Michael A. Petersa and Fazal Rizvib aBeijing Normal University, Beijing, PR China; bMelbourne University, Melbourne, Australia Our minds are still racing back and forth, longing for a return to ‘no...

Merold Westphal’s new publication, Kierkegaard’s Concept of Faith, gives us an opportunity to explore the many ways in which Kierkegaard has influenced Westphal’s thinking as a whole. This present contribution seeks to show how Kierkegaard helps Westphal discover a concept of faith which holds no ‘reasonable’ foundation as it is entirely dependent upon two different aspects of revelation in tension with each other. Moreover, faith is seen as a willing assent by the believer, and thus it becomes a task and (...) not merely a proposition to behold or to which one’s life conforms. In addition to explicating this notion of faith within his work, this present contribution seeks to situate this faith within Westphal’s philosophy of religion, showing how it is integral to Westphal’s entire project. (shrink)

Symposium on Nietzsche's Constructivism (Routledge, 2018), replies to Adler, Cabrera, Doyle, Migotti, Sinhababu, Pedersen.

In 21st century America, personhood is under daily assault, sometimes with dire consequences. Scientist, ethicist, and ordained minister Craig C. Malbon encourages the reader to consider such assaults on personhood endured by victims of abortion, ageism, Alzheimer's disease, drug addiction, mental and physical disabilities, gender, gender orientation, racism, sexual preference, identity politics, and our will-to-power over the "other." In exploring personhood status, Malbon poses difficult questions for us. Is personhood assigned as all-or-nothing, or is it a sliding scale (...) based upon criteria arbitrarily aimed at our vulnerabilities? Does the voiceless embryo and fetus have advocates who can speak to the moral question of abortion? Is the personhood of an economically insecure pregnant woman degraded to the point where lack of access to early termination of pregnancy results in "coercive childbearing?" Does being a member of the LGBTQI+ community target one for assaults on personhood, to the extreme of being killed? In delving into the biology and psychology of assaults of "self" upon the "other," Malbon sees powerful linkages of everyday assaults on personhood to darker, profound "original sins" that are foundational to the rise of the American empire, i.e., assaults on the indigenous Native Americans and assaults derivative to the institution of slavery upon Africans, African Americans, and their descendants. (shrink)

The biological functions debate is a perennial topic in the philosophy of science. In the first full-length account of the nature and importance of biological functions for many years, Justin Garson presents an innovative new theory, the 'generalized selected effects theory of function', which seamlessly integrates evolutionary and developmental perspectives on biological functions. He develops the implications of the theory for contemporary debates in the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of medicine and psychiatry, the philosophy of biology, and biology (...) itself, addressing issues ranging from the nature of mental representation to our understanding of the function of the human genome. Clear, jargon-free, and engagingly written, with accessible examples and explanatory diagrams to illustrate the discussion, his book will be highly valuable for readers across philosophical and scientific disciplines. (shrink)

Justin Snedegar develops and defends contrastivism about reasons. This is the view that normative reasons are fundamentally reasons for or against actions or attitudes only relative to sets of alternatives. Simply put, reasons are always reasons to do one thing rather than another, instead of simply being reasons to do something, full stop.

For some, biology explains all there is to know about the mind. Yet many big questions remain: is the mind shaped by genes or the environment? If mental traits are the result of adaptations built up over thousands of years, as evolutionary psychologists claim, how can such claims be tested? If the mind is a machine, as biologists argue, how does it allow for something as complex as human consciousness? The Biological Mind: A Philosophical Introduction explores these questions and more, (...) using the philosophy of biology to introduce and assess the nature of the mind. Drawing on the four key themes of evolutionary biology; molecular biology and genetics; neuroscience; and biomedicine and psychiatry Justin Garson addresses the following key topics: moral psychology, altruism and levels of selection evolutionary psychology and modularity genes, environment and the nature-nurture debate neuroscience, reductionism and the relation between biology and free will function, selection and mental representation psychiatric classification and the maladapted mind. Extensive use of examples and case studies is made throughout the book, and additional features such as chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary make this an indispensable introduction to those teaching philosophy of mind and philosophy of psychology. It will also be an excellent resource for those in related fields such as biology. (shrink)

Although the counterfactual comparative account of harm, according to which someone is harmed when things go worse for her than they otherwise would have, is intuitively plausible, it has recently come under attack. There are five serious objections in the literature: some philosophers argue that the counterfactual account makes it hard to see how we could harm someone in the course of benefitting that person; others argue that Parfit’s non-identity problem is particularly problematic; another objection claims that the account forces (...) us to see many harms where there is just one; a fourth objection is based on the claim that the counterfactual account makes mysterious the distinction between harms and mere failures-to-benefit; and a final problem arises from cases of pre-emption, in which the nearest possible world in which the harmful event does not occur is a world in which some other harmful event occurs. This paper argues that, properly understood, harm essentially involves a counterfactual comparison, and that these comparisons are sensitive to context in the manner typical of counterfactual conditionals, and that, augmented with two plausible distinctions, this account has the resources to provide satisfying responses to each of the objections that have been raised against it. (shrink)

Despite its small stature, "if" occupies a central place both in everyday language and the philosophical lexicon. In allowing us to talk about hypothetical situations, "if" raises a host of thorny philosophical puzzles about language and logic. Addressing them requires tools from linguistics, logic, probability theory, and metaphysics. Justin Khoo uses these tools to navigate a maze of interconnected issues about conditionals, some of which include: the nature of linguistic communication, the relationship between logical and natural languages, and the (...) relationship between different kinds of modality. According to Khoo's theory, conditionals form a unified class of expressions which share a common semantic core that encodes inferential dispositions. Thus, rather than represent the world, conditionals are devices used to communicate how we are disposed to infer. Khoo shows that this theory can be extended to predict the probabilities of conditionals, as well as how different kinds of conditionals differ both semantically and pragmatically. Khoo's book will make for a significant contribution to the literature on conditionals and should be of interest to philosophers, linguists, and computer scientists. (shrink)

Professionals, it is said, have no use for simple lists of virtues and vices. The complexities and constraints of professional roles create peculiar moral demands on the people who occupy them, and traits that are vices in ordinary life are praised as virtues in the context of professional roles. Should this disturb us, or is it naive to presume that things should be otherwise? Taking medical and legal practice as key examples, Justin Oakley and Dean Cocking develop a rigorous (...) articulation and defence of virtue ethics, contrasting it with other types of character-based ethical theories and showing that it offers a promising new approach to the ethics of professional roles. They provide insights into the central notions of professional detachment, professional integrity, and moral character in professional life, and demonstrate how a virtue-based approach can help us better understand what ethical professional-client relationships would be like. (shrink)

Provides a critical and analytical history of ancient Greek theories on the nature of pleasure, and of its value and rolein human lfie, from the ealriest times down to the period of Epicurus and the early Stoics.

Spinoza's Political Psychology advances a novel, comprehensive interpretation of Spinoza's political writings, exploring how his analysis of psychology informs his arguments for democracy and toleration. Justin Steinberg shows how Spinoza's political method resembles the Renaissance civic humanism in its view of governance as an adaptive craft that requires psychological attunement. He examines the ways that Spinoza deploys this realist method in the service of empowerment, suggesting that the state can affectively reorient and thereby liberate its citizens, but only if (...) it attends to their actual motivational and epistemic capacities. His book will interest a range of readers in Spinoza studies and the history of political thought, as well as readers working in contemporary political theory. (shrink)

Benedict de Spinoza is one of the most controversial and enigmatic thinkers in the history of philosophy. His greatest work, Ethics (1677), developed a comprehensive philosophical system and argued that God and Nature are identical. His scandalous Theological-Political Treatise (1670) provoked outrage during his lifetime due to its biblical criticism, anticlericalism, and defense of the freedom to philosophize. Together, these works earned Spinoza a reputation as a singularly radical thinker. -/- In this book, Steinberg and Viljanen offer a concise and (...) up-to-date account of Spinoza’s thought and its philosophical legacy. They explore the full range of Spinoza’s ideas, from politics and theology to ontology and epistemology. Drawing broadly on Spinoza’s impressive oeuvre, they have crafted a lucid introduction for readers unfamiliar with this important philosopher, as well as a nuanced and enlightening study for more experienced readers. (shrink)

I present Ned Markosian's episodic account of identity under a sortal, and then use it to sketch a new model of the Trinity. I show that the model can be used to solve at least three important Trinitarian puzzles: the traditional ‘logical problem of the Trinity’, a less-discussed problem that has been dubbed the ‘problem of triunity’, and a problem about the divine processions that has been enjoying increased attention in the recent literature.

Russellian monists argue that non-structural properties, or a combination of structural and non-structural properties, necessitate phenomenal properties. Different Russellian monists offer varying accounts of the structural/non-structural distinction, leading to divergent forms of Russellian monism. In this paper, I criticise Derk Pereboom’s characterisation of the structural/non-structural distinction proposed in his Consciousness and the Prospects of Physicalism and further work. I argue that from Pereboom’s characterisation of structural and non-structural properties, one can formulate general metaphysical principles concerning what structural and non-structural properties (...) necessitate. These principles undermine the claim that non-structural properties – either alone or in combination with structural properties – necessitate phenomenal properties. Moreover, these principles are not affected by our supposed inability to conceive of non-structural properties in a manner conducive to the success of conceivability arguments. (shrink)

Various deficits in the cognitive functioning of people with autism have been documented in recent years but these provide only partial explanations for the condition. We focus instead on an imitative disturbance involving difficulties both in copying actions and in inhibiting more stereotyped mimicking, such as echolalia. A candidate for the neural basis of this disturbance may be found in a recently discovered class of neurons in frontal cortex, 'mirror neurons' (MNs). These neurons show activity in relation both to specific (...) actions performed by self and matching actions performed by others, providing a potential bridge between minds. MN systems exist in primates without imitative and ‘theory of mind’ abilities and we suggest that in order for them to have become utilized to perform social cognitive functions, sophisticated cortical neuronal systems have evolved in which MNs function as key elements. Early developmental failures of MN systems are likely to result in a consequent cascade of developmental impairments characterised by the clinical syndrome of autism. (shrink)

One of the standard puzzles in ordinary object metaphysics concerns what happens when an object and one of its undetached parts apparently begin to coincide. I distinguish two versions of this puzzle: the problem of extraordinary undetached parts and the problem of ordinary undetached parts. Then I present a novel phasalist solution to the problem of ordinary undetached parts. My solution is designed to supplement the recently-defended view that ordinary undetached parts exist but extraordinary ones do not.

Spinoza's account of belief entails that if A has two ideas, p and q, with incompatible content, A believes that p if the idea of p is stronger than the idea of q. This seems to leave little space for dominant non-beliefs, or cases in which there is discord between one's beliefs and one's affective-behavioral responses. And yet Spinoza does allow for two classes of dominant non-beliefs: efficacious fictions [fictiones] and ideas that conduce to akrasia. I show how Spinoza can (...) account for dominant non-beliefs within his model of cognition by distinguishing between the doxastic and the affective powers of ideas and by suggesting that doxastic power is best understood diachronically. While other scholars have stressed the elegance of Spinoza's account of ideas, this paper highlights the sophistication and flexibility of his account. (shrink)

I introduce a new approach to fission puzzles called the Diversified Approach that proceeds by distinguishing different kinds of fission and assimilating each kind to a different ordinary phenomenon, such as breaking apart, replication, or part loss. To illustrate this approach, I apply it to the case of amoebic fission. The upshot is a novel account of amoebic fission according to which the dividing amoeba ceases to exist because it breaks apart. After developing this solution and highlighting some of its (...) advantages, I discuss briefly how the Diversified Approach can be extended to other varieties of fission. (shrink)

Pleasure and Desire The Case of Hedonism Reviewed.

We are all guilty of it. We call people terrible names in conversation or online. We vilify those with whom we disagree, and make bolder claims than we could defend. We want to be seen as taking the moral high ground not just to make a point, or move a debate forward, but to look a certain way--incensed, or compassionate, or committed to a cause. We exaggerate. In other words, we grandstand. Nowhere is this more evident than in public discourse (...) today, and especially as it plays out across the internet. To philosophers Justin Tosi and Brandon Warmke, who have written extensively about moral grandstanding, such one-upmanship is not just annoying, but dangerous. As politics gets more and more polarized, people on both sides of the spectrum move further and further apart when they let grandstanding get in the way of engaging one another. The pollution of our most urgent conversations with self-interest damages the very causes they are meant to forward. Drawing from work in psychology, economics, and political science, and along with contemporary examples spanning the political spectrum, the authors dive deeply into why and how we grandstand. Using the analytic tools of psychology and moral philosophy, they explain what drives us to behave in this way, and what we stand to lose by taking it too far. Most importantly, they show how, by avoiding grandstanding, we can re-build a public square worth participating in. (shrink)

I argue that not all context dependent expressions are alike. Pure (or ordinary) indexicals behave more or less as Kaplan thought. But quasi indexicals behave in some ways like indexicals and in other ways not like indexicals. A quasi indexical sentence φ allows for cases in which one party utters φ and the other its negation, and neither party’s claim has to be false. In this sense, quasi indexicals are like pure indexicals (think: “I am a doctor”/“I am not a (...) doctor” as uttered by different individuals). In such cases involving a pure indexical sentence, it is not appropriate for the two parties to reject each other’s claims by saying, “No.” However, in such cases involving a quasi indexical sentence, it is appropriate for the par- ties to reject each other’s claims. In this sense, quasi indexicals are not like pure indexicals. Drawing on experimental evidence, I argue that gradable adjectives like “rich” are quasi indexicals in this sense. e existence of quasi indexicals raises trouble for many existing theories of context dependence, including standard contextualist and relativist theories. I propose an alternative semantic and pragmatic theory of quasi indexicals, negotiated contextualism, that combines insights from Kaplan 1989 and Lewis 1979. On my theory, rejection is licensed with quasi indexicals (even when neither of the claims involved has to be false) because the two utterances involve conflicting proposals about how to update the conversational score. I also adduce evidence that conflicting truth value assessments of a single quasi indexical utterance exhibit the same behavior. I argue that negotiated contextualism can account for this puzzling property of quasi indexicals as well. (shrink)

In The Emotional Sphere of Politics, Justin MacCarthy explores the premise that there are four sets of conflicting emotions (Security versus Freedom, Property versus Communality, Equality versus Status and Order versus Nature) which are an integral part of the human condition. Having these four pairs of contradictory needs makes it extremely difficult for party politicians to meet our expectations, as each party has a particular focus on just one single need. These party politicians promise us that increased adherence to (...) their particular dogma will lead us to Nirvana, but in fact it usually leads to excess and hubris. The most notorious example of excess is fascism, which is an ultra form of nationalism. But there are two sides to every coin, and all of the ideological excesses can be matched by political virtues. For example, the capitalist vice of greed can be offset by the virtue of philanthropy. MacCarthy sets out to show how these political forces neatly fit together into what is quite literally The Emotional Sphere of Politics, in three-dimensional form. The interrelationship of eight major political movements of the 20th century with our basic human emotions are each examined individually, from how 'Authoritarianism promises us Security', to how 'The Communists claim to be the Organisers of our resources for the benefit of all'. Similar to The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt, it examines why people feel so differently about political issues, making this book is a fascinating read for anyone interested in politics. (shrink)

To what extent are the subjects of our thoughts and talk real? This is the question of realism. In this book, Justin Clarke-Doane explores arguments for and against moral realism and mathematical realism, how they interact, and what they can tell us about areas of philosophical interest more generally. He argues that, contrary to widespread belief, our mathematical beliefs have no better claim to being self-evident or provable than our moral beliefs. Nor do our mathematical beliefs have better claim (...) to being empirically justified than our moral beliefs. It is also incorrect that reflection on the "genealogy" of our moral beliefs establishes a lack of parity between the cases. In general, if one is a moral antirealist on the basis of epistemological considerations, then one ought to be a mathematical antirealist as well. And, yet, Clarke-Doane shows that moral realism and mathematical realism do not stand or fall together -- and for a surprising reason. Moral questions, insofar as they are practical, are objective in a sense that mathematical questions are not. Moreover, the sense in which they are objective can be explained only by assuming practical anti-realism. One upshot of the discussion is that the concepts of realism and objectivity, which are widely identified, are actually in tension. Another is that the objective questions in the neighborhood of questions of logic, modality, grounding, and nature are practical questions too. Practical philosophy should, therefore, take center stage. (shrink)

Criticism plays an essential role in the growth of scientific knowledge. In some cases, however, criticism can have detrimental effects; for example, it can be used to ‘manufacture doubt’ for the purpose of impeding public policy making on issues such as tobacco consumption and greenhouse gas emissions (e.g., Oreskes & Conway 2010). In this paper, we build on previous work by Biddle and Leuschner (2015) who argue that criticism that meets certain conditions can be epistemically detrimental. We extend and refine (...) their account by arguing that such criticism can be epistemically corrupting—it can create social conditions that are conducive to the development of epistemic vice by agents operating within them. (shrink)

Like Kant, the German Idealists, and many neo-Kantian philosophers before him, Nietzsche was persistently concerned with metaphysical questions about the nature of objects. His texts often address questions concerning the existence and non-existence of objects, the relation of objects to human minds, and how different views of objects significantly impact various commitments in many areas of philosophy—not just metaphysics, but also semantics, epistemology, science, logic and mathematics, and even ethics. This book presents a systematic and comprehensive analysis of Nietzsche’s material (...) object metaphysics. Remhof argues that Nietzsche embraces the controversial _constructivist_ view that all concrete objects are socially constructed. Reading Nietzsche as a constructivist, Remhof contends, provides fresh insight into Nietzsche's views on truth, science, naturalism, and nihilism. Remhof investigates how Nietzsche’s view of objects compares with similar views offered by influential American pragmatists, and explores the implications of Nietzsche’s constructivism for debates in contemporary material object metaphysics. _Nietzsche’s Constructivism _is a highly original and timely contribution to the steadily growing literature on Nietzsche’s thought. (shrink)

What is it to blame someone, and when are would-be blamers in a position to do so? What function does blame serve in our lives, and is it a valuable way of relating to one another? The essays in this volume explore answers to these and related questions.

Conventional wisdom holds that C. S. Lewis was uninterested in politics and public affairs. The conventional wisdom is wrong. As Justin Buckley Dyer and Micah J. Watson show in this groundbreaking work, Lewis was deeply interested in the fundamental truths and falsehoods about human nature and how these conceptions manifest themselves in the contested and turbulent public square. Ranging from the depths of Lewis' philosophical treatments of epistemology and moral pedagogy to practical considerations of morals legislation and responsible citizenship, (...) this book explores the contours of Lewis' multi-faceted Christian engagement with political philosophy generally and the natural-law tradition in particular. Drawing from the full range of Lewis' corpus and situating his thought in relationship to both ancient and modern seminal thinkers, C. S. Lewis on Politics and the Natural Law offers an unprecedented look at politics and political thought from the perspective of one of the twentieth century's most influential writers. (shrink)

While many recognize that rigid historical and compositional goals are inadequate in a world where climate and other global systems are undergoing unprecedented changes, others contend that promoting ecosystem services and functions encourages practices that can ultimately lower the bar of ecological management. These worries are foregrounded in discussions about Novel Ecosystems (NEs); where some researchers and conservationists claim that NEs provide a license to trash nature as long as some ecosystem services are provided. This criticism arises from what we (...) call the " anything goes " problem created by the release of historical conditions. After explaining the notion of NE, we identify numerous substantive motivations for worrying about the anything-goes-problem and then go on to show the problem can be solved by correcting two mistaken assumptions. In short, we argue that the problem is a product of adopting an overly sparse functional perspective and one that assumes an unrealistically high degree of convergence in the trajectories of natural processes. Our analysis illuminates why such assumptions are unwarranted. Finally, we further argue that adopting an appropriate ethical framework is essential to overcoming the anything-goes-problem and suggest that a certain virtue ethics conception of ecological management provides useful resources for framing and resolving the problem. (shrink)

The world is swimming in misinformation. Conflicting messages bombard us every day with news on everything from politics and world events to investments and alternative health. The daily paper, nightly news, websites, and social media each compete for our attention and each often insist on a different version of the facts. Inevitably, we have questions: Who is telling the truth? How would we know? How did we get here? What can we do? Beyond Fake News answers these and other queries. (...) It offers a technological and market-based explanation for how our informational environment became so polluted. It shows how purveyors of news often have incentives to mislead us, and how consumers of information often have incentives to be misled. And it chronicles how, as technology improves and the regulatory burdens drop, our information-scape becomes ever more littered with misinformation. Beyond Fake News argues that even when we really want the truth, our minds are built in such a way so as to be incapable of grasping many facts, and blind spots mar our view of the world. But we can do better, both as individuals and as a society. As individuals, we can improve the accuracy of our understanding of the world by knowing who to trust and recognizing our limitations. And as a society, we can take important steps to reduce the quantity and effects of misinformation. (shrink)

This essay* takes two notions of autonomy and two notions of explanation and argues that colours occur in explanations that fall under all of them. The claim that colours can be used to explain anything at all may seem to some people an outrage. But their pessimism is unjustified and the orthodox dispositional view which may seem to support it, I shall argue, itself has difficulties. In broad terms, Section 2 shows that there exist good straight scientific laws of colour, (...) constituting what one might call a phenomenal science. Section 3 offers a larger view of what we are doing when we attribute colours to things, a view which makes it a case of holistic explanation, similar in many ways to psychological explanation. Section 2 emphasizes the model of scientific explanation, and Section 3 the holistic model found in rational explanation; but it will emerge that colour explanation in different ways fits both models, as it also does the two principal notions of autonomy that the first section identifies. (shrink)

Introduction In recent years there has been a welcome reawakening of philosophical interest in the emotions. A significant number of contemporary ...

Iris Murdoch was a notable philosopher before she was a notable novelist and her work was brave, brilliant, and independent. She made her name first for her challenges to Gilbert Ryle and behaviourism, and later for her book on Sartre, but she had the greatest impact with her work in moral philosophy—and especially her book The Sovereignty of Good. She turned expectantly from British linguistic philosophy to continental existentialism, but was dissatisfied there too; she devised a philosophy and a style (...) of philosophy that were distinctively her own. Murdoch aimed to draw out the implications, for metaphysics and the conception of the world, of rejecting the standard dichotomy of language into the 'descriptive' and the 'emotive'. She aimed, in Wittgensteinian spirit, to describe the phenomena of moral thinking more accurately than the 'linguistic behaviourists' like R. M. Hare. This 'empiricist' task could be acheived, Murdoch thought, only with help from the idealist tradition of Kant, Hegel, and Bradley. And she combined with this a moral psychology, or theory of motivation, that went back to Plato, but was influenced by Freud and Simone Weil. Murdoch's impact can be seen in the moral philosophy of John McDowell and, in different ways, in Richard Rorty and Charles Taylor, as well as in the recent movements under the headings of moral realism, particularism, moral perception, and virtue theory. This volume brings together essays by critics and admirers of Murdoch's work, and includes a longer Introduction on Murdoch's career, reception, and achievement. It also contains a previously unpublished chapter from the book on Heidegger that Murdoch had been working on shortly before her death, and a Memoir by her husband John Bayley. It gives not only an introduction to Murdoch's important philosophical life and work, but also a picture of British philosophy in one of its heydays and at an important moment of transition.Readership: Students and scholars of philosophy and literature. (shrink)

The many definitions of sophistry at the beginning of Plato’s Sophist have puzzled scholars just as much as they puzzled the dialogue’s main speakers: the Visitor from Elea and Theaetetus. The aim of this paper is to give an account of that puzzlement. This puzzlement, it is argued, stems not from a logical or epistemological problem, but from the metaphysical problem that, given the multiplicity of accounts, the interlocutors do not know what the sophist essentially is. It transpires that, in (...) order to properly account for this puzzle, one must jettison the traditional view of Plato’s method of division, on which divisions must be exclusive and mark out relations of essential predication. It is then shown on independent grounds that, although Platonic division in the Sophist must express predication relations and be transitive, it need not be dichotomous, exclusive, or express relations of essential predication. Once the requirements of exclusivity and essential predication are dropped, it is possible to make sense of the reasons that the Visitor from Elea and Theaetetus are puzzled. Moreover, with this in hand, it is possible to see Plato making an important methodological point in the dialogue: division on its own without any norms does not necessarily lead to the discovery of essences. (shrink)

In this article I develop a new problem for the doctrine of the Trinity that I call the Problem of Triunity. Rather than proceeding from the fact that God is one and the persons are many, as the traditional problem of the Trinity does, the problem of triunity proceeds from the fact that, in one sense or another, God is many, and yet each divine person on his own is just one.

_Dworkin and His Critics_ provides an in-depth, analytical discussion of Ronald Dworkin's ethical, legal and political philosophical writings, and it includes substantial replies from Dworkin himself. Includes substantial replies by Ronald Dworkin, a comprehensive bibliography of his work, and suggestions for further reading. Contributors include Richard Arneson, G. A. Cohen, Frances Kamm, Will Kymlicka, Philippe van Parijs, Eric Rakowski, Joseph Raz and Jeremy Waldron. Makes an important contribution to many on-going debates over abortion, euthanasia, the rule of law, distributive justice, (...) group rights, political obligation, and genetics. (shrink)

McDonnell, Justin The psychologist wishes to balance man psychologically. The spiritual father aims at his divinisation... the psychologist employs the method of questioning and listening and tries to make man aware of his problem and to mature psychologically. The spiritual father, illumined by the grace of God, locates the problem-which is the darkness of the nous-and tries to lead man to the theoria of God by the means of the Orthodox method of purification and illumination. The psychologist acts anthropocentrically (...) using thoughts and ideas. The spiritual father acts in a theocentric way. He uses the therapeutic method, but also the mysteries through which the heart receives the grace of God. (shrink)

This book, by two philosophers at Bradford University, immediately strikes the American reader with two differences in the British philosophical scene. One is the enveloping commitment to "Davidsonian linguistics" which still seems the central topic for many of Oxford's younger philosophers. In this slim volume Davidsonian semantics is thought to provide that some measure of cross-cultural understanding is possible, that humanistic descriptions of human activity are irreplaceable and unrevisable since action explanation is non-nomothetic though often causal and inferential, that collectives (...) may have expressive but not explanatory autonomy, and that social descriptions are not irredeemably value-laden. Who would have thought Davidsonian semantics had so much blood in it? Though the Tarskian T-Convention requirement is outlined in the short introductory chapter, one is hard put to see any real connection between the insistence on model theoretic and extensional approaches and the subsequent chapters. Though the introduction briefly allows that intensional notions are to be ignored, we are later assured that we may safely ascribe one classical logic to primitives and humans generally since "only at the highly advanced level of theoretical physics has it been found necessary to experiment with different logics". Ignored are those who think mathematics itself requires an intuitionist or intensional understanding. Also ignored are the many linguists who have recently held that the vast majority of sentences in everyday speech require intensional or modal analysis. The authors also use the label "functionalism" for the view that a society is something like a biological organism rather than a collection of rational agents. One finds this usage disconcerting. Much more unfortunate is that the authors seem innocent of the rich philosophical and psychological and neurological work on mental states and psychological explanation that has grown up around the more recent usage of the term.--Justin Leiber, University of Houston. (shrink)

In this paper, I challenge the recent consensus that global versions of theological voluntarism—on which all moral facts are explained by God’s action—fail, because only local versions—on which only a proper subset of moral facts are so explained—can successfully avoid the objection that theological voluntarism entails that God’s actions are arbitrary. I argue that global theological voluntarism can equally well avoid such arbitrariness. This does not mean that global theological voluntarism should be accepted, but that the primary advantage philosophers have (...) taken local views to have over global views is, in fact, no advantage at all. (shrink)

Moral grandstanding is a pervasive feature of public discourse. Many of us can likely recognize that we have engaged in grandstanding at one time or another. While there is nothing new about the phenomenon of grandstanding, we think that it has not received the philosophical attention it deserves. In this essay, we provide an account of moral grandstanding as the use of public discourse for moral self-promotion. We then show that our account, with support from some standard theses of social (...) psychology, explains the characteristic ways that grandstanding is manifested in public moral discourse. We conclude by arguing that there are good reasons to think that moral grandstanding is typically morally bad and should be avoided. (shrink)

Since the time of Hippocrates, madness has typically been viewed through the lens of disease, dysfunction, and defect. In 'Madness', philosopher of science Justin Garson presents a radically different paradigm for conceiving of madness and the forms that it takes. In this paradigm, which he calls madness-as-strategy, madness is neither a disease nor a defect, but a designed feature, like the heart or lungs.