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)

This essay assesses Quentin Meillassoux’s numerological approach to Mallarmé’s problematic but formally innovative poem “Un Coup de dés,” using a semiotic methodology to reveal the deficiencies of that approach from the viewpoint of literary theory. Section 1 describes my expanded version of Michael Riffaterre’s semiotic theory of the structure of modern poetry. Poems are generated by two underlying propositions, each of which governs the structure of a set of symbolic images on the textual surface. These “matricial” propositions are linked by (...) a syntagmatic relation. The primary text functions as subject-sign of the Peircean semiotic triad; its object-sign is an intertextual model. The interpretant of these two textual signs is assembled by the reader and has a sociolectic counterpart – or context – which has similar lexical content but contrasting internal structure. This contrast may produce a change in the preconceptions of the reader. Section 2 examines Meillassoux’s approach to Mallarmé’s poem, which is preoccupied with a “number” supposedly encrypted in the text. This is not convincingly related to the propositional structure of the poem. In Section 3, the text is interpreted using a semiotics-based methodology. The poem is generated by two matrices: one concerning the “Master” versus the storm, and the second concerning the power of Chance. The relation linking the matrices is clarified. This analysis is compared with that of Meillassoux throughout. Section 4 resumes the differences between Meillassoux’s concentration on the “number” and the “siren,” and my analysis which centres on the relation between the Master (symbolising traditional poets and their preferred metre) and the Constellation (symbolising the wide range of new future poetic metres and formats). Meillassoux’s approach turns out to be unconvincing. (shrink)

From its earliest beginnings in the 1840s up to its democratization as a widespread leisure pursuit, photography was swept along by a tide of artistic and entrepreneurial activity that gathered pace throughout the nineteenth century. Both as an art form and a social document, the photograph quickly took on a critical role as the primary means of visual expression in the modern age. Points of View brings together, for the first time, a selection of images from the British Library’s unique (...) photography collections, examining the history, diversity, and influence of the medium from its invention and early years up until the coming of the twentieth century. Beginning with the work of William Henry Fox Talbot and including some of our most celebrated photographic pioneers—Francis Frith, Felix Teynard, Samuel Bourne, and Peter Henry Emerson among them—this volume focuses on the question Who was taking the photograph and why? Ultimately the answer is found in the rise of mass market interest, the increasing role of technology, and the emergence of this thrilling new discipline amid rapid scientific, social, and industrial progress. (shrink)

After the public announcement of the invention of the camera in 1839, photography spread swiftly round the world, and by the early 1850s the medium had become well-established in the Indian subcontinent. In a land characterised by the variety and splendour of its architecture and landscapes, and the diversity of its peoples and customs, India offered the photographic artist an unsurpassed range of subject matter. In addition to the artistic achievements of international masters of photography like Dr John Murray (...) and Samuel Bourne, official encouragement of the medium as a documentary tool came from the East India Company. By the mid-1850s a remarkable visual 'archive' had been created, which charted the architectural heritage and ethnic composition of the subcontinent. This book, which accompanied a major exhibition of 19th century images from India, traces the development of photography from 1850 to 1900, when the ascendency of the large format camera and print began to crumble in the face of the simplified amateur camera. Drawn from the collections of the British Library, and Howard and Jane Ricketts, the book is illustrated with some of the finest photographs produced in India during the latter half of the nineteenth century, many never previously reproduced. (shrink)

From the editor: On behalf of the editors of FPQ, I thank our colleagues for providing us their public addresses at the Celebration of Life of Professor Claudia Falconer Card of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who died on Saturday, September 12, 2015. Claudia Card was the author of over one hundred articles and books, key works of moral and feminist philosophy including Confronting Evils: Terrorism, Torture, Genocide, The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil, and The Unnatural Lottery: Character and (...) Moral Luck. She was the president of the Central division of the APA 2010-2011, which she often described as her favorite division of the APA. She earned her BA from UW-Madison, and her PhD in 1969 from Harvard University, as the advisee of John Rawls, whom she spoke of with affection as one of the most sensitive and generous of philosophers. I remain grateful to Claudia for being the sort of philosopher who helped her students, colleagues, and readers to confront our responsibilities, and the responsibilities of others, as she lived her own philosophy of taking responsibility for one’s own identity. K.J. Norlock. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 31.1 (2007) 189-196MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Fiction and Theory of Mind: An ExchangeLisa Zunshine University of KentuckyBrian Boyd's review of my new book, Why We Read Fiction: Theory of Mind and the Novel (Ohio State University Press, 2006) engages a large variety of issues.1 I would like to address an important question about the integration of scientific methodology with literary analysis suggested by Boyd's discussion.2 As (...) I argue below, two different perspectives of this integration may mark two different—indeed, incompatible—ways of formulating the disciplinary goals and philosophy of the new field of cognitive literary theory.Why We Read Fiction makes a case for admitting the recent findings of cognitive psychologists into literary studies by showing how their research into the ability to explain behavior in terms of the underlying states of mind can furnish us with a series of surprising insights into our interaction with literary texts. Using as my case studies novels ranging from Richardson's Clarissa, Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, and Austen's Pride and Prejudice to Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Nabokov's Lolita, and Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, I advance and explore a series of hypotheses about cognitive cravings that are satisfied—and created!—when we read fiction.Although my study draws on the already well-established as well as forthcoming work of numerous cognitive scientists (including Simon Baron-Cohen, Clark H. Barrett, Richard Byrne and Andrew Whiten, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby, Christopher Frith, Uta Frith, Paul Bloom, Susan Carey and Elizabeth Spelke, Peter Carruthers, Andy Clark, Antonio Damasio, Daniel Dennett, Alison Gopnik, Francesca Happe, Paul [End Page 189] Harris, Lawrence Hirschfeld, Stanley Klein, Alan Leslie, Andrew Meltzoff, Robert Mitchell, Keith Oatley, Gloria Origgi, Oliver Sacks, Dan Sperber, James Stiller, and Endel Tulving), it makes a point of being accessible to non-specialist readers. Cognitive science can be incredibly complicated and so can literary criticism, but I wanted to write a book on cognitive literary theory that does not scare anybody away with unnecessary jargon, knotty sentences, and overlong quotations. (Ironically, I must have succeeded too well in making my book reader-friendly and tucking my references in the endnotes since Boyd observes that I rely on only "a few findings" of cognitive scientists in my discussion.)The book consists of three parts. The first part, "Attributing Minds," introduces the first key theoretical concept of this book: mind-reading, also known as Theory of Mind. Drawing on the work of Simon Baron-Cohen (Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind), I suggest that fiction engages, teases, and pushes to its tentative limits our mind-reading capacity. Building on the recent research of Robin Dunbar and his colleagues, I then consider one particular aspect of Woolf's prose as an example of spectacular literary experimentation with our Theory of Mind. Finally, I turn to Steven Pinker's controversial analysis of Woolf in The Blank Slate to discuss the possibilities of a more profitable dialogue between cognitive science and literary studies.Of particular importance to this part of my argument is my belief that fictional narratives endlessly experiment with rather than automatically execute our evolved cognitive adaptations. When cognitive scientists succeed in isolating a certain regularity of our information-processing—for example, a constraint on the number of mutually reflecting minds that we can process with ease—we can take that constraint and see how it plays itself out in a fictional narrative. What we discover is that where there is a cognitive constraint, there is a "guarantee" of sorts that writers will intuitively experiment in the direction of challenging that constraint, probing and poking it and getting around it. The exact forms of such probing and poking will depend on specific cultural circumstances, including the mind-reading profiles of individual writers and their readers. The cognitive "limits" thus present us with creative openings rather than with a promise of stagnation and endless replication of established forms. This realization marks the possibility of a genuine interaction between cognitive psychology and... (shrink)

My aim in this study is not to praise Fischer's fine theory of moral responsibility, but to (try to) bury the “semi” in “semicompatibilism”. I think Fischer gives the Consequence Argument (CA) too much credit, and gives himself too little credit. In his book, The Metaphysics of Free Will, Fischer gave the CA as good a statement as it will ever get, and put his finger on what is wrong with it. Then he declared stalemate rather than victory. In my (...) view, Fischer’s view amounts to sophisticated compatibilism. It would be nice to be able to call it by its right name. In The Metaphysics of Free Will, Fischer develops his own version of Consequence Argument, which turns on two principles, one of which is the fixity of the past. FP: For any action Y, agent S and time t, if it is true that is S were to do Y at t, some fact about that past relative to t would not have been a fact, then S cannot at t do Y at t. I argue that the equipment needed to reject FP (and thereby defend the most plausible version of compatibilism) is needed to deal with the problem of fatalism. In addition, I argue that the rejection of FP is compatible with Fischer’s approach to Frankfurt cases and with his account of transfer principles. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Case of the Disappearing EnigmaDeborah Knight and George McKnightAsked to give examples of detection narratives, one might first mention paradigms of the detective genre from either the classical or hard-boiled traditions. But the study of detection need not be restricted to the generic as familiarly construed. 1 Our interest in detection is transgeneric, which is why we speak in terms of “detection narratives” rather than the detective genre. (...) We are as interested in detection narratives that exploit the generic tendencies of suspense or comedy as we are in nongeneric narratives that feature an investigation of some mystery or crime. While what we have to say about detection, interpretation, and narrative explanation is generally applicable to both literary and non-literary detection narratives, our five main examples are all unapologetically taken from cinema. We have selected these five just because they are unlikely to strike anyone as an intuitively obvious group of films. They are The Thin Man (W. S. Van Dyke, 1934), a mystery/comedy; The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941), standardly cited as the earliest film noir and a paradigm of the cinematic hard-boiled detective genre; All The President’s Men (Alan J. Pakula, 1976), a political thriller based on Bernstein and Woodward’s nonfictional investigation of the Watergate break-in; Nicholas Roeg’s 1980 Bad Timing, a nongeneric film about sensual obsession; and Woody Allen’s 1993 comedy of manners, Manhattan Murder Mystery.Whether focusing on the investigation of a crime, the unraveling of a puzzle, or the solution of a mystery, detection narratives exhibit what Frank Kermode calls “a specialized ‘hermeneutic’ organization.” 2 As such, they call for a particular sort of investigation: namely, a hermeneutical one. Often we think about hermeneutical investigations as [End Page 123] interpretations and assume that the proper object of such interpretations is a text. Thinking primarily about literary texts, David Novitz argues that the function of such explanations is to “solve certain puzzles, answer certain questions, dispel confusions, or eliminate doubts about... the theme of a work or its plot, [or] about the actions, motives, or machinations of fictional characters....” 3Of course, interpretation is not restricted to literary texts, nor to answering specific questions about such matters as theme or plot or character motivation, nor does Novitz suggest it is. But when the object of interpretation is a text—literary, cinematic, legal, or other—it is arguable that interpretation is not restricted to those localized aspects of the text which we take to be puzzling. Novitz’s position is that interpretation only occurs when one confronts a specific puzzle or problem. What we understand directly is not, on this account, interpreted; interpretation is required only where we do not understand. The consideration of detection narratives suggests that understanding and interpretation are more closely related than Novitz seems to allow.In our attempts to make sense of the course of action of any detection narrative, there is always the question whether we have understood a given situation, event, action or statement correctly. It is always a question whether we have correctly distinguished between clues and red herrings. Detection narratives operate on the basis of a continual questioning—both for the detective and for the reader or viewer—as to whether we do, in fact, understand what is happening.This questioning attitude is keyed to the uncertainty as to whether we have correctly recognized what information is salient, which characters’ testimony is trustworthy. At various moments in any detection narrative, the detective (or reader/viewer) will have reason to question the reliability of their own assessment of what is going on. There is the risk of being mistaken, but also the risk of being deceived. So the appropriate attitude to detection narratives is an interpretive one, an attitude that asks questions about what is presented.Of course, particular questions cannot even be sensibly asked in the absence of a larger interpretive framework which gives the particular question its point. Not only the detective, but the reader or viewer, is well advised to contextualize any particular event or action as a (potential) part of what we call, adapting a notion of David Carr’s, an action of large... (shrink)

This is a reproduction of the original artefact. Generally these books are created from careful scans of the original. This allows us to preserve the book accurately and present it in the way the author intended. Since the original versions are generally quite old, there may occasionally be certain imperfections within these reproductions. We're happy to make these classics available again for future generations to enjoy!

Practical reasoning is a process of reasoning that concludes in an intention. One example is reasoning from intending an end to intending what you believe is a necessary means: 'I will leave the next buoy to port; in order to do that I must tack; so I'll tack', where the first and third sentences express intentions and the second sentence a belief. This sort of practical reasoning is supported by a valid logical derivation, and therefore seems uncontrovertible. A more contentious (...) example is normative practical reasoning of the form 'I ought to φ, so I'll φ', where 'I ought to φ' expresses a normative belief and 'I'll φ' an intention. This has at least some characteristics of reasoning, but there are also grounds for doubting that it is genuine reasoning. One objection is that it seems inappropriate to derive an intention to φ from a belief that you ought to φ, rather than a belief that you ought to intend to φ. Another is that you may not be able to go through this putative process of reasoning, and this inability might disqualify it from being reasoning. A third objection is that it violates the Humean doctrine that reason alone cannot motivate any action of the will. This paper investigates these objections. (shrink)

Including three of his most famous and important essays,Utilitarianism, On Liberty, and Essay onBentham, along with formative selections from Jeremy Benthamand John Austin, this volume provides a uniquely perspicuous viewof Mill's ethical and political thought. Contains Mill's most famous and influential works,Utilitarianism and On Liberty as well as hisimportant Essay on Bentham. Uses the 1871 edition of Utilitarianism, the last to bepublished in Mill's lifetime. Includes selections from Bentham and John Austin, the twothinkers who most influenced Mill. Introduction (...) written by Mary Warnock, a highly respected figurein 20th-century ethics in her own right. Provides an extensive, up-to-date bibliography with the bestscholarship on Mill, Bentham and Utilitarianism. (shrink)

In this 2nd edition, John Gray adds an extensive postscript which defends the interpretation of Mill set out in the first edition, but develops radical criticisms of the substance of Millian and other liberalism.

The monk Rodulfus Glaber is best known for his Five Books of Histories, a major source for events in the first half of the eleventh century, and valuable above all for revealing the mental furniture of an eleventh-century monk - for his account of the millennium, of relics genuine and false, of church-building, and visions of saints and demons. This edition, the first since 1866, presents the only critical text of the Histories, accompanied by a complete translation and a full (...) historical commentary. Glaber also wrote a Life of his mentor, St William of Dijon, the renowned monastic reformer. The Life is reprinted after the Histories, again with translation and notes. The evidence for Glaber's life, and the value of his work are discussed in a Historical Introduction. (shrink)

E. S. de Beer>'s eight-volume edition of the correspondence of John Locke is a classic of modern scholarship. The intellectual range of the correspondence is universal, covering philosophy, theology, medicine, history, geography, economics, law, politics, travel and botany. This first volume covers the years 1650 to 1679.

John Austin's classic work that has had a profound influence on the study of English and American law presents Austin's distinction between "positive law" (i.e.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps, and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely (...) copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Deeply moved by his experiences in the trenches of the First World War, the Scottish philospher John Macmurray came to challenge the conventions inherited from European traditions of thought and mounted an assault on impersonal philosophies that failed to address needs and emotional reality.

The proposed justification avoids problems that invalidate the familiar entitlement, utility, and interest-based justifications; interprets private property as necessary for controlling resources we need for our well-being; recognizes that the possession, uses, and limits of private property must be justified differently; and combines the defensible portions of the familiar but unsuccessful attempts at justification with a more complex account that combines the defensible portions of previous justificatory attempts with a new pluralistic approach that treats the right to private property as (...) a conventional, defeasible, but indispensable right. (shrink)

Is the existence of God a reasonable metaphysical hypothesis? So asks A. C. Ewing in his important posthumous work, Value and Reality. Thus the topic of the book is theistic religion, not in its entirety, but rather merely in its intellectual part. That it does have such a part, and further that it makes claims ‘to objective truth in the field of metaphysics’, is defended on the grounds that a fictional ‘story’ about God has what religious or ethical impact it (...) may have because, or at least mainly because, it is taken precisely not as fictional, but as expressing an objective theological truth; and that a story, or an account, can constitute a good reason for one's acting in a certain way only if the account is, in fact, objectively true. Bearing on both points is Ewing's observation that ‘emotion, at least except in pathological cases, requires some objective belief about the real, true or false, to support it for long, and if it exists without knowledge or rationally founded belief with which it is in agreement, it is to be condemned as irrational or unfitting, as it would be unfitting to rejoice at something disastrous or be angry with an inanimate thing’. The claim is not, we are told, that religious statements are literal as distinguished from symbolic. The door would seem to be left open, in fact, to their all being symbolic. What is essential is that some of them symbolise distinctively metaphysical truths, or truths ‘going beyond the realm of science’ and ‘throwing some light on the general nature of the real’. We should indeed distinguish, Ewing notes, ‘belief in’ from ‘belief that’. Yet the former is not possible without the latter. ‘Unless I believe that God exists I cannot believe in God’. So in Ewing's opinion, statements of metaphysics—if not concerning God, then at least concerning certain general aspects of reality—are most important for religion as a whole, and are, in being true, conceptually necessary to its validity, or to its ‘fittingness’. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis is the first English translation of Pierre Bayle’s political pamphlet, Réponse d’un nouveau converti à la Lettre d’un refugié of 1689. It may be one of the most critical attacks on a writer’s own side in the history of political ideas. It is a stinging rebuke of Bayle’s own party, the Protestants, for their incoherence, hypocrisy, and violence. It came three years after his similarly savage refutation of the Catholics in The Condition of Wholly Catholic France, also recently published (...) in its first English translation in this journal. A substantial introduction explains some of the context, explores the political theology of this pamphlet, and reviews scholarly interpretations. (shrink)

Locke on Money presents for the first time the entire body of the philosopher's writings on this important subject. Accurate texts, together with an apparatus listing variant readings and significant manuscript changes, record the evolution of Locke's ideas from the original 1668-74 paper on interest to the three pamphlets on interest and coinage published in the 1690s. The introduction by Patrick Hyde Kelly establishes the wider context of Locke's writings in terms of contemporary debates on these subjects, the economic conditions (...) of the time, and the circumstances of writing and publication. It shows, notably, that Locke's supposed responsibility for the 1696 recoinage is a myth. The account of what Locke derived from Mercantilist writings and of how he reformulated these in accordance with his philosophy illuminates his contribution to the evolution of economics, and will aid reappraisal of Two Treatises. The picture that emerges confirms Locke's status as major economic thinker, contrary to the prevalent view of recent decades. There are two volumes in the present edition. The first contains the introductory matter, and the texts of the Early Writings on Interest, 1688-74, and Some Considerations. The second comprises Short Observations, Further Considerations, and the Appendices, Bibliography, and Index. (shrink)

For virtually all the major schools of Western opinion, the collapse of the Communist regimes in Eastern Europe and in the Soviet Union, between 1989 and 1991, represents a triumph of Western values, ideas, and institutions. If, for triumphal conservatives, the events of late 1989 encompassed an endorsement of “democratic capitalism” that augured “the end of history,” for liberal and social democrats they could be understood as the repudiation by the peoples of the former Soviet bloc of Marxism-Leninism in all (...) its varieties, and the reemergence of a humanist socialism that was free of Bolshevik deformation. The structure of political and economic institutions appropriate to the transition from post-Communism in the Soviet bloc to genuine civil society was, accordingly, modeled on Western exemplars—the example of Anglo-American democratic capitalism, of Swedish social democracy, or of the German social market economy— or on various modish Western academic conceptions, long abandoned in the Soviet and post-Soviet worlds, such as market socialism. No prominent school of thought in the West doubted that the dissolution of Communist power was part of a process of Westernization in which contemporary Western ideas and institutions could and would successfully be exported to the former Communist societies. None questioned the idea that, somewhere in the repertoire of Western theory and practice, there was a model for conducting the transition from the bankrupt institutions of socialist central planning, incorporated into the structure of a totalitarian state, to market institutions and a liberal democratic state. Least of all did anyone question the desirability, or the possibility, of reconstituting economic and political institutions on Western models, in most parts of the former Soviet bloc. (shrink)

Although C. A. Campbell's account of the problem of suffering is articulated in the context of making out a case for rational Theism, it does not stand or fall with the case for rational Theism. It has independent merit as a sustained effort of reason to grapple with the problem of whether the goodness and omnipotence of God are consistent with the prima facie badness of so much of the suffering that exists in God's world. Campbell's views on suffering are (...) to be found in On Selfhood and Godhood , pp. 287–306, and in an earlier article ‘Reason and the Problem of Suffering’ , published in Philosophy , x 1935, pp. 154–67. In the first section of what follows, I give a summary of Campbell's line of argument. In the second I offer some critical comments on certain aspects of his treatment. 1. (shrink)

Based on a conference held Apr. 4-5, 2008 at Amherst College.

I sin udmærkede kommentar til vores artikel «En etisk diskussion af screening for kræftsygdomme» beskriver Geir Hoff den udtalte mangel på evidens vedrørende nytteværdien af screeningsprogrammer for kræftsygdomme baseret på randomiserede studier. Ydermere fremhæver Geir Hoff misforholdet mellem den manglende evidens ved screening og de strenge krav, der er til evidensen i den farmaceutiske industri. Dette er en velkommen kritik, pga. en udtalt ukritisk og uvidenskabelig tilgang til anvendelse af screening for denne eller hin sygdom eller risikofaktor.