"This volume contains two brief works by Isaiah Berlin, an acclaimed philosopher and thinker of the 20th century. "The first" is a short fictional piece he wrote when he was twelve reflecting his belief that the idea of a perfect society cannot justify the cruelties he saw in the Russian Revolution. "The last" is an essay he wrote the year before he died synthesizing his thoughts on topics such as freedom, determinism, and pluralism. Also included are several tributes to Berlin's (...) friendship, conversation, and thought."--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

This remarkable collection contains Isaiah Berlin's appreciations of seventeen people of unusual distinction in the intellectual or political world, sometimes both.

Galasso (2024) reiterates the problem of medical research being grounded on data from people with European ancestry and subsequently describes efforts made by the All of Us Research Program in the...

An examination of the controversial "theory of mind" hypothesis, which states that children with autism are unable to comprehend other people's mental states. The theory relates to the most fundamental questions of normal development as well as to autism i.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hobbes on the Grand Tour: Paris, Venice, or London?Linda Levy PeckHobbes scholars have long been frustrated by how little contemporary evidence exists for the period when, after graduating from University in 1608, Hobbes was appointed by Lord Cavendish as tutor to his son Sir William Cavendish. Based on a license to travel granted in February 1610 1 and a parenthetical date in a late seventeenth-century source, 2 scholars from (...) George Croom Robertson (1886) to John Stoye (1952 and 2nd ed. 1989), Miriam Reik (1977), Noel Malcolm (1981), Arnold A. Rogow (1986), Richard Tuck (1989 and 1993), and Johann Sommerville (1992) have asserted that Hobbes and Cavendish left on the Grand Tour in 1610. Scholars have claimed that the trip to France, Italy, and perhaps Germany lasted anywhere from three to five years, and they have speculated as to where Hobbes and Cavendish went and whom they met. Robertson wroteThe first journey, which lay through France, Germany, and Italy, was begun in the year when France and Europe were thrown into consternation by the deed by Ravaillac; and so readily does the fanatic’s name slip from his pen even half a century later, that we may well suppose the future apostle of the inviolability of the sovereign to have been moved by what he may have heard or seen of the tragic event and its consequences at the time. 3 [End Page 177]Arnold A. Rogow in Thomas Hobbes, Radical in the Service of Reaction, expands on Robertson’s point by suggesting thatthe tour of 1610, close in time to the murder of Henry IV, if not overlapping it, may have been decisive in convincing Hobbes of the dangers to society and civil peace of religious fanaticism. Guy Fawkes and his coconspirators in the 1605 Gunpowder Plot and François Ravaillac were all fanatical Catholics, and Hobbes, although he wrote nothing about these conspiracies at the time, may have decided when still a young man that the single most important condition for domestic order and stability was the total and absolute submission of religion to political authority. 4While noting that the first forty years were the “dark years” in Hobbes life, Miriam Reik agrees on the date of the trip: “In 1610, the Baron sent his son for that indispensable part of a seventeenth century nobleman’s education, the Grand Tour; Hobbes went along as an escort the journey receives scant notice in his writing.” 5 Stoye commented that “Perplexed biographers can only state that Hobbes accompanied Cavendish on a journey to France and Italy, commencing in the year 1610.” 6Noel Malcolm tried to establish a chronology for the Grand Tour in his article “Hobbes, Sandys and the Virginia Company,” 7 demonstrating that Cavendish was back in England for the Parliament of 1614 to which he was elected although he was soon back in Venice on a second trip. 8 Later, in his De Dominus (1984), 9 Malcolm suggested in a footnote that the account book of the first Earl of Devonshire (Chatsworth, Hardwick Ms. 29), supported only one trip between 1614 and 1615 but he provided no detailed evidence. In his edition of Thomas Hobbes: The Correspondence (1994) Malcolm remains cautious and does not address the issue. Richard Tuck, however, is more confident: he writes that “And when Lord Cavendish sent his son off on what would later be called ‘the Grand Tour’ between 1610 and 1615, Hobbes accompanied him as a tutor.” 10 Tuck argues that Hobbes and Cavendish met Paolo Sarpi and other Venetian controversialists at the height of the Venetian interdict controversy between 1610 and 1615. [End Page 178]Between 1610 and 1615 Hobbes accompanied Cavendish as his tutor... on a tour of Europe in which Venice seems to have been a particularly important stopping-place. (Noel Malcolm (1981, pp. 319–20) claims that Cavendish sat in the 1614 Parliament, and that therefore the tour must have been interrupted; but it is probable that Cavendish’s cousin (also called William), later the Earl of New-castle, was elected for both East Retford and the county of Derbyshire, and that he was the only William Cavendish in the 1614 Parliament... (shrink)

The indispensability argument seeks to establish the existence of mathematical objects. The success of the indispensability argument turns on finding cases of genuine extra- mathematical explanation. In this paper, I identify a new case of extra- mathematical explanation, involving the search patterns of fully-aquatic marine predators. I go on to use this case to predict the prevalence of extra- mathematical explanation in science.

The present paper advances an analogy between cases of extra-mathematical explanation and cases of what might be termed ‘extra-logical explanation’: the explanation of a physical fact by a logical fact. A particular case of extra-logical explanation is identified that arises in the philosophical literature on time travel. This instance of extra-logical explanation is subsequently shown to be of a piece with cases of extra-mathematical explanation. Using this analogy, we argue extra-mathematical explanation is part of a broader class of non-causal explanation. (...) This has important implications for extra-mathematical explanation, for time travel and for theories of explanation more generally. (shrink)

Why do children with autism have such trouble developing normal social understanding of other people's feelings? This new edition updates the field by linking autism research to the newest methods for studying the brain.

This article provides a non-technical overview of the conflict between the special theory of relativity and the dynamic theories of time. The chief argument against dynamic theories of time from relativistic mechanics is presented. The space of current responses to that argument is subsequently mapped.

The distinction between justifications and excuses is a familiar one to most of us who work either in moral philosophy or legal philosophy. But exactly how it should be understood is a matter of considerable disagreement. My aim in this paper is, first, to sort out the differences and try to figure out what underlying disagreements account for them. I give particular attention to the following question: Does a person who acts on a reasonable but mistaken belief have a justification, (...) or only an excuse? One disagreement I highlight concerns the extent to which justification is primarily about agents rather than about actions. Those who think, as I do, of “His action, X, was justified” as “He was justified in doing X” are far more likely to allow that justification requires reasonable belief and does not require truth, than are those who think of “His action, X, was justified” as “Although actions of this type usually are prohibited, X is in these circumstances in fact permissible.” In addition to sorting out the differences and tracing them to some underlying disagreements, I defend the reasonable belief view of justification against some objections, and argue that, whether or not we continue to use the term “justified” in a way that does not require truth, we need the concept. Contrary to the claims of some who reject the reasonable belief view of justification, justification thus understood does not reduce to excuse. (shrink)

The principle of exchange seems to be limited in its application, and it cannot serve as a link between utilitarianism and the idea of a market for interpersonal relations. Our preferences concern the inner states of other people as well as their overt behavior. The neglect of this aspect of our preferences is a result of the coupling of utilitarianism with behaviorism. The problem is thus behaviorism, not consequentialism. It might be argued that commensurability is wrong because it sanctions impure (...) practices - aside from any principle of exchange. In reply, it may be argued that the principle of purity is an intuitive one, which must be justified at a higher level. At the intuitive level, the purity principle competes with the view that practices are in some cases too pure already, and that blind purity cannot be maintained without educational deception. The apparent difficulty of making tradeoffs among different kinds of consequences is a problem in practice, not a problem in principle. The difficulty may indeed justify certain prescriptive rules, but a blanket prohibition against impure practices would seem to require considerable defense. (shrink)

Deux ouvrages récents permettent d’analyser les rapports de la philosophie aux expériences humaines extrêmes : celui de Stéphane Madelrieux sur les « expériences radicales » et celui d’Agata Zielinski sur les « situations extrêmes ».

This article presents a Kantian alternative to the mainstream approach in ethics concerning the phenomena that are widely thought to require a category of the supererogatory. My view is that the phenomena do not require this category of imperfect duties. Elsewhere I have written on Kant on this topic; here I shift my focus away from interpretive issues and consider the pros and cons of the Kantian approach. What background assumptions would lean one to favour the Kantian approach and what (...) sorts would lean one to favour the mainstream approach? I also consider the possibility that in institutional contexts, there is a need for the category of the supererogatory. Here, it seems, we do need to know what we really have to do and what is beyond the call of duty; in this context, however, duty is not the Kantian moral notion, but rather is pegged to particular roles, or to the needs of the institution or group or club of which one is a member. But even here, I argue, the notion of the supererogatory is not crucial. (shrink)

On a voulu montrer dans ce livre que, reflete a travers les miroirs differents que sont les genies philosophiques et politiques de l'epoque, l'idealisme allemand forme une incontestable unite de langage philosophique. A l'interieur de cette grande unite, ou la philosophie ne cesse de se confronter aux plus hauts problemes de l'homme, le clivage entre un idealisme transcendantal et l'idealisme speculatif apparait comme une faille profonde, en ce que la description de la finitude humaine, et par consequent la comprehension des (...) limites de l'homme, est l'objet du premier alors que le rapport d'expression du fini a l'infini est au coeur du second. L'attitude idealiste symbolisee par Hegel a eu de nombreuses consequences. Mais les critiques qui ont ete faites aux successeurs de Hegel ne doivent pas nous faire oublier la presence de l'idealisme allemand. C'est cette presence philosophique que ce livre espere restituer. (shrink)

"Textes... prononces dans le cadre d'un colloque organise conjointement par le Departement de philosophie de l'Universite de Tours et par l'Association des Amis du Musee Descartes... octobre 1989"--Avant-propos.

Certains commentateurs de Bergson ont estimé que sa pensée était d'emblée spiritualiste et teintée de religiosité. On peut comprendre ainsi le beau texte de Louis Lavelle, "La pensée religieuse d'Henri Bergson", ou l'interprétation que Péguy fait de cette philosophie rationaliste du temps. Cette compréhension de Bergson peut d'ailleurs s'appuyer sur un texte du philosophe lui-même, à savoir Principes de métaphysique et de psychologie où Bergson explique que sa pensée vise à constituer une "science relative de l'absolu". Le présent volume tente (...) d'examiner dans quelle mesure il est possible de soutenir, l'instar d'Henri Gouhier, que l'oeuvre d'observation intérieure de Bergson a posé les bases du spiritualisme moderne. (shrink)

One of the major difficulties facing presentism is the problem of causation. In this paper, I propose a new solution to that problem, one that is compatible with intrinsic, fundamental causal relations. Accommodating relations of this kind is important because (i) according to David Lewis (2004), such relations are needed to account for causation in our world and worlds relevantly similar to our own, (ii) there is no other strategy currently available that successfully reconciles presentism with relations of this kind (...) and (iii) resolving the problem of causation by accommodating intrinsic, fundamental causal relations provides the presentist with a far more general solution to the problem of causation than those currently on offer. (shrink)

In folk psychology and some academic psychology, utilitarian thinking is associated with coldness and deontological thinking is associated with emotion. I suggest, mostly through personal examples, that these associations are far from perfect. Utilitarians experience emotions, which sometimes derive from, and sometimes cause or reinforce, their moral judgments.

When people tend toward a political decision, such as voting for the Republican Party, they are often attracted to this decision by one issue, such as the party’s stance on abortion, but then they come to see other issues, such as the party’s stand on taxes, as supporting their decision, even if they would not have thought so in the absence of the decision. I demonstrate this phenomenon with opinion poll data and with an experiment done on the World Wide (...) Web using hypothetical candidates. For the hypothetical candidates, judgments about whether a candidate’s position on issue A favors the candidate or the opponent are correlated with judgments about other positions taken by the candidate (as determined from other hypothetical candidates). This effect is greater in those subjects who rarely make conflicting judgments, in which one issue favors a candidate and another favors the opponent. In a few cases, judgments even reverse, so that a position that is counted as a minus for other candidates becomes a plus for a favored candidate. Reversals in the direction of a candidate’s position are more likely when the candidate is otherwise favored. The experiment provides a new kind of demonstration of “belief overkill,” the tendency to bring all arguments into line with a favored conclusion. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 8, August 2020, Page 101-104.

A total of 378 mathematics undergraduates (selected for being strong at “systemizing”) and 414 students in other (control) disciplines at Cambridge University were surveyed with two questions: (1) Do you have a diagnosed autism spectrum condition? (2) How many relatives in your immediate family have a diagnosed autism spectrum condition? Results showed seven cases of autism in the math group (or 1.85%) vs one case of autism in the control group (or 0.24%), a ninefold difference that is significant. Controlling for (...) sex and general population sampling, this represents a three- to sevenfold increase for autism spectrum conditions among the mathematicians. There were 7 of 1,405 (or 0.5%) cases of autism in the immediate families of the math group vs 2 of 1,669 (or 0.1%) cases in the immediate families of the control group, which again is a significant difference. These results confirm a link between autism and systemizing, and they suggest this link is genetic given the association between autism and first-degree relatives of mathematicians. (shrink)

What are the rules of the metaphysical game? And how are the rules, whatever they are, to be justified? Above all, the rules should be fair. They should be rules that we metaphysicians would all accept, and thus should be justifiable to all rational persons engaged in metaphysical inquiry. Borrowing from Rawls’s conception of justice as fairness, I develop a model for determining and justifying the rules of metaphysics as a going concern.

COVID-19 has disproportionately affected ethnic minorities and migrants, not only through an increased risk of infection and death (Pan et al. 2020), but also through experiences of harassment, mar...