Kenneth F. Schaffner compares the practice of biological and medical research and shows how traditional topics in philosophy of science—such as the nature of theories and of explanation—can illuminate the life sciences. While Schaffner pays some attention to the conceptual questions of evolutionary biology, his chief focus is on the examples that immunology, human genetics, neuroscience, and internal medicine provide for examinations of the way scientists develop, examine, test, and apply theories. Although traditional philosophy of science has regarded scientific discovery—the (...) questions of creativity in science—as a subject for psychological rather than philosophical study, Schaffner argues that recent work in cognitive science and artificial intelligence enables researchers to rationally analyze the nature of discovery. As a philosopher of science who holds an M.D., he has examined biomedical work from the inside and uses detailed examples from the entire range of the life sciences to support the semantic approach to scientific theories, addressing whether there are "laws" in the life sciences as there are in the physical sciences. Schaffner's novel use of philosophical tools to deal with scientific research in all of its complexity provides a distinctive angle on basic questions of scientific evaluation and explanation. (shrink)

I. Les diverses espèces de jugements. Sentiment du beau et jugement. — II. Le jugement esthétique, partant de conclusions individuelles multiples sur le Beau, aspire à l’unité et à l’universalité. — III. L’analyse critique opposée au dogmatisme. Les difficultés spéciales du jugement esthétique. Esthétique et réalité. — IV. Le rapport de l’esthétique avec la philosophie des valeurs; essence et valeur. —V. Comment l’esthétique dépasse l’empirisme en évitant les abstractions. — VI. Comment le jugement esthétique, bien que subjectif, n’admet pas l’explication (...) subjectiviste et relativiste. (shrink)

An innovative, multifaceted approach to scientific experiments as designed by and shaped through interaction with the modeling process The role of scientific modeling in mediation between theories and phenomena is a critical topic within the philosophy of science, touching on issues from climate modeling to synthetic models in biology, high energy particle physics, and cognitive sciences. Offering a radically new conception of the role of data in the scientific modeling process as well as a new awareness of the problematic aspects (...) of data, this cutting-edge volume offers a multifaceted view on experiments as designed and shaped in interaction with the modeling process. Contributors address such issues as the construction of models in conjunction with scientific experimentation; the status of measurement and the function of experiment in the identification of relevant parameters; how the phenomena under study are reconceived when accounted for by a model; and the interplay between experimenting, modeling, and simulation when results do not mesh. Highlighting the mediating role of models and the model-dependence of data measurement, this volume proposes a normative and conceptual innovation in scientific modeling--that the phenomena to be investigated and modeled must not be precisely identified at the start but specified during the course of the interactions arising between experimental and modeling activities. Contributors: Nancy D. Cartwright, U of California, San Diego; Anthony Chemero, U of Cincinnati; Ronald N. Giere, U of Minnesota; Jenann Ismael, U of Arizona; Tarja Knuuttila, U of South Carolina; Andrea Loettgers, U of Bern, Switzerland; Deborah Mayo, Virginia Tech; Joseph Rouse, Wesleyan U; Paul Teller, U of California, Davis; Michael Weisberg, U of Pennsylvania; Eric Winsberg, U of South Florida. (shrink)

In _African Somaesthetics: Cultures, Feminisms, Politics_, Catherine F. Botha brings together original research on the body in African cultures, interrogating the possible contribution of a somaesthetic approach in the context of colonization, decolonization, and globalization in Africa.

In this book, Christopher F. Zurn shows why a normative theory of deliberative democratic constitutionalism yields the best understanding of the legitimacy of constitutional review. He further argues that this function should be institutionalized in a complex, multi-location structure including not only independent constitutional courts but also legislative and executive self-review that would enable interbranch constitutional dialogue and constitutional amendment through deliberative civic constitutional forums. Drawing on sustained critical analyses of diverse pluralist and deliberative democratic arguments concerning the legitimacy of (...) judicial review, Zurn concludes that constitutional review is necessary to ensure the procedural requirements for legitimate democratic self-rule through deliberative cooperation. Claiming that pure normative theory is not sufficient to settle issues of institutional design, Zurn draws on empirical and comparative research to propose reformed institutions of constitutional review that encourage the development of fundamental law as an ongoing project of democratic deliberation and decision. (shrink)

Virtue ethics faces two challenges based in ‘dual-process’ models of cognition. The classic situationist worry is that we just do not have reliable motivations at all. One promising response invokes an alternative model of cognition which can accommodate evidence cited in support of dual-process models without positing distinct systems for automatic and deliberative processing. The approach appeals to the potential of automatization to habituate virtuous motivations. This response is threatened by implicit bias which raises the worry that we cannot avoid (...) habituating reliably vicious motivations. I argue that the alternative model of cognition also offers the virtue ethicist a promising response to this second challenge. In particular, the virtue ethicist can respond to the implicitly biased by counselling the habituation of egalitarian virtue, rather than merely the control of anti-egalitarian vice. Research shows both the importance of automatized individual egalitarian commitments and the potential of habituation to automatize deliberatively endorsed egalitarian goals. However, individuals’ ability to sustain and implement their commitments depends crucially on hospitable environments. Communities which themselves embody egalitarian values and which encourage and support their members’ egalitarian commitments are therefore essential. As Aristotle said, individual virtue requires a virtuous community. (shrink)

This essay by S. F. Davenport won the Norrisian Prize awarded by the University of Cambridge in 1924 and was published the next year. In it, Davenport examines the idea of 'immanence', which he defines as 'indicating the rapport between God and His creatures', and the possible application of the concept to the Incarnation of Christ. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Christology or Christian theology more generally.

L'étude aborde la question de la méthode théologique, en considérant sa nature et sa typologie, ses possibilités et ses limites, ainsi que les conditions de sa légitimité devant les instances du «depositum fidei». On attribue une importance spéciale à la tension de fond entre l'usage de la méthode kérygmatique et de la méthode dialogale dans la théologie du passé, mais surtout dans le débat actuel, spécialement entre divers courants de la théologie de la transcendance, telles les «théologies de la parole» (...) et la «méthode de corrélation», ou encore entre les «théologies du mystère» et la «méthode transcendantale». Pareille tension s'aggrave dans les «théologies de l'immanence», telles les théologies de la «mort de Dieu» ou les «théologies de l'histoire», ou entre les «théologies de la modernité» et certaines «théologies de la praxis». A la fin de ce panorama du pluralisme méthodologique actuel, on formule certains principes fondamentaux sur le problème débattu. Finalement, on considère le caractère obligatoire du «depositum fidei» comme instance théologique définitive. (shrink)

In this book, William H. F. Altman considers the pedagogical connections behind the post-Republic dialogues from Timaeus to Theaetetus in the context of their Reading Order.

"Todos por los pobres, muchos con los pobres, algunos como los pobres". Esta máxima, hoy casi olvidada, tuvo un gran recorrido en la Iglesia católica de los años 80. Sabiamente alguien había dado con una fórmula capaz de hacer visible el carácter normativo universal de "la opción por los pobres", evocando tres escenarios diferentes y complementarios de plasmación eclesial. Los pobres y la pobreza debían dejar de ser una preocupación exclusiva de las organizaciones caritativas de la Iglesia -como Cáritas o (...) Manos Unidas- y una referencias obligada sólo para los católicos y católicas con votos religiosos. La totalidad de la Iglesia debía sentirse concernida por ellos. "La opción por los pobres", como actitud permanente y como perspectiva, constituye "un aspecto esencial de la misión de la iglesia, por lo que nadie puede eximirse de tal responsabilidad sin faltar a su deber" (Juan Pablo II). (shrink)