I begin by refuting Davidson’s classic account of akrasia, which turns on a purported distinction between judging p and judging p “all things considered.” The upshot of this refutation is that an adequate account of akrasia must turn on a distinction between different ways in which the agent can make judgments about her practical reasons. On the account I propose, an akratic agent makes an existential judgment that there is some decisive practical reason to act in a certain way without (...) also knowing what that reason is. An agent can do what such a reason requires only by deviating from the conditions under which her action would be a response to it. The possibility of akrasia is a consequence of our concern not only to perform actions that match what our reasons require but also to manifest reasons in conduct that they inform. (shrink)

Putnam discusses each of the fifteen odes found in the book, studying the work both as a whole and as a series of interactive units.

Social service professionals use a unique set of principles to guide their decisions within a broad and complex array of situations. Straight Talk about Professional Ethics provides readers with the guidelines that will help them make decisions in a manner that is clinically and ethically effective. This book explains the seven core concepts that guide ethical practice in the helping professions: self-determination, informed consent, competence, confidentiality and privacy, attention to conflicts of interest, maintenance of professional boundaries, and professionalism and integrity. (...) Developing a commitment to the ethics of a profession and an understanding of how those ethics apply to commonly occurring workplace situations is a major element of professional preparation. (shrink)

This important book provides a theory about the nature of fiction, and about the relation between the author, the reader and the fictional text. The approach is philosophical: that is to say, the author offers an account of key concepts such as fictional truth, fictional characters, and fiction itself. The book argues that the concept of fiction can be explained partly in terms of communicative intentions, partly in terms of a condition which excludes relations of counterfactual dependence between the world (...) and the text. This communicative model is then applied to the following problems: how can something be 'true in the story' without being explicitly stated in the text? In what ways does interpreting a fictional story depend upon grasping its author's intentions? Is there always a unique best interpretation of a fictional text? What is the correct semantics for fictional names? What is the nature of our emotional response to a fictional work? In answering these questions the author explores the complex interaction between author, reader, and text. This interaction requires the reader to construct a 'fictional author' - a character in the story whose personality, beliefs and emotional states must be interpreted if the reader is to grasp the meaning of the work. (shrink)

Landini discusses the second edition of Principia Mathematica, to show Russella (TM)s intellectual relationship with Wittgenstein and Ramsey.

In Complicity and Moral Accountability, Gregory Mellema presents a philosophical approach to the moral issues involved in complicity. Starting with a taxonomy of Thomas Aquinas, according to whom there are nine ways for one to become complicit in the wrongdoing of another, Mellema analyzes each kind of complicity and examines the moral status of someone complicit in each of these ways. Mellema's central argument is that one must perform a contributing action to qualify as an accomplice, and that it (...) is always morally blameworthy to perform such an action. Additionally, he argues that an accomplice frequently bears moral responsibility for the outcome of the other's wrongdoing, but he distinguishes this case from cases in which the accomplice is tainted by the wrongdoing of the principal actor. He further distinguishes between enabling, facilitating, and condoning harm, and introduces the concept of indirect complicity. Mellema tackles issues that are clearly important to any case of collective and shared responsibility, yet rarely discussed in depth, always presenting his arguments clearly, concisely, and engagingly. His account of the nonmoral as well as moral qualities of complicity in wrongdoing--especially of the many and varied ways in which principles and accomplices can interact--is highly illuminating. Liberally sprinkled with helpful and nuanced examples, Complicity and Moral Accountability vividly illustrates the many ways in which one may be complicit in wrongdoing. "In Complicity and Moral Accountability, Gregory Mellema has made an immensely important contribution to the discussion of group morality and collective responsibility both within and far beyond professional academic philosophy. His clearly written book will be essential reading." --Fergus Kerr, Honorary Fellow, University of Edinburgh. (shrink)

Composed of a substantial introduction, twelve original essays produced for this volume, and a new English translation of a personal, intriguing, and little ...

This clear, learner-friendly text helps today's students bridge the gap between everyday culture and critical thinking. The text covers all the basics of critical thinking, beginning where students are, not where we think they should be. Its comprehensiveness allows instructors to tailor the material to their individual teaching styles, resulting in an exceptionally versatile text.

A re-issue of Gregory Bateson's classic work. It summarizes Bateson's thinking on the subject of the patterns that connect living beings to each other and to their environment.

In the following essay, I discuss my own uneasy and nonlinear journey from the classroom to Deleuze, describing the concepts and lines of thought that have been productive in thinking differently about teaching and teacher education. I also detail my encounters with the surprising orthodoxies of using Deleuzian/Deleuzoguattarian thought. From these, I suggest that ‘being Deleuzian’ is itself a molar line that serves as an exclusionary mechanism, working to preserve high theory for the use of only a select few. Instead, (...) I argue for the potential of making such nonlinear thinking accessible to mainstream audiences to interrupt the linear, status quo thinking undergirding a global educational neoliberal movement. (shrink)

The Swedish artist and writer Tyra Kleen was a professional artist and a constant traveller who had a great interest in different religious questions. This article describes her Symbolist artistry, her interest in Theosophy and her journeys to India and Asia.

[This is an edited and improved version of "You Are Not Your Brain: Against 'Teaching to the Brain'" previously published in *Review of Higher Education and Self-Learning* 5(15), Summer 2012.] Since educators are always looking for ways to improve their practice, and since empirical science is now accepted in our worldview as the final arbiter of truth, it is no surprise they have been lured toward cognitive neuroscience in hopes that discovering how the brain learns will provide a nutshell explanation (...) for student learning in general. I argue that identifying the person with the brain is scientism (not science), that the brain is not the person, and that it is the person who learns. In fact the brain only responds to the learning of embodied experience within the extra-neural network of intersubjective communications. Learning is a dynamic, cultural activity, not a neural program. Brain-based learning is unnecessary for educators and may be dangerous in that a culturally narrow ontology is taken for granted, thus restricting our creativity and imagination, and narrowing the human community. (shrink)

We often ascribe possibility to the scenes that are displayed by mental or nonmental sensory images. The paper presents a novel argument for thinking that we are prima facie justified in ascribing metaphysical possibility to what is displayed by suitable visual images, and it argues that many of our imagery‐based ascriptions of metaphysical possibility are therefore prima facie justified. Some potential objections to the arguments are discussed, and some potential extensions of them, to cover nonvisual forms of imagery and nonmetaphysical (...) forms of possibility, are endorsed. (shrink)

Now in its twentieth year of publication, this rich collection, popular among teachers and students alike, provides an in-depth look at major cases that have shaped the field of medical ethics. The book presents each famous (or infamous) case using extensive historical and contextual background, and then proceeds to illuminate it by careful discussion of pertinent philosophical theories and legal and ethical issues.

After a period of relative exhaustion, French phenomenology has experienced a powerful revival in the last ten years, with the emer-gence of a “cosmological” paradigm in phenomenology. While this situation is obviously to be welcomed, it also presents contemporary phenomenologists with the challenge of acquiring a compass that will enable them to find their bearings in this rapidly reconfiguring philosophical landscape, and according to principles that still partly elude those who are committed to them. In so doing, the aim of (...) this study is twofold: firstly, to put forward a series of hypotheses as to the way in which it is being structured - and thus to elaborate a typology of contemporary French phenomenologies; and secondly, to attempt to determine the stakes and also the presuppositions of this new philosophical “deal” which, perhaps, remains transitory and, as such, rich in a future that, for the time being, it is only possible to presage. (shrink)

In this condensed survey, I look to recent perspectives on evolution suggesting that cultural change likely alters the genome. Since theories of development are nested within assumptions about evolution (evo-devo), I next review some oft-cited developmental theories and other psychological theories of the 20th century to see if any match the emerging perspectives in evolutionary theory. I seek theories based neither in nature (genetics) nor nurture (the environment) but in the creative play of human communication responding to necessity. This survey (...) finally looks to more recent work to do with the appearance of independent self-consciousness in the individual following empathic group awareness. The result of such self-created group awareness and symbolic communication is seen to be cultural consciousness, unique to humanity, from which individual consciousness and personhood derive. I conclude by noting the general implications for these approaches in our schools, politics, and in ultimate ontological questions. (shrink)

Recreative Minds develops a philosophical theory of imagination that draws upon the latest work in psychology. This theory illuminates the use of imagination in coming to terms with art, its role in enabling us to live as social beings, and the psychological consequences of disordered imagination. The authors offer a lucid exploration of a fascinating subject.

Using Sartre is an introduction to the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre which promotes Sartrean views but adopts a consistently analytical approach to him. Concentrating on his early philosophy, up to and including Sartre's masterwork Being and Nothingness, Gregory McCulloch demonstrates how much analytical philosophers miss when they neglect Sartre and the continental tradition in philosophy. In the classic spirit of analytical philosophy, Using Sartre is a clear and pithy exposition of Sartre's early work. Written specifically for beginners and non-specialists, (...) the book is sure to spark new interest in Sartre and the existentialists while also making a significant contribution to the analytical philosophy of mind. It indicates how the analytical and continental approaches to philosophy may be brought into closer relation to one another. (shrink)

Philosophers have recently argued that self-fulfilling beliefs constitute an important counter-example to the widely accepted theses that we ought not and cannot believe at will. Cases of self-fulfilling belief are thought to constitute a special class where we enjoy the epistemic freedom to permissibly believe for pragmatic reasons, because whatever we choose to believe will end up true. In this paper, I argue that this view fails to distinguish between the aim of acquiring a true belief and the aim of (...) believing what is true. While one cannot usually fail to establish that one will acquire a true belief without establishing the truth of the believed proposition, in the case self-fulfilling belief the two can come apart. I argue that insofar as the aim of belief has to do with determining whether the believed proposition is true, it will be both impossible and impermissible to believe for pragmatic reasons. (shrink)

Visualizings, the simplest imaginings which employ visual imagery, have certain characteristic features; they are perspectival, for instance. Also, it seems that some but not all of our visualizings are imaginings of seeings. But it has been forcefully argued, for example by M.G.F. Martin and Christopher Peacocke, that all visualizings are imaginings of visual sensations. I block these arguments by providing an account of visualizings which allows for their perspectival nature and other features they typically have, but which also explains how (...) we can visualize things without thereby imagining visual sensations. (shrink)

Why do we tend to ascribe possibility to what we can imagine? One strategy for answering that question involves the thought that, just as sensory episodes often involve its seeming to us as though the world is certain ways, so imaginings involve its seeming to us that what we have imagined is possible. This chapter argues that while some imaginings do feature appearances of possibility, very many others do not; and it explores the broader relevance of its conclusions for modal (...) epistemology. (shrink)

The theory of lower previsions is designed around the principles of coherence and sure-loss avoidance, thus steers clear of all the updating anomalies highlighted in Gong and Meng's "Judicious Judgment Meets Unsettling Updating: Dilation, Sure Loss, and Simpson's Paradox" except dilation. In fact, the traditional problem with the theory of imprecise probability is that coherent inference is too complicated rather than unsettling. Progress has been made simplifying coherent inference by demoting sets of probabilities from fundamental building blocks to secondary representations (...) that are derived or discarded as needed. (shrink)

This book gather's thirty-five of Pence's most influential, groundbreaking, and personal essays into one broad-ranging volume. It included essays on cloning, AIDS, dignified death,and test-tube babies.

This paper bridges art history and consciousness studies and investigates the network of gazes and frames in Las Meninas and how this engages with a system of higher-order thoughts and reflexive operations.

Traduit de l'italien par Marilène Raiola et Thierry Bedouelle Préface de Jean-Robert Armogathe Le premier mérite de T. Gregory est de présenter l'état actuel des recherches, sur un mode critique, illustré par des exemples. Tandis qu'un consensus s'était établi qui voyait dans les "libertines érudits" les derniers humanistes de la Renaissance, Gregory y voit les premiers représentants d'une pensée articulée des Lumières. A une Renaissance perçue comme le dernier feu du passé il oppose une interprétation nouvelle, hardie, d'ouverture (...) des temps modernes, de genèse de la raison classique. Sans doute il faut s'entendre sur les mots : cette raison-là contient bien des éléments magiques, astrologiques, alchimiques. Mais n'avons-nous pas trop souvent procédé par anachronisme et anticipé notre conception de la rationalité sur un âge où elle se constituait, à partir d'autres éléments? Gregory décrit la mise en place de cette rationalité inchoative, la genèse de la raison classique. A partir de l'introduction. (shrink)

Discusses mental processes, the role of humans in nature, experience, and the connection between myth, religion, and science.

Mathematics educators suggest that students of all ages need to participate in productive forms of mathematical argument (NCTM, 2000). Accordingly, we developed two complementary frameworks for analyzing the emergence of mathematical argumentation in one second‐grade classroom. Children attempted to resolve contesting claims about the “space covered” by three different‐looking rectangles of equal area measure. Our first analysis renders the topology of the semantic structure of the classroom conversation as a directed graph. The graph affords clear “at a glance” visualization of (...) how various senses of mathematics—as imagined, as performed, and as historically rooted—were interrelated. The graph represents the emergence and intercoordination between conceptual and procedural knowledge in the ebb and flow of classroom conversation. The graph has not just descriptive, but also predictive power: Interconnectedness among the nodes of the graph representing the first 40 min of conversation predicted the structure of recall in the final ten minutes by children who had played little overt role in the conversation up to that point. The second, complementary framework draws upon Goffman's expanded repertoire of roles in speech to demonstrate how the teacher orchestrated this classroom conversation to establish coherent argument. In this second analysis, we establish how the teacher mediated between the everyday talk of her students and the discourse of mathematics. Her revoicing of student talk created interstices for identity and participation in the formation of the argument. Together, the two forms of analysis illuminate the emergence of mathematical argument at two levels: as collective structure and concurrently, as individual activity. (shrink)

Apresentamos os resultados dos nossos estudos entre os processos educacionais e processos de subjetivação. Associamos este fato com a dificuldade dos educadores deslocarem o corpo do lugar de quem ensina para o lugar de quem aprende. Estudamos as implicações do corpo nos processos educacionais e sugerimos uma “atitude moderna” a partir do “cuidado de si”, apoiados em Foucault, como a ação do educador que “toma partido” do educando.

Although many of Edmund Burke's speeches and writings contain prominent economic dimensions, his economic thought seldom receives the attention it warrants. Commerce and Manners in Edmund Burke's Political Economy stands as the most comprehensive study to date of this fascinating subject. In addition to providing rigorous textual analysis, Collins unearths previously unpublished manuscripts and employs empirical data to paint a rich historical and theoretical context for Burke's economic beliefs. Collins integrates Burke's reflections on trade, taxation, and revenue within his understanding (...) of the limits of reason and his broader conception of empire. Such reflections demonstrate the ways that commerce, if properly managed, could be an instrument for both public prosperity and imperial prestige. More importantly, Commerce and Manners in Edmund Burke's Political Economy raises timely ethical questions about capitalism and its limits. In Burke's judgment, civilizations cannot endure on transactional exchange alone, and markets require ethical preconditions. There is a grace to life that cannot be bought. (shrink)

This volume explores the role of both “mere habits” and sophisticated habitus in the formation of moral character and the virtues, incorporating perspectives from philosophy, theology, psychology, and neuroscience.

This study critically explores the representation of ideologies across the verbal and visual modes in 15 articles and photographs from local Spanish-language print media with the goal of determining the potential for minoritized semiotic texts to challenge the negative semiotic treatment of Latin@ immigrants in the United States. Following a critical social semiotic approach, the analysis of intersemiotic relationships demonstrates that approximately half of the semiotic texts analyzed communicate an overall transformative message by challenging the negative representations of Latin@s in (...) the mainstream media. The strong presence of transformative ideologies in the verbal and visual modes underscores the potential for Spanish-language media to represent Latin@s as powerful social actors who stand up to negative treatment through activism. Moreover, the contrast of ideologies across the verbal and visual modes may incite the audience to participate in activism that supports Latin@ immigrants in the United States. (shrink)

Gregory Currie defends the view that works of fiction guide the imagination, and then considers whether fiction can also guide our beliefs. He makes a case for modesty about learning from fiction, as it is easy to be too optimistic about the psychological insights of authors, and empathy is hard to acquire while not always morally advantageous.

Groups of people are commonly said to be collectively responsible for what has happened. Sometimes the groups claimed to be responsible are vast in size, as when collective responsibility is ascribed to the class of all Americans or the class of all white males. In this book the concept of collective responsibility is analyzed. It is examined not only in the light of what philosophical proponents have said about it, but a genuine attempt is made to make sense of what (...) ordinary people say about responsibility when it is ascribed to groups of people. Accordingly, it is distinguished from related concepts such as shared responsibility and moral taint. Parallels are examined between the actions of an individual and the actions of a group or collective, parallels which seem to make ascriptions of collective responsibility more plausible. Some philosophers oppose collective responsibility and argue for an individualist type of position; in this regard the positions of Lewis and Sverdlik are critically examined. The final chapter contains the author's own position, a position which affirms that collective responsibility is possible but which also preserves some of the central intuitions of the individualist. (shrink)

This text offers a reflection on the nature and significance of narrative in human communication.

In The Decline of the West Spengler puts forward a type of philosophical anthropology, an account of the structures of human experiential consciousness and a method of “physiognomic” analysis, which I argue has dimensions that can be understood as akin to existential phenomenology. Humanity, for Spengler, is witness to the creative flux of “Becoming” and constructs a world of phenomena bounded by death, underpinned by the two prime feelings of dread and longing and structured by the two forms of Destiny (...) (Time) and Direction (Space). Human existence, Spengler argues, is future-directed and open in the sense that there is a certain degree of freedom in the ways in which humanity can actualize its existential possibilities. In the course of elaborating the existential implications of this future-orientation, Spengler introduces the concept of care (Sorge), the fundamental experiential structure. (shrink)