Geraldine Brady, "From Peirce to Skolem. A Neglected Chapter in the History of Logic", Studies in the History and Philosophy of Mathematics, vol. 4, Elsevier, 2000, ISBN-13: 978-0444503343, ISBN-10: 0-444-50334-X, 625~pp.

This book is an account of the important influence on the development of mathematical logic of Charles S. Peirce and his student O.H. Mitchell, through the work of Ernst Schroder, Leopold Lowenheim, and Thoralf Skolem. As far as we know, this book is the first work delineating this line of influence on modern mathematical logic.

Michael S. Brady offers a new account of the role of emotions in our lives. He argues that emotional experiences do not give us information in the same way that perceptual experiences do. Instead, they serve our epistemic needs by capturing our attention and facilitating a reappraisal of the evaluative information that emotions themselves provide.

Miranda Fricker's book Epistemic Injustice is an original and stimulating contribution to contemporary epistemology. Fricker's main aim is to illustrate the ethical aspects of two of our basic epistemic practices, namely conveying knowledge to others and making sense of our own social experiences. In particular, she wishes to investigate the idea that there are prevalent and distinctively epistemic forms of injustice related to these aspects of our epistemic lives, injustices which reflect the fact that our actual epistemic practices are socially (...) situated. Most of the book focuses on two such forms – Testimonial Injustice and Hermeneutical Injustice – and on the epistemic virtues required to counteract them.Testimonial Injustice occurs when a hearer fails, because of prejudice, to give due credit to the word of a speaker. For instance, in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, the jury in the trial of Tom Robinson fail to regard his testimony as credible because he …. (shrink)

Hegel's doctrines of absolute negativity and 'the Concept' are among his most original contributions to philosophy and they constitute the systematic core of dialectical thought. Brady Bowman explores the interrelations between these doctrines, their implications for Hegel's critical understanding of classical logic and ontology, natural science and mathematics as forms of 'finite cognition', and their role in developing a positive, 'speculative' account of consciousness and its place in nature. As a means to this end, Bowman also re-examines Hegel's relations (...) to Kant and pre-Kantian rationalism, and to key post-Kantian figures such as Jacobi, Fichte and Schelling. His book draws from the breadth of Hegel's writings to affirm a robustly metaphysical reading of the Hegelian project, and will be of great interest to students of Hegel and of German Idealism more generally. (shrink)

Miranda Fricker appeals to the idea of moral-epistemic disappointment in order to show how our practices of moral appraisal can be sensitive to cultural and historical contingency. In particular, she thinks that moral-epistemic disappointment allows us to avoid the extremes of crude moralism and a relativism of distance. In my response I want to investigate what disappointment is, and whether it can constitute a form of focused moral appraisal in the way that Fricker imagines. I will argue that Fricker is (...) unable to appeal to disappointment as standardly understood, but that there is a more plausible way of understanding the notion that she can employ. There are, nevertheless, significant worries about the capacity of disappointment in this sense to function as a form of moral appraisal. I will argue, finally, that even if Fricker can address these worries, her position might end up closer to moralism than she would like. (shrink)

In autumn 2009, BBC television ran a natural history series, ‘Last Chance to See’, with Stephen Fry and wildlife writer and photographer, Mark Carwardine, searching out endangered species. In one episode they retraced the steps Carwardine had taken in the 1980s with Douglas Adams, when they visited Madagascar in search of the aye-aye, a nocturnal lemur. Fry and Carwardine visited an aye-aye in captivity, and upon first setting eyes on the creature they found it rather ugly. After spending an hour (...) or so in its company, Fry said he was completely ‘under its spell’. A subsequent encounter with an aye-aye in the wild supported Fry's judgment of ugliness and fascination for the creature: ‘The aye-aye is beguiling, certainly bizarre, for some even a little revolting. And I say, long may it continue being so.’. (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: Introduction -- Possible Worlds -- The Subtraction Argument -- The Metaphysics of Subtraction -- World and Object -- Metaphysical Nihilism -- Anti-nihilism -- Conclusion -- Index.

This paper seeks to reconceptualise the basis for trusting teachers in current educational discourses. It proposes moving away from trust based on ‘absolute accuracy’ to trust as encapsulated in the practice of parrhesia. On the surface, parrhesia appears to be the opposite of Sartre’s concept of ‘bad faith’. Paradoxically, however, our attempts to be sincere in our accounts are inevitably tainted by this. This paradox is especially evident in autobiographical writing, an activity that is both parrhesiastic in nature and susceptible (...) to bad faith. This does not mean that we should abandon trust in these ways of accounting for oneself, however. Rather, parrhesiastic practices in autobiographical writing can offer a different understanding of how we account for ourselves and our practices, one that does not pertain to a narrow definition of truth as accuracy, but instead leads to a form of self-criticism where one situates oneself in relation to the ‘truth’ of their accounts in new ways. Towards the end of the paper, I explore three ‘parrhesiastic techniques’ and their relationship to accounting for oneself as a teacher, to reimagine these techniques from technicist to existential ways of relating to our practices. (shrink)

Working Feminism looks at key concepts and debates within feminist theory and puts them to work concretely in relation to the real problems faced by Filipina ...

Abstract Agent-based virtue ethics is a unitary normative theory according to which the moral status of actions is entirely dependent upon the moral status of an agent's motives and character traits. One of the problems any such approach faces is to capture the common-sense distinction between an agent's doing the right thing, and her doing it for the right (or wrong) reason. In this paper I argue that agent-based virtue ethics ultimately fails to capture this kind of fine-grained distinction, and (...) to this extent ought to be rejected. I focus first on Michael Slote's agent-based theory, according to which the moral status of actions depends upon an agent's actual motives, and argue that this leads to a paradox. I then consider whether the ?counterfactual? version of agent-basing favoured by Rosalind Hursthouse and Linda Zagzebski fares any better, and conclude that it does not. (shrink)

This volume brings together papers by some of the leading figures working on virtue-theoretic accounts in both ethics and epistemology. A collection of cutting edge articles by leading figures in the field of virtue theory including Guy Axtell, Julia Driver, Antony Duff and Miranda Fricker. The first book to combine papers on both virtue ethics and virtue epistemology. Deals with key topics in recent epistemological and ethical debate.

Prisoners sometimes die in prison, either due to natural illness, violence, suicide, or a result of imprisonment. The purpose of this study is to understand deaths in custody using qualitative methodology and to argue for a comprehensive definition of death in custody that acknowledges deaths related to the prison environment. Interviews were conducted with 33 experts, who primarily work as lawyers or forensic doctors with national and/or international organisations. Responses were coded and analysed qualitatively. Defining deaths in custody according to (...) the place of death was deemed problematic. Experts favoured a dynamic approach emphasising the link between the detention environment and occurrence of death rather than the actual place of death. Causes of deaths and different patterns of deaths were discussed, indicating that many of these deaths are preventable. Lack of an internationally recognised standard definition of death in custody is a major concern. Key aspects such as place, time, and causes of death as well as relation to the prison environment should be debated and incorporated into the definition. Systematic identification of violence within prison institutions is critical and efforts are needed to prevent unnecessary deaths in prison and to protect vulnerable prisoners. (shrink)

Hanna proposes a version of non-conceptualism he closely associates with Kant. This paper takes issue with his proposal on two fronts. First, there are reasons to dispute whether any version of non-conceptualism can be rightly attributed to Kant. In addition to pointing out passages that conflict with Hanna's interpretation, I also suggest ways in which the Kant of the Opus Postumum could integrate key insights of non-conceptualism into a basically conceptualist framework. In Part Two of the paper, I turn to (...) a more systematically oriented critique of Hanna's nonconceptualism. Drawing on work by Gareth Evans, John McDowell, Sonia Sedivy, and Alva Noë, I argue that conceptualism is in a position to integrate the points which are taken by Hanna to speak most strongly in favor of non-conceptualism. In particular, I argue for the deep compatibility of conceptualism and direct realism. At the same time, I point to what I see as weaknesses in Hanna's defence of non-conceptualism. (shrink)

The study of metaphysical possibility involves two central questions: What are possible worlds? Is there an empty possible world? In looking at the first question we consider the different accounts of possible worlds—Lewisian realism, ersatzism, etc. In looking at the second question we consider the discussions of metaphysical nihilism, the modal ontological arguments, etc. In this paper I am drawing these two questions together in order to show how the position we hold on one of these issues affects the position (...) we should hold on the other. (shrink)

In her book, Geraldine Brooks fails to distinguish between what Islam says and what Muslims do.

The relationship between archaeology and other sciences has only recently become a research topic for sociologists and historians of science. From the 1950s to the present day, different approaches have been taken and the aims of research studies have changed considerably. Besides methodological textbooks, which aim at advancing archaeological knowledge, historians of archaeology have tackled this question by exploring the development of archaeology as a scientific discipline. More recently, collaborations between archaeologists and other scientists have been examined as a general (...) phenomenon regarding transfers of knowledge and power relationships between specialists, organizations, and scientific tools, where archaeology is considered as a scientific practice. Adopting a sociohistorical perspective, this entry examines the specificity of aims, facts, and procedures shared by archaeologists and other scientists regarding the crucial question of measuring time and computations. (shrink)

One of the most dominant approaches to semantics for relevant (and many paraconsistent) logics is the Routley-Meyer semantics involving a ternary relation on points. To some (many?), this ternary relation has seemed like a technical trick devoid of an intuitively appealing philosophical story that connects it up with conditionality in general. In this paper, we respond to this worry by providing three different philosophical accounts of the ternary relation that correspond to three conceptions of conditionality. We close by briefly discussing (...) a general conception of conditionality that may unify the three given conceptions. (shrink)

This rich and varied collection of essays addresses some of the most fundamental human questions through the lenses of philosophy, literature, religion, politics, and theology. Peter Augustine Lawler and Dale McConkey have fashioned an interdisciplinary consideration of such perennial and enduring issues as the relationship between nature and history, nature and grace, reason and revelation, classical philosophy and Christianity, modernity and postmodernity, repentance and self-limitation, and philosophy and politics.

This paper explores the practice of rewilding and its implications for environmental aesthetic values, qualities and experiences. First, we consider the temporal dimensions of rewilding in regard to the emergence of particular aesthetic qualities over time, and our aesthetic appreciation of these. Second, we discuss how rewilding potentially brings about difficult aesthetic experiences, such as the unscenic and the ugly. Finally, we make progress in critically understanding how rewilding may be understood as a distinctive form of ecological restoration, while resisting (...) the assimilation of rewilding into wilderness discourses. (shrink)

Among Marxists and Communists, Louis Althusser has long had a reputation for theoreticism and scientism, the factors most often cited to explain the eclipse of his work since the 1960’s. According to the standard account, the distinguishing characteristic and major flaw of his work is that it brings everything back to knowledge. In this essay, I interrogate this understanding of Althusser by reconsidering two cornerstones of Althusserian theory that seem most to exemplify his extreme privileging of epistemology: the symptom and (...) the interpellation theory of ideology. I argue not that taking them to work on the epistemological level is wrong but rather incomplete; there exists a not quite acknowledged beyond of knowledge and interpellation in Althusser, which takes the form of a traumaticnarrative of history, enjoyment, and desire. The production of knowledge in Althusser unfolds as a pathos-laden story, which on one level gestures toward the turbulent world history in which he developed his theory: primarily WW II and the post-war Stalinist revelations, along with the conflicts it provoked in the Communist Party, and the French Communist Party in particular. Although not the subject of extended analysis, these events haunt Althusser’s texts in the form of allusions and the surprisingly violent figurative language with which Althusser discusses theoretical labor. I contend that they call to be analyzed as a kind of return of the repressed, best approached through Slavoj Žižek’s psychoanalytically inflected theory of ideology. (shrink)

L’imposant ouvrage de Géraldine Caps résulte du remaniement d’une thèse de philosophie et d’histoire des sciences soutenue le 14 décembre 2007 à l’université Nancy 2 sous la direction de Simone Mazauric. Il présente une synthèse inédite sur la notion de « médecins cartésiens », dont G. Caps commence par rechercher les occurrences lexicales et les variations. Après avoir souligné que l’expression apparaît pour la première fois en 1643 au singulier pou..

In recent years the formerly quite strong interest in patient compliance has been questioned for being too paternalistic and oriented towards overly narrow biomedical goals as the basis for treatment recommendations. In line with this there has been a shift towards using the notion of adherence to signal an increased weight for patients’ preferences and autonomy in decision making around treatments. This ‘adherence-paradigm’ thus encompasses shared decision-making as an ideal and patient perspective and autonomy as guiding goals of care. What (...) this implies in terms of the importance that we have reason to attach to (non-)adherence and how has, however, not been explained. In this article, we explore the relationship between different forms of shared decision-making, patient autonomy and adherence. Distinguishing between dynamically and statically framed adherence we show how the version of shared decision-making advocated will have consequences for whether one should be interested in a dynamically or statically framed adherence and in what way patient adherence should be assessed. In contrast to the former compliance paradigm (where non-compliance was necessarily seen as a problem), using observations about (non-)adherence to assess the success of health care decision making and professional-patient interaction turns out to be a much less straightforward matter. (shrink)

The study of metaphysical possibility involves two central questions: (i) What are possible worlds? (ii) Is there an empty possible world? In looking at the first question we consider the different accounts of possible worlds-Lewisian realism, ersatzism, etc. In looking at the second question we consider the discussions of metaphysical nihilism, the modal ontological arguments, etc. In this paper I am drawing these two questions together in order to show how the position we hold on one of these issues affects (...) the position we should hold on the other. (shrink)

This paper is a review of Geralding Coggins's book on metaphysical nihilism: Could There Have Been Nothing?

A collection, edited by David Bain, Michael Brady, and Jennifer Corns, originating in our Pain Project. Table of Contents: Colin Klein and Manolo Martínez – ‘Imperativism and Pain Intensity’; Murat Aydede and Matthew Fulkerson – ‘Pain and Theories of Sensory Affect’; Dan-Mikael Ellingson, Morten Kringlebach, and Siri Leknes – ‘A Neuroscience Perspective on Pleasure and Pain’; Michael Brady – ‘The Rationality of Emotional and Physical Suffering’; Jennifer Corns – ‘The Placebo Effect’; Jesse Prinz – ‘What is the Affective (...) Component of Pain?’; Adam Shriver – ‘The Unpleasantness of Pain for Humans and Other Animals’; Valerie Gary Hardcastle – ‘When is a Pain Not a Pain? The Challenge of Disorders of Consciousness’; Frédérique de Vignemont – ‘The First-Person in Pain’. (shrink)

The paper reviews a number of approaches for handling restricted quantification in relevant logic, and proposes a novel one. This proceeds by introducing a novel kind of enthymematic conditional.

Łukasiewicz presented two different analyses of modal notions by means of many-valued logics: the linearly ordered systems Ł3,..., Open image in new window,..., \; the 4-valued logic Ł he defined in the last years of his career. Unfortunately, all these systems contain “Łukasiewicz type paradoxes”. On the other hand, Brady’s 4-valued logic BN4 is the basic 4-valued bilattice logic. The aim of this paper is to show that BN4 can be strengthened with modal operators following Łukasiewicz’s strategy for defining (...) truth-functional modal logics. The systems we define lack “Łukasiewicz type paradoxes”. Following Brady, we endow them with Belnap–Dunn type bivalent semantics. (shrink)

Suffering, in one form or another, is present in all of our lives. But why do we suffer? On one reading, this is a question about the causes of physical and emotional suffering. But on another, it is a question about whether suffering has a point or purpose or value. In this ground-breaking book, Michael Brady argues that suffering is vital for the development of virtue, and hence for us to live happy or flourishing lives. After presenting a distinctive (...) account of suffering, and a novel account of its core element, unpleasantness, Brady proceeds to focus on three claims that are central to his picture. The first is that forms of suffering, like pain and remorse, can themselves constitute virtuous responses. The second is that suffering is essential for four important classes of virtue - virtues of strength, such as fortitude and courage; virtues of vulnerability, such as adaptability and humility; moral virtues, such as compassion; and the practical and epistemic excellences that make up wisdom. His final claim third is that suffering is vital for the social virtues of justice, love, and trust, and hence for the flourishing of social groups. (shrink)