Inhabitants of a land that their ancient myths proclaimed to be the creation of divinities, the Japanese have peopled their archipelago with numerous earth gods: giants trees, simple pebbles concealed either in an oratory, a corner of a garden or deep inside a thicket; crossroads stoneposts, steles in the middle of a plot or next to a rice field, tombstones, and rocks that are worshipped on home altars. The imposing presence of these divine proprietors of the provinces and of sites (...) that were once urban settlements, villages, or private residences is still visible in the tall buildings of Tokyo and Osaka. These protean spirits, found on roof tops in the form of stone foxes or redwood porticos, bear witness, even in the heart of the city, to a latent belief: the forces of the earth are still at work in the world, keeping watch over human activities. Although there are very few people left who believe, as the ancients stories tell, that the citizens of Japan are descendants of the gods of the earth and sky, there nevertheless remain many who accept the notion that a single telluric energy inhabits the world of the living, the dead, things, and the gods. (shrink)

Ever since Plato it has been thought that one knows only if one's belief hits the mark of truth and does so with adequate justification. The issues debated by Laurence BonJour and Ernest Sosa concern mostly the nature and conditions of such epistemic justification, and its place in our understanding of human knowledge. Presents central issues pertaining to internalism vs. externalism and foundationalism vs. virtue epistemology in the form of a philosophical debate. Introduces students to fundamental questions within epistemology (...) while engaging in contemporary debates. Written by two of today’s foremost epistemologists. Includes an extensive bibliography. (shrink)

In Epistemology, Laurence Bonjour introduces the serious philosophy student to the history and concepts of epistemology, while simultaneously challenging them to take an active part in its ongoing debates. The text reflects BonJour's conviction that the place to start any discussion of the theories of knowledge is with the classical problems, beginning with and centered around Descartes.

This book is concerned with the alleged capacity of the human mind to arrive at beliefs and knowledge about the world on the basis of pure reason without any dependence on sensory experience. Most recent philosophers reject the view and argue that all substantive knowledge must be sensory in origin. Laurence BonJour provocatively reopens the debate by presenting the most comprehensive exposition and defence of the rationalist view that a priori insight is a genuine basis for knowledge. This important (...) book will be at the centre of debate about the theory of knowledge for many years to come. (shrink)

In “Internalism and Externalism,” Laurence BonJour suggests that the contemporary epistemological debate over internalism and externalism concerns the formulation of the justification or warrant condition in an account of knowledge. The internalist requires that for a belief to meet this condition, all of the necessary elements must be cognitively accessible to the believer, whereas the externalist claims that at least some such elements do not need to be accessible to the believer. BonJour gives an overview of this dispute. He (...) suggests that the opposition between the two views is less straightforward than has usually been thought. He proposes, in addition, that each of them has valuable roles to play in major epistemological issues, even though the internalist approach is more fundamental in an important way. (shrink)

Several approaches to clinical ethics consultation (CEC) exist in medical practice and are widely discussed in the clinical ethics literature; different models of CECs are classified according to their methods, goals, and consultant’s attitude. Although the “facilitation” model has been endorsed by the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) and is described in an influential manual, alternative approaches, such as advocacy, moral expertise, mediation, and engagement are practiced and defended in the clinical ethics field. Our Clinical Ethics Center in (...) Paris was founded in 2002 in the wake of the Patients’ Rights Act, and to date it is the largest center that provides consultation services in France. In this article we shall describe and defend our own approach to clinical ethics consultation, which we call the “Commitment Model,” in comparison with other existing models. Indeed commitment implies, among other meanings, continuity through time, a series of coherent actions, and the realization of important social goals. By drawing on a recent consultation case, we shall describe the main steps of our consultation procedure: interviews with major stakeholders, including patients and proxies; case conferences; and follow up. We shall show why we have chosen the term “commitment” to represent our approach at three different but interrelated levels: commitment towards patients, within the case conference group, and towards society as a whole. (shrink)

Summary The article discusses the decline of Aristotelian physics at the University of Paris in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. A course of physics remained essentially Aristotelian until the final decade of the seventeenth century, when it came under the influence of Descartes. But the history of physics teaching over this period cannot be properly appreciated if it is simply seen in terms of the replacement of one physical philosophy by another. Long before the 1690s, the traditional Aristotelianism of (...) the Schools had been forced to come to terms with the New Science to some degree, while the Cartesianism of the early eighteenth century was always alive to the challenges to Descartes's particular physical theories. Except in the early seventeenth century the physics course at Paris was always in a state of change. The replacement of Aristotelian by Cartesian physics too involved the development of a novel epistemology. Although both Aristotelian and Cartesian professors believed that natural philosophy was a science of causes based upon a priori principles, the latter had a far more probabilist conception of physics. (shrink)

Though usually Edmund Burke is identified as the first to articulate the principles of a modern conservative political tradition, arguably he was preceded by a Scotsman who is better known for espousing a brilliant concept of skepticism. As Laurence Bongie notes, "David Hume was undoubtedly the eighteenth-century British writer whose works were most widely known and acclaimed on the Continent during the later Enlightenment period. Hume's impact in France] was of undeniable importance, greater even for a time than the (...) related influence of Burke, although it represents a contribution to French counter-revolutionary thought which, unlike that of Burke, has been almost totally ignored by historians to this day." The bulk of Bongie's work consists of the writings of French readers of Hume who were confronted, first, by the ideology of human perfection and, finally, by the actual terrors of the French Revolution. Offered in French in the original edition of David Hume published by Oxford University Press in 1965, these vitally important writings have been translated by the author into English for the Liberty Fund second edition. In his foreword, Donald Livingston observes that "If conservatism is taken to be an intellectual critique of the first attempt at modern total revolution, then the first such event was not the French but the Puritan revolution, and the first systematic critique of this sort of act was given by Hume." Laurence L. Bongie is Professor Emeritus of French at the University of British Columbia. Donald Livingston is Professor of Philosophy at Emory University. Please note: This title is available as an ebook for purchase on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and iTunes. (shrink)

The essays in Politics, Nature, and Piety take up the central question of political philosophy: What is the good life, and what place do nature, politics, and piety have in that life? 'The unity of the essays,' Alex Priou writes in his introduction, 'lies in the various tensions explored: between ancients and moderns, religion and philosophy, magnanimity and prudence, justice and friendship, and, most fundamentally, spiritedness and the intellect.' Laurence Berns proves an excellent guide for beginning one's study of (...) the great books of political philosophy, from Plato to the present." --Publisher's description. (shrink)

What sorts of things qualify as first principles of reasoning and what kind of justification for them can be offered? We think of principles like that of non-contradiction as first principles of reasoning. Laurence Bloom argues that Plato’s Republic, the first text that affords us a complete statement of the Principle of Non-contradiction, offers us a powerful, complex and detailed argument for taking form—specifically that of the good—as the first principle of both knowing and being.

In this paper I am primarily interested in establishing that a coherence theory of truth is conceptually incoherent. Although my primary concern is with the coherence theory of truth, I shall point out that the problem I raise has a striking parallel in a now well-known objection to coherence theories of justification (an objection that, ironically, was brought to the fore by a proponent of a coherence theory of justification, Laurence Bonjour).

Em “O Mito do Conhecimento”, Laurence BonJour defende a tese de que a concepção “falibilista” de conhecimento, assumida de modo preponderante pelos epistemólogos na era pós-Gettier, “está errada”, pois tal concepção “fraca” de conhecimento proporciona pouca satisfação da perspectiva filosófica e é inexistente no âmbito do senso comum, constituindo tão-somente um “mito filosófico”.

Em “O Mito do Conhecimento”, Laurence BonJour defende a tese de que a concepção “falibilista” de conhecimento, assumida de modo preponderante pelos epistemólogos na era pós-Gettier, “está errada”, pois tal concepção “fraca” de conhecimento proporciona pouca satisfação da perspectiva filosófica e é inexistente no âmbito do senso comum, constituindo tão-somente um “mito filosófico”.

L’objet de cette contribution est de montrer comment le recours « aveugle » aux caractères et au formalisme transforme, pour Leibniz, l’exercice de l’attention. Plus précisément, il s’agira de montrer en s’appuyant sur divers opuscules que le formalisme permet à la fois d’épargner l’attention, de la concentrer, de l’élargir, de la séquencer et de la transformer en un exercice collectif.

_From the Eye of the Storm: Regional Conflicts and the Philosophy of Peace_ presents to the reader a cross section of an emerging field of study: the philosophy of peace. The editors bring together articles that explore the philosophic implications of many recent regional conflicts. Reflecting the diversity and vitality and any new field of study, this volume contains five sections: Conceptual Foundations; America's Homefront; Desert Storm Assessments; _Jihad, Intifada_, and Other Mideast Concerns; and Latin American Issues. The topics of (...) the articles include war, militarism, patriotism, nationalism, nonviolence, conscientious objection, feminist peace, the media, the ethics of the Gulf War, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Islamic pacifism, and Latin American resistance. A concluding postscript assesses prospects for achieving peace and change within our fast changing international scene. This volume has an extensive bibliography of writings concerning peace and conflict and is suited to professional and student audiences. (shrink)

Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophy demonstrates that intelligence is ultimately at the behest of responsibility. He is one of a number of philosophers who made the paradigm shift from an individualized notion of self to a social conception of self. He used the language of his teachers, Husserl and Heidegger, to move beyond their philosophies to a fundamental paradigm shift, in which ethics is prior to epistemology.

This article explores the speed and form in which the mechanical philosophy was absorbed into the college curriculum in Louis XIV’s France. It argues that in general a mechanist approach to nature only began to be received sympathetically after 1690. It also emphasizes that it was the Cartesian not Gassendist form of the mechanical philosophy that professors espoused. While admitting that at present it is impossible to explain successfully the history of the reception of the mechanical philosophy in the classroom, (...) the article concludes by attempting to throw light on the French preference for Descartes. This, it is suggested, is linked to the relative familiarity of Cartesian mechanism, the way the philosophy was packaged, and the political and religious environment. (shrink)

(1995). Discoursing on method in the university world of Descartes's France 1 . British Journal for the History of Philosophy: Vol. 3, No. 1, pp. 3-28.

(2010). Enlightenment Contested. Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670–1752. Intellectual History Review: Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 285-287. doi: 10.1080/17496971003783864.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Past and Future of Utopian StudiesLaurence Davis (bio)This critical forum on “The Past and Future of Utopian Studies” originated as a roundtable discussion at the conference, “Opening Utopia: New Directions in Utopian Studies,” held at the University of Brighton in July 2022. The title of the conference reflected a determination on the part of the program coordination team—Patricia McManus (University of Brighton), Laurence Davis (University College Cork), (...) Siân Adiseshiah (Loughborough University), Antonis Balasopoulos (University of Cyprus), Tom Moylan (University of Limerick), Michael G. Kelly (University of Limerick), Emrah Atasoy (Cappadocia University), and Ross Sparkes (University of Brighton)—to make the conference an inclusive and potentially radically transformative event, one that would challenge entrenched orthodoxies in the field of utopian studies and help scholars and activists chart new directions in utopian scholarship and practice.This transformative ethos was reflected in the collaboratively produced conference call for papers, which stipulated that the event was dedicated to an exploration of radical utopian thinking and revolutionary praxis. The conference, we emphasized, was intended to create a welcoming and broadly [End Page 478] inclusive space where participants could explore the role of utopian thinking, imagination, and practice in addressing some of the fundamental challenges of our times. Towards this end we appended to the call a section, entitled “USS and Utopia Beyond the University,” in which we noted that our aim was to design a program that would center work intended to blur or break the well-policed and expensive borders between the university and the communities within which universities sit. We proposed, and indeed later fulfilled the promise, to work with local activists in Brighton to establish some in-person and remote-access events that would highlight and explore radical hope as it is present in the politics of migrant solidarity, co-housing initiatives, and anarchist and queer groups and spaces. We also explicitly invited contributions from those working outside the formal limits of academia or who were inside academic spaces pushing out. The enthusiastic response to the call for papers exceeded all expectations, and the resulting conference program was exceptionally varied and promising and indeed suggestive of many possible new directions in utopian studies. What follows in this special section of Utopian Studies is a product of one very lively five-person conference panel that I co-organized with Antonis Balasopoulos (University of Cyprus).The chief impetus for the transformation from conference panel to special journal section was an email invitation from the then-editor of Utopian Studies, who had attended the session and who subsequently invited us to revise and elaborate the talks for publication in the journal. Interestingly, the journal editor suggested that the contributions might provide answers to two questions: first, “where do you see the value of utopian studies in our dark times?” and second, “how can utopia and utopianism inspire activism and political changes?”In response, and speaking in my capacity as the panel chair and prospective editor of the special section, I noted that while it would be fascinating to see the contributors address questions of the value of utopian studies in our dark times, and specifically how utopia and utopianism might inspire activism and political change, such a remit would not get to the heart of what was distinctive about either our panel or the Brighton conference as a whole. The Brighton conference was dedicated specifically to an exploration of radical utopian thinking and revolutionary practice. And its title, “Opening Utopia: New Directions in Utopian Studies” suggested that utopia can be a catalyst for transformative change only if the study of utopia(s) is itself open, or “opened,” to radical influences. In our panel we explored both the past and some possible futures of utopian studies and considered “new [End Page 479] directions” that might facilitate more radical utopian thinking and revolutionary practice. While all of the contributors celebrated utopia’s transformative potential, they also criticized aspects of the field of utopian studies that arguably have limited that transformative potential, including its “blind spots” in relation to the “organizational imaginary” (Balasopoulos), its own privileged “whiteness” and colonial prerogatives (Edwards), its Anglo-American focus and tendency to overlook significant social movements outside... (shrink)

An examination of some of the ethical issues that arise in making policy decisions about divorce child-custody disputes. It is argued in this paper that what needs to be resolved is the dilemma that occurs when the legislator is faced with a choice between using a discretionary standard that promotes the best interests of the child or a non-discretionary standard that settles disputes by an arbitrary assignment of custody. The dilemma is resolved through a normative analysis of various types of (...) dispute-settling processes and a canvas of standard that allow for the automatic but non-arbitrary settling of disputes between contending parents. (shrink)

This book offers a unique synthesis of past and current work on the structure, meaning, and use of negation and negative expressions, a topic that has engaged thinkers from Aristotle and the Buddha to Freud and Chomsky. Horn's masterful study melds a review of scholarship in philosophy, psychology, and linguistics with original research, providing a full picture of negation in natural language and thought; this new edition adds a comprehensive preface and bibliography, surveying research since the book's original publication.

In this incisive new book one of Britain's most eminent philosophers explores the often overlooked tension between voluntariness and involuntariness in human cognition. He seeks to counter the widespread tendency for analytic epistemology to be dominated by the concept of belief. Is scientific knowledge properly conceived as being embodied, at its best, in a passive feeling of belief or in an active policy of acceptance? Should a jury's verdict declare what its members involuntarily believe or what they voluntarily accept? And (...) should statements and assertions be presumed to express what their authors believe or what they accept? Does such a distinction between belief and acceptance help to resolve the paradoxes of self-deception and akrasia? Must people be taken to believe everything entailed by what they believe, or merely to accept everything entailed by what they accept? Through a systematic examination of these problems, the author sheds new light on issues of crucial importance in contemporary epistemology, philosophy of mind, and cognitive science. (shrink)

The book was planned and written as a single, sustained argument. But earlier versions of a few parts of it have appeared separately. The object of this book is both to establish the existence of the paradoxes, and also to describe a non-Pascalian concept of probability in terms of which one can analyse the structure of forensic proof without giving rise to such typical signs of theoretical misfit. Neither the complementational principle for negation nor the multiplicative principle for conjunction applies (...) to the central core of any forensic proof in the Anglo-American legal system. There are four parts included in this book. Accordingly, these parts have been written in such a way that they may be read in different orders by different kinds of reader. (shrink)

Given the fundamental role that concepts play in theories of cognition, philosophers and cognitive scientists have a common interest in concepts. Nonetheless, there is a great deal of controversy regarding what kinds of things concepts are, how they are structured, and how they are acquired. This chapter offers a detailed high-level overview and critical evaluation of the main theories of concepts and their motivations. Taking into account the various challenges that each theory faces, the chapter also presents a novel approach (...) to concepts that is organized around two ideas. The first is a pluralistic view of differing types of conceptual structure. The second is a model that treats concepts as atomic representations that are linked to various types of conceptual structures. (shrink)

Johnathan Cohen's book provides a lucid and penetrating treatment of the fundamental issues of contemporary analytical philosophy. This field now spans a greater variety of topics and divergence of opinion than fifty years ago, and Cohen's book addresses the presuppositions implicit to it and the patterns of reasoning on which it relies.

Ben Laurence argues for a political philosophy that unifies theory and practice in pursuit of change. He shows that the task of political philosophy is not complete until the political philosopher asks the question "What is to be done?" and deliberates about the answer with agents of change.