In a short speech in Book 24 of the Iliad , Priam tells Hecuba of his intention to visit the camp of the Achaians in order to attempt to ransom the body of Hector. Hecuba responds with predictable consternation to this dangerous proposition.

In a short speech in Book 24 of the Iliad, Priam tells Hecuba of his intention to visit the camp of the Achaians in order to attempt to ransom the body of Hector. Hecuba responds with predictable consternation to this dangerous proposition.

Daniel C. Dennett claims that the self is nothing more than a fiction of the brain, an abstraction that has been promoted by evolutionary processes as a result of its biological and social beneficence. While concurring with Dennett with regard to simple selves, I argue for the existence of indeterminate and functional selves, and propose that such selves come about as a direct result of our believing in the reality of simple and thus fictional selves. In addition to this I (...) shall contend that Dennett is confused as to the precise nature of the self, and as a consequence ends up fluctuating between two importantly different positions. My overall aim is to ameliorate Dennett’s initial insights and hopefully come up with something more consistent and metaphysically palatable. (shrink)

This paper delineates the normative and empirical approaches to business ethics based upon five categories: 1) academic horne; 2) language; 3) underlying assumptions; 4) theory purpose and scope; 5) theory grounds and evaluation criteria. The goal of the discussion is to increase understanding of the distinctive contributions of each approach and to encourage further dialogue about the potential for integration of the field.

In his recent essay on moral pluralism in environmental ethics, J. Baird Callicott exaggerates the advantages of monism, ignoring the environmentally unsound implications of Leopold’s holism. In addition, he fails to see that Leopold’s view requires the same kind of intellectual schitzophrenia for which he criticizes the version of moral pluralism advocated by Christopher D. Stone in Earth and Other Ethics. If itis plausible to say that holistic entities like ecosystems are directly morally considerable-and that is a very big if-it (...) must be for a very different reason than is usually given for saying that individual human beings are directly morally considerable. (shrink)

The volume contains papers and commentaries presented to the _Boston Area Colloquium in Ancient Philosophy_ during the academic year 2015-16. Works: Phaedrus, Republic, Apology, Laws, Seventh Letter, Stoic texts. Topics: Stoic blending, reciprocal eros, perception in tripartite soul, Stoic identity, Plato’s politics and events.

In Chapter 4 of [2] Grünbaum sets out to refute Einstein's philosophy of physical geometry. The latter's theory is seen as lying within the tradition of "anti-empiricist conventionalism" of Duhem and Quine as opposed to the "qualified empiricism" of Poincaré, Carnap and Reichenbach. Consequently Grünbaum sets the stage for his critique of Einstein by discussing certain of the views of these other thinkers. But in these preliminary discussions the various theses are confused and misrepresented in such a way as to (...) make it almost impossible to evaluate Grünbaum's final treatment of Einstein's thesis. For this reason I will deal only with those parts of this chapter in which the roots of Grünbaum's confusion are to be found. This will involve analyses of two theories which are not clearly distinguished by Grünbaum. The first is Duhem's denial of the "crucial experiment" in physics; the second is Quine's version of "pragmatism.". (shrink)

R.M. Hare’s two-level utilitarianism provides a useful framework for understanding the evolution of codes of professional ethics. From a Harean perspective, the codes reflect both the fact that members of various professions face special kinds of ethically charged situations in the normal course of their work, and the need for people in special roles to acquire various habits of thought and action. This highlights the role of virtue in professional ethics and provides guidance to professional societies when considering modifications to (...) their codes. From a Harean perspective, a professional society should ask both “Are there kinds of situations that members of this profession will normally encounter which members of other professions and/or the general public will not?” and “What habits of thought and action would it be good for individuals encountering such situations to have?”. (shrink)

Consciousness -- Freedom -- Bad faith -- Authenticity.

For a symposium on Dana Nelkin's Making Sense of Freedom and Responsibility.

Philosophers often contrast personal authority to authority vested in offices. Some such distinction is traditional and sometimes useful. But it does not provide us with an exhaustive classification of the types of authority, for there is a third type of authority that I shall argue is more fundamental than these two. Let us start with the types marked out by the usual distinction.Consider first the sort of authority illustrated by the following sentences:Smith is an authority on physics.Smith has authority as (...) a physicist.Smith's views on physics have authority.O.K., I believe you—after all, you're the authority on physics!A person is an authority in virtue of possessing extensive knowledge of a field or subject-matter. There seem to be no limits on what the field or subject-matter can be—for instance, one can be an authority on trivia. (shrink)

The circumstance that on the one hand the daily sustenance of labour power costs only half a day's labor, while on the other hand the very same labor power can work during a whole day, that consequently the value which its use during one day creates is double what he [the capitalist] pays for that use, this circumstance is without a doubt a piece of good luck for the buyer but by no means an injustice [Unrecht] to the seller [the (...) worker].[T]he surplus product [is] the tribute annually exacted from the working class by the capitalist class. Though the latter with a portion of that tribute purchases the additional labor power even at its full price, so that equivalent is exchanged for equivalent, yet the transaction is for all that only the old dodge of every conqueror who buys commodities from the conquered with the money he has robbed them of. (shrink)

This chapter provides an overview of the phenomenology of size perception and the use of instructions to tease apart phenomenal and cognitive aspects. It develops his own recent proposals concerning the geometry of visual space. The chapter proposes that visual space is contracted along the lines of sight. This contraction would explain the apparent convergence of railway tracks, but without invoking a “proximal mode” experience. Parallel railway tracks receding into the distance project converging lines onto the retinas. A true proximal (...) mode representation would show these lines converging as if in a vertical plane. But we experience them as converging while also receding in depth along the ground. The chapter suggests that this calls for a third geometry of visual space, intermediate between a linear perspective projection and full phenomenal constancy. The chapter attributes reports of full constancy to cognitive factors. size perception, visual space, geometry, lines of sight, proximal mode, phenomenal constancy. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre is an undisputed giant of twentieth-century philosophy. His intellectual writings popularizing existentialism combined with his creative and artistic flair have made him a legend of French thought. His tumultuous personal life - so inextricably bound up with his philosophical thinking - is a fascinating tale of love and lust, drug abuse, high profile fallings-out and political and cultural rebellion. This substantial and meticulously researched biography is accessible, fast-paced, often amusing and at times deeply moving. Existentialism and Excess covers (...) all the main events of Sartre's remarkable seventy-five-year life from his early years as a precocious brat devouring his grandfather's library, through his time as a brilliant student in Paris, his wilderness years as a provincial teacher-writer experimenting with mescaline, his World War II adventures as a POW and member of the resistance, his post-war politicization, his immense amphetamine fueled feats of writing productivity, his harem of women, his many travels and his final decline into blindness and old age. Along the way there are countless intriguing anecdotes, some amusing, some tragic, some controversial: his loathing of crustaceans and his belief that he was being pursued by a giant lobster, his escape from a POW camp, the bombing of his apartment, his influence on the May 1968 uprising and his many love affairs. Cox deftly moves from these episodes to discussing his intellectual development, his famous feuds with Aron, Camus, and Merleau-Ponty, his encounters with other giant figures of his day: Roosevelt, Hemingway, Heidegger, John Huston, Mao, Castro, Che Guevara, Khrushchev and Tito, and, above all, his long, complex and creative relationship with Simone de Beauvoir. Existentialism and Excess also gives serious consideration to Sartre's ideas and many philosophical works, novels, stories, plays and biographies, revealing their intimate connection with his personal life. Cox has written an entertaining, thought-provoking and compulsive book, much like the man himself. (shrink)

The view, in Quine, that all there are are pure sets is presented and endorsed.

This article argues that many (often Anglophone) interpreters of the Deduction have mistakenly identified Kant's aim as vindicating ordinary knowledge of objects and as refuting Hume's (alleged) skepticism about such knowledge. Instead, the article contends that Kant's aims were primarily negative. His primary mission (in the Deduction) was not to justify application of the categories to experience, but to show that any use beyond the domain of experience could not be justified. To do this, he needed to show that their (...) proper use in attaining metaphysical knowledge was restricted to (actual and possible) experience. The central theoretical claims of previous metaphysics were thus rendered void. Kant was not out to save ordinary knowledge from the skeptic, at least not originally, since he did not think such knowledge was in danger. Rather, he wanted to sustain the skeptical claim that we cannot justify metaphysical claims about things in themselves, hence that we cannot gain metaphysical knowledge about the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, the beginning of time, and the least parts of matter. He wanted to achieve this result in a more theoretically satisfying manner than had skeptical authors. Doing so would also allow him to curb certain forms of skeptical empiricism, by showing that we cannot disprove, or rule out as unintelligible, human freedom, an afterlife, or divine providence. The article ends by considering the retrospective rereadings of the Deduction by Hermann Cohen and P. F. Strawson, concluding that these rereadings force Kant's text into an alien mold, thereby diminishing its philosophical value as a work with its own distinctive aims and methods. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Status of Animals Origins of Animals Life, Health, and Function Sense and Cognition Are Descartes's Animals Unfeeling Machines? Descartes's Legacy References and Further Reading.

A properly programmed artificially intelligent agent may eventually have one duty, the duty to satisfice expected welfare. We explain this claim and defend it against objections.

The circumstance that on the one hand the daily sustenance of labour power costs only half a day's labor, while on the other hand the very same labor power can work during a whole day, that consequently the value which its use during one day creates is double what he [the capitalist] pays for that use, this circumstance is without a doubt a piece of good luck for the buyer but by no means an injustice [Unrecht] to the seller [the (...) worker].[T]he surplus product [is] the tribute annually exacted from the working class by the capitalist class. Though the latter with a portion of that tribute purchases the additional labor power even at its full price, so that equivalent is exchanged for equivalent, yet the transaction is for all that only the old dodge of every conqueror who buys commodities from the conquered with the money he has robbed them of. (shrink)

"... Shapiro's book is bursting with thoughts, and if one is willing to mine them, one is sure to find items of interest or provocation." —The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism Taking issue with a widely held view that Nietzsche's writings are essentially fragmentary or aphoristic, Gary Shapiro focuses on the narrative mode that Nietzsche adopted in many of his works. Such themes as eternal recurrence, the question of origins, and the problematics of self-knowledge are reinterpreted in the (...) context of the narratives in which Nietzsche develops or employs them. (shrink)

This article first refines the question of Kant's relation to Hume's skepticism, and then considers the evidence for Kant's attitude toward Hume in three contexts: the A Critique, the Prolegomena, and the B Critique. My thesis is that in the A Critique Kant viewed skepticism positively, as a necessary reaction to dogmatism and a spur toward critique. In his initial statement of the critical philosophy Kant treated Hume as an ally in curbing dogmatism, but one who stopped short of what (...) was really needed: a full critique of reason, to establish the boundaries of metaphysical cognition. Kant found fault with Hume's analyses of cognition and experience, and specifically his failure to see the crucial importance of synthetic a priori cognition in metaphysics. In particular, he held that Hume's empiricist account of cognition could neither explain the synthetic a priori cognition actually found in mathematics and natural science, nor provide a principled account of the limits on what can be known--and what can be thought--through the pure concepts of the understanding. According to Kant, Hume therefore failed in his attempt to determine the limits of metaphysics, whereas Kant succeeded because his transcendental philosophy provided a thorough account of cognition, its structure and limits. In the Prolegomena and the B Critique Kant distinguished his position more sharply from Hume's. He also adopted a more negative attitude toward "skeptical idealism" than before; but he attributed such skepticism to Descartes, not Hume. Prior to the B Critique Kant did not see Hume as attacking natural science or ordinary cognition. In none of the three works was Kant's main aim to "answer the skeptic." His primary aim was what he said it was: to firmly establish the boundary of metaphysics, by discovering the elements of human cognition and fixing its proper domain. His purported discoveries about the limits of metaphysical cognition meant that the traditional objects of metaphysical knowledge, God, the soul, and the world as it is in itself, are unknowable, hence that traditional metaphysics itself is impossible. Besides settling the possibility or impossibility of metaphysics, his findings would also prevent the illegitimate extension of principles of sensibility to God and the noumenal self, an extension that would threaten the metaphysics of morals by incorrectly denying the thinkability of noumenal freedom, and that might otherwise lead to "materialism, fatalism, atheism, and freethinking unbelief" (B xxxiv). (shrink)

This chapter examines the Helmholtz's changing conceptions of the relation between scientific cognition (the thought processes of the investigator) and artistic cognition. It begins with two case studies: Helmholtz's application of sensory physiology and psychology respectively to music and to painting. Consideration of these concrete cases leads to Helmholtz's account of the methodology of aesthetics, and specifically to his formulation of the distinction between the *Geisteswissenschaften* and *Naturwissenschaften*. It then examines the development of his comparative account of the thought processes (...) of artist and scientist. This development parallels the development of his psychological theory of judgment into his famous theory of unconscious inference. The latter development exemplifies his classical "aesthetics of science.". (shrink)

As is reasonably well-appreciated, Quine struggled with his definition of the all-important notion of an observation sentence; especially in order to make them bear out his commitment to language’s being a ‘social art’. In an earlier article (_Mind_ 131(523):805–825, 2022), I proposed a certain repair, which here I will explain, justify and articulate further. But it also infects the definition of observation categoricals, and furthermore makes it a secondary matter, a seeming afterthought, that evidence, science and knowledge generally are shared—are (...) joint, social and collaborative products. Without forsaking Quine’s strict naturalism, I try to make the necessary adjustments to Quine’s scheme. (shrink)

‘Linguistic meaning must be public’ – for Quine, here is not a statement to rest with, whether it be reckoned true or reckoned false. It calls for explication. When we do, using Quine’s words to piece together what he thought, we find that much too much is concealed by the original statement. Yes, Quine said ‘Language is a social art’; yes, he accepts behaviourism so far as linguistic meaning is concerned; yes, he broadly agrees with Wittgenstein’s anti-privacy stricture. But precisely (...) what is being said by the original statement to be public, and what does calling it ‘public’ amount to? Pressing such questions complicates the picture enormously, partly though by no means entirely aligning Quine with linguistic internalism vis-à-vis Chomsky. (shrink)

Development of a vaccine for schistosomiasis, a parasitic disease currently affecting over 200 million people worldwide, has been targeted as a priority by the World Health Organisation. Research demonstrating the ability of humans to acquire natural immunity to schistosome infection, together with the successful use of attenuated vaccines in animals both under laboratory and field conditions, suggest that development of a human vaccine is feasible. Attenuated vaccines for schistosomiasis are considered neither safe nor practicable for human use, however, and therefore (...) other approaches must be considered. This review examines progress currently being undertaken in a number of different areas towards achieving the goal of a safe and effective human vaccine for schistosomiasis. (shrink)