This chapter contains sections titled: Institutionalized Philosophy Philosophy Before Apartheid Philosophy During Apartheid African Philosophy in South Africa Philosophy in Post‐Apartheid South Africa Conclusion.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Question of Violence in South Africa Albert Luthuli Nelson Mandela Steve Biko Conclusion.

How should black people, indeed any other group of people in general, respond when they are grouped together and oppressed on the basis of the contingency of their physical characteristics? Questions of liberation from oppression involve questions about the means to overcome that oppression. Throughout the ages of struggle against racial oppression, for example, collective black identity and solidarity has been one of the favourite responses and rallying call for racial justice and liberation. In South Africa this response has recently (...) emerged through the formation of a number of highly controversial groups such as: The Native Club, The African Forum, and The Forum for Black Journalists. Critics of these formations think that such black solidarity, divisive, irrational, morally objectionable and, above all, racist. This paper defends the emancipatory racial solidarity tradition, examplified by The Native Club and similar constituted organisations, against such serious charges and critiques mounted by contemporary leading thinkers on identity. The tools for such a defense are primarily derived from Jean-Paul Sartre's conception of group formation in his Critique Of Dialectical Reason. I argue that since anti-black racist consciousness always operates at the level of collectives, it is therefore impossible to fight such racism as an individual; that collective black solidarity is a necessary condition for racial emancipation. (shrink)

This is the first book-length work to focus on the philosophical and anthropological contribution of Mabogo More, a prominent and influential black South African existentialist thinker.

Biko was not only considered a 'brilliant political theorist', he is also considered a formidable and articulate philosopher; an important Africana existential philosopher. From Biko's writings, speeches and interviews, Mabogo More's view is that philosophy is not a disembodied system of ideas nor is it a mechanical reflection about the world; rather, it is a way of existing and acting. What Biko himself describes as 'a way of life'. This important perspective on Biko would be of value to (...) many African philosophers, political and social thinkers, social scientists, psychologists, cultural critics, political activists, students, critical race theorists and anyone interested in the ideas that Biko presents. (shrink)

In this important new book, leading Black philosopher Mabogo More reflects on his life and career in apartheid South African. The book explores Africana existentialism in relation to issues of race, identity, liberation, freedom, alienation, responsibility and bad faith and includes key essays from More's corpus alongside his philosophical memoir.

Exploring the implications of Sartre’s existentialism for the problem of racism, a prominent African philosopher provides the ontological basis for understanding the situation of a black person in an antiblack world.

Beginning in earnest in the late 1990s, educational researchers devoted increasing attention to the study of “active learning,” leading to a robust literature on the topic in the scholarship of teaching and learning. Meanwhile, during largely the same period, political theorists discovered the radical philosophy of Giorgio Agamben, which soon after began to ripple through more radical forms of philosophy of education. While both the SoTL works on active learning and writings of “Agambenian” philosophers of education have offered new (...) insights into their respective fields, active learning has not yet received a systematic philosophical reflection and the community of Agambenian philosophy of education has not yet been systematized. This article addresses both gaps, first through an outline of existing Agambenian approaches to the philosophy of education and second by theorizing active learning as a form of “destituent potential.” The systematic reflection on the three threads of Agambenian philosophy of education—whatever, potentiality, and study—offers an introduction to less familiar readers, and the second section offers a model for how philosophical concepts can become theoretical tools for SoTL analysis. (shrink)

Science and technology are so intertwined that technoscience has been argued to more accurately reflect the progress of science and its impact on society, and most socioscientific issues require technoscientific reasoning. Education policy documents have long noted that the general public lacks sufficient understanding of science and technology necessary for informed decision-making regarding socioscientific/technological issues. The science–technology–society movement and scholarship addressing socioscientific issues in science education reflect efforts in the science education community to promote more informed decision-making regarding (...) such issues. Now Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics education has emerged as a major reform movement impacting science education. STEM education efforts emphasize literacy across the disciplines of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but with rare exceptions, treat issues of technology superficially and uncritically. Informed decision-making regarding many personal and societal issues requires technological literacy beyond merely becoming an enthusiastic designer or skilled user of technology, but the science education community has given little attention to what such literacy entails. Here, we present results of an extensive review of the literature regarding the nature of technology in order to identify key issues among scholars who study technology. We then provide predominant perspectives among those scholars and suggest which identified NOT issues are most essential to address as part of STEM education efforts that seek to promote informed personal and societal decision-making. (shrink)

Background: A fair distribution of healthcare services for older patients is an important challenge, but qualitative research exploring clinicians’ consideration in daily clinical prioritisation in healthcare services for the aged is scarce.Objectives: To explore what kind of criteria, values, and other relevant considerations are important in clinical prioritisations in healthcare services for older patients.Design: A semi-structured interview-guide was used to interview 45 clinicians working with older patients. The interviews were analysed qualitatively using hermeneutical content analysis and template organising style.Participants: 20 (...) physicians and 25 nurses working in public hospitals and nursing homes in different parts of Norway.Results and interpretations: Important dilemmas relate to under-provision of community care and comprehensive approaches, and over-utilisation of certain specialised services. Overt ageism is generally not reported, but the healthcare services for the aged seem to be inadequate due to more subtle processes, for example, dominating considerations and ideals and operating conditions that do not pay sufficient attention to older patients’ needs and considerations of justice. Clinical prioritisations are described as being dominated by adapting traditional biomedical approaches to the operating conditions. Many of the clinicians indicate that there is a potential for improving end of life decisions and for reducing exaggerated use of life-prolonging treatment and hospitalisations.Conclusion: The interviews in this study indicate that considerations of justice and patients’ perspectives should be given more attention to strike a balance between specialised medical approaches and more general and comprehensive approaches in healthcare services for older patients. (shrink)

This project explores the ethical obligations of food journalists. Using history, normative, and feminist theory, I argue that if specific media is going to be considered food journalism, then we should be able to identify its service to citizens. This project thus seeks a unified view for evaluating the democratic and caring potential of food journalism. I outline some of the contours of quality food journalism – its principles, practices and forms – through both historical and contemporary examples. I show (...) how both sets of food journalists adhere(d) to traditional notions of democracy-serving communication while also employing a more situated ethic of care. Ultimately, I argue that quality food journalists should adopt this care ethic addressing citizen-eaters, as this nourishes the relationships necessary for democratic worldmaking and gives us the best opportunity of collectively eating and living well. (shrink)

Divine Nature and Human Language is a collection of twelve essays in philosophical theology by William P. Alston, one of the leading figures in the current renaissance in the philosophy of religion. Using the equipment of contemporary analytical philosophy, Alston explores, partly refashions, and defends a largely traditional conception of God and His work in the world a conception that finds its origins in medieval philosophical theology. These essays fall into two groups: those concerned with theological language and those that (...) deal with the nature, status, and activity of God. In Part 1, Alston develops a conceptual scheme for discussing the topic of theological language. He also argues that there is a core of literal talk about God and even a core of predicates univocally applicable to God and creatures. Furthermore, he shows that God can be referred to directly as well as descriptively. In Parts II and III, the author sketches out a middle way between a classical conception of God exemplified by Aquinas and the more recent “process” or “panentheist” conception exemplified by Hartshorne. Alston argues that such a God can act so as to have real effects in the world and can enter into genuine dialogue and otherwise interact with human beings. In addition, he defends the idea that God provides a foundation for morality. The first collection of Alston's ground breaking work in the philosophy of religion, Divine Nature and Human Language will be welcomed by scholars and students of the philosophy of religion, metaphysics, theology, and religious studies. (shrink)

An old conservative criticism of egalitarianism is that it is nothing but the expression of envy. Egalitarians respond by saying envy has nothing to do with it. I present an alternative way of thinking about the relation of envy to distributive justice, and to Rawlsian justice in particular. I argue that while ideals of justice rightly distance themselves from envy, envy plays a role in facing injustice. Under nonideal circumstances, less attractive features of human nature may play a role in (...) motivating the action necessary to push an unjust society in a more just direction. (shrink)

We critically analyze Alexander Rosenberg’s argument based on the multiple realizability of biological properties that there are no biological laws. The argument is intuitive and suggestive. Nevertheless, a closer analysis reveals that the argument rests on dubious assumptions about the nature of natural selection, laws of nature, and multiple realizability. We also argue that the argument is limited in scope, since it applies to an outmoded account of laws and the applicability of the argument to other more promising accounts (...) of laws is questionable. Another concern of ours is that the relation between multiple realizability and natural selection is more complex than Rosenberg acknowledges. Finally, we claim that an explanation for why Rosenberg’s argument appears persuasive and appealing is that the argument is based on an inflated concept of multiple realizability that rests on unreliable intuitions concerning what counts as a different realization of the same property. Consequently, we argue that the argument is at best inconclusive and at worst false insofar as its implications for the existence of biological laws are concerned. (shrink)

Philosophers of biology generally agree that causal specificity tracks biological importance: more specific causes are more important. I argue that this correlation does not hold in much research aimed at biomedical intervention. Applying James Woodward’s analysis of causal specificity to the development and design of HIV treatments, I show that drugs that are less causally specific produce better therapeutic outcomes and are more highly valued. Thus, I conclude that the importance of biological causes does not track their (...) specificity but instead varies depending on the biological practice we consider and the goals of that practice. (shrink)

This collection of four essays and an interview contains Habermas's most recent contributions to ethical theory. It expands and clarifies the work on discourse ethics presented in Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Here, largely in response to criticisms from contemporary neo-Aristotelians, Habermas underscores the claim of discourse ethics to a preeminent position in contemporary moral philosophy with incisive analyses and refinements of the central concepts of his theory that include important developments in his treatment of practical reason and of the (...) problems of application and motivation.The first essay offers a comprehensive analysis of practical rationality, which establishes a clear demarcation between pragmatic, ethical, and moral questions and a corresponding differentiation between forms of volition and spheres of practical discourse. The centerpiece of the book is a multifaceted defense of the central claims of discourse ethics incorporating masterly critiques of the major competing positions, including those of John Rawls, Bernard Williams, Charles Taylor, Alasdair MacIntyre, Karl-Otto Apel, and Albrecht WellmerThe middle essays defend the basic intention of universalist moral theory in the face of the claims of the neo-Aristotelian ethics of the good and Horkheimer's skepticism toward reason that led him to embrace a religiously inspired ethic of compassion. An interview with Habermas covering such topics as the genesis of discourse ethics, the precise import of some of its more controversial elements, and its interconnections with the theory of communicative actions concludes this important collection.Jürgen Habermas is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Frankfurt. (shrink)

Non-human animal models of human diseases advance our knowledge of the genetic underpinnings of disease and lead to the development of novel therapies for humans. While mice are the most common model organisms, their usefulness is limited. Larger animals may provide more accurate and valuable disease models, but it has, until recently, been challenging to create large animal disease models. Genome editors, such as Clustered Randomised Interspersed Palindromic Repeat, meet some of these challenges and bring routine genome engineering of (...) larger animals and non-human primates well within reach. There is growing interest in creating NHP models of brain disorders such as autism, depression and Alzheimer’s, which are very difficult to model or study in other organisms, including humans. New treatments are desperately needed for this set of disorders. This paper is novel in asking: Insofar as NHPs are being considered for use as model organisms for brain disorders, can this be done ethically? The paper concludes that it cannot. Notwithstanding ongoing debate about NHPs’ moral status, animal welfare concerns, the availability of alternative methods of studying brain disorders and unmet expectations of benefit justify a stop on the creation of NHP model organisms to study brain disorders. The lure of using new genetic technologies combined with the promise of novel therapeutics presents a formidable challenge to those who call for slow, careful, and only necessary research involving NHPs. But researchers should not create macaques with social deficits or capuchin monkeys with memory deficits just because they can. (shrink)

The ethics of hastened death are complex. Studies on physicians’ opinions about assisted dying exist, but changes in physicians’ attitudes towards hastened death in clinical decision-making and the background factors explaining this remain unclear. The aim of this study was to explore the changes in these attitudes among Finnish physicians. A questionnaire including hypothetical patient scenarios was sent to 1182 and 1258 Finnish physicians in 1999 and 2015, respectively. Two scenarios of patients with advanced cancer were presented: one requesting an (...) increase in his morphine dose to a potentially lethal level and another suffering a cardiac arrest. Physicians’ attitudes towards assisted death, life values and other background factors were queried as well. The response rate was 56%. The morphine dose was increased by 25% and 34% of the physicians in 1999 and 2015, respectively. Oncologists approved the increase most infrequently without a significant change between the study years. Oncological specialty, faith in God, female gender and younger age were independent factors associated with the reluctance to increase the morphine dose. Euthanasia, but not assisted suicide, was considered less reprehensible in 2015. In both years, most physicians withheld cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Finnish physicians accepted the risk of hastening death more often in 2015 than in 1999. The physicians’ specialty and many other background factors influenced this acceptance. They also regarded euthanasia as less reprehensible now than they did 16 years ago. (shrink)

Research on linguistic interaction suggests that two or more individuals can sometimes form adaptive and cohesive systems. We describe an “alignment system” as a loosely interconnected set of cognitive processes that facilitate social interactions. As a dynamic, multi-component system, it is responsive to higher-level cognitive states such as shared beliefs and intentions (those involving collective intentionality) but can also give rise to such shared cognitive states via bottom-up processes. As an example of putative group cognition we turn to transactive (...) memory and suggest how further research on alignment in these cases might reveal how such systems can be genuinely described as cognitive. Finally, we address a prominent critique of collective cognitive systems, arguing that there is much empirical and explanatory benefit to be gained from considering the possibility of group cognitive systems, especially in the context of small-group human interaction. (shrink)

"Public reason" is one of the central concepts in modern liberal political theory. As articulated by John Rawls, it presents a way to overcome the difficulties created by intractable differences among citizens' religious and moral beliefs by strictly confining the place of such convictions in the public sphere. Identifying this conception as a key point of conflict, this book presents a debate among contemporary natural law and liberal political theorists on the definition and validity of the idea of public reason. (...) Its distinguished contributors examine the consequences of interpreting public reason more broadly as "right reason," according to natural law theory, versus understanding it in the narrower sense in which Rawls intended. They test public reason by examining its implications for current issues, confronting the questions of abortion and slavery and matters relating to citizenship. This energetic exchange advances our understanding of both Rawls's contribution to political philosophy and the lasting relevance of natural law. It provides new insights into crucial issues facing society today as it points to new ways of thinking about political theory and practice. (shrink)

Originally conceived as a forty-page conclusion to Hacker’s twenty years of work on the monumental four-volume Analytical Commentary on the Philosophical Investigations, this book “rapidly assumed a life of its own”. A major contribution to the history of analytic philosophy, this substantial volume delivers even more than the title promises. The eight chapters are best approached as a six-chapter book, itself some 220 pages long, on Wittgenstein’s contribution to twentieth-century philosophy, followed by a two-chapter, 120-page epilogue about how and (...) why his influence has waned. The first six chapters provide an encyclopedic summary of the fruits of Hacker’s research on Wittgenstein’s writing, an immensely learned account of British philosophy from the turn of the century to the 1970s, and a detailed account of Wittgenstein’s reception by Oxford, Cambridge, and the Vienna Circle. The book’s closing chapters, “Post-positivism in the United States and Quine’s Apostasy” and “The Decline of Analytic Philosophy,” polemically argue that Quine’s philosophy, and the post-Quinean naturalism prevalent in Anglo-American philosophy today, amount to such a decisive break with the analytic tradition, as Hacker conceives of it, that they should not be counted as “analytic.”. (shrink)

The historical record of scientific inquiry, Stanford suggests, is characterized by what he calls the problem of unconceived alternatives. Past scientists have routinely failed even to conceive of alternatives to their own theories and lines of theoretical investigation, alternatives that were both well-confirmed by the evidence available at the time and sufficiently serious as to be ultimately accepted by later scientific communities. Stanford supports this claim with a detailed investigation of the mid-to-late 19th century theories of inheritance and generation proposed (...) in turn by Charles Darwin, Francis Galton, and August Weismann. He goes on to argue that this historical pattern strongly suggests that there are equally well-confirmed and scientifically serious alternatives to our own best theories that remain currently unconceived. Moreover, this challenge is more serious than those rooted in either the so-called pessimistic induction or the underdetermination of theories by evidence, in part because existing realist responses to these latter challenges offer no relief from the problem of unconceived alternatives itself.Stanford concludes by investigating what positive account of the spectacularly successful edifice of modern theoretical science remains open to us if we accept that our best scientific theories are powerful conceptual tools for accomplishing our practical goals, but abandon the view that the descriptions of the world around us that they offer are therefore even probably or approximately true."Stanford has genuinely advanced the philosophical discussion about scientific realism with his careful articulation of the problem of unconceived alternatives."-- The Review of Metaphysics "Stanford's book deserves to be widely read. Its central argument is clearly stated, its conclusion is radical, it engages in a productive fashion with detailed case studies, and it lays down several substantial challenges to scientific realism. Lastly, it is consistently thought-provoking."-Science. (shrink)

Noam Chomsky's rationalist account of the human mind has won many adherents and attracted many critics. What has been little noticed on either side of the debate is that Chomsky's rationalism is best viewed as a pair of quite distinct doctrines about the mental mechanisms responsible for language acquisition. One of these doctrines, the one I will call rigid rationalism, entails the other, which I call anti-empiricism, but the entailment is not mutual. Rigid rationalism is much the stronger of the (...) two. What is more, the argument Chomsky offers for rigid rationalism is quite distinct from the argument for anti-empiricism. In the first section of this paper I will set out what I take to be the most favourable interpretation of each of these doctrines, along with the argument supporting it. (shrink)

Until recently, raising a young child as transgender was culturally unintelligible. Most scholarship on transgender identity refers to adults’ experiences and perspectives. Now, the increasing visibility of gender-variant children, as they are identified by the parents who raise them, presents new opportunities to examine how individuals confront the gender binary and imagine more gender-inclusive possibilities. Drawing on Foucault’s notion of “truth regime” to conceptualize the regulatory forces of the gender binary in everyday life, this work examines the strategies of (...) 24 such parents, who represent 16 cases of childhood gender variance. Specifically, I analyze three practices—“gender hedging,” “gender literacy,” and “playing along”—through which these parents develop a critical consciousness about gender binary ideology and work to accommodate their children’s nonconformity in diverse discursive interactions. Taken together, their newfound strategies and perspectives subvert traditional conceptions of “gender-neutral” or “feminist” parenting, and reveal new modes of resistance to the normative transmission and regulation of gender practices. (shrink)

Although the issue of consent in medical practice has grown immensely in recent years, and it is generally believed that historical cases are unknown, our research amongst original ancient Greek and Byzantine historical sources reveals that it is a very old subject which ancient philosophers and physicians have addressed. Plato, in ancient Greece, connected consent with the quality of a free person and even before him, Hippocrates had advocated seeking the patient's cooperation in order to combat the disease. In Alexander (...) the Great's era and later on in Byzantine times, not only was the consent of the patient necessary but physicians were asking for even more safeguards before undertaking a difficult operation.Our study has shown that from ancient times physicians have at least on occasion been driven to seek the consent of their patient either because of respect for the patient's autonomy or from fear of the consequences of their failure. (shrink)

For the last two decades a doctrine called ‘‘eliminative materialism’’ (or sometimes just ‘‘eliminativism’’) has been a major focus of discussion in the philosophy of mind. It is easy to understand why eliminativism has attracted so much attention, for it is hard to imagine a more radical and provocative doctrine. What eliminativism claims is that the intentional states and processes that are alluded to in our everyday descriptions and explanations of people’s mental lives and their actions are _myths_. Like (...) the gods that Homer invoked to explain the outcome of battles, or the witches that Inquisitors invoked to explain local catastrophes, they _do not exist_. According to eliminativists, there are no such things as beliefs or desires or hopes or fears or thoughts. These putative states and processes are the badly misguided posits of a seriously mistaken theory, just like phlogiston and caloric fluid and the luminiferous ether.¹. (shrink)

We discuss the development of cognitive neuroscience in terms of the tension between the greater sophistication in cognitive concepts and methods of the cognitive sciences and the increasing power of more standard biological approaches to understanding brain structure and function. There have been major technological developments in brain imaging and advances in simulation, but there have also been shifts in emphasis, with topics such as thinking, consciousness, and social cognition becoming fashionable within the brain sciences. The discipline has great (...) promise in terms of applications to mental health and education, provided it does not abandon the cognitive perspective and succumb to reductionism. (shrink)

Symplectic reduction is a formal process through which degeneracy within the mathematical representations of physical systems displaying gauge symmetry can be controlled via the construction of a reduced phase space. Typically such reduced spaces provide us with a formalism for representing both instantaneous states and evolution uniquely and for this reason can be justifiably afforded the status of fun- damental dynamical arena - the otiose structure having been eliminated from the original phase space. Essential to the application of symplectic reduction (...) is the precept that the first class constraints are the relevant gauge generators. This prescription becomes highly problematic for reparameterization invariant theories within which the Hamiltonian itself is a constraint; not least because it would seem to render prima facie distinct stages of a history physically identical and observable functions changeless. Here we will consider this problem of time within non-relativistic me- chanical theory with a view to both more fully understanding the temporal struc- ture of these timeless theories and better appreciating the corresponding issues in relativistic mechanics. For the case of nonrelativistic reparameterization invariant theory application of symplectic reduction will be demonstrated to be both unnec- essary; since the degeneracy involved is benign; and inappropriate; since it leads to a trivial theory. With this anti-reductive position established we will then examine two rival methodologies for consistently representing change and observable func- tions within the original phase space before evaluating the relevant philosophical implications. We will conclude with a preview of the case against symplectic re- duction being applied to canonical general relativity. (shrink)

Context: Strict finitism is usually not taken seriously as a possible view on what mathematics is and how it functions. This is due mainly to unfamiliarity with the topic. Problem: First, it is necessary to present a “decent” history of strict finitism (which is now lacking) and, secondly, to show that common counterarguments against strict finitism can be properly addressed and refuted. Method: For the historical part, the historical material is situated in a broader context, and for the argumentative part, (...) an evaluation of arguments and counterarguments is presented. Results: The main result is that strict finitism is indeed a viable option, next to other constructive approaches, in (the foundations of) mathematics. Implications: Arguing for strict finitism is more complex than is usually thought. For future research, strict finitist mathematics itself needs to be written out in more detail to increase its credibility. In as far as strict finitism is a viable option, it will change our views on such “classics” as the platonist-constructivist discussion, the discovery-construction debate and the mysterious applicability problem (why is mathematics so successful in its applications?). Constructivist content: Strict finitism starts from the idea that counting is an act of labeling, hence the mathematician is an active subject right from the start. It differs from other constructivist views in that the finite limitations of the human subject are taken into account. (shrink)

This work provides a comprehensive introduction to Asian ethics, covering Hinduism, Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism. Each chapter comprises historical background, essential ethical themes or topics, primary sources and more.

In The Construction of Social Reality, John Searle expends an argument left undeveloped in Speech Acts about the nature of the rules which underlie and constitute social life. It is argued in this review that one problem for this account was its apparent incompatibility with connectionism. They cannot be rules shared in the head, so to speak. He now understands our relation to these rules not as one of simple internalization but of skillful accustoming. But this makes appeal to rules (...) unnecessary and makes noncollective solutions appealing to overt beliefs rather than tacit rules more plausible. (shrink)

Self-confidence is associated with many positive outcomes, and training programs routinely seek to build participants’ self-efficacy. In this article, however, we consider whether self-confidence increases unethical behavior. In a series of studies, we explore the relationship between negotiator self-efficacy—an individual’s confidence in his or her negotiation ability—and the use of deception. We find that individuals high in negotiator self-efficacy are more likely to use deception than individuals low in negotiator self-efficacy. We also find that perceptions of the risk of (...) deception mediate this relationship. By identifying negotiator self-efficacy as an antecedent to unethical behavior, our findings offer important theoretical and empirical insights into the use of deception, the role of individual differences in ethical decision making, and the broader consequences of self-confidence in business and society. (shrink)

Phenomenology has proved to be a popular methodology for nursing research. I argue, however, that phenomenological nursing research could be strengthened by greater attention to its philosophical underpinnings. Many research reports devote more page space to procedure than to the philosophy that purportedly guided it. The philosophy of Maurice Merleau‐Ponty is an excellent fit for nursing, although his work has received less attention than that of Husserl and Heidegger. In this paper, I examine the life and thought of Merleau‐Ponty, (...) with emphasis on concepts, such as perception, intentionality and embodiment, which have particular relevance to the discipline of nursing. (shrink)

AS SOME PHILOSOPHERS KNOW, the paradox about inquiry at 80d-e of Plato’s Meno is more than a tedious sophism. Plato is one such philosopher. The puzzle is an obstacle to his project of discovering definitions, and is introduced as such. And it is met with an elaborate response: the theory of recollection, explicitly presented as an answer to the obstacle. But then what of the famous conversation in which Socrates coaxes a geometrical theorem from a slave boy Is the (...) theory not designed to explain the boy’s ability to respond to the coaxing? It is, certainly, but that is not its only purpose. The structure of the passage is this: the theory is there to disarm the paradox, and the conversation is there to support the theory. To see this structure is to understand a notorious and otherwise troubling fact, that Plato is so very quick to take the slave’s behavior—which he might have tried to explain in some other way-to be clear evidence for recollection. The reason why he so takes it is that the paradox has led him to think that only if recollection occurs is fruitful inquiry possible—and he is very anxious indeed to be assured that it is possible. He would not have been so enticed by explanations of the boy’s behavior which did not also seem to him to dispose of the puzzle. Here now is Plato’s setting of the paradox. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to determine the logical and computational strength of instances of the Bolzano-Weierstraß principle and a weak variant of it.We show that BW is instance-wise equivalent to the weak König’s lemma for Σ01-trees . This means that from every bounded sequence of reals one can compute an infinite Σ01-0/1-tree, such that each infinite branch of it yields an accumulation point and vice versa. Especially, this shows that the degrees d ≫ 0′ are exactly those containing (...) an accumulation point for all bounded computable sequences.Let BWweak be the principle stating that every bounded sequence of real numbers contains a Cauchy subsequence . We show that BWweak is instance-wise equivalent to the cohesive principle and—using this—obtain a classification of the computational and logical strength of BWweak. Especially we show that BWweak does not solve the halting problem and does not lead to more than primitive recursive growth. Therefore it is strictly weaker than BW. We also discuss possible uses of BWweak. © 2011 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim. (shrink)

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Since the seventeenth century, mind-body dualism has undergone an evolution, both in its metaphysics and its supporting arguments. In particular, debates in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England prepared the way for the fall of substance dualism—the view that the human mind is an immaterial substance capable of independent existence—and the rise of a much less radical property dualism. The evolution from the faltering plausibility of substance dualism to the growing appeal of property dualism depended on at least two factors. On the (...) one hand, there was an increasing recognition of the causal and ontological interdependence of mind and body. Important here was a growing appreciation of the dependence of thought and perception on complex activities in the brain. On the other hand, there was a reconceptualization of the nature of matter; no longer inert and passive, matter came to be viewed as active in its own right. The old arguments lost much of their force, opening the door to a new sort of argument. Rather than appealing to the supposed immaterial nature of mental substance and volition, arguments for dualism began to appeal to the subjective nature of conscious experience—and its inexplicable emergence from the brain—as proof of the ontological distinctiveness of conscious properties. Consequently, the nineteenth and twentieth centuries saw the ascent of a more plausible, but still very problematic, property dualism, a position that to this day enjoys significant support. (shrink)

Roboethics is the recent offshoot of computer ethics that pays special attention to the alterations that need to be made to computer ethics when we give the computer mobility and a means to interact directly in the human environment. The closely related field of machine morality explores how ethical systems and behaviors may be programmed into social robotics applications. As robots move from the factory floor into our homes and work lives, they stand to change key aspects of the way (...) our lives are lived. In order to be successful, these machines must be programmed with the ability to navigate the human life world without committing ethical faux pas or moral outrage. Thus, the roboethicist is tasked not only with critiquing the attempts of robots engineers to achieve the integration of these machines into our life world, but also, and more importantly, with suggesting means of achieving better results than what is presently on offer. (shrink)

Of course, as scholars have long known, this example has serious limitations. For one thing, a substantial form, as the scholastics understood it, is much more dynamic than a mere shape. For example, the substantial form of an oak tree somehow explains how and why an oak tree can do everything that it does. So the substantial form of an oak tree could not be something as simple or crude as its shape. Nevertheless, the example of the bronze statue (...) does have the virtue of illustrating one of the chief advantages of hylomorphism as a philosophy of the human person. Although we can talk about the bronze and the shape of the statue, respectively, it still seems correct to say that the statue is exactly one thing, not two things. Likewise, although we can talk about the matter and the form of a human being, the hylomorphist insists that a human being is exactly one thing, not two things accidentally conjoined. (shrink)

There are a growing number of publications arguing that if we had more wonder in social life, then its quality would be significantly improved, and that we therefore need an “ethics” or a “politics” of wonder. The aim of this paper is to show that that message is unfortunate, and this is for two reasons. First, wonder does not generally have the positive political and moral effects that are attributed to it, so to assume that it does may lead (...) one to adopt unrealistic social policies. Second, wonder does potentially have a number of negative moral and politicaleffects, so social policies that put a premium on wonder may bring adverse consequences. In this way, the paper makes a general case against wonder as a positive force in morality and politics. (shrink)

White American voters have realigned among the two dominant parties by income and education levels. This article argues that the interaction of education and income provides a more insightful—and stark—display of this change than treating them individually. Each group of voters is associated with distinctive “first dimension” views of economic redistribution and “second dimension” preferences concerning salient sociopolitical issues of civic and cultural liberties, race, and immigration. Macro-level hypotheses are developed about the changing voting behavior of education-income voting groups (...) along with micro-level hypotheses about the propensity of vote switching. The hypotheses are tested with data from the American National Election Studies 1952–2016. A profound realignment is revealed between white voters and the two main US parties that is consistent with the theoretical expectations developed in the article. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 562-564 [Access article in PDF] Louis E. Loeb. Stability and Justification in Hume's Treatise. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xvi + 280. Cloth, $42.50. As is well known, in the last year of his life, Hume repudiated his Treatise of Human Nature in an Advertisement that he had placed at the front of the volume of his writings containing (...) his mature philosophical works. He asked that only the two Enquiries and other later philosophical writings be regarded as the source of "his philosophical sentiments and principles." But not leaving it at that, he admitted that there were "negligences in his... reasoning" and in his manner of expressing himself in the Treatise. More than twenty years earlier, Hume had admitted that publishing the Treatise in its imperfect state in his youth constituted "a very great Mistake in Conduct." But he did not have sufficient foresight to see that the admission he made in his old age constituted at least as bad an indiscretion of the same kind. Acknowledging mistakes in reasoning and in expression for a philosopher [End Page 562] is like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Two bulls in fact: the philosopher and the "reconstructive" historian of philosophy. The former is given ample work in correcting the older philosopher's mistakes; the latter in devising an interpretation of a text that apparently leaves itself open to many. Hence the immense popularity that Hume's Treatise of Human Nature has enjoyed in the two and a half centuries since he asked that it be disregarded. Who cares about "his philosophical sentiments and principles" anyway?Louis Loeb's study of epistemology in Hume's Treatise is both an exercise in "reconstructive history of philosophy" and a philosophical emendation of Hume's (reconstructed) "philosophical system." The first task is pursued in the first five chapters of the book; the second in the last two. "Reconstructive history" as practiced by Loeb does not try to provide "a balanced commentary" but rather "an illuminating and fruitful interpretive perspective" (viii) on what a philosopher has written. Loeb's perspective on Hume's epistemology is derived from details of Hume's psychology of the imagination developed mainly in sections 9-13 of part 3 of book 1, details which Hume himself considered "unnecessary" to the exposition of his mature epistemology in the first Enquiry. Loeb's philosophical emendations derive from his claim that Hume made certain mistakes which led him to despair of the success of his project and settle for sceptical conclusions in part 4. In the last two chapters of the book Loeb seeks to save Hume from his own sceptical conclusions.Loeb regards his account as a development and correction of the kind of naturalistic interpretation of Hume's epistemology that was originally developed by Norman Kemp Smith (21). A naturalistic theory of justification, according to Loeb, is one that grounds beliefs that one already considers to be justified in the psychological mechanisms that generate them. Whereas Kemp Smith argued that justification depends on the "irresistibility" or "inevitability" of the beliefs, Loeb holds that justification depends upon what he calls the "stability" of the belief generating mechanisms. A belief forming mechanism is stable just in case it produces a consistent set of beliefs that will stand up even under "reflection." For example, in part 3 of book 1 (81, 159, 238), Hume presents beliefs based on cause and effect as stable in this sense, and contrasts them with "unphilosophical" belief forming mechanisms such as indoctrination (education). Unlike the former, the latter mechanism generates beliefs that "are frequently contrary... to themselves in different times and places and is never on that account recognized by philosophers" (Treatise117). Furthermore, we have a positive motivation to accept stable mechanisms in that they produce ease or relief from psychological tension. Loeb links this goal both with the ancient Pyrrhonian quest for ataraxia (6-9) and with Hume's moral theory, where he seeks a general point of view as a relief from... (shrink)