Based on the author's nearly 30 years' of teaching introductory philosophy — and his observations of where beginning readers run into difficulty — this compact “primer” gives readers the basic tools they need to explore philosophical reading and writing for the first time. Provides insights and strategies for helping readers get started with reading, thinking about, and discussing philosophical concepts and writing short philosophical essays about what they've been reading and thinking; includes a new chapter that illustrates techniques for probing (...) beneath the expository surface of a given question to uncover the inevitable structure of presuppositions and problems underlying it. (shrink)

In this essay I offer a partial rehabilitation of Cohen’s Kant interpretation. In particular, I will focus on the center of Cohen’s interpretation in KTE, reflected in the title itself: his interpretation of Kant’s concept of experience. “Kant hat einen neuen Begriff der Erfahrung entdeckt,”7 Cohen writes at the opening of the first edition of KTE (henceforth, KTE1), and while the exact nature of that new concept of experience is hard to pin down in the 1871 edition, he states it (...) succinctly in the second edition (henceforth KTE2): experience is Newtonian mathematical natural science.8 While this equation of experience with mathematical natural science has few contemporary defenders, I believe it is substantially correct, with one important qualification. Kant uses the term Erfahrung in a number of different senses in the Kritik der reinen Vernunft (henceforth, KrV). I will argue that a central, and neglected, sense of that key technical term aligns with Cohen’s reading; what Kant sometimes refers to as ‘universal experience’ (sometimes, simply ‘experience’) is, in broad outlines, correctly interpreted by Cohen as mathematical natural science. (shrink)

The increasing demographic changes of populations in many countries require an approach for managing the complexity of sociocultural differences. Such an approach could help healthcare organizations to address healthcare disparities and inequities, and promote cultural safety for healthcare providers and patients alike. Almutairi's critical cultural competence (CCC) is a comprehensive approach that holds great promise for managing difficulties arising from sociocultural and linguistic issues during cross‐cultural interactions.CCChas addressed the limitations of many other cultural competence approaches that have been discussed in (...) the literature. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to define the construct ofCCCand the theoretical components of theCCC. (shrink)

Buddhist teachings and modern science are analogous both in their approach to the search for truth and in some of the discoveries of contemporary physics, biology, and psychology. However, despite these congruencies and the recognized benefits of science, Buddhism reminds us of the dangers of a tendency toward scientific reductionism and imperialism and of the sciences’ inability to deal with human moral and spiritual values and needs. Buddhism and science have human concerns and final goals that are different, but as (...) long as the boundaries between them are not trespassed, they can be mutually corrective and allied to benefit humankind. Buddhism must be open to the discoveries of science about the physical world as must all religions today, but no matter how much it may have to modify some of its ancient beliefs, its basic truths—the truths about human suffering and its release—will remain untouched. (shrink)

In his middle and later periods one of Wittgenstein’s concerns was perception. This is, of course, precisely what one would expect given his obvious interest then in the notion of experience and in the language we employ to describe and express our experiences. However, the passage which has attracted most attention is the discussion in sec. XI of part II of Philosophical Investigations which is concerned with “seeing as”, or “aspect seeing”. In this paper the examples that Wittgenstein uses are (...) examined, and some puzzles about them raised. It is suggested that Wittgenstein’s aim is to discredit some supposedly mistaken accounts of what ‘seeing as’ is. These mistaken accounts are supposed to made by Gestalt psychologists such as Kohler, and traditional sense-datum theorists. It is further argued that Wittgenstein’s criticisms are not uniformly cogent. It is, though, conceded that this rich and original passage contains far more than the elements investigated here, so much more needs to be scrutinised. (shrink)

Although the study of reasons plays an important role in both epistemology and moral philosophy, little attention has been devoted to the question of how, exactly, reasons interact to support the actions or conclusions they do. In this book, John F. Horty attempts to answer this question by providing a precise, concrete account of reasons and their interaction, based on the logic of default reasoning. The book begins with an intuitive, accessible introduction to default logic itself, and then argues that (...) this logic can be adapted to serve as a foundation for a concrete theory of reasons. Horty then shows that the resulting theory helps to explain how the interplay among reasons can determine what we ought to do by developing two different deontic logics, capturing two different intuitions about moral conflicts.In the central part of the book, Horty elaborates the basic theory to account for reasoning about the strength of our own reasons, and also about the related concepts of undercutting defeaters and exclusionary reasons. The theory is illustrated with an application to particularist arguments concerning the role of principles in moral theory. The book concludes by introducing a pair of issues new to the philosophical literature: the problem of determining the epistemic status of conclusions supported by separate but conflicting reasons, and the problem of drawing conclusions from sets of reasons that can vary arbitrarily in strength, or importance. (shrink)

Bioethical Prescriptions collects F.M. Kamm's articles on bioethics -- revised for publication in book form -- which have appeared over the last 25 years and which have made her among the most widely-respected philosophers working in this field.

Christology seems to fall fairly clearly into two divisions. The first is concerned with the truth of the two propositions: ‘Christ is God’ and ‘Christ is a man’. The second is concerned with the mutual compatibility of these propositions. The first part of Christology tends to confine itself to what is sometimes called ‘positive theology’: that is to say, it is largely given over to examining the Jons revelationis —let us not prejudge currently burning issues by asking what this is—to (...) see what evidence can be found for the truth of these propositions. Clearly, the methods used will be above all those of New Testament exegesis. The second part of Christology will necessarily consist entirely of that speculative theology which is contrasted with positive theology. Even if the earliest speculation on this topic is to be found in the New Testament itself and thus becomes fair game for the exegetes, any attempt to relate the primary truths, ‘Christ is God’ and ‘Christ is a man’, to eachother is a work of reflection, and in the terminology I am using speculative. (shrink)

Standard models of adolescent risk taking posit that the cognitive abilities of adolescents and adults are equivalent, and that increases in risk taking that occur during adolescence are the result of socio emotional differences in impulsivity, sensation seeking, and lack of self-control. Fuzzy-trace theory incorporates these socio emotional differences. However, it predicts that there are also cognitive differences between adolescents and adults, specifically that there are developmental increases in gist-based intuition that reflects understanding. Gist understanding, as opposed to verbatim-based analysis, (...) generally has been hypothesized to have a protective effect on risk taking in adolescence. Gist understanding is also an essential element of informed consent regarding risks in medical decision- making. Evidence thus supports the argument that adolescents’ status as mature minors should be treated as an exception rather than a presumption, because accuracy in verbatim analysis is not mature gist understanding. Use of the exception should be accompanied by medical experts’ input on the bottom-line gist of risks involved in treatment. (shrink)

In this important collection of essays Dennis Thompson argues for a more robust conception of responsibility in public life than prevails in contemporary democracies. He suggests that we should stop thinking so much about public ethics in terms of individual vices and start thinking about it more in terms of institutional vices. Combining theory and practice with many concrete examples and proposals for reform, these essays could be used in courses in applied ethics or political theory and will be read (...) by professionals and graduate students in schools of political science, public policy, law, public health, journalism and business. (shrink)

Whoever hesitates to utter that which he thinks the highest truth, lest it should be too much m advance of the time, may reassure himself by looking at his act DEGREES from an impersonal point of view.... It is not for nothing that he has in him these sympathies with some principles and repugnance to others. He, with all his capacities, and aspirations, and beliefs, is not an accident, but a product of the time. He must remember that while he (...) is a descendant of the past he is a parent of the future; and that his thoughts are as children born to him, which he may not carelessly let die. Herbert S. (shrink)

F. LeRon Shults explores DeleuzeOCOs fascination with theological themes and shows how his entire corpus can be understood as a creative atheist machine that liberates thinking, acting and feeling."e.

In Morals By Agreement, David Gauthier concludes that under certain conditions it is rational for an agent to be disposed to choose in accordance with a fair cooperative scheme rather than to choose the course of action that maximizes his utility. This is only one of a number of important claims advanced in that book. In particular, he also propounds a distinctive view concerning what counts as a fair cooperative arrangement. The thesis concerning the rationality of adopting a cooperative disposition (...) is, however, logically independent of his substantive view of a fair cooperative scheme and is itself central to the project as a whole. Gauthier's concern is to establish that certain moral principles are those that fully rational, self-interested persons would agree to take as regulative of their dealings with one another – that a contractarian approach, in this sense, can provide an adequate basis for a theory of morality. (shrink)

This book is a philosophical commentary on Schopenhauer's "Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason," dealing with each of Schopenhauer's principal ...

G. W. F. Hegel is an immensely important yet difficult philosopher. Philosophy of Mind is the third part of Hegel's Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences, in which he summarizes his philosophical system. It is one of the main pillars of his thought. Michael Inwood presents this central work to the modern reader in an intelligible and accurate new translation---the first into English since 1894---that loses nothing of the style of Hegel's thought. In his editorial introduction Inwood offers a philosophically sophisticated (...) evaluation of Hegel's ideas which includes a survey of the whole of Hegel's thought and detailed analysis of the terminology he used. (shrink)

In a discussion-note in Mind, Father P. M. Farrell, O.P., gave an account, in what he admitted to be an embarrassingly brief compass, of the Thomist doctrine concerning evil. There is one sentence in this discussion which at first glance appears paradoxical. Father Farrell has been arguing that a universe containing ‘corruptible good’ as well as incorruptible is better than one containing ‘incorruptible good’ only. He continues: ‘If, however, they are to manifest this corruptible good, they must be corruptible and (...) they must sometimes corrupt.’ The final words, despite Father Farrell's italics, strike one as expressing, not a self-evident truth, but a non sequitur. The fact that I am capable of committing murder does not entail that I will at some time commit it. It is not immediately obvious that a similar entailment holds in the case of corruption and corruptibility. (shrink)