Background: Randomized controlled trials have been criticized for their inability to identify and differentiate the causal mechanisms that generate the outcomes they measure. One solution is the development of realist trials that combine the empirical precision of trials' outcome data with realism's theoretical capacity to identify the powers that generate outcomes. Main Body: We review arguments for and against this position and conclude that critical realist trials are viable. Using the example of an evaluation of the educational effectiveness of virtual (...) reality simulation, we explore whether Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling can move statistical analysis beyond correlational analysis to support realist identification of the mechanisms that generate correlations. Conclusion: We tentatively conclude that PLS-SEM, with its ability to identify ‘points of action’, has the potential to provide direction for researchers and practitioners in terms of how, for whom, when, where and in what circumstances an intervention has worked. (shrink)

Humans and AI systems are usually portrayed as separate sys- tems that we need to align in values and goals. However, there is a great deal of AI technology found in non-autonomous systems that are used as cognitive tools by humans. Under the extended mind thesis, the functional contributions of these tools become as essential to our cognition as our brains. But AI can take cognitive extension towards totally new capabil- ities, posing new philosophical, ethical and technical chal- lenges. To (...) analyse these challenges better, we define and place AI extenders in a continuum between fully-externalized systems, loosely coupled with humans, and fully-internalized processes, with operations ultimately performed by the brain, making the tool redundant. We dissect the landscape of cog- nitive capabilities that can foreseeably be extended by AI and examine their ethical implications. We suggest that cognitive extenders using AI be treated as distinct from other cognitive enhancers by all relevant stakeholders, including developers, policy makers, and human users. (shrink)

Abstract1 June 2018 marked a historic moment in Spanish politics, when the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español, PSOE) announced a cabinet with the largest proportion of female ministers in the world. This announcement received extensive coverage in the traditional media. The objective of this research was to measure whether the news had an equivalent impact on Twitter users. To this end, we analyzed the reaction to the appointments based on the popularity of the hashtags #GobiernoSanchez (“Sanchez Government”), (...) #GobiernoFeminista (“Feminist Government”) and #ConsejoMinistras (“Council of Female Ministers”). The most significant findings are that women had even less visibility than they were given in traditional media because of what is not retweeted does not exist, and that the extreme polarization of political life and the media in the public sphere appears to extend to the digital environment of Twitter. (shrink)

It is patently clear that theoretical difficulties in the understanding of human freedom exist, the roots of which can be found in classic psychological proposals. The western crisis may require reconsideration of freedom and responsibility as expressed in each person. One such proposal of this type begs clarification of the approaches that led to the loss of freedom in the existential horizon and thus of social dynamics. The purpose of this paper is to explain its roots in the psychoanalytic context. (...) Specifically there seems to be three theses that give way to this analysis: the role of the past in shaping the personality; the influence of the psychological workings as related to the handling of conflict as well as the understanding of psychoanalysis as hermeneutics. The three are united in the consideration of freedom as “liberation”, and the temporal dynamics implicit in this concept. We conclude that this is the origin of the limitation of the concept of freedom within psychoanalysis. (shrink)

Efforts by governments, firms, and patients to deliver pioneering drugs for critical health needs face a challenge of diminishing efficiency in developing those medicines. While multi-sectoral collaborations involving firms, researchers, patients, and policymakers are widely recognized as crucial for countering this decline, existing incentives to engage in drug development predominantly target drug manufacturers and thereby do little to stimulate collaborative innovation. In this mini review, we consider the unexplored potential within pharmaceutical regulations to create novel incentives to encourage a diverse (...) set of actors from the public and private spheres to engage in the kind of collaborative knowledge exchange requisite for fostering enhanced innovation in early drug development. (shrink)

There is a curious phenomenon where people from marginalized populations are taken to be arrogant when they show no signs of superiority. In effect, their actions are misconstrued, and their attitudes are rendered unintelligible. Given that arrogance is standardly taken to be a flaw in one’s moral character, understanding such misattributions should give us insight into the affective marginalization many people face. This talk aims to give a thorough exploration of arrogance under oppression. I argue that arrogance is a kind (...) of self-preoccupation that involves projecting one’s values, goals, and concerns onto others as if they were objective values, goals, and concerns. When the affectively marginalized communicate their self-respect through things like protest, people mistake that self-respect as self-preoccupation given how the affectively marginalized are constructed. Furthermore, given how affective marginalization not only inhibits how the marginalized are understood by others, but inhibits their own affective lives, I argue that taking up an arrogant attitude is not always morally vicious, but can be a beautiful form of political resistance but all things considered good. (shrink)

Philosophers of race and other writers in the Black and Latinx intellectual traditions have remarked on what it is like to live under “the racial gaze,” to be shaped and limited by the way whites perceive us. However, little work has been spent developing how the racial gaze functions in whites’, and other racially privileged people’s, moral psychology. I argue in this paper that there is a morally objectionable way of perceiving people of color. This claim builds on an insight (...) from Iris Murdoch that our perception can be morally evaluable and extends it to issues of race. I articulate how racial stereotypes and misvaluing distort one’s perception of people of color and that these distortions are organizing around a dominant conception for race that plays an important role in the oppression of people of color. I believe understanding racist perception lays a foundation for understanding the moral dimensions of interpersonal (as opposed to structural) racism. (shrink)

Este artículo se orienta en sentido inverso al sugerido por Cristina Rivera Garza y refrendado por la mayoría de los textos especializados en su obra: en vez de priorizar la ruptura y la innovación, atiende la trabazón que ata _Autobiografía del algodón_ con una fecunda tradición narrativa en América Latina: aquella empecinada en representar la alteridad sociocultural. Mi hipótesis es que, sin menoscabo de los ademanes vanguardistas de esta novela, es dable hallar en ella tensiones que, en distintos niveles, remiten (...) a la dificultad de asir la imagen de los algodoneros a los que se pretende reivindicar. Así, pese a que _Autobiografía del algodón_ se ofrece como un tránsito de lo personal y familiar a lo comunitario/nacional (en tanto que extiende temporal y territorialmente los efectos de la siembra de algodón), lo cierto es que Rivera Garza se enfrenta a la dificultad de encarar literariamente un referente cuya filiación sociocultural es disímil a la suya. La fluctuación entre los atributos de la narración homodiegética y la heterodiegética, la exteriorización de las capas que componen el texto y el asomo a una temporalidad diferente son los recursos puestos en juego para tratar de menguar la ajenidad sustantiva frente al mundo aludido. (shrink)

We aim to map out the points of confluence between phronesis and emotion, as well as the nature of this confluence. We do so based on philosophical and psychological explanations of emotions and phronesis. Making sound decisions, which requires phronesis, is an important matter, but its relationship with emotions has only just begun to be studied. We propose that the interplay between phronesis and emotion is possible (rather than inevitable) because both have a cognitive-behavioural structure and because emotions are hierarchical. (...) In the case of emotion, there are no gaps between the cognitive and behavioural dimensions, while phronetic acts can only manifest if cognitive and behavioural aspects are activated simultaneously. The confluence we identify is bidirectional and involves mutual enrichment in this dual dimension. On the one hand, phronesis enriches emotion because it involves extra subjective knowledge and allows emotion to be directed towards higher goals. On the other hand, emotions enrich phronesis because phronesis makes decisions based on sensitive preferences and because emotions confirm correctness in the context of moral decision making. Methodologically, this study is theoretical and interdisciplinary, as our approach is both philosophical and psychological. Philosophy helps us to improve the conceptual foundation of the construct, while psychology provides an analysis of the emotional process, allowing philosophy to understand how emotional evaluation-assessment and motivation lead to decision making. (shrink)

One might be inclined to assume, given the mouse donning its cover, that the behavior of interest in Nicole Nelson's book Model Behavior (2018) is that of organisms like mice that are widely used as “stand-ins” for investigating the causes of human behavior. Instead, Nelson's ethnographic study focuses on the strategies adopted by a community of rodent behavioral researchers to identify and respond to epistemic challenges they face in using mice as models to understand the causes of disordered human behaviors (...) associated with mental illness. Although Nelson never explicitly describes the knowledge production activities in which her behavioral geneticist research subjects engage as “exemplary”, the question of whether or not these activities constitute “model behavior(s)”—generalizable norms for engaging in scientific research—is one of the many thought-provoking questions raised by her book. As a philosopher of science interested in this question, I take it up here. (shrink)

This chapter explores Marcel’s relationship with German idealism, the impact idealism had on his existentialism, his philosophical evolution beyond idealist conceptions of objectivity and consciousness, and his own move towards the authentic “ethical self,” whose goal is a reciprocal, intersubjective relationship with others who are freely seeking the inner meaning of experience. It will argue that the authentic self is fundamentally personal because it is embodied, non-objective, and creates opportunities for others to existentially flourish. The continuing progress of the ethical, (...) authentic self in a world that threatens it establishes Marcel’s existentialism as way to flourish in the midst of absurdity, and so establishes it as more than a mere reaction to German idealism. (shrink)

L'ouvrage revient sur le projet de l'esthétique dite "scientifique", qui se constitue comme telle dans la 2e moitié du XIXe siècle : dépasser les postulats kantiens et spiritualistes au nom d'un rapprochement de l'esthétique avec les sciences expérimentales de son temps (psychologie, physiologie, psychophysique, anthropologie...). Croisant les approches de la philosophie et de l'histoire de l’art, l'ouvrage étudie en outre l'articulation de cette esthétique avec l'art de son temps, du néo-impressionnisme aux débuts de l'abstraction, de l'art nouveau à la géométrie (...) sensible des puristes, et des réformateurs des arts du geste et de la danse aux zélateurs des synesthésies et de l'oeuvre d'art totale. (shrink)

This article sits at a point of intersection between the philosophy of physics and the metaphysics of modality. There are clear similarities between Everettian quantum mechanics and various modal metaphysical theories, but there have hitherto been few attempts at exploring how the two topics relate. In this article, I build on a series of recent papers by Wilson ([2011], [2012], [2013]), who argues that Everettian quantum mechanics’ connections with traditional modal metaphysics are vital in defending it against objections. I show (...) that Wilson’s preferred version of Everettian quantum mechanics has two problems. First, it is unable to account for the contingency of various intuitively contingent modal claims. Second, it fails to yield intuitive truth values on modal claims about the number of branches in a given Everettian multiverse. Since modal claims about branch number are instrumental in decision-theoretic solutions to Everettian quantum mechanics’ problem(s) with probability, this second problem has wider dialectical implications. I suggest amendments to the underlying metaphysics that overcome these problems. The result is a more robust version of Everettian quantum mechanics. (shrink)

Warum und wie genau darf zu Hause oder auf einer Theaterbühne anders gehandelt werden, als im Büro; wie verändert sich die Bedeutung von Worten, je nachdem wo, von wem und wie sie gesagt werden? Warum und mit welchen Mitteln versuchen wir, höflich zu sein, und inwiefern sind wir von unangemessenem Verhalten anderer bedroht? Welches Weltwissen benötigen Beobachter, um beurteilen zu können, wann Verhalten als angemessen oder unangemessen einzustufen ist? Im vorliegenden Band untersuchen die Beitragenden das Phänomen sozialer Angemessenheit unter anderem (...) aus philosophischer, sozialpsychologischer, soziologischer, kulturtheoretischer, linguistischer und anthropologischer Perspektive. Dabei werden insbesondere Bedingungen und Auswirkungen, Merkmale sowie Wandlungs- und Entstehungsprozesse sozialer Angemessenheit thematisiert. Die Herausgebenden Jacqueline Bellon M.A. promoviert an der TU Darmstadt und arbeitet als Philosophin, Kultur- und Sozialwissenschaftlerin. Dr. Bruno Gransche ist Philosoph am Institut für Technikzukünfte (ITZ) des Karlsruher Instituts für Technologie (KIT). Sebastian Nähr-Wagener M.A. ist wiss. Mitarbeiter am Institut für Technikzukünfte (ITZ) des Karlsruher Instituts für Technologie (KIT). (shrink)

This article aims to theoretically analyse so-called character friendship from the perspective of emotions. From this angle, our research enables us to distinguish different types of emotions, and we propose a conceptual model of the hierarchy of the emotions of character friendship and their influence on social behaviour. With this model in hand, the article discusses whether other-oriented emotions fully explain the emotional underpinnings of character friendship. We find other-oriented emotions to be ambiguous because they may or may not be (...) selfless. Thus we question whether these emotions can adequately explain the bonding content of character friendship. We conclude that there is a higher affective tier related to moral emotions and moral behaviour, which we have labelled the ‘bonding feeling’. This feeling is described with reference to its historical precedents (Rof Carballo’s ‘affective warp’), thus explaining its particularity. (shrink)

In his correspondence, John Locke described his close friend Damaris Masham as ‘a determined foe to ecclesiastical tyranny’ and someone who had ‘the greatest aversion to all persecution on account of religious matters.’ In her short biography of Locke, Masham returned the compliment by commending Locke for convincing others that ‘Liberty of Conscience is the unquestionable Right of Mankind.’ These comments attest to Masham’s personal commitment to the cause of religious liberty. Thus far, however, there has been no scholarly discussion (...) of the tolerationist ethic underlying Masham’s 1705 publication, Occasional Thoughts. In this chapter, I argue that Masham’s work appeals to three common tolerationist principles of her time: the idea that the authorities should not use coercion and penalties as ways of imposing religious beliefs on others; the view that God requires human beings to attain salvation through their own efforts, and not by blindly following the dictates of the state-established religion; and the idea that the granting of liberty of conscience helps to ensure the peace and stability of political society. I show that Masham goes further than her tolerationist contemporaries by arguing that together these principles imply that a woman’s intellectual education—or the conscious cultivation of a woman’s ability to reflect critically on her religious beliefs—is vital for the good of the commonwealth. (shrink)

This study examines the relationship between cooperative business relations in small businesses and environmental protection, one of the most important policies of social responsibility in manufacturing. We reviewed the literature and carried out an empirical study of 930 small manufacturing firms in Spain. Results indicate that small businesses that maintain and improve their cooperative relations through business networking with universities, competitors, suppliers and customers spend more on environmental protection. The managerial, practical, research and policy implications of the obtained research findings (...) are discussed. (shrink)

What can contemporary machine learning (ML) models do? Given the proliferation of ML models in society, answering this question matters to a variety of stakeholders, both public and private. The evaluation of models' capabilities is rapidly emerging as a key subfield of modern ML, buoyed by regulatory attention and government grants. Despite this, the notion of an ML model possessing a capability has not been interrogated: what are we saying when we say that a model is able to do something? (...) And what sorts of evidence bear upon this question? -/- In this paper, we aim to answer these questions, using the capabilities of large language models (LLMs) as a running example. Drawing on the large philosophical literature on abilities, we develop an account of ML models' capabilities which can be usefully applied to the nascent science of model evaluation. Our core proposal is a conditional analysis of model abilities (CAMA): crudely, a machine learning model has a capability to X just when it would reliably succeed at doing X if it 'tried'. The main contribution of the paper is making this proposal precise in the context of ML, resulting in an operationalisation of CAMA applicable to LLMs. We then put CAMA to work, showing that it can help make sense of various features of ML model evaluation practice, as well as suggest procedures for performing fair inter-model comparisons. (shrink)

El presente artículo aborda los engranajes entre escritura y ciudadanía que plantea el poemario de Elvira Hernández, Estado de sitio. Para ello, considera los factores de orden sociocultural que acompañaron su producción, circulación y recepción crítica, en el contexto del estallido social de octubre 2019 en Chile, la coyuntura feminista y el actual proceso constituyente. Hitos de nuestra historia reciente frente a los cuales la poeta se posiciona ética y estéticamente desde una concepción política de la palabra como litigio, esto (...) es, una disputa –discursiva y social– por la enunciación de (en) lo común. (shrink)

In this rich and detailed study of early modern women's thought, Jacqueline Broad explores the complexity of women's responses to Cartesian philosophy and its intellectual legacy in England and Europe. She examines the work of thinkers such as Mary Astell, Elisabeth of Bohemia, Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway and Damaris Masham, who were active participants in the intellectual life of their time and were also the respected colleagues of philosophers such as Descartes, Leibniz and Locke. She also illuminates the continuities (...) between early modern women's thought and the anti-dualism of more recent feminist thinkers. The result is a more gender-balanced account of early modern thought than has hitherto been available. Broad's clear and accessible exploration of this still-unfamiliar area will have a strong appeal to both students and scholars in the history of philosophy, women's studies and the history of ideas. (shrink)

Ian Hacking instigated a revolution in 20th century philosophy of science by putting experiments (“interventions”) at the top of a philosophical agenda that historically had focused nearly exclusively on representations (“theories”). In this paper, I focus on a set of conceptual tools Hacking (1992) put forward to understand how laboratory sciences become stable and to explain what such stability meant for the prospects of unity of science and kind discovery in experimental science. I first use Hacking’s tools to understand sources (...) of instability and disunity in rodent behavioral neuroscience. I then use them to understand recent grass-roots collaborative open science initiatives aimed at establishing stability in this research area and tease out some implications for unity of science and kind creation and discovery in cognitive neuroscience. -/- . (shrink)

Abstract: In this paper, I respond to James Sterba’s recent book ‘Is a Good God Logically Possible?’ I show that Sterba concludes that God is not logically possible by ignoring three important issues: (a) the different functions of leeway indeterminism (and the political freedom presupposed by it) and autonomy (the two are very different things, even though both go under the name of freedom), (b) the differences in the conditions of agency in God and in creatures, (there is non-parity in (...) how each must apply the single moral law), and (c) the non-parity between our knowledge and God’s. I provide a brief summary of Sterba’s arguments, and I develop the following points: 1. Sterba’s argument against a Free-Will Defense hinges on his conflation of political freedom and autonomy; 2. Sterba’s crucial premise for his argument against soul-making theodicies (namely, that the “Pauline Principle” should be applied univocally across God and creatures) is false; 3. Sterba’s arguments against skeptical theism depend on his assumption that our knowledge is comparable to that of God. In each case, Sterba either does not recognize non-parity between God and creatures or does not recognize the difference between the profane (e.g., political matters) and the sacred, (e.g., spiritual matters having to do with the inner nature of the soul’s development). (shrink)

Texto originalmente publicado em HORSTMANN, R-P. “Hegels Theorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft”. In: SIEP, Ludwig, G. W. F. Hegel: Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts. De Gruyter. pp. 189-208 (2016).

This paper compares pair and Mob programming in university courses from students' perceptions of technical and human aspects. Wilcoxon signed rank tests were performed. Results indicated that students preferred pair programming in technical aspects and in a global evaluation they completed.

Le laboratoire scientifique est ici appréhendé dans sa spécificité propre. Il est bien situé en tant qu'objet anthropologique. Le lecteur trouvera dans ce livre la problématique du pouvoir dans le laboratoire, il découvrira une manière spécifique de traiter la dialectique entre production identitaire individuelle et collective.

Departing from Leibniz’s ontological argument, and specifically from the “possibility-complement” just as it appears in his texts, this article offers a detailed analysis of the very same concept of possibility. This is an attempt at showing its consistency in a very extreme metaphysical situation: the possibility of God without any reference to the world of possibility, contingency or eternal truths. The logic and real possibility, the merely possible, the relationship between possibility, compossibility and the Characteristic, are some of the questions (...) dealt with in this article. (shrink)

A critic of utilitarianism, in a paper entitled “Innocence and Consequentialism” Laing argues that Singer cannot without contradicting himself reject baby farming (a thought experiment that involves mass-producing deliberately brain damaged children for live birth for the greater good of organ harvesting) and at the same time hold on to his “personism” a term coined by Jenny Teichman to describe his fluctuating (and Laing says, discriminatory) theory of human moral value. His explanation that baby farming undermines attitudes of care and (...) concern for the very young, can be applied to babies and the unborn (non-persons on his view) and contradicts positions that he adopts elsewhere in his work. (shrink)

As citizens, we hold certain truths to be self-evident: that the rights to own land, marry, inherit property, and especially to assume birthright citizenship should be guaranteed by the state. The laws promoting these rights appear not only to preserve our liberty but to guarantee society remains just. Yet considering how much violence and inequality results from these legal mandates, Jacqueline Stevens asks whether we might be making the wrong assumptions. Would a world without such laws be more just? (...) Arguing that the core laws of the nation-state are more about a fear of death than a desire for freedom, Jacqueline Stevens imagines a world in which birthright citizenship, family inheritance, state-sanctioned marriage, and private land ownership are eliminated. Would chaos be the result? Drawing on political theory and history and incorporating contemporary social and economic data, she brilliantly critiques our sentimental attachments to birthright citizenship, inheritance, and marriage and highlights their harmful outcomes, including war, global apartheid, destitution, family misery, and environmental damage. It might be hard to imagine countries without the rules of membership and ownership that have come to define them, but as Stevens shows, conjuring new ways of reconciling our laws with the condition of mortality reveals the flaws of our present institutions and inspires hope for moving beyond them. (shrink)

As citizens, we hold certain truths to be self-evident: that the rights to own land, marry, inherit property, and especially to assume birthright citizenship should be guaranteed by the state. The laws promoting these rights appear not only to preserve our liberty but to guarantee society remains just. Yet considering how much violence and inequality results from these legal mandates, Jacqueline Stevens asks whether we might be making the wrong assumptions. Would a world without such laws be more just? (...) Arguing that the core laws of the nation-state are more about a fear of death than a desire for freedom, Jacqueline Stevens imagines a world in which birthright citizenship, family inheritance, state-sanctioned marriage, and private land ownership are eliminated. Would chaos be the result? Drawing on political theory and history and incorporating contemporary social and economic data, she brilliantly critiques our sentimental attachments to birthright citizenship, inheritance, and marriage and highlights their harmful outcomes, including war, global apartheid, destitution, family misery, and environmental damage. It might be hard to imagine countries without the rules of membership and ownership that have come to define them, but as Stevens shows, conjuring new ways of reconciling our laws with the condition of mortality reveals the flaws of our present institutions and inspires hope for moving beyond them. (shrink)

Despite its centrality in the philosophy of cognitive science, there has been little prior philosophical work engaging with the notion of representation in contemporary NLP practice. This paper attempts to fill that lacuna: drawing on ideas from cognitive science, I introduce a framework for evaluating the representational claims made about components of neural NLP models, proposing three criteria with which to evaluate whether a component of a model represents a property and operationalising these criteria using probing classifiers, a popular analysis (...) technique in NLP (and deep learning more broadly). The project of operationalising a philosophically-informed notion of representation should be of interest to both philosophers of science and NLP practitioners. It affords philosophers a novel testing-ground for claims about the nature of representation, and helps NLPers organise the large literature on probing experiments, suggesting novel avenues for empirical research. (shrink)

Freud supone el inicio de una escuela psicológica y filosófica. Ambos aspectos estan relacionados en sus escritos. La creacion de una metapsicología, sustituta de la metafísica, como una suerte de hermenéutica, es el núcleo de las observaciones de Leonardo Polo. Sus apreciaciones muestran un profundo conocimiento del psicoanálisis y de sus limitaciones intrinsecas. Ofrece también, sugerencias para abordar el estudio de la psicología como una ciencia coherente con el contexto científico en el que se halla su objeto propio.

From Leonardo Polo's philosophy it is possible to clarify the object and specific method of psychology, overcoming in this way the situation of the "problematic science". Its relation to anthropology and some sciences as physics, biology and ethics can also be investigated. To do so, Polo takes notions again from Aristotle's psychology and the contributions of cybernetics. A reflection of these characteristics allows us to rectify and extend the scientific possibilites of psychology, avoiding reductionisms and sincretisms.

En las últimas décadas hemos asistido a una crisis del islamismo y a diversas respuestas para superar la mencionada crisis. Así, hemos visto como mediante la inclusión de estas organizaciones en el juego político, sus pociones se han ido moderando considerablemente. La realidad es que buena parte de estos movimientos han derivado hacia un nuevo modelo de organización que puede ser denominada como “populismo islámico” cuyas características son propias y singulares, aunque algunas son compartidas con otros movimientos populistas de otra (...) índole. Este trabajo trata de mostrar usando el caso de los Hermanos Musulmanes en Egipto como los movimientos islamistas pueden, bajo determinadas circunstancias, derivar hace un populismo con características islámicas. (shrink)

La creación del Estado es un proceso de concentración del poder en una persona que en términos reales se denominó Rey o Monarca y que en términos filosóficos identificamos con ese monstruo bíblico del Leviatán. El paso de la lucha del todos a todos contra el Leviatán es pasar de la Edad Media a la Edad Moderna. Por ello, tras la creación de los grandes Estados en Europa llegaron los procesos revolucionarios que buscaron limitar a ese monstruo que habíamos creado (...) para evitar el "todos contra todos". (shrink)

In her Remarks Upon Some Writers (1743), Catharine Trotter Cockburn takes a seemingly radical stance by asserting that it is possible for atheists to be virtuous. In this paper, I examine whether or not Cockburn’s views concerning atheism commit her to a naturalistic ethics and a so-called radical enlightenment position on the independence of morality and religion. First, I examine her response to William Warburton’s critique of Pierre Bayle’s arguments concerning the possibility of a society of virtuous atheists. I argue (...) that this response shows Cockburn vacillating between a moral naturalism, on the one hand, and a theistic morality, on the other. Second, I draw on Cockburn’s letters to her niece Ann Arbuthnot, and her opinions concerning mystical ideas about “the will of God” in north-east Scotland in the mid-eighteenth century. I maintain that these letters give us a fuller appreciation of Cockburn’s naturalistic position. My conclusion is that Cockburn’s ideas concerning atheism prompt us to consider the close interplay between secular and religious principles in so-called radical ideas of the period. (shrink)

This anthology offers a comprehensive introduction to Pliny the Younger's Epistulae for intermediate and advanced Latin students, with the grammatical, lexical, and historical support to enable them to read quickly and fluidly. As the only selection of the letters with extensive commentary, it provides instructors with a unique and complete resource for students.ABOUT THE SERIESThe Oxford Greek and Latin College Commentaries is designed for students in intermediate or advanced Greek or Latin. Each volume includes a comprehensive introduction. The placement, on (...) the same page, of the ancient text, a running vocabulary, and succinct notes focusing on grammar, syntax, and distinctive features of style provides students with essential learning aids.Series Editors: Barbara Weiden Boyd, Bowdoin College, Stephen Esposito, Boston University, and Mary Lefkowitz, Wellesley CollegeAlso Available Ovid: Ars Amatoria, Book 3, Christopher M. Brunelle, St. Olaf CollegeForthcoming Latin VolumesSuetonius's Life of AugustusDarryl Phillips, Connecticut CollegeLucan's De Bello Civile, Book 5Jonathan Tracy, Massey University, New Zealand. (shrink)