Many will readily acknowledge there being rights of humans which trump the rights of states. Thus, these rights are aptly labeled ‘Human Rights,’ by which we may measure and admonish state-conduct. However, in contemporary Human Rights discourse, there is an emerging strand of thought in the academy that is Anti-Human Rights. To understand the foundations of Anti-Human Rights discourse, and to address the arguments that have been put forth, I analyze and incorporate the works of John O. Nelson, Raymond Geuss, (...) Wendy Brown, and Slavoj Žižek. Based on the same, I argue that the core arguments to these assertions are unpersuasive. I attempt at viewing Human Rights justification in different terms, and, to argue for the legitimacy of Human Rights while abandoning the search for justifications in nature, U.S. Foreign Policy, or Neo-Marxist views. (shrink)

William Uttal is concerned that in an effort to prove itself a hard science, psychology may have thrown away one of its most important methodological tools—a critical analysis of the fundamental assumptions that underlie day-to-day empirical research. In this book Uttal addresses the question of localization: whether psychological processes can be defined and isolated in a way that permits them to be associated with particular brain regions. New, noninvasive imaging technologies allow us to observe the brain while it is (...) actively engaged in mental activities. Uttal cautions, however, that the excitement of these new research tools can lead to a neuroreductionist wild goose chase. With more and more cognitive neuroscientific data forthcoming, it becomes critical to question their limitations as well as their potential. Uttal reviews the history of localization theory, presents the difficulties of defining cognitive processes, and examines the conceptual and technical difficulties that should make us cautious about falling victim to what may be a "neo-phrenological" fad. (shrink)

The last two decades have seen two significant trends emerging within the philosophy of science: the rapid development and focus on the philosophy of the specialised sciences, and a resurgence of Aristotelian metaphysics, much of which is concerned with the possibility of emergence, as well as the ontological status and indispensability of dispositions and powers in science. Despite these recent trends, few Aristotelian metaphysicians have engaged directly with the philosophy of the specialised sciences. Additionally, the relationship between fundamental Aristotelian concepts—such (...) as "hylomorphism", "substance", and "faculties"—and contemporary science has yet to receive a critical and systematic treatment. _Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives on Contemporary Science _aims to fill this gap in the literature by bringing together essays on the relationship between Aristotelianism and science that cut across interdisciplinary boundaries. The chapters in this volume are divided into two main sections covering the philosophy of physics and the philosophy of the life sciences. Featuring original contributions from distinguished and early-career scholars, this book will be of interest to specialists in analytical metaphysics and the philosophy of science. (shrink)

In Natural Ethical Facts William Casebeer argues that we can articulate a fully naturalized ethical theory using concepts from evolutionary biology and cognitive science, and that we can study moral cognition just as we study other forms of cognition. His goal is to show that we have "softly fixed" human natures, that these natures are evolved, and that our lives go well or badly depending on how we satisfy the functional demands of these natures. Natural Ethical Facts is a (...) comprehensive examination of what a plausible moral science would look like.Casebeer begins by discussing the nature of ethics and the possible relationship between science and ethics. He then addresses David Hume's naturalistic fallacy and G. E. Moore's open-question argument, drawing on the work of John Dewey and W. V. O. Quine. He then proposes a functional account of ethics, offering corresponding biological and moral descriptions. Discussing in detail the neural correlates of moral cognition, he argues that neural networks can be used to model ethical function. He then discusses the impact his views of moral epistemology and ontology will have on traditional ethical theory and moral education, concluding that there is room for other moral theories as long as they take into consideration the functional aspect of ethics; the pragmatic neo-Aristotelian virtue theory he proposes thus serves as a moral "big tent." Finally, he addresses objections to ethical naturalism that may arise, and calls for a reconciliation of the sciences and the humanities. "Living well," Casebeer writes, "depends upon reweaving our ethical theories into the warp and woof of our scientific heritage, attending to the myriad consequences such a project will have for the way we live our lives and the manner in which we structure our collective moral institutions.". (shrink)

In Natural Ethical Facts William Casebeer argues that we can articulate a fully naturalized ethical theory using concepts from evolutionary biology and cognitive science, and that we can study moral cognition just as we study other forms of cognition. His goal is to show that we have "softly fixed" human natures, that these natures are evolved, and that our lives go well or badly depending on how we satisfy the functional demands of these natures. Natural Ethical Facts is a (...) comprehensive examination of what a plausible moral science would look like.Casebeer begins by discussing the nature of ethics and the possible relationship between science and ethics. He then addresses David Hume's naturalistic fallacy and G. E. Moore's open-question argument, drawing on the work of John Dewey and W. V. O. Quine. He then proposes a functional account of ethics, offering corresponding biological and moral descriptions. Discussing in detail the neural correlates of moral cognition, he argues that neural networks can be used to model ethical function. He then discusses the impact his views of moral epistemology and ontology will have on traditional ethical theory and moral education, concluding that there is room for other moral theories as long as they take into consideration the functional aspect of ethics; the pragmatic neo-Aristotelian virtue theory he proposes thus serves as a moral "big tent." Finally, he addresses objections to ethical naturalism that may arise, and calls for a reconciliation of the sciences and the humanities. "Living well," Casebeer writes, "depends upon reweaving our ethical theories into the warp and woof of our scientific heritage, attending to the myriad consequences such a project will have for the way we live our lives and the manner in which we structure our collective moral institutions.". (shrink)

John Hawthorne in a recent paper takes issue with Lewisian accounts of counterfactuals, when relevant laws of nature are chancy. I respond to his arguments on behalf of the Lewisian, and conclude that while some can be rebutted, the case against the original Lewisian account is strong.I develop a neo-Lewisian account of what makes for closeness of worlds. I argue that my revised version avoids Hawthorne’s challenges. I argue that this is closer to the spirit of Lewis’s first (non-chancy) proposal (...) than is Lewis’s own suggested modification. (shrink)

John Hawthorne in a recent paper takes issue with Lewisian accounts of counterfactuals, when relevant laws of nature are chancy. I respond to his arguments on behalf of the Lewisian, and conclude that while some can be rebutted, the case against the original Lewisian account is strong. I develop a neo-Lewisian account of what makes for closeness of worlds. I argue that my revised version avoids Hawthorne's challenges. I argue that this is closer to the spirit of Lewis's first (non-chancy) (...) proposal than is Lewis's own suggested modification. (shrink)

ONE might characterize the late twentieth century as a period when men have become oblivious of nature. Not only- is the concept of human nature under attack, but the broader awareness of nature itself, of things that exist by nature as opposed to those that exist through other causes, is no longer part of our mental equipment. The ecological crisis and the near exhaustion of many natural resources bear eloquent witness to this state of affairs. The scientific and industrial revolutions (...) have made us proficient at converting the objects that surround us into artifacts, at "manipulating nature," if you will, but they have dulled our appreciation for the intelligibility of nature in its own right. As an example I would cite the latest theme to attract attention in the philosophy of science, that of scientific revolutions and theory change, which has sought to substitute the notion of progress for that of truth. According to Thomas Kuhn and Larry Laudan, among others, science can no longer be said to be concerned with investigating the truth about the universe in which we live-another way of speaking about the truth of nature. Instead, the goal of science is seen by them to be progress, progress defined in terms of problem-solving effectiveness rather than as an approach to truth. In their view rationality has ceased to have an extrinsic norm; men are rational to the extent that they can solve puzzles or problems, not to the extent that they can understand the world of nature that surrounds them. (shrink)

Despite the growing interest in Aristotelian approaches to contemporary philosophy of science, few metaphysicians have engaged directly with the question of how a neo-Aristotelian metaphysics of nature might change the landscape for theological discussion concerning theology and naturalism, the place of human beings within nature, or the problem of divine causality. The chapters in this volume are collected into three thematic sections: Naturalism and Nature, Mind and Nature, and God and Nature. By pushing the current boundaries of neo-Aristotelian metaphysics to (...) recover the traditional notion of substantial forms in physics, reframe the principle of proportionality in biology, and restore the hierarchy of being familiar to ancient philosophy, this book advances a metaphysically unified framework that accommodates both scientific and theological knowledge, enriching the interaction between science, philosophy and theology. Neo-Aristotelian Metaphysics and the Theology of Nature will be of interest to scholars and advanced students working in metaphysics, philosophy of science, natural theology, philosophical theology, and analytic theology. (shrink)

Discourse ethics represents an exciting new development in neo-Kantian moral theory. William Rehg offers an insightful introduction to its complex theorization by its major proponent, Jürgen Habermas, and demonstrates how discourse ethics allows one to overcome the principal criticisms that have been leveled against neo-Kantianism. Addressing both "commun-itarian" critics who argue that universalist conceptions of justice sever moral deliberation from community traditions, and feminist advocates of the "ethics of care" who stress the moral significance of caring for other individuals, (...) Rehg shows that discourse ethics combines impartiality with solidarity. He provides the first systematic reconstruction of Habermas's theory and explores its relationship to the work of such contemporary philosophers as Charles Taylor. His book articulates a bold alternative to the split between the "right" and the "good" in moral theory and will greatly interest philosophers, social and legal scholars, and political theorists. (shrink)

Esfeld has proposed a minimalist ontology of nature called ‘super-Humeanism’ that purports to accommodate quantum phenomena and avoid standard objections to neo-Humean metaphysics. I argue that Esfeld’s sparse ontology has counterintuitive consequences and generates two self-undermining dilemmas concerning the nature of time and space. Contrary to Esfeld, I deny that super-Humeanism supports an ontology of microscopic particles that follow continuous trajectories through space.

This book provides a unique, cogent, engaging account of environmental determinism that has long been much needed in the classroom and beyond." -- Andrew Sluyter, Associate Professor, Louisiana State University, USA This book pulls together major critiques of contemporary attempts to explain nature-society relations in an environmentally deterministic way. After defining key terms, it reviews the history of environmental determinism's rise and fall within geography in the early twentieth century. It discusses the key reasons for the doctrine's rejection and presents (...) alternative, non-deterministic frameworks developed within geography for analyzing the roles played by the environment in human affairs. The authors examine the rise in recent decades of neo-deterministic approaches to such issues as the demarcation of regions, the causes of civilizational collapse in prehistory, today's globally uneven patterns of human well-being, and the consequences of human-induced climate change. In each case, the authors draw on the insights and approaches of geography, the academic discipline most conversant with the interactions of society and environment, to challenge the widespread acceptance that such approaches have won. The book will appeal to those working on human-environmental research, international development and global policy initiatives. William B. Meyer is Associate Professor of Geography at Colgate University, USA. He is the author of several previous books, including Human Impact on the Earth, Americans and Their Weather: A History, and The Progressive Environmental Prometheans. His research interests include urban geography, environmental history, and the history of environmental thought. Dylan M.T. Guss works in the technology investment sector. (shrink)

Analytic philosophy of existence in the 20th century and beyond has been dominated by two central claims. One is that existence is instantiation. The other is that there are no modes of existence. This article attempts to refute both claims.

While differing widely in other respects, both neo-Humean and neo-Kantian approaches to normativity embrace an internalist thesis linking reasons for acting to potential motivation. This thesis pushes in different directions depending on the underlying view of the powers of practical reason, but either way it sets the stage for an attack on realist attempts to ground reasons directly in facts about value. How can reasons that are not somehow grounded in motivational features of the agent nonetheless count as reasons for (...) that particular agent, having genuine normative force for her? Won't any realist, externalist view threaten to alienate the individual from the reasons that obtain for her, particularly if she fails (even after rational deliberation) to care about the values that are supposed to ground them? I argue that such objections can successfully be answered, and that externalist views of reasons need not be plagued with normative alienation. Focusing largely on a recent debate between Williams and McDowell over the nature of normative reasons, I show that a value-based externalist theory, when properly conceived, can account for the normative relevance of reasons to the particular agents for whom they obtain. Moreover, Williams's own sophisticated neo-Humeanism turns out to be vulnerable to parallel charges of normative alienation, which it cannot escape without compromising the very psychologistic orientation that has been its chief attraction. Realist externalism about reasons turns out to be a more viable and attractive alternative to both neo-Humeanism and neo-Kantianism than many currently take it to be. (shrink)

Discourse ethics represents an exciting new development in neo-Kantian moral theory. William Rehg offers an insightful introduction to its complex theorization by its major proponent, Jürgen Habermas, and demonstrates how discourse ethics allows one to overcome the principal criticisms that have been leveled against neo-Kantianism. Addressing both "commun-itarian" critics who argue that universalist conceptions of justice sever moral deliberation from community traditions, and feminist advocates of the "ethics of care" who stress the moral significance of caring for other individuals, (...) Rehg shows that discourse ethics combines impartiality with solidarity. He provides the first systematic reconstruction of Habermas's theory and explores its relationship to the work of such contemporary philosophers as Charles Taylor. His book articulates a bold alternative to the split between the "right" and the "good" in moral theory and will greatly interest philosophers, social and legal scholars, and political theorists. (shrink)

This article provides an account of what may reasonably be inferred from Sallust’s historical writing about how he understands civil liberty, what he feels is necessary for it to exist in any given political society, why he feels it is important, and the extent to which he feels it is properly enjoyed by the plebeian citizens of Rome. On the basis of this account, the article revises recent arguments presented by Quentin Skinner, Philip Pettit and others concerning Sallust’s political thought (...) and how it is related to Aristotelian, republican, ‘neo-Roman’, and liberal traditions of political thought. (shrink)

Since 1984, the AHV journal has provided a key forum for a community of interdisciplinary, international researchers, educators, and policy makers to analyze and debate core issues, values and hopes facing the nation and the world, and to recommend strategies and actions for addressing them. This agenda includes the more specific challenges and opportunities confronting agriculture, food systems, science, and communities, as well as broader contextual issues and grand challenges. This paper draws extensively on 40 years of AHV journal articles (...) and reviews and begins with a focus on a limited number of key grand challenges (climate change and global warming; threats to democracy and the growing neo-nationalism, populism, and authoritarianism; and increasing national and international inequality). With these challenges as the underlining context, the remainder of the paper addresses core journal themes of sustainable agriculture and local food systems, citizen and public science, and empowered communities. Highlighted are numerous important journal contributions to the analyses and recommendations to address these hopes and themes. I conclude that these themes and hopes not only deserve to live but are essential for changing and redirecting an unsustainable and destructive environmental, economic, political and social agenda to a viable, livable and just democratic society. (shrink)

The present article is a slightly revised version of my article in Journal of Chinese Philosophy 39, no. 2 (2012): 174–91. I appreciate the opportunity to republish with very minor corrections. This article highlights sympathies between Wang Yangming’s notion of zhenzhi (real knowing) and Stanley Cavell’s concept of acknowledgment. I begin by noting a problem in interpreting Wang on the unity of knowing and acting, which leads to considering how our suffering pain figures in our “real knowing” of another’s pain. (...) I then turn to Cavell’s description of a related problem in modern skepticism, where Cavell argues that knowing another’s pain requires acknowledging it. Cavell’s concept of acknowledgment answers to Wang’s insistence that knowing and acting are one, and corrects Antonio Cua’s very different appropriation of “acknowledgment” to explain Wang’s doctrine. (shrink)

Toby Handfield has advanced a subtle form of dispositionalism that purports to reconcile the concept of causal powers with broadly Humean convictions by dissolving the requirement for objectively modal relations between powers and their manifestations. He suggests we should identify manifestations with certain types of causal processes, and identify powers with properties that are parts of their structures. The modal features of causal powers can then be explained in terms of internal relations between a power and the property of being (...) a certain type of causal process, but these relations are supervenient and do not add anything to the basic ontology. In this way, causal powers may be ‘connected’ to their manifestations without admitting objectively modal relations. I disagree with this characterisation of causal powers and its identification of manifestations with types of causal processes: I question the assumption that causal processes can be isolated in quantum physics in the way Handfield requires and confront Humean dispositionalism with the problem of individuating powers in an entangled world. (shrink)

The present paper defends the thesis that Spenser's recovery of place, as enacted in 'The Faerie Queene,' Book VI, can be linked in a direct way to his use of a poetic phenomenology which informs and clarifies his work as an epic writer. Spenser's "Book of Courtesy" enacts a Neo-Platonic movement from the lower levels of temporal existence to an exalted vision of spiritual perfection. The paper explores this movement along phenomenological lines as a mysterious adventure that embraces self and (...) other, personality and community, aesthetics and ethics, in a sequence of images that opens up a new interpretation of imaginative fulfillment. (shrink)

“Geneticization” is a term used to describe the ways in which the science of genetics is influencing society at large and medicine in particular; it has important implications for the process of diagnostics. Because genetic diagnostics produces knowledge about genetic disease and predisposition to disease, it is essentially influenced by these innovations in the disease concept. In this paper, I argue that genetic diagnostics presents new ethical challenges not because the diagnostic process or method in genetic diagnostics is ethically different (...) in kind from traditional medical diagnostics, but because it relies on a neo-ontological concept of disease in a context of genetic reductionism. Geneticization has not produced a radically new concept of disease, however, but has introduced innovations into the classical ontological concept of disease. When this new concept of disease is held in tandem with genetic reductionism, we are led to the absurd conclusion that disease is the very essence of the human being. I argue that neither the neo-ontological concept of disease nor genetic reductionism is necessary for a proper understanding of genetic diagnostics. (shrink)

My name is William Dembski. I’m an associate research professor in the conceptual foundations of science at Baylor University. I hold a Ph.D. in mathematics is from the University of Chicago. One of the things I do for a living is study the probabilistic underpinnings of neo-Darwinian evolution.

Functional contexts have long been recognized to support evaluative judgments of a certain kind, even where there is no element of design: we speak, for example, of such things as good roots or defective hearts in connection with judgments about proper functions; an animal might even be judged defective for failing to possess a certain species-typical, functional behavioral disposition. These are obviously not moral judgments, but it is interesting to wonder whether the latter might be understood in a similar way. (...) Can moral virtues, for example, be understood as dispositions to function properly in certain spheres of human life involving the will, so that someone lacking them might be said to have a defective character? ;One possibly tempting way of pursuing this broadly Aristotelian line, which has been proposed in recent work by Philippa Foot, would be to argue that there is a single type of functional framework within which to understand both function-related evaluations in biology generally, and function-related evaluations pertaining to ethics and practical rationality; in both cases, it might be thought, talk of species-typical functions and proper functioning is to be understood in relation to the flourishing of the organisms in question, the difference being that the functions relevant to ethics would involve the will. ;I argue that this way of fleshing out a neo-Aristotelian approach to ethics and practical rationality is misguided. Much of the dissertation is devoted to showing this by developing a positive account of functional teleology in biology which makes clear that the flourishing or welfare-promotion of organisms is neither a general nor an ultimate end within the biological functional framework. The view I defend recognizes the crucial role played by natural selection history in shaping facts about present functional teleology, but it is importantly different from what are generally known as "etiological" views. In particular, it does not involve any direct reduction of facts about function to facts about causal history, and it suggests a non-reductionist view of functional teleological explanation, which I also defend. The rejection of etiological views of function in general leaves open the possibility that there is some kind of functional framework, distinct from the biological one, that might be relevant to ethics; I explore this in the last chapter. (shrink)

The paper considers Fregean and neo-Fregean strategies for securing the apriority of arithmetic. The Fregean strategy recovers the apriority of arithmetic from that of logic and a family of explicit definitions. The neo-Fregean strategy relies on a principle which, though not an explicit definition, is given the status of a stipulation; unlike the Fregean strategy it relies on an extension of second order logic which is not merely a definitional extension. The paper argues that this methodological difference is important in (...) assessing the success of the neo-Fregean strategy. (shrink)

Since the neo-Darwinian synthesis of the 1930s, evolutionary biology has become a growth industry. This growth has resulted in the demand for more flexible methods of establishing evolutionary biology's grandiose claims than the laborious, difficult, pedantic, and "rigorous" methods favored throughout the rest of the sciences. This demand has been met by what is now a well-developed branch of evolutionary biology known as evolutionary logic.

J. H. Hexter, an American historian of early seventeenth-century history, terms himself whiggish and claims whiggishness is returning after the misguided popularity of Marxism. The distinction "whiggish" is more elusive than his claim suggests, and the accuracy of its application to Hexter's claim is unclear. Three characteristics commonly assigned to whig interpretation by its critics can be seen as reflections of broader, unresolved historical issues. These are: attention to political and constitutional issues; a tendency to refer to the present in (...) interpreting the past; and a belief in inevitability. It is difficult to ascertain whether Hexter's attention to political matters is a result of his view of them as intrinsically important to historical inquiry or as particularly relevant to historical accounts of Stuart England. The charge of presentism cannot confidently be made against him, as he is not guilty of anything as crude as anachronism, and subtle presentism is neither avoidable nor necessarily reprehensible. Inevitabilism is not only difficult to define, it is not displayed by Hexter. If he displays the weaknesses of whiggishness it is only through implication, in the body of ideas underlying his text. (shrink)

This text provides a detailed examination of realism as a philosophy of natural science and its implications for the practice of social science. It also summarises some of the central themes of realism and its relations with other philosophical traditions. Realism is seen as essentially an ontological doctrine which means that it shares with neo-pragmatism a critique of the predominantly epistemological stress – most evident in rationalism – of much recent philosophy. It is argued that on the relation between science (...) and philosophy, realism adopts intermediate position between the anti-philosophical philosophy of the pragmatists and the rationalist conception as the judge of science. In conclusion, new realist philosophy of science – newly defined against earlier versions of realism – is offered as a sufficient tool with which the endemic problems of the social sciences might be addressed. (shrink)

This dissertation defends and develops the thesis that some instances, or tokens, of dispositional properties are pure. A pure disposition has no causal basis in any further properties beyond the disposition. A causal basis typically consists of some set of properties underlying a disposition that enables the disposition to manifest when stimulated in the appropriate circumstances. For example, a vase is fragile because it is disposed to break when a hammer or other suitable object strikes it, where the causal basis (...) for fragility is the underlying micro-structure of the vase. Moreover, micro-structural properties of the vase seem to anchor the continuous existence of the vase’s fragility when the vase is not actually breaking. In contrast to the neo-Humean metaphysical assumption that any disposition requires a causal basis in further properties, as in the example of fragility, the Pure Dispositions Thesis denies this. This dissertation achieves four goals. First, it defends the Pure Dispositions Thesis from notable objections: the Powers Regress Argument, the Insufficient Causal Basis Argument, the Argument from the Identity Thesis, and the Argument from Spatial Occupation. Second, it evaluates several theories of the continuous existence of pure dispositions, and argues that some pure dispositions are self-grounded via a minimally sufficient occurrence of their own power. Third, it presents two arguments that some pure dispositions are extrinsically grounded, the Argument from the Higgs Field and the Argument from Priority Monism, and deflects numerous objections to those arguments. Finally, it develops and defends an account of systems of pure dispositions, arguing that a pure dispositional system may generate higher-level categorical and dispositional properties by way of an emergence mechanism involving the union of two pure dispositions. (shrink)

Like the cracking of the genetic code and the creation of the atomic bomb, the discovery of how the brain's neurons work is one of the fundamental scientific developments of the twentieth century. The discovery of neurotransmitters revolutionized the way we think about the brain and what it means to be human yet few people know how they were discovered, the scientists involved, or the fierce controversy about whether they even existed. The War of the Soups and the Sparks tells (...) the saga of the dispute between the pharmacologists, who had uncovered the first evidence that nerves communicate by releasing chemicals, and the neurophysiologists, experts on the nervous system, who dismissed the evidence and remained committed to electrical explanations. The protagonists of this story are Otto Loewi and Henry Dale, who received Nobel Prizes for their work, and Walter Cannon, who would have shared the prize with them if he had not been persuaded to adopt a controversial theory (how that happened is an important part of this history). Valenstein sets his story of scientific discovery against the backdrop of two world wars and examines the fascinating lives of several scientists whose work was affected by the social and political events of their time. He recounts such stories as Loewi's arrest by Nazi storm troopers and Dale's efforts at helping key scientists escape Germany. The War of the Soups and the Sparks reveals how science and scientists work. Valenstein describes the observations and experiments that led to the discovery of neurotransmitters and sheds light on what determines whether a novel concept will gain acceptance among the scientific community. His work also explains the immense importance of Loewi, Dale, and Cannon's achievements in our understanding of the human brain and the way mental illnesses are conceptualized and treated. (shrink)

The present paper defends the thesis that Spenser's recovery of place, as enacted in 'The Faerie Queene,' Book VI, can be linked in a direct way to his use of a poetic phenomenology which informs and clarifies his work as an epic writer. Spenser's "Book of Courtesy" enacts a Neo-Platonic movement from the lower levels of temporal existence to an exalted vision of spiritual perfection. The paper explores this movement along phenomenological lines as a mysterious adventure that embraces self and (...) other, personality and community, aesthetics and ethics, in a sequence of images that opens up a new interpretation of imaginative fulfillment. -/- . (shrink)

Neil E. Williams develops a systematic metaphysics centred on the idea of powers, as a rival to neo-Humeanism, the dominant systematic metaphysics in philosophy today. Williams takes powers to be inherently causal properties and uses them as the foundation of his explanations of causation, persistence, laws, and modality.

This book is a revised and expanded edition of three lectures delivered by the author as the centerpiece of a symposium on the philosophy of God at Wake Forest University in 1979. Long out of print, in its new edition it should be a valuable resource for scholars and teachers of the philosophy of religion. The first two lectures, after a critique of the incompleteness of St. Thomas Aquinas's famous Five Ways of arguing for the existence of God, explores two (...) lesser-known resources of Aquinas's philosophical ascent of the mind to God. The first is the unrestricted dynamism of the human spirit, both intellect and will, reaching toward the fullness of being as both true (i.e., intelligible) and good. The second is the strictly metaphysical ascent to God from finite to infinite, in the line of Aquinas's later, more Neoplatonically inspired, metaphysics of participation. The third lecture is a critique of Whitehead's process philosophy. It asks: Is process philosophy compatible with Christian theism? This article is heavily revised from its earlier version, distinguishing Aquinas more sharply and critically from Whitehead than in the first edition. (shrink)

Recently, several philosophers have defended what might be called `neo-essentialism' about natural kinds. Their views purport to improve upon the traditional essentialism of Kripke and Putnam by rejecting the claim that essences must be comprised of intrinsic properties. I argue that this so-called break from traditional essentialism is not a break at all, because the widespread interpretation of Putnam according to which he takes essences to be intrinsic is mistaken. Putnam makes no claim to the effect that essences of natural (...) kinds must be intrinsic, and offers at least one example of a natural kind whose essence is non-intrinsic. I conclude that his traditional essentialism has been misinterpreted, and consequently that neo-essentialism is not so `neo' after all. (shrink)

In this chapter, I argue that Aristotle’s doctrine of hylomorphism, which conceived the natural world as consisting of substances which are metaphysically composed of matter and form, is ripe for rehabilitation in the light of quantum physics. I begin by discussing Aristotle’s conception of matter and form, as it was understood by Aquinas, and how Aristotle’s doctrine of hylomorphism was ‘physicalised’ and eventually abandoned with the rise of microphysicalism. I argue that the phenomenon of quantum entanglement, and the emergence of (...) irreducibly macroscopic phenomena in finite temperature quantum systems, have given us good reasons to doubt the truth of microphysicalism. In support of my argument, I show how to construct a hylomorphic interpretation of the de Broglie-Bohm theory that posits a single Cosmic Substance. I then show how to construct a hylomorphic interpretation of an alternative ‘contextual’ wave function collapse theory (recently proposed by the physicists Barbara Drossel and George Ellis) which posits a plurality of thermal substances. Both of these neo-Aristotelian ontologies reject the microphysicalist dogma that nature consists solely of some set of microscopic constituents. (shrink)

This book contains a collection of papers from the 1985, 1987 and 1989 Australian Lonergan Workshops. Contents: A Summary of Lonergan's Economic Diagram, S.P. Burley; How Lonergan Illuminates Aristotle, T.V. Daly, S.J.; Lonergan and the Philosophy of Science, Dr. W.J. Danaher; "Transubstantiation Over Transsignification": Giovanni Sala and Edward Schillebeeckx on the Eucharistic Presence, P. Beer, S.J.; Schillebeeckx's Philosophic Prologomenon: A Dialectic Analysis, Dr. N. Ormerod; Mutual Self-Mediation with Christ, F. Fletcher, M.S.C.; The Integration of Trinitarian Theology and Spirituality, Bishop J. (...) Bathersby; A Von Neumann Representation of Lonergan's Production Model, S.P. Burley; Chemistry and Insight, Dr. W.J. Danaher; Rediscovering Philosophies through Cognitional Models, T. Daly, S.J.; The Holy Spirit and Lonergan's Psychological Analogy, P. Beer, S.J.; Lonergan and Finnis on the Human Good, Dr. N. Ormerod; A Response to Lonergan and Finnis, Rev. G. Moses; Insight in Science, Dr. W.J. Danaher; Learning-Levels, T.V. Daly, S.J.; Lonergan as a Neo-Schumpeterian, S.P. Burley; Bernard Lonergan, Mechanism and Evolution, L. Drake, S.J.; Can I Be Certain That I Am Justified?, P. Beer, S.J.; The A Priori in Human Knowledge: A Critique of Kant from the Point of View of Lonergan's Insight, M. Brennan, R.C.S.J.; The Foundational Theologian as Prophet, F. Fletcher, M.S.C. (shrink)

In "Heidegger and Criticism: Retrieving the Cultural Politics of Destruction", William Spanos examines the controversy, both in Europe and the United States, surrounding Heidegger and recent disclosures about his Nazi past. Not intended as a defense or apology for Heidegger's thought, Spanos instead affirms the importance of Heidegger's "antihumanist" interrogation of the modern age, its globalization of technology, and its neo-imperialist politics. The attack on Heidegger's "antihumanistic" discourse (by "liberal humanists" who have imported the European debate into the United (...) States) aligns ideologically with the ongoing policing operations of William Bennett, Allan Bloom, E.D. Hirsch, Roger Kimball, Dinesh D'Souza, and others in the spheres of higher education and cultural production. Throughout his arguments, Spanos focuses not so much on Heidegger the historical subject, as on the transformative cultural and political discourses and practices, implicit in and enabled by Heidegger's interrogations of Being and Time, that have led to the contemporary emergence of the multiplicity of resistant "Others" colonized by hegemonic discursive formations. All the while he reminds us that Heidegger's philosophic interrogations eventually generate a diverse body of transgressive writing and an oppositional intellectual climate in the West. Spanos is author of "Repetitions: the Postmodern Occasion in Literature and Culture" (1987) and "The End of Education: Toward Posthumanism" (Minnesota, 1992), and the editor of "Martin Heidegger and the Question in Literature" (1980) and the co-editor of "The Question of Textuality: Strategies of Reading in Contemporary American Criticism" (1982). This book is intended for those in the fields of philosophy, literary theory, political theory. (shrink)

My purpose, broadly construed, is a simple one; to interpret Heidegger's "The Origin of the Work of Art" in the light of his early work on the nature of phenomenology and philosophy. My method will therefore be to present certain key elements of Heidegger's early understanding of phenomenology and philosophy, and then to trace these elements, and certain challenges which arise from them, into their development in Being and Time. Following this I will enquire into how these considerations should guide (...) our interpretations of "The Origin of the Work of Art" and evaluate how "The Origin of the Work of Art" presents a different perspective, and perhaps a new answer, to earlier concerns. My thesis is that, within "The Origin of the Work of Art", Heidegger develops a more radical understanding of the insight which first allowed him to reply to the neo-Kantian attacks on phenomenology and which led him to break away from Husserlian phenomenology. This insight/innovation is the transformation of categorial intuition into pre-ontological understanding, as discussed in the work of commentators such as Theodore Kisiel. From the insights of intentionality and categorial intuition follows the explicit necessity of human finitude as later understood as Dasein's thrown-being-in-the-world. This finitude leads to what I call the riddle of Gelassenheit, meaning how, faced with the inevitability of comportment and the concealing nature of all limited disclosure, we can yet comport ourselves in such a way as to allow things to be what they are. One answer to this riddle is provided in the comportment specifically towards the undisclosed which is later to become Gelassenheit proper, but which also appears in the techne of the artist which points to the origin of our pre-ontological understanding in the fundamental event of disclosure/concealment that occurs in art. (shrink)