The pioneering sociologist William Graham Sumner was a prolific and astute historian of the early American republic, whose work was informed by his classical liberalism and his understanding of economics. He authored seven major works including biographies and thematic studies concentrating on the vital subjects of currency, banking, business cycles, foreign trade, protectionism, and politics. Although his works are out of print, and hardly mentioned or referred to by historians or economists, they are quite valuable for understanding the politics and (...) major economic issues of the first century of the republic.1 They are: History of American Currency, Lectures on the History of Protection, Andrew Jackson, Alexander Hamilton, The Financier and Finances of the American Revolution, 2 vols., Robert Morris, History of Banking in the United States. As one can see, Sumner was most interested in the history of money and banking in America. He was a resolute opponent of inflation, inconvertible currencies, legal tender laws, bimetallic standards, and the American practice of fractional-reserve banking. His theory of the business cycle was built on the work of antebellum political economists such as Condy Raguet. Sumner’s understanding of it is sophisticated and proto- Austrian. (shrink)

"No one has done so much as Mr. Eliade to inform literature students in the West about 'primitive' and Oriental religions.... Everyone who cares about the human adventure will find new information and new angles of vision."—Martin E. Marty, _New York Times Book Review_.

i am humbled by the opportunity to address you today as the President of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy. From my first experience at the annual meeting in Boston in 1995 to this meeting more than two decades later, SAAP has been my philosophical home. Here I have come to know many of the philosophers who have most influenced me: John Lachs, Peter Hare, John Ryder, Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Jim Campbell, Marilyn Fischer, Erin McKenna, and John McDermott, (...) whose work, in particular, helped me find my philosophical voice by inspiring both the research that led to my first book and my approach to teaching American philosophy. It was McDermott, the second president of this society, who delivered... (shrink)

Pragmatism is America’s most distinctive philosophy. Generally it has been understood as a development of European thought in response to the "American wilderness." A closer examination, however, reveals that the roots and central commitments of pragmatism are indigenous to North America. Native Pragmatism recovers this history and thus provides the means to re-conceive the scope and potential of American philosophy. Pragmatism has been at best only partially understood by those who focus on its European antecedents. This book casts new light (...) on pragmatism’s complex origins and demands a rethinking of African American and feminist thought in the context of the American philosophical tradition. Scott L. Pratt demonstrates that pragmatism and its development involved the work of many thinkers previously overlooked in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

Inspired by a debate between Noam Chomsky and Jean Piaget, this work traces the development of natural history from Aristotle to Darwin, and demonstrates how the science of plants and animals has emerged from the common conceptions of folkbiology.

Using the language of common-sense psychology, we explain human behavior by citing its reason or purpose, and this is central to our understanding of human beings as agents. On the other hand, since human beings are physical objects, human behavior should also be explicable in the language of physical science, in which causal accounts cast human beings as collections of physical particles. CSP talk of mind and agency, however, does not seem to mesh well with the language of physical science.In (...) Teleological Realism, Scott Sehon argues that CSP explanations are not causal but teleological -- that they cite the purpose or goal of the behavior in question rather than an antecedent state that caused the behavior. CSP explanations of behavior, Sehon claims, are answering a question different from that answered by physical science explanations, and, accordingly, CSP explanations and physical science explanations are independent of one another. Common-sense facts about mind and agency can thus be independent of the physical facts about human beings, and, contrary to the views of most philosophers of mind in recent decades, common-sense psychology will not be subsumed by physical science.Sehon defends his non-reductionist account of mind and agency in clear and nontechnical language. He carefully distinguishes his view from forms of "strong naturalism" that would seem to preclude it. And he evaluates key objections to teleological realism, including those posed by Donald Davidson's influential article "Actions, Reasons and Causes" and some put forth by more recent proponents of causal theories of action. CSP, Sehon argues, has a different realm than does physical science; the normative notions that are central to CSP are not reducible to physical facts and laws. (shrink)

My aim in this article is to argue that Philippa Foot fails to provide a convincing basis for moral evaluation in her bookNatural Goodness.Foot's proposal fails because her conception of natural goodness and defect in human beings either sanctions prescriptive claims that are clearly objectionable or else it inadvertently begs the question of what constitutes a good human life by tacitly appealing to an independent ethical standpoint to sanitize the theory's normative implications. Foot's appeal to natural facts about human goodness (...) is in this way singled out as an Achilles' heel that undermines her attempt to establish an independent framework for virtue ethics. This problem might seem to be one that is uniquely applicable to the bold naturalism of Foot's methodology; however, I claim that the problem is indicative of a more general problem for all contemporary articulations of virtue ethics. (shrink)

"F. A. Hayek and the Epistemology of Politics is an exploration of an important problem that has largely been ignored: the problem of policymaker ignorance, and the limits of political epistemology. Scott Scheall explores Hayek's attitude to the philosophy of science and political philosophy, arguing that Hayek defended a philosophy of science that implied certain potential dangers of politicized science, and that his political philosophy established the potential dangers of misapplying scientific methods and results to matters of public policy. (...) The book offers an explanation for why policymaking often fails and why constituents, whatever their political affiliations, are so often disappointed with political leaders. In this primarily philosophical examination of his work, Hayek's ideas are not merely discussed, analysed, and contextualized, but extended; the book both draws and defends previously unrecognized implications from the Hayekian canon. The book also explores the historical context within which these ideas flourished. The book will be of interest to scholars and researchers of the works of F.A. Hayek, policymakers, and to those of all political, philosophical, and social-scientific persuasions"--. (shrink)

Toward the end of Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, Philo catalogues the ‘frivolous observances’, ‘rapturous ecstasies’ and ‘bigotted credulity’ of ‘vulgar superstition’, concluding that ‘true religion, I allow, has no such pernicious consequences: But we must treat of religion, as it has com monly been found in the world’. This would be a mild enough sort of caveat were it not nigh on impossible to determine exactly what counts as true religion, and how it figures in Hume's argument. Typically, answers (...) to this puzzle have required identifying the positions of the discussants, and then arguing that one of them represents Hume's views. A catalogue of the options may prove instructive. (shrink)

Stakeholder theory is widely recognized as a management theory, yet very little research has considered its implications for individual managerial decision-making. In the two studies reported here, we used stakeholder theory to examine managerial decisions about balancing stakeholder interests. Results of Study 1 suggest that indivisible resources and unequal levels of stakeholder saliency constrain managers’ efforts to balance stakeholder interests. Resource divisibility also influenced whether managers used a within-decision or an across-decision approach to balance stakeholder interests. In Study 2 we (...) examined instrumental and normative implications of these two approaches. We conclude by considering the contributions of this research. (shrink)

Much has been written about the puzzling aesthetic appeal of horror films that include scenes of brutal, graphic violence. More recently, however, some philosophers have proposed that viewing certain horror films as a source of entertainment is morally problematic because of the impact they might have on our moral psychology. By contrast, Ian Stoner argues that viewing fictional depictions of violence in horror films is not morally problematic because horror films do not present violence in ways that risk damaging the (...) kinds of reactive attitudes required to exhibit a well-functioning moral psychology. In this paper I note some the ways in which Stoner is correct about horror films, yet I argue that he has overstated his case for the permissibility of viewing all instances of horrific violence as entertainment. (shrink)

Since the Middle Ages, Aristotle has been hailed as the father of economics. But recently classicists have maintained that he did no economics at all. This book clears up the anomaly. The author argues that Aristotle had a theory of money and commerce, but that it is ethical rather than economic. According to Aristotle ethics and economics are fundamentally opposed and can never be reconciled.

In recent analytic literature on the Trinity we have seen a variety of "social" models of the Trinity. By contrast there are few "non-­‐social" models. One prominent "non-­‐social" view is Brian Leftow's "Latin Trinity." I argue that the name of Leftow's model is not sufficiently descriptive in light of diverse models within Latin speaking theology. Next, I develop a new "non-­‐social" model that is inspired by Richard of St. Victor's description of a person in conjunction with my appropriating insights about (...) indexicals from David Kaplan and John Perry. I point out that the copula in tokens of statements like, "I am the Father," is an ambiguous term and when used by a certain divine person a different proposition is affirmed. Central to this model is the claim that the copula bears the "is of identity" and the "is of numerical sameness without identity." Further, I show that Leftow's model employs two concepts of "person," a Lockean one and a Boethian one, and mine employs Richard of St. Victor's. I describe Leftow's model as a "hard non-­‐social" model and mine as a "soft non-­‐social" model that is nearer to some social models. I conclude that Leftow's model is not the lone candidate among "non-­‐social" models and that the variety of "non-­‐social" models has yet to be exhausted. (shrink)

This book analyses the straw man fallacy and its deployment in philosophical reasoning. While commonly invoked in both academic dialogue and public discourse, it has not until now received the attention it deserves as a rhetorical device. Scott Aikin and John Casey propose that straw manning essentially consists in expressing distorted representations of one's critical interlocutor. To this end, the straw man comprises three dialectical forms, and not only the one that is usually suggested: the straw man, the weak (...) man and the hollow man. Moreover, they demonstrate that straw manning is unique among fallacies as it has no particular logical form in itself, because it is an instance of inappropriate meta-argument, or argument about arguments. They discuss the importance of the onlooking audience to the successful deployment of the straw man, reasoning that the existence of an audience complicates the dialectical boundaries of argument. Providing a lively, provocative and thorough analysis of the straw man fallacy, this book will appeal to postgraduates and researchers alike, working in a range of fields including fallacies, rhetoric, argumentation theory and informal logic. (shrink)

In “Unity of Action in a Latin Social Model of the Trinity,” I objected to William Hasker’s Social Model of the Trinity on the grounds that it does not secure the necessary agreement between the divine persons. Further, I developed a Latin Social model of the Trinity. Hasker has responded by defending his Social Model and by raising seven objections against my Latin Social Model. Here I raise a new objection against Hasker on the grounds that it is inconsistent with (...) Conciliar Trinitarianism, and I respond to the seven objections and in so doing further develop the Latin Social Model. (shrink)

Many philosophers, psychologists, and medical practitioners believe that killing is no worse than letting die on the basis of James Rachels's Bare-Difference Argument. I show that his argument is unsound. In particular, a premise of the argument is that his examples are as similar as is consistent with one being a case of killing and the other being a case of letting die. However, the subject who lets die has both the ability to kill and the ability to let die (...) while the subject who kills lacks the ability to let die. Modifying the latter example so that the killer has both abilities yields a pair of cases with morally different acts. The hypothesis that killing is worse than letting die is the best explanation of this difference. (shrink)

While there is a growing literature on “dark traits” (i.e., socially aversive traits), there has been a lack of integration with the burgeoning research literature on positive traits and fulfilling and growth-oriented outcomes in life. To help move the field toward greater integration, we contrasted the nomological network of the Dark Triad (a well-studied cluster of socially aversive traits) with the nomological network of the Light Triad, measured by the 12-item Light Triad Scale (LTS). The LTS is a first draft (...) measure of a loving and beneficent orientation toward others (“everyday saints”) that consists of three facets: Kantianism (treating people as ends unto themselves), Humanism (valuing the dignity and worth of each individual), and Faith in Humanity (believing in the fundamental goodness of humans). Across four demographically diverse samples (N = 1,518), the LTS demonstrated excellent reliability and validity, predicting life satisfaction and a wide range of growth-oriented and self-transcendent outcomes above and beyond existing measures of personality. In contrast, the Dark Triad was negatively associated with life satisfaction and growth-oriented outcomes, and showed stronger linkages to selfish, exploitative, aggressive, and socially aversive outcomes. This exploratory study of the contrasting nomological networks of the Light vs. Dark Triad provides several ways forward for more principled and data driven approaches to explore both the malevolent and benefice... (shrink)

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)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 37.1 (2004) 42-71 [Access article in PDF] Narrative as Argument in Indian Philosophy: The Astavakra Gita as Multivalent Narrative Scott R. Stroud Department of Philosophy Temple University Indian philosophy has often been described as radically different in nature than Western philosophy due to its frequent use of narrative structure. By employing poetic elements in their use of language, such texts attempt to convey deep metaphysical (...) truths and philosophical positions about reality that are in many cases quite different from Western ideas (Babbili 1997). Often, these ways of conveying truths are an integral part of that truth. One particularly useful form is narrative, taking instantiations such as a dialogue between characters. Philosophical dialogues such as the Bhagavad Gita and the Astavakra Gita (also known as the Astavakra Samhita ) use a portrayed conversation involving a guru or deity to convey didactic lessons and values to the receptive audience, both ancient and modern. As texts such as the Bhagavad Gita gain in popularity and circulation in the Western world (Minor 1982; Paine 1998; Sharpe 1985), philosophical and rhetorical inquiry must be extended to explain how these texts function in an argumentative philosophical context.Stroud (2002a, 2002b) has advanced the idea that such ancient Indian narratives argue through the use of contradictions and conflicting value structures;1 he labels such texts as multivalent narratives since their use of contradictory value structures compel audience members to reconstruct the narrative's message and allow for the acceptance of novel views. Multivalent narratives are to be distinguished from polysemic narratives (Fiske 1986) in that the latter concern different audience members finding a preferred position from the ambiguous story. Polysemic narratives involve the difference in meaning of the same story to different auditors. Condit criticizes this notion of polysemic narratives and advances her own concept of polyvalent narratives. The concept of a polyvalent narrative involves different auditors understanding the same story in similar ways, but differing in how they evaluate its message. Condit's research with a popular television [End Page 42] show and two students from radically different backgrounds on abortion finds that they understood what occurred in a very similar fashion; they differed in that they "disagree[d] about the valuation of those denotations to such a degree that they produce[d] noticeably different interpretations" (1989, 106). Thus, the auditors differ as to their response to a certain story and how it treats their own cherished values. Stroud (2002a) provides a thorough justification as to why the concepts of polysemic and polyvalent narratives do not capture what can be called multivalent narratives. The important factor in distinguishing these three concepts is that the third involves contradictions at the level of values within a text and the reader's necessitated activity of trying to synthesize or reconcile such contradictions. It is this activity that is the hallmark of multivalent narratives.This employment of multivalent narrative offers a challenge to familiar Western conceptions of argumentative discourse and demands further investigation. This study explores the ways a particular text, the Astavakra Gita, argues its philosophical positions to its audience of potential "pupils."2 Using the insights provided by theories of narrative and reader-response theory, I will argue that this text advances its claims not through overt syllogism or validity claim redemption, but through textual indeterminacy between the audience's disposition and the foregrounded theme of non-individuation in the text. This tension, increased by certain textual devices, results in consistency building by the audience, which enables the transcendence of these two viewpoints (reader and text); it is this experience, not claim, that the Astavakra Gita seems to be advancing to any given audience.In order to explore this interpretation of this text and its argumentative relationship to an audience, insights from both literary studies and rhetorical theory must be used in laying a foundation. The work of Wolfgang Iser (1980, 1989, 1993) and Walter Fisher (1987) will assume roles of particular importance in this endeavor. Iser's theory of aesthetic response provides a useful description of the phenomenological process of reading such a... (shrink)

For any essential property God has, there is an ability He does not have. He is unable to bring about any state of affairs in which He does not have that property. Such inabilities seem to preclude omnipotence. After making trouble for the standard responses to this problem, I offer my own solution: God is not omnipotent. This may seem like a significant loss for the theist. But I show that it is not. The theist may abandon the doctrine that (...) God is omnipotent without scaling back the extent of His power and without denying that He has all perfections. (shrink)

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)

In this book, Scott Soames argues that the revolution in the study of language and mind that has taken place since the late nineteenth century must be rethought. The central insight in the reigning tradition is that propositions are representational. To know the meaning of a sentence or the content of a belief requires knowing which things it represents as being which ways, and therefore knowing what the world must be like if it is to conform to how the (...) sentence or belief represents it. These are truth conditions of the sentence or belief. But meanings and representational contents are not truth conditions, and there is more to propositions than representational content. In addition to imposing conditions the world must satisfy if it is to be true, a proposition may also impose conditions on minds that entertain it. The study of mind and language cannot advance further without a conception of propositions that allows them to have contents of both of these sorts. Soames provides it. He does so by arguing that propositions are repeatable, purely representational cognitive acts or operations that represent the world as being a certain way, while requiring minds that perform them to satisfy certain cognitive conditions. Because they have these two types of content—one facing the world and one facing the mind—pairs of propositions can be representationally identical but cognitively distinct. Using this breakthrough, Soames offers new solutions to several of the most perplexing problems in the philosophy of language and mind. (shrink)

Recent scholarship in business ethics has revealed the importance of privacy expectations as they relate to implicit privacy norms and the business practices that may violate these expectations. Yet, it is unclear how and when businesses may violate these expectations, factors that form or influence privacy expectations, or whether or not expectations have in fact been violated by company actions. This article reports the findings of three studies exploring how and when the corporate dissemination of consumer data violates privacy expectations. (...) The results indicate that consumer sentiment is more negative following intentional releases of sensitive consumer data, but the effect of data dissemination is more complex than that of company intentionality and data sensitivity alone. Companies can effectively set, and re-affirm, privacy expectations via consent procedures preceding and succeeding data dissemination notifications. Although implied consent has become more widely used in practice, we show how explicit consent outperforms implied consent in these regards. Importantly, this research provides process evidence that identifies perceived violation of privacy expectations as the underlying mechanism to explain the deleterious effects, on consumer sentiment, when company actions are misaligned with consumers’ privacy expectations. Ethical implications for companies collecting and disseminating consumer information are offered. (shrink)

We apply the analysis that we have developed over the course of several publications on the significance of ignorance for decision-making, especially in surrogate (and, thus, in political) contexts, to political decision-making, such as it has been, during the COVID-19 pandemic (see Scheall 2019; Crutchfield and Scheall 2019; Scheall and Crutchfield 2020; Scheall 2020). Policy responses to the coronavirus constitute a case study of the problem of policymaker ignorance. We argue that political responses to the virus cannot be explained by (...) assuming that the interests of policymakers were at loggerheads with those of their constituents at the beginning of the crisis. In order to explain the responses of policymakers, it is necessary to recognize the effects of relevant ignorance on their incentives to pursue different policy objectives. We discuss the knowledge that policymakers required at the start of the pandemic in order to deliberately realize the goal of limiting overall human suffering and the spontaneous forces that could have facilitated the realization of this goal. The problem of policymaker ignorance implies that policymakers have not earnestly pursued the goal of limiting overall suffering due to the novel coronavirus, but have repeatedly resorted to the pursuit of relatively less epistemically burdensome goals. The problem of policymaker ignorance explains why policymakers have focused primarily on limiting one kind of suffering – physical suffering due to the virus – and have mostly ignored related kinds of suffering, i.e., the economic, sociological, psychological, and physical suffering caused by policies to limit physical suffering from the virus. The problem of policymaker ignorance also helps to explain why policymakers relied on the relatively blunt instrument of economic lockdown rather than more focused protection policies, and why they continue to resort to lockdowns, despite the emerging scientific evidence of their ineffectiveness at mitigating physical suffering due to the virus. (shrink)

Preview: /Scott Shapiro interviewed by Eli Kramer / EK: Thanks for talking with me today. Your book, The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World is not only kind of groundbreaking in the way it changes how we think about the role of international law in the history and philosophy of culture, and some of our progressive success of not having disastrous violence shape us each generation, but it has only become more relevant since the (...) war in Ukraine was launched. As a starting point for our conversation, can you summarize the main premise of the work? SS: It’s a story about the modern international order. Despite its imperfections, it needs to be defended now more than ever. The central argument of the book is that the origins of the modern international order can be traced to a specific date in history. Namely August 27th, 1928, when the great leaders of the world gathered in Paris to outlaw war. The treaty that was signed on that day is sometimes called the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the Peace Pact, or the Paris Peace Pact. Its actual formal designation was “The General Treaty for the Renunciation of War,” basically saying it all was an attempt to outlaw war. Now, of course most people have never heard of it. It’s amazing that basically all the countries in the world decide to outlaw war, which in itself is initially a strange thing to do, but then nobody knows about it. (shrink)

Maureen Donnelly has recently argued that directionalism, the view that relations have a direction, applying to their relata in an order, is unable to properly treat certain symmetric relations. She alleges that it must count the application of such a relation to an appropriate number of objects in a given order as distinct from its application to those objects in any other ordering of them. I reply by showing how the directionalist can link the application conditions of any fixed arity (...) relation, no matter its arity or symmetry, and its converse(s) in such a way that directionalism will yield the correct ways in which it can apply. I thus establish that directionalism possesses the same advantage Donnelly's own account of relations, relative positionalism, has over traditional positionalist accounts of relations, which do not properly treat symmetric relations. I then note some advantages that directionalism has over its closest competitors. This includes Donnelly's relative positionalism, since directionalism is not, like relative positionalism, committed to the involvement of relative properties in every irreducibly relational claim. I close by conceding that, as Donnelly notes, directionalism is committed to the primitive relation of order-sensitive relational application. But I don't find this notion as mysterious as Donnelly does. I conclude that, even if one construes this feature of directionalism as a drawback, the two views are at worst at a draw, other things being equal, since this drawback is mitigated by the advantage directionalism has over relative positionalism. (shrink)

In 1949 Culliton noted that "... religion has something to offer business" (Culliton, 1949, p. 265). While religion definitely does have something to offer business, especially business ethics, it is only recently that empirical research linking religiosity and business ethics has been conducted. Indeed, religiosity affords a background, against which the ethical nature of business, including marketing and consumer behavior, can be interpreted. This article offers a descriptive, rather than normative, perspective in reviewing articles linking religion to business and consumer (...) ethics. The main objective of the article being both to present some of the most significant empirical findings to date and also to encourage researchers to pursue further research in this relatively under researched area. (shrink)

Historically, philosophers of biology have tended to sidestep the problem of development by focusing primarily on evolutionary biology and, more recently, on molecular biology and genetics. Quite often too, development has been misunderstood as simply, or even primarily, a matter of gene activation and regulation. Nowadays a growing number of philosophers of science are focusing their analyses on the complexities of development, and in Embryology, Epigenesis and Evolution Jason Scott Robert explores the nature of development against current trends in (...) biological theory and practice and looks at the interrelations between development and evolution, an area of resurgent biological interest. Clearly written, this book should be of interest to students and professionals in the philosophy of science and the philosophy of biology. (shrink)

The ethics literature has identified moral motivation as a factor in ethical decision-making. Furthermore, moral identity has been identified as a source of moral motivation. In the current study, we examine religiosity as an antecedent to moral identity and examine the mediating role of self-control in this relationship. We find that intrinsic and extrinsic dimensions of religiosity have different direct and indirect effects on the internalization and symbolization dimensions of moral identity. Specifically, intrinsic religiosity plays a role in counterbalancing the (...) negative impact of extrinsic religiosity on the internalization of moral identity. Further, intrinsic religiosity also counterbalances the negative and indirect impact of extrinsic religiosity on symbolization of moral identity via self-control. Lastly, self-control does not play a mediating role in the impact of religiosity on the internalization dimension of moral identity. We conclude that this study presents important findings that advance our understanding of the antecedents of moral identity, and that these results may have implications for the understanding of ethical decision-making. (shrink)

History of science and philosophy of science have experienced a somewhat turbulent relationship over the last century. At times it has been said that philosophy needs history, or that history needs philosophy. Very occasionally, something entirely new is said to need them both. Often, however, their relationship is seen as little more than a marriage of convenience. This article explores that marriage by analyzing the citations of over 7,000 historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science. The data reveal that a small (...) but tightly-knit bridge does exist between the disciplines, and raises suggestions about how to understand that bridge in a more nuanced fashion. (shrink)

While Immanuel Kant is an epochal figure in a variety of fields, he has not figured prominently in the study of rhetoric and communication. This book represents the most detailed examination available into Kant's uneasy but often misunderstood relationship with rhetoric. By explicating Kant's complex understanding of rhetoric, this book advances the thesis that communicative practices play an important role in Kant's account of how we become better humans and how we create morally cultivating communities.

The ArgumentWhile postmodernism has had very little influence in biology, it can provide a framework for discussing the context in which biology is done. Here, four biological views of the body/self are contrasted: the neural, immunological, genetic, and Phenotypic bodies. Each physical view of the body extrapolates into a different model of the body politic, and each posits a different relationship between bodies of knowledge. The neural view of the body models a body politic wherein society is defined by its (...) culture and laws. The genetic view privileges views of polities based on ethnicity and race. The immune body extrapolates into polities that can defend themselves against other such polities. The phenotypic view of the body politic stands in opposition to these three major perspectives and integrates them without given any predominance. The view of science as a “neural” body of knowledge contends that science is aperspectival and objective. The perspective of the “immune” body is that science exists to defend the interests of its creators. The genetic view of science is that science is the basis of all culture. The extrapolation of the phenotypic body to science insists upon the utilitarian rationale for scientific enterprises. In all instances, the genetic view of the body/body politic/body of science is presently in ascendance. (shrink)

In _René Girard and Secular Modernity: Christ, Culture, and Crisis_, Scott Cowdell provides the first systematic interpretation of René Girard’s controversial approach to secular modernity. Cowdell identifies the scope, development, and implications of Girard’s thought, the centrality of Christ in Girard's thinking, and, in particular, Girard's distinctive take on the uniqueness and finality of Christ in terms of his impact on Western culture. In Girard’s singular vision, according to Cowdell, secular modernity has emerged thanks to the Bible’s exposure of (...) the cathartic violence that is at the root of religious prohibitions, myths, and rituals. In the literature, the psychology, and most recently the military history of modernity, Girard discerns a consistent slide into an apocalypse that challenges modern ideas of romanticism, individualism, and progressivism._ In the first three chapters, Cowdell examines the three elements of Girard’s basic intellectual vision and brings this vision to a constructive interpretation of “secularization” and “modernity,” as these terms are understood in the broadest sense today. Chapter 4 focuses on modern institutions, chiefly the nation state and the market, that function to restrain the outbreak of violence. And finally, Cowdell discusses the apocalyptic dimension of Girard's theory in relation to modern warfare and terrorism. Here, Cowdell engages with the most recent writings of Girard and applies them to further conversations in cultural theology, political science, and philosophy. Cowdell takes up and extends Girard’s own warning concerning an alternative to a future apocalypse: “What sort of conversion must humans undergo, before it is too late?” "Scott Cowdell's book is the first comprehensive study of modernity and secularity in René Girard's thought. Cowdell brings Girard's theory into a fruitful dialogue with leading approaches on secularization like those of Max Weber, Hans Blumenberg, Peter Berger, and Charles Taylor. Scholars and students of theology, philosophy, and sociology will benefit from this wide-ranging overview of the relationship between religion, modernity, and secularization." — Wolfgang Palaver, Institute of Systematic Theology, University of Innsbruck __ "In a stunning analysis, Cowdell shows that Girard’s sustained intellectual pursuit, which began in the 1960s with his mimetic analysis of modern realist fiction, has always been about the religiosity of the modern and postmodern social condition, even when it has dealt explicitly with the religious origins of antique culture. Cowdell demonstrates the 'highly explanatory and predictive' quality of Girard’s cultural anthropology, within which the 'secular' does not escape the 'religious.' This is a powerful book." — Ann W. Astell, University of Notre Dame __ "Scott Cowdell is one of the most interesting theological voices of his generation. The themes in Cowdell's work are always cosmic and vast in scope. This is a remarkable reading of our contemporary situation through the lens of René Girard. Accurate, informed, and illuminating, Cowdell has written a fabulous book. For the person needing a way into Girard and for the person who is already using Girard's work, Cowdell brings out the implications of Girard for the moment in which we live. An absolutely essential addition to your personal library." — The Very Rev Dr. Ian Markham, Virginia Theological Seminary_. (shrink)

Although a pregnant woman can now refuse any medical treatment needed by the fetus, the Court of Appeal has acknowledged that ethical dilemmas remain, adverting to the inappropriateness of legal compulsion of presumed moral duties in this context. This leaves the impression of an uncomfortable split between the ethics and the law. The notion of a pregnant woman refusing medical treatment needed by the fetus is troubling and it helps little simply to assert that she has a legal right to (...) do so. At the same time, the idea that a pregnant woman fails in her moral duty unless she accepts any recommended treatment or surgery—however great the burdens—is also not without difficulty. This article seeks to find a way between these two somewhat polarized positions by arguing that, instead of being a question primarily about whether legally to enforce moral obligations, the «maternal—fetal conflict» begins with previously unrecognized difficulties in determining when a woman's prima facie moral rights invoked in the treatment context should «give way» to the interests of the fetus. This difficulty is mirrored within the law. Thus, how can we tell when a pregnant woman has the moral or legal duty to submit to a caesarean section? Seen in this way, the conflict is a problem which lies at the interface between moral and legal rights and duties, showing that there are important conceptual links between the ethics and the law. Against this background, this article explores the limits of a pregnant woman's right to bodily integrity by focusing upon the idea of her moral duty to aid the fetus through her body. Here we find difficulties in determining the existence and extent of this somewhat extraordinary duty. Such a duty is contrasted with both negative and positive duties toward others in the course of «general conduct». Attention to the social context of pregnancy and the refusal of treatment within this is also instructive. Overall, the purpose is to foster understanding and acceptance of the current legal position. (shrink)

Understanding religion requires explaining why supernatural beliefs, devotions, and rituals are both universal and variable across cultures, and why religion is so often associated with both large-scale cooperation and enduring group conflict. Emerging lines of research suggest that these oppositions result from the convergence of three processes. First, the interaction of certain reliably developing cognitive processes, such as our ability to infer the presence of intentional agents, favors—as an evolutionary by-product—the spread of certain kinds of counterintuitive concepts. Second, participation in (...) rituals and devotions involving costly displays exploits various aspects of our evolved psychology to deepen people's commitment to both supernatural agents and religious communities. Third, competition among societies and organizations with different faith-based beliefs and practices has increasingly connected religion with both within-group prosociality and between-group enmity. This connection has strengthened dramatically in recent millennia, as part of the evolution of complex societies, and is important to understanding cooperation and conflict in today's world. (shrink)

Introduction: -/- It is likely that Boethius (480-524ce) inaugurates, in Latin Christian theology, the consideration of personhood as such. In the Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius Boethius gives a well-known definition of personhood according to genus and difference(s): a person is an individual substance of a rational nature. Personhood is predicated only of individual rational substances. This chapter situates Boethius in relation to significant Christian theologians before and after him, and the way in which his definition of personhood is a (...) particular answer to the question, “Jesus has two natures, a divine nature and a human nature, but is one what?” Among Greek (and Syriac) speaking theologians, the typical answer is that Jesus is one ‘hypostasis’. Among Latin speaking theologians, the typical answer is that Jesus is one ‘persona’. It is Boethius’s definition of ‘persona’ that inaugurates personhood as such in Latin speaking theology. Although the Greek and Syriac theologians that I survey come close to a concept of personhood as a distinct category, they do not have such a concept and did not need it for their theological purposes. I show that Rusticus the Deacon is an early witness to this Latin theological invention, and also show that for later Latin theologians, the rationality condition for personhood does very little metaphysical work for their Trinitarian theology or Christology. -/- Further, this chapter surveys Patristic and Medieval Christian theologians’ answers to the question, “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are one God, but each is one what?” The same replies as above are typically given by Christian theologians. These two theological questions frame the discussion about personhood (and ‘hypostasis’) and put a boundary around what a satisfying account of personhood (and ‘hypostasis’) would be. -/- In contemporary philosophy, there is a lot of attention paid to the rationality condition for personhood. But if we look at the text in which Boethius defines a person, we do not find any precise criteria for it. In other texts, he says that a rational being is one compatible with (capable of) thought and free choice of the will. What we find is that detailed discussion of personhood shows up in theological questions about the Trinity and Incarnation, but not in e.g., applied ethics. The intrusion of personhood into contemporary applied ethics with a focus on detailed and disputed criteria for rationality as a condition for personhood seems to be a modern development. From a Patristic and Medieval Christian theology point of view, trying to find just the right detailed criteria for rationality in order to define personhood is a wild goose chase. This chapter makes clear another contribution that Christian theology had for personhood. Given the theological issues at play in developing a notion of personhood, Christian theologians came to posit that e.g., an individual human is a person contingently (i.e. not essentially), but God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are each a person essentially. The contingency for created persons is not based on whether e.g., an individual human has conscious acts (as might be the case for John Locke) but on the possibility of a divine person’s assuming e.g., an individual human nature. -/- This sampling of Christian intellectual history spans over one thousand years. I make no claim of being exhaustive. The chapter consists of six sections, where each section covers significant historical conversation partners who together represent the sorts of things that Patristic and Medieval Christian theologians where concerned with in theorizing about ‘persona’ or ‘hypostasis’. -/- 1. Origen of Alexandria and the Cappadocians: Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa 2. Miaphysites: Severus of Antioch, John Philoponus, and Peter of Callinicum 3. Boethius and Rusticus the Deacon: Rationality, Subsistence, and the Invention of Personhood 4. Neo-Chalcedonians (II): Leontius of Byzantium 5. Scholastic Neo-Chalcedonians (I): Gilbert of Poitiers, Richard of St. Victor, William of Auxerre, Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and William of Ware 6. Scholastic Neo-Chalcedonians (II): Henry of Ghent, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Self-Knowledge, Friendship, and the Promulgation of the Natural LawScott J. RonigerKnow Thyself.—Inscription on the pronaos of the Temple of Apollo at DelphiChristian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God's own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition. Know who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of (...) darkness and brought into the light of the kingdom of God.—Pope St. Leo the GreatIn this essay, I wish to discuss the relationships between self-knowledge, ethics and political life, and our knowledge of the natural law. I hope to show that our knowledge of natural law depends to a large extent on what we take ourselves to be, simply as human beings, and that our knowledge of what it is to be human is foundational for and textured by our social and political life. It is through the lens of these interconnected issues that I will engage Pierre Manent's thoughtful and provocative book, Natural Law and Human Rights: Toward a Recovery of Practical Reason. I will not simply provide an exegesis of Manent's work, which is rich and repays careful reading, nor will I argue directly for or against his fundamental points; rather, I take his work as a springboard to discuss the connection between our knowledge of ourselves, our ethical and political lives, and our knowledge of the natural law. In so doing, I will perhaps confirm and strengthen what I take to be Manent's central thesis. [End Page 287]Manent claims that the project of human rights, with the modern "state" understood as the guarantor of such rights, is inextricably tied to an erroneous understanding of human beings as naturally isolated and apolitical individuals. He shows that this impoverished modern understanding of human nature, and of human rights protected by the state as its offspring, distorts our self-understanding and saps the intelligibility of law, natural or otherwise, as well as the fecundity of human action. According to Manent, and contra Jacques Maritain, modern human rights must be understood as a feeble replacement for, not founded upon, the classical understanding of natural law.1 Further, Manent argues that it is modern political philosophy that generates the modern state as the "sovereign instrument" wielded to protect human rights, with the result that civic and political friendship becomes more difficult as the state becomes more powerful. Modern political philosophy is therefore at the basis of our distorted understanding of ourselves and our inability to engage in the friendships that hold polities together.Before discussing these issues in detail, it will be helpful to say a word about the way in which Manent approaches them and about how my own approach relates to his. Manent says that he is "inside a triangle: politics, philosophy, religion." He claims that he has never been able to devote himself entirely to any one of those three poles and that he finds "a fragile equilibrium, or rather a productive disequilibrium, in this questioning... concerning the very manner in which these three dimensions are articulated throughout Western history."2 Manent's book on natural law and human rights evidences this fecund triangulation of politics, philosophy, and religion. Manent also says that, through his studies, he has come to adopt a "'classic' view of political life, which gives... a better view of the eternal play between the few and the many, beyond the democratic enthusiasm characteristic of modern societies."3 Aristotle, as the political scientist and philosopher par excellence, occupies a prominent place in Manent's classical [End Page 288] view of political life, and the central role of Aristotle's ethics and political philosophy is also on display in Manent's work on natural law, especially in the book's final chapter. Manent's knowledge of modern political philosophy and his Aristotelian view of political life give him a sharp awareness of the differences between ancient and modern approaches to philosophical, ethical, and political questions, an awareness that permeates his previous work on political form and his recent book on natural law.I will concentrate... (shrink)

It is argued that those who accept the psychological criterion of personal identity, such as Parfit and Shoemaker, should accept what I call the ‘series’ view of a person, according to which a person is a unified aggregate of mental events and states. As well as defending this view against objections, I argue that it allows the psychological theorist to avoid the two lives objection which the ‘animalist’ theorists have raised against it, an objection which causes great difficulties for the (...) conception of a person that most psychological theorists favour, the constitution view. It is also argued that the series view allows that people can body swap and teleport, which the constitution view–which takes a person to be a physical object (but a distinct physical object from the human being)–has great trouble with. (shrink)

Social epidemiology has made a powerful case that health determined not just by individual-level factors such as our genetic make-up, access to medical services, or lifestyle choices, but also by social conditions, including the economy, law, and culture. Indeed, at the level of populations, evidence suggests that these “structural” factors are the predominant influences on health. Legal scholars in public health, including those in the health and human rights movement, have contended that human rights, laws, and legal practices are powerfully (...) linked to health. Social epidemiology and health-oriented legal scholarship are complementary in their focus and their research needs. Legal scholarship has identified plausible ways in which legal and human rights factors could be influencing health, but empirical evidence has been limited. (shrink)

Deep disagreements are disagreements wherein the dialectical conditions for fruitful argumentative exchange do not obtain. One view from within these disagreements is that the other side has been duped or is so deeply ignorant of and complacent with some illusion, there is no hope for exchange. The Dark Enlightenment's critique of liberal democracy and progressive politics (which gave rise to the alt‐right movement) proceeds on this premise, calling their critical philosophy ‘the red pill’ and terming the opposition's program ‘the Cathedral’. (...) Despite the depth of their disagreement with progressives, there is evidence for an optimistic program of critical dialogue in this instance of deep disagreement. (shrink)

Consider two competing interpretations of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason: the epistemic and cognitive interpretations. The epistemic interpretation presents the first Critique as a work of epistemology, but what is more, it sees Kant as an early proponent of anti-psychologism—the view that descriptions of how the mind works are irrelevant for epistemology.2 Even if Kant does not always manage to purge certain psychological-sounding idioms from his writing, the epistemic interpretation has it, he is perfectly clear that he means his evaluation (...) of knowledge to be carried out independently of psychology.3 In contrast, the cognitive interpretation presents the first Critique as a description of the operation of human .. (shrink)

In this essay I discuss a novel engineering ethics class that has the potential to significantly decrease the likelihood that students will inadvertently or unintentionally act unethically in the future. This class is different from standard engineering ethics classes in that it focuses on the issue of why people act unethically and how students can avoid a variety of hurdles to ethical behavior. I do not deny that it is important for students to develop cogent moral reasoning and ethical decision-making (...) as taught in traditional college-level ethics classes, but as an educator, I aim to help students apply moral reasoning in specific, real-life situations so they are able to make ethical decisions and act ethically in their academic careers and after they graduate. Research in moral psychology provides evidence that many seemingly irrelevant situational factors affect the moral judgment of most moral agents and frequently lead agents to unintentionally or inadvertently act wrongly. I argue that, in addition to teaching college students moral reasoning and ethical decision-making, it is important to: 1. Teach students about psychological and situational factors that affect people’s ethical judgments/behaviors in the sometimes stressful, emotion-laden environment of the workplace; 2. Guide students to engage in critical reflection about the sorts of situations they personally might find ethically challenging before they encounter those situations; and 3. Provide students with strategies to help them avoid future unethical behavior when they encounter these situations in school and in the workplace. (shrink)

In his early lecture courses, Martin Heidegger exhibited an abiding interest in human life. He believed that human life has philosophical import while it is actually being lived; language has philosophical import while it is being spoken. In this book, Scott Campbell traces the development of Heidegger's ideas about factical life through his interest in Greek thought and its concern with Being. He contends that Heidegger's existential concerns about human life and his ontological concerns about the meaning of Being (...) crystallize in the notion of Dasein as the Being of factical human life. Emphasizing the positive aspects of everydayness, Campbell explores the contexts of meaning embedded within life; the intensity of average, everyday life; the temporal immediacy of life in early Christianity; the hermeneutic pursuit of life's self-alienation; factical spatiality; the temporalizing of history within life; the richness of the world; and the facticity of speaking in Plato and Aristotle. He shows how Heidegger presents a way of grasping human life as riddled with deception but also charged with meaning and open to revelation and insight. (shrink)

Ethics has assumed a dominant position in the current economic debate, and this study focuses on ethics as a legitimate underpinning to good business decision making. Using a self-response survey of marketing managers in Spain, the current theory on ethical decision making is extended. Results support the mediating influence of the PRESOR construct (an individual’s perception of the importance of ethics and social responsibility for the effectiveness of the organization) on relativistic and idealistic moral thinking when one is considering the (...) moral intensity of a situation. In addition, the study found support for the relationship between relativism (negative), idealism (positive), corporate ethical values, and job satisfaction, thereby providing additional support for the prior theory. Finally, a thorough review of the extant literature and suggestions for future ethics research in the marketing field are included. (shrink)

The importance of religious cosmology for environmental ethics is explored in a case-study of enchanted and disenchanted world-views in the Sertão of North-east Brazil. Popular Catholicism is shown to have retained an enchanted world-view of humans interacting with saints, souls and animist spirits. In order to differentiate themselves from Catholics, evangelical Protestants pursue a disenchanted view of the natural environment but hold a highly supernatural view of human society. Afro-Brazilian cult members are Catholics who graft an enchanted view of human (...) society on to an enchanted view of nature, producing a hyper-enchanted world-view. The relationship between religious world-view, agricultural modernisation, deforestation and social disparity is evaluated, showing how the process of disenchantment has been highly uneven with the selective elimination of certain enchanted beliefs alongside the persistence of others and their re-adaptation to the contemporary needs of the local population. (shrink)

while many have explored the international reception of Dewey’s thought—for instance, by Hu Shih in the Chinese context—little has been said about the fate of pragmatism in India. Yet there is a line of discernable influence to Indian politics and civil rights movements in the person of Bhimrao Ambedkar. Ambedkar was a famous Indian statesman and anti-caste activist, but he was also a formidable intellectual and philosopher whose collected works span over twenty volumes. He also was highly educated in the (...) West, earning degrees from universities in America and England. Importantly for the fate of pragmatism in India, one of the academic mentors that made a significant impact on Ambedkar during his... (shrink)