosophical significance of its various layers of meanings and its relation to numerous schools and traditions within Chinese philosophy. By putting yinyang on a secure and clear philosophical footing, the book roots the concept in the original Chinese idiom, distancing it from Western assumptions, frameworks and terms, yet also seeking to connect its analysis to shared cross-cultural philosophical concerns. (shrink)

This book treats Chinese philosophy today as a global project, presenting the work of both Chinese and Western philosophers.

Kelly’s work was formed and developed in the context of the American philosophical movement known as pragmatism. The major figures to which this tradition is attributed are Charles S. Peirce, William James and John Dewey. In Personal Construct Psychology, Dewey was acknowledged by Kelly and by subsequent writers as perhaps his most important influence. It has recently become increasingly apparent, however that Peirce was a much more pervasive and crucial influence on James and Dewey than has previously been recognized. Kelly (...) did not mention Peirce but a close reading of the two writers reveals a remarkable correspondence and relationship between their two bodies of work. To set these two thinkers side by side proves to be an interesting and productive exercise. In this paper, after introducing Peirce and examining the relationship between him and Dewey, Kelly’s basic philosophical assumptions, as outlined at the beginning of Volume 1 of the Psychology of Personal Constructs, are used as a framework for exploring their similarities and differences. The result is an enrichment of our understanding of Kelly’s philosophy which allows us to make links with many different subsequent thinkers’ ideas and provides a basis for exploring the psychological aspects of the two men’s work. The latter forms the subject of Part II of this series which is in preparation. (shrink)

Kelly suggested that it was useful to consider anyone as functioning as a scientist, in the business of applying theories, making hypotheses and predictions and testing them out in the practice of everyday life. One of Charles Peirce’s major contributions was to develop the disciplines of logic and the philosophy of science. We can deepen and enrich our understanding of Kelly’s vision by looking at what Peirce has to say about the process of science. For Peirce, the essence of science (...) was the application of the laws of inference. He developed a much broader concept of logic, elaborating the processes of deduction and induction and adding to these the logic of hypothetical inference, or ‘abduction’, even as Kelly broadened it further in his “departure from classical logic”. Examining the implications of these three forms of inference allows us to elaborate the dynamics involved in the process of construing, ordinacy and the cycles of experience, creativity and decision making. This is the second of a three part series examining the relationship between the work of Peirce and Kelly. The third will include a look at phenomenology, bipolarity, the self, dialogical process and sociological considerations. (shrink)

It is natural to think of remembering in terms of causation: I can recall a recent dinner with a friend because I experienced that dinner. Some fifty years ago, Martin and Deutscher (1966) turned this basic thought into a full-fledged theory of memory, a theory that came to dominate the landscape in the philosophy of memory. Remembering, Martin and Deutscher argue, requires the existence of a specific sort of causal connection between the rememberer's original experience of an event and his (...) later representation of that event: a causal connection sustained by a memory trace. In recent years, it has become apparent that this reference to memory traces may be out of step with memory science. Contemporary proponents of the causal theory are thus confronted with the question: is it possible to develop an empirically adequate version of the theory, or is it time to move beyond it? This chapter traces the recent history of the causal theory, showing how increased awareness of the theory’s problems has led to the development of modified version of the causal theory and ultimately to the emergence of postcausal theories. (shrink)

Collaboration on the First Edition of Spacetime Physics began in the mid-1960s when Edwin Taylor took a junior faculty sabbatical at Princeton University where John Wheeler was a professor. The resulting text emphasized the unity of spacetime and those quantities (such as proper time, proper distance, mass) that are invariant, the same for all observers, rather than those quantities (such as space and time separations) that are relative, different for different observers. The book has become a standard introduction to (...) relativity. The Second Edition of Spacetime Physics embodies what the authors have learned during an additional quarter century of teaching and research. They have updated the text to reflect the immense strides in physics during the same period and modernized and increased the number of exercises, for which the First Edition was famous. Enrichment boxes provide expanded coverage of intriguing topics. An enlarged final chapter on general relativity includes new material on gravity waves, black holes, and cosmology. The Second Edition of Spacetime Physics provides a new generation of readers with a deep and simple overview of the principles of relativity. (shrink)

In her paper “Democracy, Public Policy, and Lay Assessments of Scientific Testimony” Elizabeth Anderson (2011) identifies a tension between the requirements of responsible public policy making and democratic legitimacy. The tension, put briefly, is that responsible public policy making should be based on the best available scientific research, but for it to be democratically legitimate there must also be broad public acceptance of whatever policies are put in place. In this chapter I discuss this tension, with a strong focus on (...) the issue of climate change. My aims are twofold. First, I argue that the tension is harder to resolve than Anderson supposes because some ways of securing acceptance for science-based policies will themselves be democratically illegitimate. Second, I take a closer look at the role intellectual autonomy plays in the tension. Many think that what I call “science marketing” methods for securing broad(er) acceptance of scientific claims are illegitimate because they infringe on our intellectual autonomy. I argue that it is less clear that this is true than many suppose. This is because, put roughly, judicious use of targeted science marketing methods need not stop us from developing the ability to think about scientific issues for ourselves. In fact, they may even aide us in developing this ability. While this doesn’t quite resolve the tension identified by Anderson, it does some of the necessary groundwork for resolving it. (shrink)

This article investigates the essay the Descriptio Silentii (Description of Silence) by Celio Calcagnini, a humanist scholar from Ferrara, an essay written in the early sixteenth century and published in 1544. The article provides the first English translation of the essay, describes its inspiration and sources and reviews the content of the essay in order to assess Calcagnini’s contribution to the philosophy of silence from the Renaissance and before. Calcagnini’s essay is an ekphrasis of a picture supposedly located in the (...) ruins of the Roman temple of Fortuna Primigenia in Praeneste, the inspiration for its format is the late Hellenistic text the Tabula Cebetis, and the principal content is an appeal for the virtues of silence in human affairs and the castigation of the garrulous following the example of Plutarch’s essay De Garrulitate from the Moralia. However, this appeal to the virtues of silence is a prelude to the deeper theme and purpose of the essay: the theme of mystical silence, a silence by which it is possible to approach and understand the god-head and the divine, and which can only be expressed in non-verbal language, riddles or poetic imagery. (shrink)

What responsibility do individuals bear for structural injustice? Iris Marion Young has offered the most fully developed account to date, the Social Connections Model. She argues that we all bear responsibility because we each causally contribute to structural processes that produce injustice. My aim in this article is to motivate and defend an alternative account that improves on Young’s model by addressing five fundamental challenges faced by any such theory. The core idea of what I call the “Role-Ideal Model” is (...) that we are each responsible for structural injustice through and in virtue of our social roles, i.e. our roles as parents, colleagues, employers, citizens, etc., because roles are the site where structure meets agency. In short, the Role-Ideal Model explains how individual action contributes to structural change, justifies demands for action from each particular agent, specifies what kinds of acts should be undertaken, moderates between demanding too much and too little of individual agents, and provides an account of the critical responses appropriate for holding individuals accountable for structural injustice. (shrink)

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This essay explores a curious point of intersection in the historical pairing of becoming and negation, between two thinkers and two traditions: the Sophist Protagoras of fifth-century BCE Greece and the second-century CE South Asian Buddhist thinker Nāgārjuna. I offer a speculative account of how becoming and negation are linked in Protagoras—speculative because only so much can be deduced from the extant fragments and testimony. I compare that account to the more coherent picture offered by Nāgārjuna—more coherent because a complete (...) account of the logic that links becoming and negation is carefully preserved in the works attributed to Nāgārjuna. While no specific conclusions regarding the bridge that linked India and Greece may be reached, the similarities between these thinkers and the greater coherence of the Buddhist tradition nevertheless offer hypothetical possibilities for reconstructing the larger architecture of the world of sophistic thought that is now lost to us. (shrink)