Western Australia, like Tasmania, can slip too easily off the map, a periphery on the periphery, its significance occluded by the hegemony of the eastern states of Australia. Yet Western Australia is core to Australia’s economy, not least through mining, and through its proximity to Asia. The West is itself connected more closely to region, in both the local and transnational senses. Its tradition of secessionist thinking indicates a kind of exceptionalist culture. This is a difference which begs (...) for explanation. This essay introduces some motifs and themes of this special issue of Thesis Eleven, entitled ‘Way Out West: Mapping Western Australia’. It locates the West in some recent historical, geographical and narrative context. It gestures toward the biography of its editors, Jon Stratton and Peter Beilharz, and their locations spread across the west and east of the continent. It calls for further scrutiny of these, and other antipodes. (shrink)

Environmental historians are not sufficiently aware of the extent to which mid twentieth-century thinkers turned to medical geography—originally a nineteenth-century area of study—in order to think through ideas of ecology, environment, and historical reasoning. This article outlines how the French–Croatian Mirko D. Grmek, a major thinker of his generation in the history of medicine, used those ideas in his studies of historical epidemiology. During the 1960s, Grmek attempted to provide, in the context of the Annales School’s research program under the (...) leadership of Fernand Braudel, a new theoretical framework for a world history of disease. Its development was inspired by several sources, most notably the French–American Jacques M. May, who was then pioneering an opening up of medical geography and movement towards the concept of disease ecology. The cornerstone of Grmek’s “synthetic approach” to the field was the notion of “pathocenosis”. The diverse uses of this notion in the course of time—from his early agenda focused on a longue durée history of diseases in Western Antiquity to his last, relating to the new epidemiological threat of emerging infectious diseases, specifically HIV/aids—enables us firstly, to note how concepts of ecology sat uneasily alongside those of medical geography; secondly, to assess the reach and limits of his theoretical contribution to historical epidemiology; and thirdly, to understand better the uneven fortunes of his concept of pathocenosis at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twenty-first centuries. (shrink)

Tome I covers the reception of Kierkegaard in Northern and Western Europe. The articles on Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland can be said to trace Kierkegaard's influence in its more or less native Nordic Protestant context. Since the authors in these countries were not dependent on translations or other intermediaries, this represents the earliest tradition of Kierkegaard reception. The early German translations of his works opened the door for the next phase of the reception which expanded beyond the (...) borders of the Nordic countries. The articles in the section on Western Europe trace his influence in Great Britain, the Netherlands and Flanders, Germany and Austria, and France. All of these countries and linguistic groups have their own extensive tradition of Kierkegaard reception. (shrink)

This article uses concepts from sociology, history, and philosophy to explore the shifting relationship between moral values and business in the Western world. We examine the historical roots and intellectual underpinnings of two major business-society paradigms in ideal-type terms. In pre-industrial Western society, we argue that business activity was linked to society’s values of morality (the moral unity paradigm}-for good or for ill. With the rise of industrialism, we contend that business was freed from moral constraints by the (...) alleged “invisible hand” of efficient markets (the amoral theory of business). Armed with this understanding of the intellectual history of the moral unity and amoral business-society paradigms, we suggest that some variant of the moral unity paradigm may be recurring in post-industrial society. (shrink)

This article uses concepts from sociology, history, and philosophy to explore the shifting relationship between moral values and business in the Western world. We examine the historical roots and intellectual underpinnings of two major business-society paradigms in ideal-type terms. In pre-industrial Western society, we argue that business activity was linked to society’s values of morality (the moral unity paradigm}-for good or for ill. With the rise of industrialism, we contend that business was freed from moral constraints by the (...) alleged “invisible hand” of efficient markets (the amoral theory of business). Armed with this understanding of the intellectual history of the moral unity and amoral business-society paradigms, we suggest that some variant of the moral unity paradigm may be recurring in post-industrial society. (shrink)

This book is designed to remedy that lack.

Since the 1970s Western governments have sought to defend selective urban areas from terrorist attack through a plethora of measures aimed at territorially controlling space both physically and technologically where the disruption to the orderly flow of commerce, or other activities, is minimized. Drawing on recent historical accounts, this paper seeks to track the changes to the landscape of Britain’s financial heart, the City of London, from the 1990s to the current day, as its leaders and security agents have (...) sought to defend the area from terrorist attack through the construction of what is commonly referred to as the “ring of steel.”. (shrink)

Panic buying of toilet rolls in Australia began in early March 2020. This was related to the realisation that the novel coronavirus was spreading across the country. To the general population the impact of the virus was unknown. Gradually the federal government started closing the country’s borders. The panic buying of toilet rolls was not unique to Australia. It happened across all societies that used toilet paper rather than water to clean after defecation and urination. However, research suggests that the (...) panic buying was most extreme in Australia. This article argues that the panic buying was closely linked to everyday notions of Western civilisation. Pedestal toilets and toilet paper are key aspects of civilisation and the fear of the loss of toilet paper is connected to anxiety about social breakdown, the loss of civilisation. This is the fear manifested in the perceived threat posed by the virus. (shrink)

This chapter examines some central features to liberal conceptions of toleration and liberty of conscience. The first section briefly examines conceptions of toleration and liberty of conscience in the traditions of Locke, Rawls, and Mill. The second section considers contemporary controversies surrounding toleration and liberty of conscience with a focus on neutrality and equality. The third section examines several challenges, including whether non-religious values should be afforded the same degree of accommodation as religious values, whether liberty of conscience requires a (...) secular state, and how bias impedes understandings of toleration and liberty of conscience. The chapter concludes with brief comments on future directions for research on toleration and liberty of conscience. One is exploring toleration and liberty of conscience in non-Western contexts; another is exploring ways that varieties of religious and political identity impact conceptions of toleration and liberty of conscience. (shrink)

The nineteenth-century strategist Carl von Clausewitz describes “fog” and “friction” as fundamental features of war. Military leverage of sophisticated information technology in the twenty-first century has improved some tactical operations but has not lifted the fog of war, in part, because the means for reducing uncertainty create new forms of it. Drawing on active duty experience with an American special operations task force in Western Iraq from 2007 to 2008, this article traces the targeting processes used to “find, fix, (...) and finish” alleged insurgents. In this case they did not clarify the political reality of Anbar province but rather reinforced a parochial worldview informed by the Naval Special Warfare community. The unit focused on the performance of “direct action” raids during a period in which “indirect action” engagement with the local population was arguably more appropriate for the strategic circumstances. The concept of “data friction”, therefore, can be understood not simply as a form of resistance within a sociotechnical system but also as a form of traction that enables practitioners to construct representations of the world that amplify their own biases. (shrink)

Stimulated by a general salience of neuroscientific research and the declaration of neuroscience as one of the leading disciplines of the current century, a diversity of disciplines from the social sciences and the humanities have engaged in discussions about the role of the brain in various social and cultural phenomena. The general importance assigned to the brain in so many areas of academic and social life nowadays has been called the ‘neuroscientific turn’. One of the fields that gained particular attention (...) in this context is neuroethics. It is, however, not clear if neuroethics should be regarded simply as an indicator of a change toward a brain-centered anthropological outlook in Western societies or as an entity that itself plays a crucial role in the development and promotion of this outlook. In this chapter, we present two perspectives on the ‘neuroscientific turn’, sketch a landscape of neuroethics, and scrutinize the current state and development of neuroethics as one of the new fields at the intersection between the neurosciences and the humanities. We will ask to what extent neuroethics is itself a product or a booster of a cultural turn toward neuroscience and which interpretations of neuroscientific knowledge and which public expectations of the potential of neuroscience have actually been put to work in the formation of neuroethics. As our analysis underlines, the interactions of neuroscience and ethics in the field of neuroethics are complex and multidirectional. On the one hand, philosophical and anthropological discourse has favored certain theoretical assumptions about the role of the brain for human self-understanding. On the other hand, neuroscience has stimulated many discourses in ethical theory, as well as in society, of which neuroethics can be regarded as a recent derivative. Finally, neuroethics itself occasionally functions as an amplifier of the assumption that neuroscience provides relevant information to help us understand the nature of human morality and the nature of good social norms and institutions. (shrink)

Urban areas are prime targets for international terrorists given the array of valuable physical and social infrastructure they contain. Whereas traditionally governmental, financial, critical infrastructure or military targets have been attacked, increasingly terrorism is targeted at everyday crowded urban spaces which are by their very nature difficult to defend. Subsequently this has led to a wave of pre-emptive and anticipatory counter-terrorism policy in the West in an attempt to secure the defence of the future city. In such policy-making urban terror (...) attacks are viewed as inevitable and unavoidable, but the nature of such attacks is seen as fluid. Notably, recent commando-style attacks against non-western cities — in Mumbai and Lahore in late 2008 and early 2009 respectively — and against soft, unprotected targets has led to a reassessment of western urban security strategies and an assumption that such terrorist modus operandi will migrate to western cities. Such an uncritical reading, as exemplified by the western bias in media reporting in the aftermath of these events, highlights the need for scholars and policy-makers to engage with alternative readings of these events and illuminate the contextual factors underlying terrorism and its tactics, and target selection in particular locations. In developing a more rounded and reflexive understanding of terrorism as a method, planners and policy-makers might be in a better position to progress more nuanced security strategies that aim to tackle the underlying causes of terrorism rather than simply reacting through militarizing an increasing array of urban spaces. (shrink)

Aristotle's ethics are the most important in the history of Western philosophy, but little has been said about the reception of his ethics by his many successors. The present volume offers thirteen newly commissioned essays covering figures and periods from the ancient world, starting with the impact of the ethics on Hellenistic philosophy, taking in medieval, Jewish and Islamic reception and extending as far as Kant and the twentieth century. Each essay focuses on a single philosopher, school of philosophers, (...) or philosophical era. The accounts examine and compare Aristotle's views and those of his heirs and also offer a reception history of the ethics, dealing with matters such as the availability and circulation of Aristotle's texts during the periods in question. The resulting volume will be a valuable source of information and arguments for anyone working in the history of ethics. (shrink)

Western literary, philosophical, and religious traditions from Plato and Paul to Augustine and Avicenna have utilized, exploited, or been subjected to allegorical interpretation. Naturally developing a composite picture of interpretive allegory from such a large landscape faces numerous difficulties. As the editor puts it, “to imagine a ‘definitive’ account of the theory and practice of allegorical interpretation in the West would require something of an allegorical vision in its own right.” With that caveat in mind, however, the international team (...) of contributors—from a variety of disciplines—offers a “historical and conceptual framework” for understanding interpretive allegory in the West, from antiquity through the early and late medieval and renaissance periods, and from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries._ This publication has also been published in hardback, please click here_ for details. (shrink)

In one of his more recent works, Paul Ricoeur attempts to re-instate the philosophical discussion of memory at the very center of a more general discourse on human existence. In his exposition, Ricoeur relies upon what he himself characterizes as a phenomenology of memory. It is the aim of the present article to supplement the phenomenological account of memory discussed by Ricoeur with a hermeneutics of memory conscious of its own limitations. Such a hermeneutical supplement would not only be of (...) complementary value but also provoke a rethinking of the relation between key concepts in the western discourse on memory, such as image, imprint, and trace. In this regard, the proposed hermeneutical reconfiguration of memory exceeds its own limitations and overflows into an investigation of the primordial passive and past ground, which motivates and allows the hermeneutical activity in the first place. Following the analyses of Emmanuel Lévinas, I will argue that this immemorial past must be conceived in terms of a responsibility that cannot be fulfilled. (shrink)

In his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion, Hegel treats the religions of the world under the rubric "the determinate religion." This is a part of his corpus that has traditionally been neglected since scholars have struggled to understand what philosophical work it is supposed to do. In Hegel's Interpretation of the Religions of the World, Jon Stewart argues that Hegel's rich analyses of Buddhism, Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Egyptian and Greek polytheism, and the Roman religion are not simply irrelevant historical (...) material, as is often thought. Instead, they play a central role in Hegel's argument for what he regards as the truth of Christianity. Hegel believes that the different conceptions of the gods in the world religions are reflections of individual peoples at specific periods in history. These conceptions might at first glance appear random and chaotic, but there is, Hegel claims, a discernible logic in them. Simultaneously, a theory of mythology, history, and philosophical anthropology, Hegel's account of the world religions goes far beyond the field of philosophy of religion. The controversial issues surrounding his treatment of the non-European religions are still very much with us today and make his account of religion an issue of continued topicality in the academic landscape of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

If the later Middle Ages may reasonably be considered the high point of Aristotelianism in western Europe, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the high point of the renewal of Hellenistic philosophy. Scepticism, Stoicism, and Epicureanism all make powerful appearances, and indeed debates between the adherents of the modern variations on these schools echo and mirror the debates that took place in the third and second centuries BCE. Not surprisingly, the ancient philosophies (to the extent that they were stable (...) in any case) did not remain unchanged: Stoic natural law, Epicurean atomism, and Pyrrhonist doubt all are employed in new and different ways, and the arguments are often strengthened, or at least changed. Comparison of the old and new versions is often illuminating: to see the Christian Epicureanism of Gassendi can improve one's understanding of the original form; to see how Hume deals with Academic scepticism makes the process of sceptical doubt clearer on both sides. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to discuss how the increasing social control of violence and aggression, which characterized the period from the Archaic to the Classical Age in ancient Greece, can be explained as an Eliasian civilizing process. Particularly crucial for this development is the question of how the city-state’s distinctive urban-political structures were the locus of this civilizing process. Accordingly, it is argued that not only are Elias’s key concepts analytically relevant to the ancient Greek civilizing process, but (...) also that they are to be reassessed in the light of the ancient Greek city-state culture. Thus, by the advancing of the argument that the civilizing process is not a uniquely western phenomenon, which occurred in western Europe from the Middle Ages to the end of the 19thcentury, the analytical relevance of Elias is re-evaluated and augmented. (shrink)

Healing Emotions is the record of an extraordinary series of encounters between the Dalai Lama and prominent Western psychologists, physicians, and meditation teachers that sheds new light on the mind-body connection. Edited by Pulitzer Prize nominee and best-selling author Daniel Goleman.

Whereas Western moral philosophy has mainly accounted for recurrent failed or irrational actions through the concept of weakness of will, many early Chinese texts on self-cultivation, notably the Zhuangzi, stand for a philosophical position that explains our frustrations and failures as an "excess of the will." Leaving aside external factors such as accidents or mistakes, this essay explores the sources of thwarted plans and frustrated expectations that are due to factors internal to the individual—more precisely, to the nature of (...) intentional conscience. Such a view was generally inadmissible in Western moral philosophy, which revolves around the paradigm of a causal agent endowed with a 'muscular ethics' for which all that is desired, and indeed all that is achieved, may only be a direct effect of the will. In striking contrast to this orientation, the Zhuangzi presents a variety of situations in which things do not happen as planned because we were too aware of the plan that guided us. Here, I will use Jon Elster's concept of by-product states in order to explore this contrast between two contending models of action that, far from being culturally rooted, express an inner criticism in both traditions, European and Chinese. (shrink)

:A normative Bayesian theory of deliberation and judgement requires a procedure for merging the evidence of a collection of agents. In order to provide such a procedure, one needs to ask what the evidence is that grounds Bayesian probabilities. After finding fault with several views on the nature of evidence, it is argued that evidence is whatever is rationally taken for granted. This view is shown to have consequences for an account of merging evidence, and it is argued that standard (...) axioms for merging need to be altered somewhat. (shrink)

Bringing together powerful new tools from set theory and the philosophy of language, this book proposes a solution to one of the few unresolved paradoxes from antiquity, the Paradox of the Liar. Treating truth as a property of propositions, not sentences, the authors model two distinct conceptions of propositions: one based on the standard notion used by Bertrand Russell, among others, and the other based on J.L. Austin's work on truth. Comparing these two accounts, the authors show that while the (...) Russellian conception of the relation between sentences, propositions, and truth is crucially flawed in limiting cases, the Austinian perspective has fruitful applications to the analysis of semantic paradox. In the course of their study of a language admitting circular reference and containing its own truth predicate, Barwise and Etchemendy also develop a wide range of model-theoretic techniques--based on a new set-theoretic tool, Peter Aczel's theory of hypersets--that open up new avenues in logical and formal semantics. (shrink)

The present volume collects some of Barwise's papers written since then, those directly concerned with relations among logic, situation theory, and situation semantics. Several papers appear here for the first time.

William Alston’s argument against epistemological deontologism rests upon two key premises: first, that we lack a suitable amount of voluntary control with respect to our beliefs, and, second, the principle that “ought” implies “can.” While several responses to Alston have concerned rejecting either of these two premises, I argue that even on the assumption that both premises are true, there is room to be made for deontologism in epistemology. I begin by offering a criticism of Richard Feldman’s invaluable work on (...) ‘role-oughts’, whereupon I development my own positive view in light of Feldman’s shortcomings. The upshot is that while we as epistemic agents are not responsible for the beliefs we form, we are nonetheless responsible for the various bodily or mental activities that typically bear a causal influence on belief formation. (shrink)

According to epistemic internalism, the only facts that determine the justificational status of a belief are facts about the subject’s own mental states, like beliefs and experiences. Externalists instead hold that certain external facts, such as facts about the world or the reliability of a belief-producing mechanism, affect a belief’s justificational status. Some internalists argue that considerations about evil demon victims and brains in vats provide excellent reason to reject externalism: because these subjects are placed in epistemically unfavorable settings, externalism (...) seems unable to account for the strong intuition that these subjects’ beliefs are nonetheless justified. I think these considerations do not at all help the internalist cause. I argue that by appealing to the anti-individualistic nature of perception, it can be shown that skeptical scenarios provide no reason to prefer internalism to externalism. (shrink)

In recent years much effort has gone into the study of languages which strengthen the classical first-order predicate calculus in various ways. This effort has been motivated by the desire to find a language which is(I) strong enough to express interesting properties not expressible by the classical language, but(II) still simple enough to yield interesting general results. Languages investigated include second-order logic, weak second-order logic, ω-logic, languages with generalized quantifiers, and infinitary logic.

The Recursive Bayesian Net (RBN) formalism was originally developed for modelling nested causal relationships. In this paper we argue that the formalism can also be applied to modelling the hierarchical structure of mechanisms. The resulting network contains quantitative information about probabilities, as well as qualitative information about mechanistic structure and causal relations. Since information about probabilities, mechanisms and causal relations is vital for prediction, explanation and control respectively, an RBN can be applied to all these tasks. We show in particular (...) how a simple two-level RBN can be used to model a mechanism in cancer science. The higher level of our model contains variables at the clinical level, while the lower level maps the structure of the cell's mechanism for apoptosis. (shrink)

Kyburg goes half-way towards objective Bayesianism. He accepts that frequencies constrain rational belief to an interval but stops short of isolating an optimal degree of belief within this interval. I examine the case for going the whole hog.

According to the bootstrapping problem, any view that allows for basic knowledge (knowledge obtained from a reliable source prior to one’s knowing that that source is reliable) is forced to accept that one can utilize a track-record argument to acquire justification for believing that one’s belief source is reliable; yet, we tend to think that acquiring justification in this way is too easy. In this paper I argue, first, that those who respond to the bootstrapping problem by denying basic knowledge (...) succumb to over-intellectualizing epistemology, and secondly, reliabilist views avoid over-intellectualization only at the expense of sanctioning bootstrapping as a benign procedure. Both of these outcomes are difficult to bear. To ward off each of these unsavory outcomes, I propose an alternative solution that draws on a distinction between two separate epistemic concepts: entitlement and justification. (shrink)

Covers first-order language in method appropriate for first and second courses in logic. CD-ROM consists of a new book, 3 programs,and an Internet-based grading service.