Jesus displays audacious personal authority in summoning his followers to join him in advancing the kingdom of God. He does not negotiate with disciples. Moreover, the content of his call implies an alternative political (imperial) as well as religious (spiritual) vocation.

Eschewing a truncated focus on single proof-texts, Matthew's Jesus interprets Scripture by Scripture across the canon in creative and provocative ways. His hermeneutical methods and aims resist narrow profiling. Above all, Matthew's Jesus emerges as the church's authoritative biblical exegete and teacher.

Introduction: working together on individuality / Lynn K. Nyhart and Scott Lidgard -- The work of biological individuality: concepts and contexts / Scott Lidgard and Lynn K. Nyhart -- Cells, colonies, and clones: individuality in the volvocine algae / Matthew D. Herron -- Individuality and the control of life cycles / Beckett Sterner -- Discovering the ties that bind: cell-cell communication and the development of cell sociology / Andrew S. Reynolds -- Alternation of generations and individuality, 1851 / (...) Lynn K. Nyhart and Scott Lidgard -- Spencer's evolutionary entanglement: from liminal individuals to implicit collectivities / Snait Gissis -- Biological individuality and enkapsis: from Martin Heidenhain's synthesiology to the völkisch national community / Olivier Rieppel -- Parasitology, zoology, and society in France, ca. 1880-1920 / Michael A. Osborne -- Metabolism, autonomy, and individuality / Hannah Landecker -- Bodily parts in the structure-function dialectic / Ingo Brigandt -- Commentaries: historical, biological, and philosophical perspectives -- Distrust that particular intuition: resilient essentialisms and empirical challenges in the history of biological individuality / James Elwick -- Biological individuality: a relational reading / Scott F. Gilbert -- Philosophical dimensions of individuality / Alan C. Love and Ingo Brigandt. (shrink)

In recent times various books have suggested building a healthier economics on Aristotelian foundations. They often rely on Scott Meikle’s accurate study of Aristotle’s Economic Thought. For example, we can mention James Alvey’s A Short History of Ethics and Economics. The Greeks, Spencer Pack’s Aristotle, Adam Smith and Karl Marx, and Irene van Staveren’s The Values of Economics: An Aristotelian Perspective which stresses the need for inserting the values of justice, freedom and care into economics. Andrew Yuengert’s The (...) Boundaries of Technique is based on Aristotle and Aquinas conceptions of human action. Yuengert has also published Approximating Prudence: Aristotelian Practical Wisdom and Economic Models of Choice. James Halteman and Edd Noell’s book about the relevance of ethics for economics, Reckoning with Markets also deals with Aristotle’s economic thought. The proposal of a new book of Robert and Edward Skidelsky, How Much is Enough? is also highly based on Aristotle’s notion of the good life. This paper will briefly detect what are the Aristotelian concepts mostly used by these authors and the reason why they are returning to Aristotle. (shrink)

The writing of Iris Murdoch has long been of interest to both literature enthusiasts and students of philosophy. The years Murdoch spent studying philosophy at Oxford and Cambridge left an indelible imprint on her work. The essays in this book address both Murdoch’s philosophy and writing in the context of Continental philosophy and postmodern fiction. Many of the twelve essays resist the prevailing critical orthodoxies, introducing instead new theories with which to approach one of Britain’s most revered authors.

Addressing the complex and longstanding relationship between universities and security and intelligence agencies, this article provides a tentative, working conceptual framework for research ethics in a global higher education environment. The article does so in the light of intensified threats of international terrorism which have brought this historic relationship to the contemporary foreground of academic life. Seeing higher education environments as part of a broader process of enhanced security in societies worldwide, we use securitization theory to provide an analytical framework (...) specifically for understanding a complex of historical-contemporary relationships between universities and security and intelligence agencies. As the basis for framing the ethical issues which arise for researchers across all disciplines, the intention is to raise awareness of a relationship which by its very, especially historical, nature, has been secret. The article suggests identify a three-fold analytical framework were structural, operational and ethical considerations are interwoven in complex ways. At the structural level we identify three modus operandi ; and four academic ethical principles. While the conceptual framework presented makes no pretence of offering a complete or comprehensive picture of a complex and still evolving relationship, the intention is provide some critical balance and coherence to a contentious not to say often divisive aspect of research ethics in the securitised university. (shrink)

This paper shows how the critical questions matching an argumentation scheme can be mod-eled in the Carneades argumentation system as three kinds of premises. Ordinary premises hold only if they are supported by sufficient arguments. Assumptions hold, by default, until they have been questioned. With exceptions the negation holds, by default, until the exception has been supported by sufficient arguments. By “sufficient arguments”, we mean arguments sufficient to satisfy the applicable proof standard.

Research has shown that individuals with high levels of psychopathic personality traits are likely to cause harm to others in the workplace. However, there is little academic literature on the potentially adaptive outcomes of corporate psychopathy, particularly because the “boldness” psychopathy domain has largely been under-acknowledged in this literature. This study aimed to elaborate on past findings by examining the associations between psychopathy, as operationalized using scales from the relatively new triarchic model of psychopathy, and both adaptive and maladaptive workplace (...) behaviors. Participants were 343 working community adults who completed a series of self-report questionnaires that measured psychopathy and various workplace behaviors, including counterproductive work behaviors, tactics of influence, unethical decision-making, leadership strategies, team play, and creativity. Structural equation modeling was used to estimate the associations between latent constructs of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition, and the eight different constructs related to workplace behaviors. It was found that boldness preferentially predicted the use of soft tactics of influence, adaptive leadership, and team play, and negatively predicted passive leadership. Meanness predicted unethical decision-making, poor team play, and hard tactics of influence. Disinhibition positively predicted CWB and passive leadership. Meanness also moderated the association between disinhibition and CWB, in that greater scores on both psychopathy domains indicated greater levels of CWB. These findings provide conceptual support for the triarchic model, including the “boldness” domain, which measures adaptive aspects of psychopathy in addition to maladaptive ones, as well as suggest that not all individuals high on psychopathy would be an overt menace to the workplace. The different psychopathy traits may also interact with each other to predict different types or levels of workplace behaviors. (shrink)

Presents a plethora of approaches to developing human potential in areas not conventionally addressed. Organized in two parts, this international collection of essays provides viable educational alternatives to those currently holding sway in an era of high-stakes accountability.

In the last decade, the familiar problem of the regress of reasons has returned to prominent consideration in epistemology. And with the return of the problem, evaluation of the options available for its solution is begun anew. Reason’s regress problem, roughly put, is that if one has good reasons to believe something, one must have good reason to hold those reasons are good. And for those reasons, one must have further reasons to hold they are good, and so a regress (...) of reasons looms. In this new study, Aikin presents a full case for infinitism as a response to the problem of the regress of reasons. Infinitism is the view that one must have a non-terminating chain of reasons in order to be justified. The most defensible form of infinitism, he argues, is that of a mixed theory – that is, epistemic infinitism must be consistent with and integrate other solutions to the regress problem. (shrink)

Two decades of research using repeated false statements and underhanded information have shown that people can easily be made to believe that they have seen or experienced something they never did. In this paper, we discuss the possibility that the mental health professional and client may unknowingly collaborate to create a client′s false memory of childhood sexual abuse. Both therapist and client bring beliefs into therapy, and the confirmation bias shows that people discover what they already believe to be true. (...) What do people believe about memory? We asked 115 students for their reactions to various statements about how memory works; results showed widespread belief in the repression mechanism. A principal components analysis revealed that three larger beliefs explained 61% of the variance in the more specific beliefs: possible sources of memory distortions, memory for traumatic events, and the potential recoverability of memories. Finally, we discuss the ambiguity inherent in the term repression, as well as the generalizability of misinformation research to the repressed and recovered memories. (shrink)

An examination of the history and arguments behind W.K. Clifford and William James's landmark essays and subsequent impact on the importance of knowledge-based evidence.

Free speech fallacies are errors of meta-argument. One commits a free speech fallacy when one argues that since there are apparent restrictions on one’s rights of free expression, procedural rules of critical exchange have been broken, and consequently, one’s preferred view is dialectically better off than it may otherwise seem. Free speech fallacies are meta-argumentative, since they occur at the level of assessing the dialectical situation in terms of norms of argument and in terms of meta-evidential principles of interpreting how (...) and why people follow (or fail to follow) argumentative rules. Our plan here is to begin with a brief explanation of meta-argument and meta-argumentative fallacy. We will then turn to the variety of forms of the free speech fallacy, which we will explain as meta-argumentatively erroneous. (shrink)

What follows is a taxonomy of arguments that regresses of inferential justification are vicious. They fall out into four general classes: conceptual arguments from incompleteness, conceptual arguments from arbitrariness, ought-implies-can arguments from human quantitative incapacities, and ought-implies can arguments from human qualitative incapacities. They fail with a developed theory of "infinitism" consistent with valuational pluralism and modest epistemic foundationalism.

Arguments are weakly meta-argumentative when they call attention to themselves and purport to be successful as arguments. Arguments are strongly metaargumentative when they take arguments (themselves or other arguments) as objects for evaluation, clarification, or improvement and explicitly use concepts of argument analysis for the task. The ambitious meta-argumentation thesis is that all argumentation is weakly argumentative. The modest meta-argumentation thesis is that there are unique instances of strongly meta-argumentative argument. Here, we show how the two theses are connected and (...) both are plausible. (shrink)

Why We Argue : A Guide to Political Disagreement presents an accessible and engaging introduction to the theory of argument, with special emphasis on the way argument works in public political debate. The authors develop a view according to which proper argument is necessary for one’s individual cognitive health; this insight is then expanded to the collective health of one’s society. Proper argumentation, then, is seen to play a central role in a well-functioning democracy. Written in a lively style and (...) filled with examples drawn from the real world of contemporary politics, and questions following each chapter to encourage discussion, Why We Argue : A Guide to Political Disagreement reads like a guide for the participation in, and maintenance of, modern democracy. An excellent student resource for courses in critical thinking, political philosophy, and related fields, Why We Argue : A Guide to Political Disagreement is an important contribution to reasoned debate. (shrink)

Australian prisons are overpopulated with people suffering from numerous health problems. COVID-19 presents a significant threat to prisoner health. This article examines the current regulatory responses from Australian state and territory governments to COVID-19 and a recent case which tested the human rights of prisoners during a pandemic.

Arguing in mixed company -- What atheism is -- On the new atheism -- Ethics without God -- A moral case for atheism -- Religion in politics.

A quick mental survey of one's friends or acquaintances reveals an important difference between them. On the one hand, there are seemingly stoic people for whom emotional events (e.g., having a pap...

Three objections to the epistemic theory of argument are presented and briefly rebutted. In light of this reply, a case for argumentative eclecticism is made.

Given immunity’s general role in the organism’s economy—both in terms of its internal environment as well as mediating its external relations—immune theory has expanded its traditional formulation of preserving individual autonomy to one that includes accounting for nutritional processes and symbiotic relationships that require immune tolerance. When such a full ecological alignment is adopted, the immune system becomes the mediator of both defensive and assimilative environmental intercourse, where a balance of immune rejection and tolerance governs the complex interactions of the (...) organism’s ecological relationships. Accordingly, immunology, which historically had affiliated with the biology of individuals, now becomes a science concerned with the biology of communities. With this translocation, the ontological basis of the organism is undergoing a profound change. Indeed, the recent recognition of the ubiquity of symbiosis has challenged the traditional notions of biological individuality and requires a shift in the metaphysics undergirding biology, in which a philosophy of the organism must be characterized by ecological dialectics “all-the-way-down.”. (shrink)

Although informed consent is important in clinical research, questions persist regarding when it is necessary, what it requires, and how it should be obtained. The standard view in research ethics is that the function of informed consent is to respect individual autonomy. However, consent processes are multidimensional and serve other ethical functions as well. These functions deserve particular attention when barriers to consent exist. We argue that consent serves seven ethically important and conceptually distinct functions. The first four functions pertain (...) principally to individual participants: (1) providing transparency; (2) allowing control and authorization; (3) promoting concordance with participants' values; and (4) protecting and promoting welfare interests. Three other functions are systemic or policy focused: (5) promoting trust; (6) satisfying regulatory requirements; and (7) promoting integrity in research. Reframing consent around these functions can guide approaches to consent that are context sensitive and that maximize achievable goals. (shrink)

Poe's Law is roughly that online parodies of religious extremism are indistinguishable from instances of sincere extremism. Poe's Law may be expressed in a variety of ways, each highlighting either a facet of indirect discourse generally, attitudes of online audiences, or the quality of online religious material. As a consequence of the polarization of online discussions, invocations of Poe's Law have relevance in wider circles than religion. Further, regular invocations of Poe's Law in critical discussions have the threat of further (...) entrenching and polarizing views. (shrink)

Entry in International Encyclopedia of Ethics on Ethical considerations bearing on Argumentation.

William James' main argument in “The Will to Believe” against evidentialism is that there are facts that cannot come to be without a preliminary faith in their coming. James primarily makes this case with the argument from friendship. I will critically present James' argument from friendship and show that the argument does not yield a counter-example to evidentialism and is in the end unsound.

Editors’ Note: We decided that a commentary to the original Aikin essay from the perspective of humanities policy would be beneficial. We then invited Scott Aikin to respond to this commentary. What follows is (a) the Briggle/Frodeman commentary and (b) the Aikin response. We present the discussion in its entirety in the conviction that this transparency will help the reader to critically assess the viability of these arguments and to draw his/her own conclusion as to the efficacy of such (...) reasoning for environmental philosophy as such. (shrink)

The Routledge Companion to Pragmatism offers 44 cutting-edge chapters--written specifically for this volume by an international team of distinguished researchers--that assess the past, present, and future of pragmatism. Going beyond the exposition of canonical texts and figures, the collection presents pragmatism as a living philosophical idiom that continues to devise promising theses in contemporary debates. The chapters are organized into four major parts: Pragmatism's History and Figures Pragmatism and Plural Traditions Pragmatism's Reach Pragmatism's Relevance Each chapter provides up-to-date research tools (...) for philosophers, students, and others who wish to locate pragmatist options in their contemporary research fields. As a whole, the volume demonstrates that the vitality of pragmatism lies in its ability to build upon, and transcend, the ideas and arguments of its founders. When seen in its full diversity, pragmatism emerges as one of the most successful and influential philosophical movements in Western philosophy. (shrink)