Contents: John A. HALL and Ian JARVIE: Preface. John A. HALL and Ian JARVIE: The Life and Times of Ernest Gellner. PART 1 INTELLECTUAL BACKGROUND. Ji_i MUSIL: The Prague Roots of Ernest Gellner's Thinking. Chris HANN: Gellner on Malinowski: Words and Things in Central Europe. Tamara DRAGADZE: Ernest Gellner in the Soviet East. PART 2 NATIONS AND NATIONALISM. Brendan O'LEARY: On the Nature of Nationalism: An Appraisal of Ernest Gellner's Writings on Nationalism. Kenneth MINOGUE: Ernest (...) Gellner and the Dangers of Theorising Nationalism. Anthony D. SMITH: History and Modernity: Reflection on the Theory of Nationalism. Michael MANN: The Emergence of Modern European Nationalism. Nicholas STARGARDT: Gellner's Nationalism: The Spirit of Modernisation? PART 3 PATTERNS OF DEVELOPMENT. Peter BURKE: Reflections on the History of Encyclopaedias. Alan MACFARLANE: Ernest Gellner and the Escape to Modernity. Ronald DORE: Sovereign Individuals. Shmuel EISENSTADT: Japan: Non-Axial Modernity. Marc FERRO: l'Indépendance Telescopée: De la Décolonisation a l'Impérialisme Multinational. PART 4 ISLAM. Abdellah HAMMOUDI: Segmentarity, Social Stratification, Political Power and Sainthood: Reflections on Gellner's Theses. Henry MUNSON, Jr.: Rethinking Gellner's Segmentary Analysis of Morocco's Ait cAtta. Jean BAECHLER: Sur le charisme. Charles LINDHOLM: Despotism and Democracy: State and Society in the Premodern Middle East. Henry MUNSON, Jr.: Muslim and Jew in Morocco: Reflections on the Distinction between Belief and Behavior. Talal ASAD: The Idea of an Anthropology of Islam. PART 5 SCIENCE AND DISENCHANTMENT. Perry ANDERSON: Science, Politics, Enchantment. Ralph SCHROEDER: From the Big Divide to the Rubber Cage: Gellner's Conception of Science and Technology. John DAVIS: Irrationality in Social Life. PART 6 RELATIVISM AND UNIVERSALS. John SKORUPSKI: The Post-Modern Hume: Ernest Gellner's 'Enlightenment Fundamentalism'. John WETTERSTEN: Ernest Gellner: A Wittgensteinian Rationalist. Ian JARVIE: Gellner's Positivism. Raymond BOUDON: Relativising Relativism: When Sociology Refutes the Sociology of Science. Rod AYA: The Devil in Social Anthropology; or, the Empiricist Exorcist; or, the Case Against Cultural Relativism. PART 7 PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. William MCNEILL: A Swan Song for British Liberalism? Andrus PARK: Gellner and the Long Trends of History. Eero LOONE: Marx, Gellner, Power. Rosaire LANGLOIS: Coercion, Cognition and Production: Gellner's Challenge to Historical Materialism and Postmodernism. Ernest GELLNER: Reply to Critics. Ian JARVIE: Complete Bibliography of Gellner's Work. Name index. Subject index. (shrink)

A seminal work on the unconscious and its mechanisms. Examines the interaction between voluntary (conscious) and involuntary (unconscious) human control mechanisms in terms of dissociation of divided consciousness. Delineates a neodissociation interpretation that recognizes historical roots without requiring commitment. Presents a wide range of data on possession states, fugues, multiple personalities, amnesia, dreams, hallucinations, automatic writing, and aggressions.

"Philosophical anthropology on the grandest scale....Gellner has produced a sharp challenge to his colleagues and a thrilling book for the non-specialist. Deductive history on this scale cannot be proved right or wrong, but this is Gellner writing, incisive, iconoclastic, witty and expert. His scenario compels our attention."—Adam Kuper, _New Statesman_ "A thoughtful and lively meditation upon probably the greatest transformation in human history, upon the difficult problems it poses and the scant resources it has left us to solve them."—Charles Larmore, (...) _New Republic_. (shrink)

Extends the ideas of social constructivism to the philosophy of mathematics, developing a powerful critique of traditional absolutist conceptions of mathematics, and proposing a reconceptualization of the philosophy of mathematics.

Although many agree that all teaching rests on a theory of knowledge, this is an in-depth exploration of the philosophy of mathematics for education, building on the work of Lakatos and Wittgenstein.

Finding a powerful ally in Bertrand Russell, who provided the foreword for this book, Gellner embarked on the project that was to put him on the intellectual ...

Much has been written about the interpretation of Plato in the last thirty years. Once interpreted as a revolutionary of the left, and a prophet of Socialism, he has lately been interpreted as a revolutionary of the Right and a forerunner of Fascism. In this book Plato appears as himself âe" a revolutionary indeed, and even an authoritarian, but a revolutionary of the pure idea of the Good, and an authoritarian of the pure reason, unattached either to the Right or (...) the Left. (shrink)

One and many THE PLURALIST CHORUS There is a remarkable consensus on one point amongst recent thinkers and schools, even when they are otherwise radically ...

Alan Carter correctly argues that Thomas Schwartz's 'future persons paradox' applies with equal force to utilitarianism, rights theory and Aristotelian ethics. His criticism of Rawls's 'justice between generations' is less successful, because of his failure (and perhaps Rawls's as well) to fully appreciate the hypothetical nature of the 'original position'. Carter's attempt to refute Schwartz's argument by focusing on the individuality of moral action fails, since it evades the essential point of Schwartz's argument. The best response to Schwartz is to (...) concede the essential validity of his argument and then to turn that argument into an ad absurdum refutation of his central premise,'the person affecting principle'. (shrink)

Since the seventeenth century, Western society has had a turbulent relationship with Reason. Descartes set out to reorganize all his opinions in the light of Reason, allowing, as Pascal bitterly reproached him, nothing else. In the course of the centuries which followed, the relationship with Reason became the object of a vigorous, often passionate debate. David Hume declared Reason to be impotent; Immanuel Kant observed that men suffered from "misology" as the result of their disappointed expectations of Reason; G. W. (...) F. Hegel declared that the main insight of philosophy consisted of the realization that reason masterminded and guided all history. The debate has not remained restricted to philosophy. Max Weber, the most influential modern sociologist, was obsessed with the distinctive role of Reason in Western society, and the part it played in engendering industrialism. Social anthropologists have been preoccupied both with the universality and the diversity of conceptual thought. Emile Durkheim taught them to ask why all men were rational, whilst Max Weber taught sociologists to ask why some men were more rational than others. This book brings together the philosophical, historical and sociological discussions of rationality and strives to make clear the underlying issues and the continuity of the debate under the various idioms. (shrink)

This is a review of a volume including Locke's Second Treatise, Rousseau's Social Contract, and Hume's "Of the Original Contract." The Rousseau essay is translated by Gerard Hopkins, and Ernest Baker provides an introduction to the texts.

Cognitive dissonance has been studied for more than sixty years and many insightful findings have come from this research. However, some important theoretical and methodological issues are yet to be resolved, particularly regarding dissonance reduction. In this paper, we place dissonance theory in the larger framework of appraisal theories of emotion, emotion regulation, and coping. The basic premise of dissonance theory is that people experience negative affect (to varying degrees) following the detection of cognitive conflict. The individual will be motivated (...) to alleviate these emotional reactions and could do so by reducing dissonance in some manner. We argue that detection of dissonance will follow the same principles as when people interpret any other stimuli as emotionally significant. Thus, appraisal theory of emotion, which argues that emotions are generated via the cognitive evaluation of surrounding stimuli, should be applicable to the dissonance-detection process. In short, we argue that dissonance-reduction strategies (attitude change, trivialization, denial of responsibility, etc.) can be understood as emotion-regulation strategies. We further argue that this perspective contributes to reconciling fragmented (and sometimes contrary) viewpoints present in the literature on dissonance reduction. In addition to proposing the general model of dissonance reduction, we illustrate at the hand of empirical data how research on dissonance reduction can be performed without relying on experimental paradigms that focus on a specific reduction strategy. (shrink)

Philosophical Papers, Volume 40, Issue 3, Page 341-358, November 2011.

The radical contingencies attending human reproduction indicate that attempts to improve the living conditions of future generations result in generations populated by different individuals than would otherwise have been born. This remarkable consequence challenges the widespread belief that the present generation has responsibilities to its remote successors. I contend, first, that while the radical genetic contingency and epistemological indeterminacy of future persons obsolves us of obligations to act "in behalf of" them as individuals, this moral absolution does not entail a (...) permission to disregard entirely the remote consequences of our policies. Since relevant moral principles bind us to persons in general, not to particular individuals, we remain obligated to improve the life prospects of whatever individuals eventually come into being. Second, I suggest that by applying an analogous argument within the lives of persons rather than to the long history of civilization, we arrive at the morally repugnant result of negating long-term obligations to contemporary persons. Conversely, the condition of continuity which affords moral legitimacy of personal obligations among contemporaries likewise entails moral responsibility for the life conditions of distant generations. (shrink)

Alan Carter correctly argues that Thomas Schwartz's 'future persons paradox' applies with equal force to utilitarianism, rights theory and Aristotelian ethics. His criticism of Rawls's 'justice between generations' is less successful, because of his failure (and perhaps Rawls's as well) to fully appreciate the hypothetical nature of the 'original position'. Cater's attempt to refute Schwartz's argument by focusing on the individuality of moral action fails, since it evades the essential point of Schwartz's argument. The best response to Schwartz is to (...) concede the essential validity of his argument and then to turn that argument into an ad absurdum refutation of his central premise, 'the person affecting principle'. (shrink)

A complete environmental ethic must include a theory of motivation to assure that the demands of that ethic are within the capacity of human beings. J. Baird Callicott has argued that these requisite sentiments may be found in the moral psychology of David Hume, enriched by the insights of Charles Darwin. I reply that, on the contrary, Humean moral sentiments are more likely to incline one toanthropocentrism than to Aldo Leopold’s land ethic, which is defended by Callicott. This mismatch becomes (...) more evident as Callicott attempts to enlist Humean moral sentiments in support of the Leopoldian “land community.” The disanalogies between human and natural communities, I argue, are too great to permit this application. The motivation we need to meet our duties as “citizens of the land community” must be of a nonmoral kind. I suggest that the necessary sentiments may be found in a genetically based “affirmation of nature” that has evolved out of our natural history as a species, shaped by the very forces and contexts that are now put in peril by our technology. (shrink)

The well-known behaviorist revolt against consciousness is largely in the past, although that does not mean that the new interest in consciousness is without many unsolved problems. Cognitive psychology, as an alternative, is not necessarily a consciousness psychology, and humanistic psychology, friendly to consciousness, has difficulty in maintaining scientific status. One approach to consciousness is by way of dissociation, the phenomena of which can be found in everyday experience but can be studied in more detail through hypnosis. One aspect of (...) hypnosis research has led to the concept of a “hidden observer,” a metaphor used to indicate that some information is processed and has consequences without being in the focus of consciousness at the time, but is recoverable through hypnosis. The evidence comes mostly from subjects highly responsive to hypnosis, so that generalizations must be used with caution. The divisions of consciousness lead to consideration of its executive and monitoring functions-normal functions, but subject to some alterations through hypnosis. (shrink)

For corrective justice, liability is the consequence of the parties' being correlatively situated as the doer and sufferer of an injustice, and the remedy is seen as undoing that injustice to the extent possible. Combining consideration of legal doctrine and private law theory, this article applies the framework of corrective justice to gain-based damages for torts. Within this framework, restitutionary damages ought to be available only insofar as they correspond to a constituent element in the injustice that the defendant has (...) done to the plaintiff. The radical proposal that allows restitutionary damages for any wrongful gain is unsatisfactory because it fails to link the damages that the plaintiff receives to the normative quality of the defendant's wrong. In contrast, dealings in another's property give rise to such damages because the idea of property includes within the owner's entitlement the potential gainsfrom the property's use or alienation. Restitutionary damages should not be seen as serving a deterrent or punitive function; such a function cannot account for why the plaintiff, of all people, is entitled to the defendant's gain. Properly understood, even situations where the plaintiff's wilfulness or calculation increases the damage award fit within the framework of corrective justice. The corrective justice approach thus repudiates the notion that restitutionary damages are occasions for the promotion of social purposes extrinsic to the juridical relationship between the parties. (shrink)

This essay is an inquiry into the relevance of psychology to morality-particularly, the relevance of a capacity to treat nature with respect and restraint to a responsibility to do so. I begin with a presentation of Aldo Leopold’s “land ethic” (which I also designate with the term ecological morality). I then examine two notions of moral psychology that have recently attracted the interest of moral philosophers: first, “the moral sense,” a concept that has gained prominence, in part, through the recent (...) work of the philosopher, John Rawls; and second, Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory of the development of moral cognition. Finally, I consider how these prospectives on moral psychology might apply to ecological morality. (shrink)

This essay is an inquiry into the relevance of psychology to morality-particularly, the relevance of a capacity to treat nature with respect and restraint to a responsibility to do so. I begin with a presentation of Aldo Leopold’s “land ethic”. I then examine two notions of moral psychology that have recently attracted the interest of moral philosophers: first, “the moral sense,” a concept that has gained prominence, in part, through the recent work of the philosopher, John Rawls; and second, Lawrence (...) Kohlberg’s theory of the development of moral cognition. Finally, I consider how these prospectives on moral psychology might apply to ecological morality. (shrink)

Ownership combines the owner's right to exclude others from the owned object and the owner's liberty to use that object. This article addresses the relationship between using and excluding, by presenting Grotius's and Kant's classic accounts of ownership. Grotius's approach treats use and exclusivity as separate notions, with the latter evolving out of the former. For Kant, in contrast, use and exclusivity are integrated aspects of ownership as a right within a regime of equal reciprocal freedom. This article offers a (...) Kantian critique of Grotius's account of the original right to use, and then presents Kant's notion of usability as the basis for his integration of use and exclusivity. (shrink)

Rose has shown in [2] that the following axioms are sufficient, with modus ponens, for m-valued Łukasiewiczian implication.

This paper examines the role of clinical practitioners and clinical researchers internationally in establishing the utility of harm-reduction approaches to substance use. It thus illustrates the potential for clinicians to play a pivotal role in health promoting structural interventions based on harm-reduction goals and public health models. Popular media images of drug use as uniformly damaging, and abstinence as the only acceptable goal of treatment, threaten to distort clinical care away from a basis in evidence, which shows that some ways (...) of using drugs are far more harmful than others and that punitive approaches and insistence on total abstinence as the only goal of treatment often increases the harms of drug use rather than reducing drug use. Therefore the leadership and scientific authority of clinicians who understand the health impact of harm-reduction strategies is needed. Through a review of harm-reduction interventions in Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, we identify three ways that clinicians have helped to achieve a paradigm shift from punitive approaches to harm-reduction principles in clinical care and in drug policy: through clinical research to provide data establishing the effectiveness and feasibility of harm-reduction approaches, by developing innovative clinical programmes that employ harm reduction, and thereby changing the standard of care to include routine use of these evidence-based approaches in their practices. We argue that through promotion of harm-reduction goals and methods, clinicians have unique opportunities to improve the health outcomes of vulnerable populations. (shrink)