Political Freedom By George G. Brenkert Routledge, 1991. Pp. 278. ISBN 0–415–03372–1. £35 hbk.Wittgenstein: A Bibliographical Guide By Guido Frongia and Brian McGuinness Basil Blackwell, 1990. Pp. x + 438. ISBN 00631–13765–3. £60.00.Metaphysics By Peter van Inwagen Oxford University Press, 1993. Pp. xiii + 222. ISBN 0–19–8751400. £11.95 pbk.The Nature of Moral Thinking By Francis Snare Routledge, 1992. Pp. 187. ISBN 0–415–04709–9. £9.99 pbk.Filosofía analitica hoy: Encuentro de tradiciones Edited by Mercedes Torrevejano Servicio de Publications Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, (...) 1991. Pp. 284. ISBN 84–7191–722‐X. $15.5 pbk.The Puzzle of Experience By J.J. Valberg Clarendon Press, 1992. Pp. 227. ISBN 0–19–824291–3. £25.Religion and Philosophy Edited by Martin Warner Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement: 31 Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. vi + 155. ISBN 0–521–42951‐X. £10.95 pbk.The Uses of Philosophy By Mary Warnock Blackwell, 1992. Pp. 256. ISBN 0–631–18038–9. £35.00 hbk. £11.95 pbk.The Disappearance of Time: Kurt Godel and the Idealistic Tradition in Philosophy By Palle Yourgrau Cambridge University Press, 1991. Pp. x + 182. ISBN 0–521–41012–6. £27.50. (shrink)

Although it has been given qualified approval by a number of philosophers of education, the so-called ‘therapeutic turn’ in education has been the subject of criticism by several commentators on post-compulsory and adult learning over the last few years. A key feature of this alleged development in recent educational policy is said to be the replacement of the traditional goals of knowledge and understanding with personal and social objectives concerned with enhancing and developing confidence and self-esteem in learners. After offering (...) some critical observations on these developments, I suggest that there are some educationally justifiable goals underpinning what has been described as a therapeutic turn. Whilst accepting that ‘self-esteem’ and cognate concepts cannot provide a general end or universal aim of education, the therapeutic function is more valuable and significant than is generally acknowledged. This claim is justified by an examination of the concept of ‘mindfulness’ that, it is argued, can be an immensely powerful and valuable notion, which is integrally connected with the centrally transformative and developmental nature of learning and educational activity at all levels. (shrink)

This biography provides a stimulating and coherent blend of scientific and personal narratives describing the many achievements of the theoretical physicist Herbert Fröhlich. For more than half a century, Fröhlich was an internationally renowned and much respected figure who exerted a decisive influence, often as a 'man ahead of his time', in fields as diverse as meson theory and biology. Although best known for his contributions to the theory of dielectrics and superconductivity, he worked in many other fields, his most (...) important legacy being the pioneering introduction quantum field-theoretical methods into condensed matter physics in 1952, which revolutionised the subsequent development of the subject. Gerard Hyland has written an absorbing and informative account, in which Herbert Fröhlich's magnetic personality shines through. (shrink)

What are the conditions under which one biological object is a part of another biological object? This paper answers this question by developing a general, systematic account of biological parthood. I specify two criteria for biological parthood. Substantial Spatial Inclusionrequires biological parts to be spatially located inside or in the region that the natural boundary of t he biological whole occupies. Compositional Relevance captures the fact that a biological part engages in a biological process that must make a necessary contribution (...) to a condition that is minimally sufficient to one or more of the characteristic behaviors of the biological whole. Instead of emphasizing the diversity of part-whole relations in the biological world, this paper asks what biological part-whole relations have in common and what constrains their existence, in general. After presenting the two criteria for biological parthood I discuss in how far my account can cope with hard cases (e.g., redundant parts) and I reveal the merits and limits of monism. (shrink)

This article explores the organization of instructional corrections in pre-clinical dental education. The students are practising manual skills using a simulator and tutors are inspecting and evaluating their progress. Simulators and simulation are critical to the organization of contemporary healthcare training, and the academic literature that explores forms of simulation in healthcare tends to consider the ‘fidelity’ of systems and the extent to which they match the clinical situations that they are designed to mimic. In contrast, this article considers how (...) tutors and students explicitly attend to matters of realism in the course of instructional sequences. We highlight the ways in which tutors routinely invoke ‘real life’ in instructional corrections and we discuss how these sequences reveal the work that tutors undertake to compensate for the ‘chronic insufficiency’ of the simulator. We show how tutors emphasize the reasoned character of manual bodily skills, reasons linked to the complexities and contingencies of clinical practice. To explore these issues and concerns, the article draws on the analysis of audio-visual data of everyday instruction. (shrink)

How is hope to be found amid the ethical and political dilemmas of modern life? Writer and philosopher Mary Zournazi brought her questions to some of the most thoughtful intellectuals at work today. She discusses "joyful revolt" with Julia Kristeva, the idea of "the rest of the world" with Gayatri Spivak, the "art of living" with Michel Serres, the "carnival of the senses" with Michael Taussig, the relation of hope to passion and to politics with Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto (...) Laclau. A dozen stimulating minds weigh in with their visions of a better social and political order. The result is a collaboration - of writing, of thinking, and of politics - that demonstrates more clearly than any single-authored project could how ideas encountering one another can produce the vision needed for social change. (shrink)

Mary Shepherd's An Essay upon the Relation of Cause and Effect, first published in 1824, was a pioneering work in metaphysics and epistemology. Together with her 1827 Essays on the Perception of an External Universe, they make her one of the most important philosophers of her era. Although widely neglected by the history of philosophy in the decades after her death, her works have recently begun to attract the attention and sustained study they deserve. In the course of her (...) writings, Shepherd offers trenchant and detailed rebuttals of the arguments and conclusions of many prominent predecessors-including George Berkeley, Thomas Reid, Dugald Stewart, Thomas Brown, William Lawrence, and especially David Hume-but she is no merely negative thinker. On the contrary, her critiques are always in the service of her own distinctive and highly original doctrines, which are of striking contemporary interest. Appearing two hundred years after its original publication, this is the first full modern edition of her first book, which presents and defends the theory of causation and scientific knowledge that constitutes the cornerstone of her entire philosophy. The edition includes an extensive introduction and scholarly notes throughout that provide historical and philosophical context while explaining the central ideas of the work. It also includes Shepherd's two essays published in 1828 and all of her known letters-all but one of them published here for the first time-which shed significant additional light on her philosophical ideas. (shrink)

Anger has potential epistemic value in the way that it can facilitate a process of our coming to have knowledge and understanding regarding the issue about which we are angry. The nature of anger, however, may nevertheless be such that it ultimately undermines this very process. Common non-philosophical complaints about anger, for instance, often target the angry person as being somehow irrational, where an unformulated assumption is that her anger undermines her capacity to rationally engage with the issue about which (...) she is angry. Call this assumption the charge of emotional irrationality regarding anger. Such a charge is pernicious when levelled at the anger of those in positions of marginalisation or oppression, where it can threaten to silence voices on the very issue of the injustices that they face. In this paper I thus provide a much-needed interrogation of this charge. Firstly, and drawing on empirical literature on the effects of anger on decision-making, I flesh out the charge and why it poses a threat to how the epistemic value of anger has been defended. Secondly, I argue that the charge of emotional irrationality regarding anger can nevertheless be unwarranted, at least within a common context of political anger. (shrink)

Discussion of Wittgenstein's Tractatus is currently dominated by two opposing interpretations of the work: a metaphysical or realist reading and the 'resolute' reading of Diamond and Conant. Marie McGinn's principal aim in this book is to develop an alternative interpretative line, which rejects the idea, central to the metaphysical reading, that Wittgenstein sets out to ground the logic of our language in features of an independently constituted reality, but which allows that he aims to provide positive philosophical insights into how (...) language functions. McGinn takes as a guiding principle the idea that we should see Wittgenstein's early work as an attempt to eschew philosophical theory and to allow language itself to reveal how it functions. By this account, the aim of the work is to elucidate what language itself makes clear, namely, what is essential to its capacity to express thoughts that are true or false. However, the early Wittgenstein undertakes this descriptive project in the grip of a set of preconceptions concerning the essence of language that determine both how he conceives the problem and the approach he takes to the task of clarification. Nevertheless, the Tractatus contains philosophical insights, achieved despite his early preconceptions, that form the foundation of his later philosophy. -/- The anti-metaphysical interpretation that is presented includes a novel reading of the problematic opening sections of the Tractatus, in which the apparently metaphysical status of Wittgenstein's remarks is shown to be an illusion. The book includes a discussion of the philosophical background to the Tractatus, a comprehensive interpretation of Wittgenstein's early views of logic and language, and an interpretation of the remarks on solipsism. The final chapter is a discussion of the relation between the early and the later philosophy that articulates the fundamental shift in Wittgenstein's approach to the task of understanding how language functions and reveal the still more fundamental continuity in his conception of his philosophical task. (shrink)

Agonistic Democracy explores how theoretical concepts from agonistic democracy can inform institutional design in order to mediate conflict in multicultural, pluralist societies. Drawing on the work of Foucault, Nietzsche, Schmitt, and Arendt, Marie Paxton outlines the importance of their themes of public contestation, contingency and necessary interdependency for contemporary agonistic thinkers. Paxton delineates three distinct approaches to agonistic democracy: David Owen's perfectionist agonism, Mouffe's adversarial agonism, and William Connolly and James Tully's inclusive agonism. Paxton demonstrates how each is fundamental to (...) enabling citizens to cultivate better virtues for themselves and society (Owen), motivating democratic engagement (Mouffe) and enhancing relations of respect and understanding between conflicting citizens (Connolly and Tully). Situated within the context of a deeply polarised post-Trump America and post-Brexit Britain, this book reveals the need to rethink our approach to conflict mediation through democratic institutions. Pulling together insights from experimental research with deliberative democratic innovations, Paxton explores how agonistic theory might be institutionalised further. Through discussing ways in which agonistic institutions might be developed to render democracy more virtuous, more engaging, and more inclusive, Agonistic Democracy provides a unique resource for students of contemporary political theory. (shrink)

Scientific culture in Europe and the refugee generation -- Germany and Weimar Berlin as the City of Science -- Origins of a social perspective: doing physical chemistry in Weimar Berlin -- Chemical dynamics and social dynamics in Berlin and Manchester -- Liberalism and the economic foundations of the "Republic of Science" -- Scientific freedom and the social functions of science -- Political foundations of the philosophies of science of Popper, Kuhn, and Polanyi -- Personal knowledge: argument, audiences, and sociological engagement (...) -- Epilogue: SSK, scientific constructivism, and the paradoxical legacy of Polanyi and the 1930s generation. (shrink)

In this book, Mary Midgely turns a spotlight on the fashionable view that we no longer need or use moral judgements. She shows how the question of whether or not we can make moral judgements must inevitably affect our attitudes to the law and its institutions, but also to events that occur in our daily lives.

This paper responds to John Burgess's ‘Mathematics and _Bleak House_’. While Burgess's rejection of hermeneutic fictionalism is accepted, it is argued that his two main attacks on revolutionary fictionalism fail to meet their target. Firstly, ‘philosophical modesty’ should not prevent philosophers from questioning the truth of claims made within successful practices, provided that the utility of those practices as they stand can be explained. Secondly, Carnapian scepticism concerning the meaningfulness of _metaphysical_ existence claims has no force against a _naturalized_ version (...) of fictionalism, according to which our ordinary standards of scientific evidence may show that we have no reason to believe the mathematical existence claims made within the context of our mathematical and scientific theories. (shrink)

Mr. F. is a fifty‐year‐old father of two school‐aged daughters. Six years ago, he received a double lung transplant because he was suffering from interstitial lung disease, a fatal illness that causes suffocation by progressive scarring of the lungs. He is now experiencing chronic rejection of the transplant and is being considered to receive another. Without it, he is expected to survive only a year and a half. With it, his prognosis will improve, but the numbers are still not good. (...) Three years after his lung transplant, Mr. F. stopped attending his office visits. For a period of sixteen months he went without the studies and attention essential to posttransplant care. He stopped performing the required daily self‐monitoring of his lung function about eight months after his transplant, but he has maintained a regular exercise regimen. While lost to follow‐up, he continued to take his immunosuppressant medications, but he stopped taking medicine to control his high blood pressure because of its expense. (shrink)

This is the first modern edition of the works of Lady Mary Shepherd, one of the most important women philosophers of the early modern period. Shepherd has been widely neglected in the history of philosophy, but her work engaged with the dominant philosophers of the time - among them Hume, Berkeley, and Reid. In particular, her 1827 volume Essays on the Perception of an External Universe outlines a theory of causation, perception, and knowledge which Shepherd presents as an alternative (...) to what she sees as the mistaken views of Berkeley and Hume. What she ultimately presents is an original and systematic metaphysics and epistemology. Shepherd's Essays consists of two parts. The first is a theory of perception and knowledge of the external world, which is designed to rebut idealism and skepticism about the external world and show that our ordinary beliefs are based on reason. The second is a collection of essays on topics in metaphysics and epistemology, including the immateriality and eternity of the mind, the relationship between mind and body, the possibility of miracles, the association of ideas, the relationship between physical and mathematical reasoning, and the epistemology of testimony. Antonia LoLordo's edition of Shepherd's Essays includes scholarly notes throughout the text that provide historical and philosophical context and expand on the major concepts of Shepherd's system. Her extensive introduction to Shepherd's life and works surveys some of the major points of Shepherd's system, points out directions for future research, and offers guidance for readers planning to teach her work in their courses. This volume is an invaluable primary resource for scholars, graduate students, and undergraduates interested in metaphysics, epistemology, and early modern philosophy. (shrink)

This chapter, which examines the unity shared between what appear to be conflicting modes of natural investigation, an often neglected aspect of the history of British natural philosophy, also discusses the views of Francis Bacon on observation and experiment and describes his system of the sciences. It looks at aspects of Bacon's program for natural philosophy that made critics set the divide Baconian natural philosophy and the mathematical sciences of the seventeenth century. The chapter furthermore highlights the role of the (...) Baconian system of the sciences in the acceptance of Isaac Newton's Principia mathematica. (shrink)

«Claros del bosque» es uno de los libros esenciales de la trayectoria filosófica de María Zambrano en el que vemos, por primera vez, en marcha su «razón poética». Nadie mejor que la propia autora para presentarnos el significado de esta obra: “«Claros del bosque» dentro de mi pensamiento vertido en lo impreso, salvo alguna excepción, aparece como algo inédito salido de ese escribir irreprimible que brota por sí mismo y que ha ido a parar a cuadernos y hojas que nadie (...) conoce, ni yo misma, reacia que soy a releerme. Tenía que suceder por fuerza. Mas creo que el carácter de ofrenda de «Claros del bosque» a la persona a quien va dedicado en su tránsito tiene que ver en ello, acentuando así el carácter de ofrenda que todo lo que he publicado tiene desde siempre. Nada es de extrañar que la razón discursiva apenas aparezca. Con anterioridad esbocé una ‘Crítica de la razón discursiva’ que no podría prometerme que salga de ese estado. Creo, pues, que como libro es el que más responde a esa ‘idea’ hace tiempo formulada de que ‘pensar es ante todo –como raíz, como acto–– descifrar lo que se siente’, entendiendo por sentir el ‘sentir originario’, expresión usada por mí desde hace años. Y también que ‘el hombre es el ser que padece su propia trascendencia’ en un incesante proceso de unificación entre pasividad y conocimiento, entre ser y vida. Vida verdadera, sorprendida tan sólo en algunos claros que se abren en la espesura inicial entre cielo y tierra. Y en el remoto horizonte donde cielo y tierra, ser y vida, vida y muerte se anegan”. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Vocational‐Academic Distinctions Criticisms of the Vocational Education/General Education Dichotomy The Front‐end Model and its Increasing Problems Vocational Education and Training: Developments and Strategies Conclusion: Enhancing Vocational Studies.

Inspired and in honor of the work of noted political theorist Mary P. Nichols, the essays in this volume explore political ideas and implications in a range of works of philosophy, literature, and film from classical antiquity to the present day, creating an interdisciplinary conversation across genres.

How do we act justly in the world? How can we ethically respond to social and economic crisis and the desperation caused by violence and atrocity? Justice and Love is a philosophical dialogue on how to imagine and act in a more just world by theologian Rowan Williams and philosopher Mary Zournazi. Drawing on examples from the European Migrant Crisis to Brexit, the authors reflect on justice as a condition of being rather than cold fact. Looking at different religious (...) and philosophical traditions to enrich our language of justice, this book explores the love and patience needed for social healing and the imagination required to experience the world in new ways. (shrink)

En este libro, la autora desarrolla su concepción del juicio reflexionante inspirada en Emmanuel Kant y en Hannah Arendt para concentrarse en cómo cierto tipo de narraciones modelan nuestras nociones de lo que consideramos moral. Lara nos ofrece distintas concepciones sobre el mal en su formulación histórica mediante los ejemplos de las tragedias griegas, las diferentes concepciones sobre el mal en la obra de Shakespeare, el uso literario de la metáfora en la obra de Joseph Conrad y en narraciones fílmicas (...) que describen la crueldad humana. Lara sugiere que el aprendizaje moral es un proceso en el que intervienen las instituciones sociales, la voluntad de los individuos y de las sociedades para comprometerse a un debate abierto y con ello modelar los juicios colectivos sobre el pasado. Lara enfatiza que el juicio reflexionante se da entre un evento, una narración de dicho evento y la recepción pública de dicha narrativa. En este libro se aportan importantes métodos para la comprensión del fenómeno moral del mal, porque introducen nuevas verdades desvelatorias acerca de eventos particulares que no pueden ser simplemente captados por medio de categorías conceptuales. Lara utiliza como fuentes a Jürgen Habermas, Walter Benjamin, Primo Levi, Giorgio Agamben y Ariel Dorfman para probar la conclusión de este tipo de narraciones: la acción (de crueldad) ata de manera definitiva al perpetrador con su víctima. (shrink)

A great deal of research has now established that written texts embody interactions between writers and readers. A range of linguistic features have been identified as contributing to the writer's projection of a stance to the material referenced by the text, and, to a lesser extent, the strategies employed to presuppose the active role of an addressee. As yet, however, there is no overall typology of the resources writers employ to express their positions and connect with readers. Based on an (...) analysis of 240 published research articles from eight disciplines and insider informant interviews, I attempt to address this gap and consolidate much of my earlier work to offer a framework for analysing the linguistic resources of intersubjective positioning. Attending to both stance and engagement, the model provides a comprehensive and integrated way of examining the means by which interaction is achieved in academic argument and how the discoursal preferences of disciplinary communities construct both writers and readers. (shrink)

Mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are being actively implemented in a wide range of fields – psychology, mind/body health care and education at all levels – and there is growing evidence of their effectiveness in aiding present-moment focus, fostering emotional stability, and enhancing general mind/body well-being. However, as often happens with popular innovations, the burgeoning interest in and appeal of mindfulness practice has led to a reductionism and commodification – popularly labelled ‘McMindfulness’ – of the underpinning principles and ethical foundations of such (...) practice which threatens to subvert and militate against the achievement of the original aims of MBIs in general and their educational function in particular. It is argued here that mindfulness practice needs to be organically connected to its spiritual roots if the educational benefits of such practice are to be fully realised. (shrink)

Drew A. Hyland, one of Continental philosophy's keenest interpreters of Plato, takes up the question of beauty in three Platonic dialogues, the Hippias Major, Symposium, and Phaedrus. What Plato meant by beauty is not easily characterized, and Hyland's close readings show that Plato ultimately gives up on the possibility of a definition. Plato's failure, however, tells us something important about beauty—that it cannot be reduced to logos. Exploring questions surrounding love, memory, and ideal form, Hyland draws out (...) the connections between beauty, the possibility of philosophy, and philosophical living. This new reading of Plato provides a serious investigation into the meaning of beauty and places it at the very heart of philosophy. (shrink)

In Vodou Cosmology and the Haitian Revolution in the Enlightenment Ideals of Kant and Hegel, Vivaldi Jean-Marie begins with an interpretation of the rise of Vodou practices in Saint-Domingue which is sensitive to the social, spiritual and cultural challenges of the slaves communities in Saint-Domingue, later Haiti. He shows effectively that Vodou cosmology emerged as a spiritual, social and cultural technology for the enslaved to overcome the dissonance and brutality of slavery in Saint-Domingue. Vodou Cosmology thus assumes the tripartite role (...) of spiritual, social and cultural compass for slaves who, concurrently with the development of Vodou, managed to establish a common ethos. Furthermore, to situate the rise of Vodou cosmology within the larger discourse of the Enlightenment and argue that it heralded a radical Enlightenment in the African diaspora, Jean-Marie compares and contrasts some aspects of the philosophies of Kant and Hegel with the social, spiritual and cultural experience of the enslaved communities of Saint-Domingue. This comparison shows that Kant and Hegel's depiction of African Negroes' mores and their religious practices in the colonies fails to capture that Vodou cosmology was both a mechanism of resistance and the medium to restore their social, spiritual, and cultural identity against the backdrop of the Atlantic slave trade. Also, he elaborates the Enlightenment's conception of African Negroes as commercial currency and specifically Hegel's view of slavery in the colonies as the manifestation of divine providence. He concludes that the significance of the Haitian Revolution lies in the fact that it ascribed freedom to people of African descent in the diaspora and is thus implicit in later themes of black freedom. The Haitian Revolution ties blackness with freedom and mapped out a radical enlightenment in the European colonies. (shrink)

Le catalogue d'une exposition s'inscrivant dans la suite de Design et merveilleux (MAMC Saint-Etienne, 2018) et la Fabrique du vivant (Centre Pompidou Paris, 2019). Elle présente le lien du biomorphisme du design moderniste au biomimétisme contemporain ainsi qu'à la biofabrication et à la recréation du vivant par le design numérique.--Exhibition: Centre Pompidou-Metz, France (11.06.2022-06.02.2023).

Derrida and the Future of the Liberal Arts highlights the Derridean assertion that the university must exist 'without condition' - as a bastion of intellectual freedom and oppositional activity whose job it is to question mainstream society. Derrida argued that only if the life of the mind is kept free from excessive corporate influence and political control can we be certain that the basic tenets of democracy are being respected within the very societies that claim to defend democratic principles. This (...) collection contains eleven essays drawn from international scholars working in both the humanities and social sciences, and makes a well-grounded and comprehensive case for the importance of Derridean thought within the liberal arts today. Written by specialists in the fields of philosophy, literature, history, sociology, geography, political science, animal studies, and gender studies, each essay traces deconstruction's contribution to their discipline, explaining how it helps keep alive the 'unconditional', contrapuntal mission of the university. The book offers a forceful and persuasive corrective to the current assault on the liberal arts. (shrink)