The purpose of the article is to reveal philosophical ideas in the mythology and folklore of the indigenous peoples of North America. An important question: "Can we assume that the spiritual culture of the American Indians contained philosophical knowledge?" remains relevant today. For example, European philosophy is defined by appeals to philosophers of the past, their texts. The philosophical tradition is characterized by rational argumentation and formulation of philosophical questions that differ from the questions of ordinary language. However, the problem (...) lies in the term "philosophy", which belongs to the so-called "philosophical untranslatability" and has many definitions. The question of whether philosophy is exclusively a phenomenon of European culture is still controversial. In the article, the concept of philosophy is used in a broad sense, which allows the analysis of the intellectual heritage of the culture of the indigenous people of North America for philosophical ideas. Theoretical basis of the study consists of primary sources, which are limited due to the "documentary horizon". It contains myths about the Twins, ritual rhetoric, examples of dream interpretation practices and the practical wisdom of tribal chiefs. The Chronicle of "Vallamolum", or "the Red List", testifies to the special idea of the Indians about history and their own historicity. Analysis of cosmogonical and cosmological ideas reveals the special features of the anthropological ideas of the North American Indians. Combined with the philosophical ideas of the Puritan philosophy of the settlers of New England, this analysis allows us to explore in more detail the processes of acculturation. The study uses critical literature from scholars and leading researchers of the wisdom and philosophy of Native Americans, such as Michael Yellow Bird, J. Baird Callicott, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Dennis H. McPherson, Lewis Henri Morgan, Thomas M. Norton-Smith, J. Douglas Rabb, Paul Radin, Jon Ewbank Manchip White. The views of early American philosophers: R. Williams, W. Penn, R. W. Emerson, on the problem of the relationship between the culture of settlers and the indigenous people of North America are noteworthy. Originality lies in the application of historical and philosophical methodology, identifying the features of philosophizing in the spiritual culture and worldview of the indigenous people of North America. Conclusions. In the conclusions, the obtained results complement the history of the origin and development of philosophical thought of the early American philosophy. (shrink)

In recent years, several philosophers have argued that their discipline makes no progress (or not enough in comparison to the “hard sciences”). A key argument for this pessimistic position appeals to the purported fact that philosophers widely and systematically disagree on most major philosophical issues. In this paper, we take a step back from the debate about progress in philosophy specifically and consider the general question: How (if at all) would disagreement within a discipline undermine that discipline’s progress? We reject (...) two arguments from disagreement to a lack of progress, and spell out two accounts of progress on which progress is compatible with disagreements that persist or increase over time. However, we also argue that disagreement can undermine our ability to tell which developments are progressive (and to what degree). So, while disagreement can indeed be a threat to progress, the precise nature of the threat has not been appreciated. (shrink)

It is widely thought that grounding is a hyperintensional phenomenon. Unfortunately, the term ‘hyperintensionality’ has been doing double-duty, picking out two distinct phenomena. This paper clears up this conceptual confusion. We call the two resulting notions hyperintensionalityGRND and hyperintensionalityTRAD. While it is clear that grounding is hyperintensionalGRND, the interesting question is whether it is hyperintensionalTRAD. We argue that given well-accepted constraints on the logical form of grounding, to wit, that grounding is irreflexive and asymmetric, grounding is hyperintensionalTRAD only if one (...) endorses a sentential operator view of grounding. We argue that proponents of the sentential operator view will need to distinguish two importantly different kinds of hyperintensionalityTRAD—weak and strong—and we offer them a way to do so. (shrink)

Recent ideological positioning on the world stage has born a startling resemblance to a form of positioning within nursing theory – that of taking complex ideas, reducing them to a simplistic binary form, and uncritically adopting one half of that form. In some cases, this adoption of a binary position has led to a passionately held form of ‘othering’ that prohibits a healthy and critical engagement with ideas. As alluring as settling for the binary form may be – we argue (...) for holding binaries in tension as a catalyst for stimulating dialogue – reasoning and exploration of new ways of wrestling with the social and moral complexity of nursing. (shrink)

The sporadic nature of Alzheimer's disease argues for an environmental link that may drive AD pathogenesis; however, the triggering factors and the period of their action are unknown. Recent studies in rodents have shown that exposure to lead during brain development predetermined the expression and regulation of the amyloid precursor protein and its amyloidogenic beta-amyloid product in old age. Here, we report that the expression of AD-related genes [APP, BACE1 ] as well as their transcriptional regulator were elevated in aged (...) monkeys exposed to Pb as infants. Furthermore, developmental exposure to Pb altered the levels, characteristics, and intracellular distribution of Abeta staining and amyloid plaques in the frontal association cortex. These latent effects were accompanied by a decrease in DNA methyltransferase activity and higher levels of oxidative damage to DNA, indicating that epigenetic imprinting in early life influenced the expression of AD-related genes and promoted DNA damage and pathogenesis. These data suggest that AD pathogenesis is influenced by early life exposures and argue for both an environmental trigger and a developmental origin of AD. (shrink)

What considerations place genuine constraints on an adequate semantics for normative and evaluative expressions? Linguists recognize facts about ordinary uses of such expressions and competent speakers’ judgments about which uses are appropriate. The contemporary literature reflects the widespread assumption that linguists don’t rely upon an additional source of data—competent speakers’ judgments about possible disagreement with hypothetical speech communities. We have several good reasons to think that such judgments are not probative for semantic theorizing. Therefore, we should accord these judgments no (...) probative value for the development of a semantics for our moral terms. Such judgments can no longer be presumed to put pressure on theories according to which our moral expressions share a semantics with ordinary, descriptive terms. Many rivals to pure, Descriptivist theories count among their advantages the ability to accommodate these judgments. If these judgments have no probative value, such theories lose an important source of support. (shrink)

This chapter explores two central questions in the conceptual ethics of normative inquiry. The first is whether to orient one’s normative inquiry around folk normative concepts (like KNOWLEDGE or IMMORAL) or around theoretical normative concepts (like ADEQUATE EPISTEMIC JUSTIFICATION or PRO TANTO PRACTICAL REASON). The second is whether to orient one’s normative inquiry around concepts whose normative authority is especially accessible to us (such as OUGHT ALL THINGS CONSIDERED), or around concepts whose extension is especially accessible to us (such as (...) BETRAYAL). The chapter aims to make vivid and plausible a range of possible answers to these questions, and important forms of argument that can be used to favor certain answers over others. (shrink)

Recently, some philosophers have suggested that a form of robust realism about ethics, or normativity more generally, does not face a significant explanatory burden in metaphysics. I call this view metaphysically quietist normative realism . This paper argues that while this view can appear to constitute an attractive alternative to more traditional forms of normative realism, it cannot deliver on this promise. I examine Scanlon’s attempt to defend such a quietist realism, and argue that rather than silencing metaphysical questions about (...) normative reasons, his defense at best succeeds only in shifting the focus of metaphysical enquiry. I then set aside the details of Scanlon’s view, and argue on general grounds that that the quietist realist cannot finesse a crucial metanormative task: to explain the contrast between the correct normative system and alternative putatively normative standards. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that the ethical supervenes on the natural, where this is roughly the claim that it is impossible for two circumstances to be identical in all natural respects, but different in their ethical respects. This chapter refines and defends the traditional thought that this fact poses a significant challenge to ethical non-naturalism, a view on which ethical properties are fundamentally different in kind from natural properties. The challenge can be encapsulated in three core claims which the chapter (...) defends: that a defensible non-naturalism is committed to the supervenience of the ethical, that this commits the non-naturalist to a brute necessary connection between properties of distinct kinds, and that commitment to such brute connections counts against the non-naturalist’s view. Each of these claims has recently been challenged. Against Nicholas Sturgeon’s recent doubts about the dialectical force of supervenience, this chapter defends a supervenience thesis as deserving to be common ground among ethical realists. It is then argued that attempts to explain supervenience on behalf of the non-naturalist either fail as explanations, generate near-identical explanatory burdens elsewhere, or appeal to commitments that are inconsistent with core motivations for non-naturalism. The chapter concludes that, suitably refined, the traditional argument against nonnaturalism from supervenience is alive and well. (shrink)

This chapter discusses three puzzles about practical conditionals and inferences and shows how the flexible, contextualist semantic framework for “ought”. The chapter develops elsewhere resolves all three puzzles more satisfactorily than any of its three most prominent rivals, the relativist account of Niko Kolodny and John MacFarlane, the wide-scoping account of John Broome, and the “trying on” account of James Dreier. The chapter first introduces the puzzle cases and six desiderata for their solutions, and then shows how only flexible contextualism (...) about “ought” is able to resolve each while satisfying all six desiderata. (shrink)

This paper argues for ethical veganism: the thesis that it is typically wrong to consume animal products. The paper first sets out an intuitive case for this thesis that begins with the intuitive claim that it is wrong to set fire to a cat. I then raise a methodological challenge: this is an intuitive argument for a revisionary conclusion. Even if we grant that we cannot both believe that it is permissible to drink milk, and that it is wrong to (...) set fire to cats, this leaves open the question of which of these judgments we should abandon. I consider and reject three strategies for addressing this question: more methodologically naïve moral theorizing, appeal to systematic normative theory, and attacking non-moral presuppositions. I argue that philosophically satisfying the resolution of the conflict requires debunking our grounds for belief in one of the conflicting claims. Finally, I argue that ethical veganism is supported by consideration of the most salient debunking arguments available. (shrink)

One class of central debates between normative realists appears to concern whether we should be naturalists or reductionists about the normative. However, metaethical discussion of naturalism and reduction is often inconsistent, murky, or uninformative. This can make it hard to see why commitments relative to these metaphysical categories should matter to normative realists. This paper aims to clarify the nature of these categories, and their significance in debates between normative realists. I develop and defend what I call the joint-carving taxonomy, (...) which builds on David Lewis’ notion of elite properties. I argue that this taxonomy is clear and metaphysically interesting, and answers to distinctive taxonomic interests of normative realists. I also suggest that it has important implications for the project of adjudicating debates among normative realists. (shrink)

An infinite lottery machine is used as a foil for testing the reach of inductive inference, since inferences concerning it require novel extensions of probability. Its use is defensible if there is some sense in which the lottery is physically possible, even if exotic physics is needed. I argue that exotic physics is needed and describe several proposals that fail and at least one that succeeds well enough.

The past few decades have witnessed an extraordinary revival of interest in metanormative non-naturalism. Despite this interest, it is still unclear how to understand the distinctive metaphysical commitments of this view. We illustrate the relevant difficulties by examining what is arguably the most prominent class of contemporary attempts to formulate non-naturalism’s metaphysical commitments. This class of proposals, exemplified in work by Gideon Rosen and Stephanie Leary, characterizes the distinctive metaphysical commitments of non-naturalism in terms of metaphysical grounding and essence. We (...) argue that these proposals overgeneralize: they either misclassify intuitively naturalistic hypotheses about the metaphysics of normativity as “non-naturalist”, or misclassify hypotheses in other areas of metaphysics. We argue that this problem stems from features of grounding itself. We suggest a more promising alternative for formulating non-naturalism, which revolves around the notion of objective similarity between classes of properties. We conclude by drawing some general lessons for inquiry about the metaphysics of normativity, and about metaphysics in general. (shrink)

In this essay, I explore the prospects for a virtue ethic approach to business. First, I delineate two fundamental criteria that I believe must be met for any such approach to be viable: viz., the virtues must be exercised for the sake of the good of one’s life as a unitary whole (contra role-morality approaches) and for the common good of the communities of which one is a part as well as the individual good of their members (contra egoist approaches). (...) Second, I argue that these two criteria can be met only if we are able to reconceive and transform the nature of work within contemporary business organizations. In particular, what is needed, I argue, is a retrieval of something like the older ideal of work as a “vocation”, or “calling”, whereby work can be viewed as a specific aspect of a more general calling to pursue, through the practice of the virtues, “the good life” both for ourselves and for others. Lastly, I consider some important challenges to this “vocational virtue ethic” approach to work within contemporary business organizations and offer a few suggestions for how they might be met. (shrink)

G. E. Moore famously argued against skepticism and idealism by appealing to their inconsistency with alleged certainties, like the existence of his own hands. Recently, some philosophers have offered analogous arguments against revisionary views about ethics such as metaethical error theory. These arguments appeal to the inconsistency of error theory with seemingly obvious moral claims like “it is wrong to torture an innocent child just for fun.” It might seem that such ‘Moorean’ arguments in ethics will stand or fall with (...) Moore’s own arguments in metaphysics and epistemology, in virtue of their shared structure. I argue that this is not so. I suggest that the epistemic force of the canonical Moorean arguments can best be understood to rest on asymmetries in indirect evidence. I then argue that this explanation suggests that Moorean arguments are less promising in ethics than they are against Moore’s own targets. I conclude by examining the competing attempt to vindicate Moorean arguments by appealing to Rawls’s method of reflective equilibrium. (shrink)

Heideggerian philosophy is frequently chosen as a philosophical framing, and/or a hermeneutic analytical structure in qualitative nursing research. As Heideggerian philosophy is dense, there is merit in the development of scholarly resources that help to explain discrete Heideggerian concepts and to uncover their relevance to contemporary human experience. This paper uses a meta-synthesis methodology to pool and synthesise findings from 29 phenomenological research reports on Being-with in the nurse–patient relationship. We firstly considered and secured the most relevant Heideggerian elements to (...) nurse–patient Being-with. Under these deductive codes, we then inductively developed sub-themes that seemed to explain the multifaceted nature of Being-with, through a secondary analysis and synthesis of published data from 417 patient, carer and nurse participants. Dasein-with was enhanced when nurses had first-hand experience with a phenomenon. Nurses moved between the inauthentic they-mode, and the authentic self-mode. Through circumspection, technology and people were encountered environmentally feeding into nursing attention, assessment and communication. Nursing as a social arrangement was expressed through either leaping-in care or leaping-ahead care. There was a place for both inauthentic and authentic discourse that nurses wove through the ontic everydayness of nursing tasks. (shrink)

One important activity in conceptual ethics and conceptual engineering involves proposing to associate a new semantics with an existing word. Many philosophers think that one important way to evaluate such a proposal concerns whether it preserves the “topic” picked out by the existing word, and several have offered competing proposals concerning what is required to preserve topic. Our paper is focused on the conceptual ethics question of how conceptual engineers should use the term ‘topic continuity’. We provide and defend a (...) context- sensitive answer to this question. Our answer is motivated by the idea that there are several distinct considerations that we can reasonably care about (and which many conceptual engineers already do care about) in thinking about “topic continuity”, and, moreover, that how best to weigh them against each other can vary from context to context. On our proposal, ‘topic continuity’ can function as a useful representational device that enables coordination by inquirers with respect to these concerns. We conclude by locating our account in a broader way of thinking about topic continuity across a range of inquiries. (shrink)

The aim of this study was interpret the existential construct of family caring following Acute Coronary Syndrome. Family support is known to have a positive impact on recovery and adjustment after cardiac events. Few studies provide philosophically-based, interpretative explorations of carer experience following a spouse’s ischaemic event. As carer experiences, behaviours and meaning-making may impact on the quality of the support they provide to patients, further understanding could improve both patient outcomes and family experience. Fourteen spouses of people experiencing Acute (...) Coronary Syndrome in Sydney, Australia were engaged in a single, semi-structured interview. Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data were analysed using hermeneutic interpretation within a Heideggerian phenomenological framework. Acute Coronary Syndrome disrupts lived temporality, and the projected potential for carers’ being-alongside. Carers experienced an existential uncertainty that arose from difficulty in diagnosis, and situated fear as an attuned, being-towards-death. They constructed protective strategies to insulate their partner and themselves from further stress and risk, however, unclear boundaries for protection heightened carer anxiety. The existential structure of care included one of two possible Heideggerian modes: leaping-in care was a dominating mode that required a high level of carer vigilance; leaping-ahead care was a metaphorical walking alongside, as carers gave back control, freeing opportunities for the person to ‘own’ care. Supporting carers through the intensive phase of leaping-in care, and equipping them for informed leaping-ahead care should be a focus in both the acute and post-discharge care phases. (shrink)

This paper advertises the importance of distinguishing three different foundational projects about epistemic thought and talk, which we call “systematic normative epistemology”, “metaepistemology”, and “the conceptual ethics of epistemology”. We argue that these projects can be distinguished by their contrasting constitutive success conditions. This paper is motivated by the idea that the distinctions between these three projects matter for epistemological theorizing in ways that have been underappreciated in philosophical discussion. We claim that attention to the threefold distinction we advance allows (...) us to better understand and evaluate existing views and debates in the field; identify and appreciate new or underexplored theoretical options in the field; and avoid important defects and ambiguities in our research on epistemic topics. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to assess Rosabeth Moss Kanter's work on tokenism in light of more than a decade of research and discussion. While Kanter argued that performance pressures, social isolation, and role encapsulation were the consequences of disproportionate numbers of women and men in a workplace, a review of empirical data concludes that these outcomes occur only for token women in gender-inappropriate occupations. Furthermore, Kanter's emphasis on number balancing as a social-change strategy failed to anticipate backlash from (...) dominants. Blalock's theory of intrusiveness suggests that surges in the number of lower-status members threaten dominants, thereby increasing gender discrimination in the forms of sexual harassment, wage inequities, and limited opportunities for promotion. Although Kanter's analysis of the individual consequences of tokenism was compelling to researchers and organizational change agents, continued reliance on numbers as the theoretical cause of, and as the solution to, gender discrimination in the workplace neglects the complexities of gender integration. (shrink)

The focus of Norton's book is the distinction between objectives and values in developing environmental policies. Norton argues that environmentalism is a coalition of many groups working toward common objectives, but unlike other social action movements the environmental coalition does not have shared moral principles.

BackgroundLittle is known about volunteers from Northern research settings who participate in vaccine trials of highly infectious diseases with no approved treatments. This article explores the motivations of HIV immunocompromised study participants in Canada who volunteered in a Phase II clinical trial that evaluated the safety and immunogenicity of an Ebola vaccine candidate.MethodsObservation at the clinical study site and semi-structured interviews employing situational and discursive analysis were conducted with clinical trial participants and staff over one year. Interviews were recorded, transcribed (...) and analysed using critical qualitative interpretivist thematic analytical techniques. Patterns were identified, clustered and sorted to generate distinct and comprehensive themes. We then reassembled events and contexts from the study participants’ stories to develop two ideal portraits based on "composite characters" based on study participants features. These provide ethnographically rich details of participants’ meaningful social worlds while protecting individual identities.ResultsTen of the 14 clinical trial participants, and 3 study staff were interviewed. Participant demographics and socio-economic profiles expressed limited contextual diversity. Half were men who have sex with men, half were former injection drug users experiencing homelessness, one was female, none were racialized minorities and there were no people from HIV endemic countries. Fully 90% had previous involvement in other clinical studies. Their stories point to particular socio-economic situations that motivated their participation as clinical labor through trial participation.ConclusionsOur findings support Fisher’s argument of “structural coercion” in clinical trial recruitment of vulnerable individuals experiencing precarious living conditions. Clinical trials should provide more detail of the structural socio-economic conditions and healthcare needs which lie “under consent” of study participants. Going well beyond an overly convenient narrative of altruism, ethical deliberation frameworks need to sufficiently address the structural conditions of clinical trials. We offer concrete possibilities for this and acknowledge that further research and clinical data should be made available underlying study participant contexts with regards to recruitment and participation in resource poor settings, in both the South and the North. (shrink)

Reproductive gift relationships must be seen in their totality, not just as helping someone have a child. Noncommercial surrogacy cannot be treated as a mere act of altruism—any valorizing of altruistic surrogacy and reproductive gift‐giving must be assessed within the wider context of women's political inequality.

The attitude of the impartial spectator has seemed to some to be the appropriate one for a moral philosopher: the philosopher should disengage himself from the moral battle and try to understand it; the academic moral philosopher's responsibility is to write about morality rather than to recommend moral positions—and, indeed, where an ideological standpoint is presupposed in academic moral philosophy, it is commonly not consciously presupposed.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Narrative Symposium:Living Organ DonationLaura Altobelli, Sherri Bauman, Janice Flynn, Andy Heath, Joseph Jacobs, Tim Joos, Amy K. Lewensten, Donna L. Luebke, Sarah A. McDaniel, Donald Olenick, Laurie E Post, Vicky Young, Blake Adams, Anonymous One, Michael Sauls, Christine Wright, Shannon D. Wyatt, and Cara Yesawich• An Altruistic Living Donor’s Story• Surgery for the Soul• Kidney Donation Story• The Essence of Giving—A Transplant Story• Love—the Risk Worth Taking• My (...) Donation Journey• A Life For A Life: My Gift To My Dad• Lessons Learned: The Realities of Living Organ Donation• Sarah’s List Exchange Experience• Accelerated Living Donation• Liver Donor Nightmare• Adrift After Donation• Getting Our Child Off Dialysis• A Living Donor’s Journey• The Spare Kidney• Living Donors are People Too• The Gift of Life—Walking by Faith• Journey of an Altruistic, Non–designated Living DonorCopyright © 2012 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

Some philosophers have been attracted to the idea that morality is an autonomous domain. One version of this idea is the thesis that non-moral claims are irrelevant to the justification of fundamental normative ethical theories. However, this autonomy thesis appears to be in tension with a pair of apparent features of metaethical theorizing. On one hand, metaethics seemingly aims to explain how morality fits into our broader conception of the world. On the other, metaethical theorizing appears to have potential normative (...) ethical implications. This apparent tension may help to explain some contemporary worries about metaethics as a philosophical project. This paper examines three responses to this tension. The first response seeks to resolve the tension by claiming that metaethical theories must be neutral between normative ethical theories. The second response seeks to eliminate the tension by appealing to a deep divide between practical and theoretical reasoning. I show that each of these responses would require a radical reconception of metaethics. I argue that such a reconception is not required in order to resolve the apparent tension between metaethics and the autonomy thesis. I show that this tension is merely apparent, and can be dissolved without casting doubt on metaethics as a project. I argue that on the picture that results, whether the autonomy thesis is true itself depends upon metaethical fact. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:160 BOOK REVIEWS ary. The latter dispose toward {mediate) and help in the expression of (pertain to the use of) the grace of the Spirit. In professing the priority of the Spirit, The Reshaping of Catholicism could hardly be in greater agreement with the Summa theologiae. This theme in Dulles suggests how Aquinas can be linked to ecclesial renewal: Aquinas's thought on the New Law can assist the Church (...) in continually re-acquiring its own divinely given internal order. FR. THOMAS HUGHSON, S.J. Pontificial Biblical Institute,!erusalem; Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin Choice: The Essential Element in Human Action. By ALAN DoNAGAN. Studies in Philosophical Psychology, R. F. Holland, ed. London and New York: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1987. Pp. x + 197. $29.95 (cloth). Readers of Donagan expecting a book in the style of The Theory of Morality will be surprised; Choice: The Essential Element in Human Action is far more compact and demanding. In setting out to support his thesis that the "propositional attitudes" (the term is taken from Russell) of beliefs and wishes explain choices which, in turn, explain human actions, the author considers a plethora of views and objections of both contemporary and traditional philosophers: Gilbert Ryle-whose Concept of Mind Donagan considers a classic of analytic Aristotelianism -Roderick Chisholm, Donald Davidson, Anthony Kenny, John Searle, Alvin Goldman, Elizabeth Anscombe, Bertrand Russell, Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Wittgenstein, Quine, and Frege. At times the reader may wish that fewer theorists were appealed to, or perhaps that his or her familiarity with the views referred to were more extensive, or at least that (although not in the case of Frege) they were explicated in more detail. Further explication, however, could obscure hopelessly the line of reasoning of the author. While he appears to wish to give credit every place it is due, he also wishes to clarify the genesis of significant objections to be met by a defensible action theory. Happily, Donagan himself provides an overview of his project, which he calls a " Plan for an Investigation of Human Action on Socratic Lines." This is proffered in chapter one after the author has discussed the " Socratic tradition in the theory of human action " and the question "Should the Socratic tmdition be jettisoned as folk psychology?" BOOK REVIEWS 161 As these sections provide the foundation for Donagan's thesis, they are briefly summarized here. Considering both Aristotle and the " mediaeval Aristotelian " Aquinas to be in the Socratic tradition, Donagan emphasizes Aristotle's role in distinguishing human from animal action. Possibilities for acting are represented in the human intellect in propositions, toward which one can take various attitudes. Those philosophers who hold that such propositional attitudes cannot explain human action are challenged. Donagan then takes on those cognitive scientists who reject as " stagnant " and rooted in folk beliefs the Socratic theory of action. He rather impressively presents the problems involved in admitting, as do the " scientific psychologists," the practicality of employing the notion of propositional attitudes in history and natural sciences (which seem to exist in a context of history), while at the same time actually :rejecting the existence of such attitudes and hence their theoretical validity. Indeed, Donagan brings home the point that it is simply incon· sistent to hold both that there are no beliefs and that the belief that there are beliefs underlies a stagnant research program. Having thus sustained his position :regarding propositional attitudes in general, Donagan summarizes, chapter by chapter, his "contem· po:rary Socratic " plan for examining the actions of rational animals. It will be helpful to sketch this program, filling in crucial portions. In chapter two the author contends that bodily or mental actions are events that are individuals insofar as they are " changes or persistences in states of continuing individual objects" (p. 38). Propositional attitudes are states, but their arising and persistence in being as energeiai are events that explain,actions. Building on Aristotle's teaching and that of his mediaeval successors, in chapter three Donagan argues that beliefs and wishes, or the cognitive and appetitive propositional at· titudes, explain choices which in turn explain actions. In chapter four Donagan elucidates Durnmett's :revision of the Fregeau semantical theory, which he opts... (shrink)

Perhaps more controversial than whether physicalism is true is what exactly would have to be true for physicalism to be true. Everyone agrees that, intuitively at least, physicalism is the thesis that there is nothing over and above the physical. The disagreements arise in how to get beyond this intuitive formulation. Until about ten years ago, participants in this debate were concerned primarily with answering two questions. First, what is it for a property, kind, relation, or individual to be a (...) physical one? (shrink)

The responsible research and innovation framework seeks to bring science closer to society, with scientific research conducted not just for the benefit of society, but with role players in society engaging with scientists on research and innovation at every stage. A central focus of the RRI framework is the approach taken to embed these concepts in the higher education training of science students. In this study the direct engagement between science students and the public is explored as an opportunity for (...) achieving RRI learning outcomes. The study also explores the potential benefits that such direct engagement with the public holds for postgraduate biotechnology students. The case study described here suggests that even brief interactions with the public through science engagement activities such as “Speed-Date-a-Scientist” can contribute towards affirmation of choice of career, students’ motivation as researchers and shaping of their identity as scientists, important processes in their own learning to become scientists. Students also indicated a greater sense of motivation to do research that benefits the public, resonating with RRI learning outcomes. (shrink)

It is widely accepted that the ethical supervenes on the natural, where this is roughly the claim that it is impossible for two circumstances to be identical in all natural respects, but different in their ethical respects. This chapter refines and defends the traditional thought that this fact poses a significant challenge to ethical non-naturalism, a view on which ethical properties are fundamentally different in kind from natural properties. The challenge can be encapsulated in three core claims which the chapter (...) defends: that a defensible non-naturalism is committed to the supervenience of the ethical, that this commits the non-naturalist to a brute necessary connection between properties of distinct kinds, and that commitment to such brute connections counts against the non-naturalist’s view. Each of these claims has recently been challenged. Against Nicholas Sturgeon’s recent doubts about the dialectical force of supervenience, this chapter defends a supervenience thesis as deserving to be common ground among ethical realists. It is then argued that attempts to explain supervenience on behalf of the non-naturalist either fail as explanations, generate near-identical explanatory burdens elsewhere, or appeal to commitments that are inconsistent with core motivations for non-naturalism. The chapter concludes that, suitably refined, the traditional argument against non-naturalism from supervenience is alive and well. (shrink)

Normative realists might be assumed to have few worries about semantics. After all, a realist might initially hope to simply adopt the best semantic theory about ordinary descriptive language. However, beginning with the non-cognitivist appropriation of the open question argument, a number of philosophers have posed serious objections to the realist’s ability to offer a plausible semantic theory. This paper introduces the two most influential semantic challenges to normative realism: the open question argument, and the Moral Twin Earth argument. It (...) explains the major replies to these challenges offered by realists, and locates these challenges within the broader debate over what sort of semantic theories might be plausible candidates for a normative realist to adopt. (shrink)

Today’s low-wage workforce is mostly ignored by the national political parties and largely untouched by organized labor. Over the last twenty years, “community unions” have emerged to try to fill the void. They are modest-sized community-based organizations of low-wage workers that, through a combination of service, advocacy, and organizing, focus on issues of work and wages. Community unions have so far had greater success at raising wages and improving working conditions via public policy rather than direct labor market intervention. This (...) is because low-wage workers in America today have greater political than economic power. (shrink)