There is a growing concern that the voices of athletes, and in particular, athletes from equity-deserving groups, are unaccounted for in the development and advancement of Safe Sport initiatives. The lack of consideration of the needs and experiences of diverse groups is concerning, given the existing literature outside the context of sport indicating that equity-deserving individuals experience more violence. As such, the following study sought to understand how equity-deserving athletes interpret and experience Safe Sport. Grounded within an interpretive phenomenological analysis, (...) semi-structured interviews were used to understand how athletes with marginalised identities conceptualise and experience Safe Sport. Seven participants, including two Black male athletes, two White, gay male athletes, one Middle Eastern female athlete, one White, female athlete with a physical disability and one White, non-binary, queer, athlete with a physical disability, were asked to conceptualise and describe their experiences of Safe Sport. The findings revealed these athletes perceived Safe Sport as an unrealistic and unattainable ideal that cannot fully be experienced by those from equity-deserving groups. This interpretation was reinforced by reported experiences of discriminatory comments, discriminatory behaviours and systemic barriers, perpetrated by coaches, teammates, and resulting from structural aspects of sport. The findings draw on the human rights literature to suggest integrating principles of equity, diversity and inclusion are fundamental to safeguarding equity-deserving athletes. (shrink)

This article draws on the sociology of expectations to examine the construction of expectations of ‘ethical AI’ and considers the implications of these expectations for communication governance. We first analyse a range of public documents to identify the key actors, mechanisms and issues which structure societal expectations around artificial intelligence and an emerging discourse on ethics. We then explore expectations of AI and ethics through a survey of members of the public. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for (...) the role of AI in communication governance. We find that, despite societal expectations that we can design ethical AI, and public expectations that developers and governments should share responsibility for the outcomes of AI use, there is a significant divergence between these expectations and the ways in which AI technologies are currently used and governed in large scale communication systems. We conclude that discourses of ‘ethical AI’ are generically performative, but to become more effective we need to acknowledge the limitations of contemporary AI and the requirement for extensive human labour to meet the challenges of communication governance. An effective ethics of AI requires domain appropriate AI tools, updated professional practices, dignified places of work and robust regulatory and accountability frameworks. (shrink)

Originally published in 1913, this book presents a history of Scottish education from the pre-Reformation period up until 1913. Discussion of both schools and universities is included, with special attention given to major institutions and their educational contribution. Textual notes are incorporated throughout. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in Scotland and the history of education.

Much of the developing world, including Kenya, is rapidly urbanizing. Rising food and fuel prices in recent years have put the food security of the urban poor in a precarious position. In cities worldwide, urban agriculture helps some poor people gain access to food, but urban agriculture is less common in densely populated slums that lack space. In the Kibera slums of Nairobi, Kenya, households have recently begun a new form of urban agriculture called sack gardening in which vegetables such (...) as kale and Swiss chard are planted into large sacks filled with topsoil. This paper examines relationships among sack gardening, social capital, and food security in Kibera. We used a mixed methods approach, combining qualitative interviews with a household survey, as well as focus group discussions with both farmers and non-farmers. We present evidence that sack gardening increases social capital, especially for those households that undertake sack gardening in groups. We also find that sack gardening in the Kibera slums has a positive impact on household food security by improving household dietary diversity and by reducing the need to resort to painful coping mechanisms that are used during food shortages. (shrink)

Evidence that placebo acupuncture is an effective treatment for chronic pain presents a puzzle: how do placebo needles appearing to patients to penetrate the body, but instead sitting on the skin’s surface in the manner of a tactile stimulus, evoke a healing response? Previous accounts of ritual touch healing in which patients often described enhanced touch sensations suggest an embodied healing mechanism. In this qualitative study, we asked a subset of patients in a singleblind randomized trial in irritable bowel syndrome (...) to describe their treatment experiences while undergoing placebo treament. Analysis focused on patients’ unprompted descriptions of any enhanced touch sensations and any significance patients assigned to the sensations. We found in 5/6 cases, patients associated sensations including “warmth” and “tingling” with treatment efficacy. The conclusion offers a “neurophenomenological” account of the placebo effect by considering dynamic effects of attentional filtering on early sensory cortices, possibly underlying the phenomenology of placebo acupuncture. (shrink)

Previous research has successfully used feature integration theory to operationalise the predictions of Perceptual Load Theory, while simultaneously testing the predictions of both models. Building on this work, we test the extent to which these models hold up in a 3D world. In two experiments, participants responded to a target stimulus within an array of shapes whose apparent depth was manipulated using a combination of monoscopic and stereoscopic cues. The search task was designed to test the predictions of feature integration (...) theory, as the target was identified by a single feature or a conjunction of features and embedded in search arrays of varying size, and perceptual load theory, as the task included congruent and incongruent distractors presented alongside search tasks imposing high or low perceptual load. Findings from both experiments upheld the predictions of feature integration theory, regardless of 2D/3D condition. Longer search times in conditions with a combination of monoscopic and stereoscopic depth cues suggests that binding features into three-dimensional objects requires greater attentional effort. This additional effort should have implications for perceptual load theory, yet our findings did not uphold its predictions; the effect of incongruent distractors did not differ between conjunction search trials and feature search trials. Individual differences in susceptibility to the effects of perceptual load were evident and likely explain the absence of load effects. Overall, our findings suggest that feature integration theory may be useful for predicting attentional performance in a 3D world. (shrink)

Thomas Aquinas was first and foremost a Christian theologian. Yet he was also one of the greatest philosophers of the Middle Ages. Drawing on classical authors, and incorporating ideas from Jewish and Arab sources, he came to offer a rounded and lasting account of the origin of the universe and of the things to be found within it, especially human beings.

This book offers a more challenging appraisal of Newman’s life and thought.

My article critically evaluates five key claims in Kerr’s interpretation of Aquinas’s De Ente et Essentia, ch. 4, proof for God. The claims are: the absolutely considered essence is a second intention, or cognitional being; à la John Wippel, the real distinction between essence and existence is known before the proof; contra David Twetten, Aristotelian form is not self-actuating and so requires actus essendi; the De Ente proof for God uses the Principle of Sufficient Reason; an infinite regress (...) must be eliminated before concluding to God. This author wonders if these questionable claims are traceable to the mindset of analytic philosophy which values precision and discreteness and so can fail to appreciate crucial paradoxes in Aquinas’s metaphysics. (shrink)

The term ‘predistribution’ draws attention to the need for policies and institutions that are designed to improve the position of the least advantaged members of society by generating a fairer distribution of opportunities and benefits from the operation of the free market system, with less reliance on redistributive tax-and-transfer mechanisms. Although the idea of progressive predistribution has only recently begun to attract the attention of politicians and commentators in the mainstream media, there is an older and more philosophically grounded predistributive (...) approach that goes back to the idea of the property-owning democracy proposed by Economist James Meade and further developed by liberal political philosopher John Rawls. In this article, I argue that neither the Meadeian/Rawlsian POD model, nor the more recent analysis of the idea of progressive predistribution, provide a clear and convincing account of the distinction between predistributive and redistributive mechanisms. I then argue that a more promising account of this distinction is provided by the idea of the socialization of economic rent through taxation of the rental value of land, and that there are good reasons to think that a shift in the burden of taxation away from production and employment and on to the rental value of land might turn out to be both more genuinely predistributive and more effectively progressive than other possible predistributive mechanisms that have recently been proposed, most notably the aggressive taxation of private inheritances as a means to broaden the distribution of privately owned capital and productive property. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS Theology.After Wittgenstein. By FERGUS KERR. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986. Pp. xii + 202. Fergus Kerr's Theology.After Wittgenste,in is written in the spirit of Wittgenstein's remark: "I should not like my writing to spare other people the trouble of thinking. But, if possible, to stimulate someone to thoughts of his own!' If Kerr's book stimulates theologians to read Wittgenstein with sympathy and to reassess their (...) practices in light of his philosophical enterprise, his impact will not end with the waning of the fruitless wrangling over "Wittgensteinian fideism." Kerr offers a three-fold argument: (1) that Wittgenstein's life and philosophical practice evinced a religious sensibility deeply opposed to the Platonic and Cartesian substructures of modern theology; (2) that these substructures involve an " indifference to community and... antipathy to the body" (vii) which Wittgenstein strives to overcome; and (3) that with our liberation from the grip of the myth of the ·self as a private mental ego, we can set ·a new agenda for rearticulating the doctrines and problems of Christian theology. Kerr's approach is distinguished by two factors. First, he is entirely free of the disciple-like awe which has led many commentators to wrestle something profound and true out of every Wittgensteinian pronouncement. He writes: "Wittgenstein had thoughts that were deep, together with others that seem tentative, and even, to my mind, quite idiotic" (35). The fact that a writer sympathetic with -Wittgenstein can now feel free to acknowledge this opinion shows that with Kerr we are well beyond hagiography. Second, Kerr plunges into Wittgenstein from a review of the Cartesianism of modern theology. He reviews a wide spectrum of 20th century theologians and finds them infested with views about the self that stem from Plato and Descartes. Hence he comes at Wittgenstein with an interest in developing "a non-metaphysical understanding of the place of the self in nature and history," in overcoming antipathies toward the body and toward communities, and in " renouncing a certain nostalgia for spiritual purity " in the interest of tiaking a new look at theological issues (52). In remarks reminiscent of Keynes's unmasking of the origins of common sense, Kerr assures the reader that unless theologians explore the metaphysical substructures of their practiee and discourse, they will "remain prisoners of whatever philosophical school was in the ascendant 30 years earlier,... or 350 years earlier" (3). To make good on this claim he sketches " the modern view of the self in Descartes, Kant, James, and 837 338 BOOK REVIEWS Moore, and then traces this view in Rahner, and more briefly, Kiing, Cupitt, Ogden, and several other theologians. The main lineaments of this view are that the self is a privately, introspectively mental entity only unessent~ally related to the human body, that the self's epistemic. function consists in knowing an external reality, and that its moral role consists in an intensely private individualism. Correlated with each of these functions are, respectively, what Kerr calls "the absolute conception of reality" (the view that objectivity is the condition of valid knowl.edge and that objectivity requires the transcendence of every contingent, bodily, or community-based aspect of one's viewpoint), and the implication that the individual consciousness approximates "the actus purus of apophatic theology, i.e., God " (20). To clear the ground for a portrayal of "Wittgenstein's religious sensibility, Kerr offers a brief, accurate account of the mistake committed by apologists who have wished to deploy the concepts "language-game " and " form of life" to show that " religious talk supposedly constitutes a distinctive and autonomous 'language-game' which outsiders could not understand, let alone expose as incoherent or erroneous " (28). Kerr rig·htly argues that it is impossible to apply these central analytic tools to a large-scale phenomenon like religion. He finds Wittgenstein's own attitude towards religions far richer and subtler than "Wittgensteinian fideism." Was Wittgenstein religious~ Kerr concludes that he was: "While one cannot dispute Georg von Wright's judgment that he did not have a Christian faith, many passages in Culture and Value disclose a sympathetic and penetrating understanding of the matter that few Christians... could match" (36). That this understanding was at... (shrink)

In Scepticism and Animal Faith, Santayana pursues two projects: the development of a philosophy of animal faith and the presentation of an ontology. The two projects are not easily reconciled and Santayana appears not to have distinguished them or recognized that they pull in different directions. The hypothesis that he has two projects explains a variety of the anomalous features of Santayana's philosophy, including the account of matter concerning which Kerr-Lawson and I have long disagreed.

In this volume twenty-three major scholars comment on and critically evaluate In Search of a Universal Ethic, the 2009 document written by the International Theological Commission (ITC) of the Catholic Church. That historic document represents an official Church contribution both to a more adequate understanding of a universal ethic and to Catholicism s own tradition of reflection on natural law. The essays in this book reflect the ITC document s complementary emphases of dialogue across traditions (universal ethic) and reflection on (...) broadly applicable ethical guidance within the Christian tradition (natural law). Among other things, the document situates the natural law ethical tradition within the larger search for a universal ethic. Along with its insightful essays, Searching for a Universal Ethic offers — for the first time in published form — the Vatican s official English translation of In Search of a Universal Ethic. Contributors: John Berkman Serge-Thomas Bonino, O.P. David Burrell, C.S.C. Lisa Sowle Cahill Joseph E. Capizzi David Cloutier Anver M. Emon Robert P. George Sherif Girgis Jennifer A. Herdt Russell Hittinger M. Cathleen Kaveny Anthony J. Kelly, C.Ss.R. Fergus Kerr, O.P. Steven A. Long William C. Mattison III Gilbert Meilaender Livio Melina Michael S. Northcott David Novak Jean Porter Martin Rhonheimer Tracey Rowland. (shrink)

The crisis which arose in Australia in October-November 1975 led to the dismissal of the Labour Prime Minister Gough Whitlam by the Governor-General Sir John Kerr, the formation of a caretaker Government by the opposition leader Malcolm Fraser and the simultaneous dissolution of the Houses of the Federal Parliament.The constitutional issues involved in that crisis are studied. The opinion is maintained that the rational coherence of the parliamentary system require an effective head of State with the responsibility of (...) acting personally in unusual circumstances, rather than the strict law definitely lapsed and the issue even then ruled by the «constitutional conventions» of Cabinet government. (shrink)

Interoception can be broadly defined as the sense of signals originating within the body. As such, interoception is critical for our sense of embodiment, motivation, and well-being. And yet, despite its importance, interoception remains poorly understood within modern science. This paper reviews interdisciplinary perspectives on interoception, with the goal of presenting a unified perspective from diverse fields such as neuroscience, clinical practice, and contemplative studies. It is hoped that this integrative effort will advance our understanding of how interoception determines well-being, (...) and identify the central challenges to such understanding. To this end, we introduce an expanded taxonomy of interoceptive processes, arguing that many of these processes can be understood through an emerging predictive coding model for mind–body integration. The model, which describes the tension between expected and felt body sensation, parallels contemplative theories, and implicates interoception in a variety of affective and psychosomatic disorders. We conclude that maladaptive construal of bodily sensations may lie at the heart of many contemporary maladies, and that contemplative practices may attenuate these interpretative biases, restoring a person’s sense of presence and agency in the world. (shrink)

Introduction by Ralph McInerny The essays in this volume, indebted in great part to Jacques Maritain and to other Neo-Thomists, represent a contribution to an understanding of beauty and the arts within the Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition. As such they constitute a different voice in present-day discussions on beauty and aesthetics, a voice which nonetheless shares with many of its contemporaries concern over questions such as the relationship between beauty and morality, public funding of the arts and their educational role, objective and (...) universal standards of what is beautiful. In the tradition in which the contributors of this volume reflect, beauty manifests itself in the order of the universe, an order that provides human reason with a window onto the transcendent. For Aristotle and Aquinas the natural order grounds both art and morality, and yet it is this very order which has been called into question by modern science and philosophy. Instead of pointing us to a suprahuman order, the beautiful then points to the order of human freedom and creativity. Reflection on the beautiful since the modern philosopher Immanuel Kant has thus often taken a subjectivistic turn. Because of the importance of beauty and art in human existence, in man's education and life as a moral and political being, an alternative should be sought to any reduction of the beautiful to a purely subjective experience or cultural construct. The Aristotelian-Thomistic tradition, in dialogue with modern and contemporary conceptions of the beautiful, provides us with just that alternative, and thus the essays herein represent a decisive step in the "journey for Thomistic aesthetics." THE CONTRIBUTORS: In addition to the editor, the contributors to the volume are: Brian J. Braman, Matthew Cuddeback, Christopher M. Cullen, S.J., Patrick Downey, Desmond J. FitzGerald, Donald Haggerty, Wayne H. Harter, Jeanne M. Heffernan, Thomas S. Hibbs, Gregory J. Kerr, Joseph W. Koterski, S.J., Daniel McInerny, Ralph McInerny, James P. Mesa, John F. Morris, Ralph Nelson, Katherine Anne Osenga, Carrie Rehak, Stephen Schloesser, S.J., Francis Slade, John G. Trapani, Jr., and Henk E. S. Woldring. ABOUT THE EDITOR: Alice Ramos is associate professor of philosophy at St. John's University. (shrink)

Using the principles of John Rawls' theory of justice, this book offers an alternative political vision; one which describes a mode of governance that will enable communities to implement a sustainable and socially just future. Rawls described a theory of justice that not only describes the sort of society in which anyone would like to live but that any society can create a society based on just institutions. While philosophers have demonstrated that Rawls's theory can provide a framework for (...) the discussion of questions of environmental justice, the problem for many philosophical theories is that discussions of sustainable development open the need to address questions of ecological interdependence, historical inequality in past resource use and the recognition that we cannot afford to ignore the limitations of growth. These ideas do not fit in comfortably in standard discourse about theories of justice. In contrast, this book frames the discussion of global justice in terms of environmental sustainability. The author argues that these ideas can be used to develop a coherent political theory which reconciles cosmopolitan arguments and the non-cosmopolitan or nationalist arguments concerning social and environmental justice. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of environment philosophy and ethics, moral and political philosophy, global studies and sustainable development. (shrink)

The essays in this volume commemorate the 70th anniversary of Jacques Maritain's Pour la Justice, in which the French Thomist and future drafter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights grappled with the moral, political, and religious challenges facing Europe in the aftermath of World War II. During this time Maritain reflected on humanism, Christian philosophy, the relation between freedom, religion and politics, and increasingly, on education. Several scholars reflect on the historical impact of Maritain's own writings during World War (...) II, Vatican II, and the Spanish Civil war. In other sections, contemporary Thomists suggest ways a resurgent Thomism can engage with the pressing issues of our own day. Essays on Thomistic ethics address problems in bioethics, the philosophy of love, and the foundations of Natural Law, while others tackle perennial problems in metaphysics and epistemology, such as the problem of free will, subjectivity, and the role of creative intuition in aesthetics. Still other essays apply Maritain's work on education to current challenges facing religious universities today. The contributors to this volume include: Noel Adams, Florian Michel, Sr. Anne Frances Ai Le, Brian Kemple, Stephen Chamberlain, Walter Schulz, Francisco Eduardo Plaza, James Jacobs, John Dunaway, Greg Kerr, Megan Furman, Karen Chan, Justin Gable, Federico Tedesco, Michael Torre, Richard Schenk, OP, and Gregory Reichberg. (shrink)

In the final year of his long life, eminent Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain prepared a final book for publication: a collection of previously unpublished writings entitled Approaches san entraves, later translated into English as Untrammeled Approaches. That collection, both in its conversational yet reverent tone and in its weighty topics - faith, love, truth, beauty - gives the reader the sense that she is receiving from a great teacher and friend the most important nuggets of wisdom for the next generation. (...) Throughout the book, Maritain shares with his readers, from his heart as well as his intellect, regarding the things that really matter; that book - and those things - are the primary inspiration for the present volume. This volume, comprised of original essays by twenty English-speaking Thomists on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of Untrammeled Approaches' first English appearance, explores several of Maritain's still-untrammeled (or at least less-trammeled) themes. While following his unbeaten paths, the contributing authors find and refine hidden treasures at every turn. They develop some of his more speculative ideas regarding the spiritual world - including the last things, the fate of the fallen angels, and a possible angelic role in evolution. They reflect deeply on a few of Maritain's recurring themes: for example, the nature of beauty and intuition. They analyze the implications - positive and negative - of Maritain's philosophy of love, marriage, and sexuality. And they consider and apply his arguments regarding appropriate roles and interactions of Church and state. The volume concludes with big-picture reflections on Maritain, his thought, and his enduring relevance. The contributors to this volume are: Michael Breidenbach, Romanus Cessario, OP, John Conley, SJ, Mario O. D'Souza, CSB, Travis Dumsday, Heather Erb, Lawrence Feingold, Megan Furman, Marie George, James Hanink, Gregory Kerr, William McCormick, SJ, Matthew Minerd, Mark Moes, Michael Novak, Michael Pakuluk, Alice Ramos, Walter Schultz, Michael Torre, Nikolaj Zunic. (shrink)

Postcolonial theory has yielded productive methodologies with which to examine an institution such as the John Rylands Library. This paper reinterprets aspects of the Library‘s history, especially its collecting practices, using Bhabha‘s concept of hybridity. The Library‘s founder, Enriqueta Rylands, embodied hybridity and colonial talking back in her remarkable trajectory from a Catholic upbringing in Cuba, via her conversion to Nonconformity and her marriage to Manchester‘s most successful cotton manufacturer, to her usurpation of the cultural hegemony in purchasing spectacular (...) aristocratic collections for her foundation. Hybridity was embedded in many other aspects of the Library‘s development: it was established as a public library with a board of governors but its collections were largely shaped by Enriqueta‘s tastes and interests; it was independent until 1972, while maintaining very close links to the University of Manchester; it has always fulfilled a dual remit of addressing the research needs of scholars and attracting wider audiences; and it is simultaneously a library of printed books and manuscripts, an archive repository, and a gallery of visual materials. (shrink)

This volume republishes sixty-two of Dewey⿿s writings from the years 1942 to 1948; four other items are published here for the first time. A focal point of this volume is Dewey⿿s introduction to his collective volume Problems of Men. Exchanges in the Journal of Philosophy with Donald C. Mackay, Philip Blair Rice, and with Alexander Meiklejohn in Fortune appear here, along with Dewey⿿s letters to editors of various publications and his forewords to colleagues⿿ books. Because 1942 was the centenary of (...) the birth of William James, four articles about James are also included in this volume. (shrink)

The forty items in this volume also include an analysis of Thomas Hobbe's philosophy; an affectionate commemorative tribute to Theodore Roosevelt, our Teddy; the syllabus for Dewey's lectures at the Imperial University in Tokyo, which were ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Free Will’s Value: Criminal Justice, Pride, and Love by John LemosJohn DavenportLEMOS, John. Free Will’s Value: Criminal Justice, Pride, and Love. New York: Routledge, 2023. 284 pp. Cloth, $160.00It is a pleasure to read John Lemos’s latest work on moral free will, understood as the control needed for us to be morally responsible in “the just deserts sense.” Lemos is a clear writer who carefully (...) lays out the positions that he reviews and critiques. This book would be wonderful as a main text in a graduate seminar: The first six chapters critically address most of the main theories and moves in this wide field during the last twenty to twenty-five years, providing a very helpful overview while setting up Lemos’s own position. He advances an “indeterministic weightings” version of leeway-libertarianism about moral freedom that builds on both Robert Kane’s event-causal account and Robert Nozick’s older account of fixing the weight of practical considerations in the moment of choice. Lemos’s new account significantly refines the position that he defended against hard incompatiblism in his 2018 book. [End Page 721]Free Will’s Value also discusses responsibility in applied contexts, such as criminal justice and loving relationships. There are two chapters arguing that hard incompatibilists cannot save the “just deserts” aspect of criminal punishment or explain all the wrongness of taking the liberty of innocent persons mistakenly convicted. Their “public health quarantine” account of criminal justice will be utilitarian, and thus have a hard time justifying the beyond-reasonable-doubt standard for conviction. And, building on the critiques of compatibilism that he develops partly from Derk Pereboom and Bruce Waller, Lemos includes three chapters arguing that “axiological/pragmatist reasons” provide more evidence for libertarian free will than psychological evidence alone can.The final chapter in particular offers a novel argument that valuable sorts of interhuman loves need to involve self- or character-forming initiatives that are not primarily determined by factors beyond our control. The intrinsic value of some types of love, such as deep friendships—including romantic friendships—involve their being autonomous (my term), which in turn requires a kind of leeway-control. This involves arguing that “our will, effort, or a decision to love” is important to values achieved in sustaining loving relationships.Lemos’s own theory contends that Kane’s account of “self-forming actions” (SFAs) and “willings” (SFWs) in terms of dual “tryings” (or decisions) to do A or B in a fraught situation suffers from the “phenomenological problem” stated by Laura Ekstrom and Marc Balaguer, namely, that we do not normally experience fraught choices as involving such opposed tryings. This is even more evident, I believe, if we consider choices involving three or more salient options. Lemos is not convinced by Kane’s reply that the dual or multiple simultaneous efforts are usually unconscious, because he thinks responsibility for unconscious mental processes will (normally) trace to patterns of conscious choices made earlier in life. In fact, unconscious efforts, Lemos says, cannot meet even “plausible minimal compatibilist standards of responsibility” for elements of agency.I’m not convinced by this last claim, because it seems that an unconscious choice, C, could be responsive to (or counterfactually guided by) reasons relevant to C that the agent has considered in the past. Perhaps the problem is that “trying” is normally associated with attempting to act on an intention, but Kane uses it to describe the more elusive processes of agency involved in forming an intention via decision in the face of competing relevant options, which thereby incorporates motives into the intention. This sheds light on the further problem that it appears irrational to try to do multiple incompatible things at once. Pace Lemos, I think that Kane is right that “will-settling” is a special context in which it is not irrational for a single person’s agency to be engaged along dual pathways. Even if we do not call this “trying,” the agent’s interactions with the salient options are not like those of a detached spectator; they are volitional as well as evaluative. [End Page 722]Lemos’s account recognizes three loci... (shrink)

Although physicalism has been the dominant position in recent work in the philosophy of mind, this dominance has not prevented a small but growing number of philosophers from arguing that physicalism is untenable for several reasons: both ontologically and epistemologically it cannot reduce mentality to the realm of the physical, and its attempts to reduce subjectivity to objectivity have thoroughly failed. The contributors to After Physicalism provide powerful alternatives to the physicalist account of the human mind from a dualistic point (...) of view and argue that the reductive and naturalistic paradigm in philosophy has lost its force. The essays in this collection all firmly engage in a priori metaphysics. Those by Uwe Meixner, E. J. Lowe, John Foster, Alvin Plantinga, and Richard Swinburne are concerned with ways to establish the truth of dualism. Essays by William Hasker, A. D. Smith, and Howard Robinson deal with the relation between physicalism and dualism. Benedikt Paul Göcke argues that the “I” is not a particular and Stephen Priest that “I have to understand myself not as a thing but as no-thing-ness.” In the final essay, Thomas Schärtl argues that there are limits to dualism as indicated by the concept of resurrection. By including two classical essays by Plantinga and Swinburne, the volume conveniently brings together some of the best and the newest thinking in making the philosophical case for dualism. "Seven of these essays are by eminent philosophers: Lowe, Foster, Plantinga, Swinburne, Hasker, Smith, and Robinson, each recapitulating his well-known position in the debate. To have these seven essayists together under one cover constitutes a remarkable book, which can be used as a textbook in philosophy of mind as well as in philosophy of religion courses, and which also opens up the debate in an original way among colleagues at an advanced level." —Fergus Kerr, University of Edinburgh. (shrink)

An original, unified reconstruction of Mill’s moral and political philosophy—one that finally reveals its consistency and full power Few thinkers have been as influential as John Stuart Mill, whose philosophy has arguably defined Utilitarian ethics and modern liberalism. But fewer still have been subject to as much criticism for perceived ambiguities and inconsistencies. In Completely Free, John Peter DiIulio offers an ambitious and comprehensive new reading that explains how Mill’s ethical, moral, and political ideas are all part of (...) a unified, coherent, and powerful philosophy. Almost every aspect of Mill’s practical philosophy has been charged with contradictions, illogic, or incoherence. Most notoriously, Mill claims an absolute commitment both to promoting societal happiness and to defending individual liberty—a commitment that many critics believe must ultimately devolve into an either/or. DiIulio resolves these and other problems by reconsidering and reconstructing the key components of Mill’s practical thought: his theories of happiness, morality, liberty, and freedom. Casting new light on old texts, DiIulio argues that Mill’s Utilitarianism and liberalism are not only compatible but philosophically wedded, that his theories naturally emanate from one another, and that the vast majority of interpretive mysteries surrounding Mill can be readily demystified. In a manner at once sympathetic and critical, DiIulio seeks to present Mill in his most lucid and potent form. From the higher pleasures and moral impartiality to free speech and nondomination, Completely Free provides an unmatched account of the unity and power of Mill’s enduring moral and political thought. (shrink)